First of all, formulate your points into coherent generalized points. This quoting everything out of context does not work as an argument, it just makes it easier for YOU to write digestible little tidbits out of context that you THINK counters the points presented.
Now, there's no way for me to refute points without getting lost in the woods of dozens of minor points rather than any overarching argument. Convenient for you, since I've yet to see anything other than "it just works..."
She is careful and rightfully so. Kate's dad is a ruthless criminal, and she knows that. (It's been a while since I played this, but I remember her getting burned in the past. (Unfortunately, the game stopped so we will never know the full details)
This is not an excuse for someone to literally outsmart spy tech, influential people, teachers, and everyone else while she haphazardly pushes the boundaries against dozens of people, often with hundreds of witnesses. It completely bypasses the suspension of disbelief.
If you want to argue that she's careful because she makes sure her actions are especially innocent-seeming and very localized, sure. That's fine. If you want to argue that she's careful and people with actual authority aren't involved yet, that's also fine. You cannot mix in scale, scope, and authority and have her still be a step ahead without making it seem like she's on some evil mastermind Illuminati bullshit.
It's the same way I won't believe some 5 year old masterminded the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and millions of gold bullion from Fort Knox while moonlighting as a normal suburban kindergartener with no one suspecting anything. It's because it's nonsense.
They are blackmailing her. Her job is on the line. (Cancel culture and today's power of feminism - remember how Kate got into power? By "exposing" the Sorority's sex games...It's a scandal and the Dean's job is on the line)
First of all, having a sorority sex party is not inherently a scandal. It was the hazing part that would make it a scandal, and that has nothing to do with cancel culture or feminism. Hazing is a scandal because it's dubious consent or even nonconsent and the vast majority of the backlash comes from male fraternities, not sororities.
Secondly, you ignore how they leaked MC's nudes in front of the entire orientation and got zero consequences, despite never even denying that it was their pictures in the first place (and no one thought to wonder why they would have those pictures in the first place?). "We were hacked" does not absolve you if you blast revenge porn all over the school.
Let's not even get into how they acquired those nudes in the first place, which involved one of their squad luring in MC, stealing his clothes and then him emerging naked, and then blasting his pictures in front of the whole school. So somehow the bitch squad masterminded everyone to see these pictures by telling them... what exactly? And also out of these hundreds of potential witnesses, nobody notices that one of them is in there with him? It would be so easy to establish culpability here that it's hilarious to try to make it out as if nobody could even suspect that the girls had no idea.
You can argue all you want about how Kate is "careful" except this is not a careful plan. This is a fucking hamfisted plan with dozens if not hundreds of moving parts that somehow coalesce perfectly into being a "careful plan." It's symptomatic of all sorts of "genius planner" bad writing where somehow being smart means you have supernatural knowledge or the ability to see the future.
Again, this horrible writing is the consequence of the developer utterly failing at coming up with any kind of "bullying" that doesn't involve somehow getting a hold of someone's nudes. Except when they get physically beat up by boyfriends who are somehow "manipulated" by them into doing so (no mention of how) and no consequences for them despite plenty of physical evidence of a fight. How can you just beat up somebody in front of potential witnesses and no one asks the boyfriends questions?
That is all just your opinion. Just because the story does not go the way you want it to, you blame it on lazy writing. The writing was actually pretty good.
You are just throwing mud out there and hoping it sticks. RL is not fair. Bullies get away with it all the time, but in your perfect little world, they immediately get what's comming to them. It does not work like that. bad people get away with bad things all the time.
Where did I suggest anything of the sort? Please point it out to me.
Nowhere did I suggest that they needed to get their comeuppance immediately. Hell, they don't need to get their comeuppance
at all. It just needs to fit with the tonal direction of the story. Instead, the author keeps ragebaiting people by showing all the asshole shit the bullies do and then trying to act like the optimal gameplay path is to be manipulated by them and forgive them at every turn.
I said the author kept amateurishly raising the stakes by building the bitch squad into bigger and bigger masterminds without changing the state of the game. They're still bullies who are weirdly obsessed with the MC, it's just that their bullying is escalating and involving more and more moving parts and pissing off bigger and bigger people with no apparent consequence.
Hell, MC's new friends, despite multiple people including the MC detailing their abuses, despite seeing them leak the MC's nudes in front of the whole school, despite knowing that the dean suspects them for the sorority debacle, are somehow defending the bullies. And your reaction to this isn't, "knowing what we know, that's really dumb of her," it's, "bullies get away with it all the time!"
Yes, they do, because absense of substantial evidence to overcome their hero worship, not because someone witnessed an abundance of substantial evidence and pretended they didn't see it for contrived plot convenience.
I guess that's up to the player? Like me, I like the forgiveness route. It was still a busy unfolding, so you can not really say "Show no remorse." How do you know? Can you see into the future?
Again that is you hating the story, because you don't like the direction of the story. Well I do. I want to see what the story is telling. Thae fact that you think that everyone wants to see the story unfold they way You (and some others) want it to unfold is a bit....arrogant? Presumptuous is maybe a better word.
Again that is you hating the story, because you don't like the direction of the story. Well I do. I want to see what the story is telling. Thae fact that you think that everyone wants to see the story unfold they way You (and some others) want it to unfold is a bit....arrogant? Presumptuous is maybe a better word.
Once again.... How would you know. The story was not close to being completed.
This is just silly. "You cannot see into the future!!" is not the end-all-be-all argument you think it is.
No, I cannot. And neither can you! Instead of putting out why the direction of the story makes sense, you just want to assume everything is fine because "you cannot see into the future." By this logic, any unfinished game cannot be criticized because you cannot see into the future! It's so silly.
Story elements in a good story should feel coherent even in the moment. They can be shocking, they can be unexpected, but they shouldn't feel out of nowhere for no damn reason. Many of your arguments aren't even grounded in reality. I said that the bullies have a large list of victims beyond the MC, so even if the MC forgives them it's not satisfying because the bullies didn't answer for their laundry list of misdeeds.
What does "seeing into the future" have anything to do with that? How is that "hating the story"? It's human nature to want to see bad people get their just desserts. You're telling me that everybody who wants to see a bunch of shitbags who do evil shit to a bunch of people get their comeuppance is "hating the story"? What hogwash.
Not a single member of the bitch squad has expressed any remorse over what happened to the MC. It's all "you should just get over it" for heinous sexual and physical bullying and MC should just go, "oh ok, I'll listen to you"?
You literally are trying to argue against a factual statement (that you can't forgive someone who has no remorse), and never actually offer any examples of them doing so. Instead, because the game isn't finished, we're supposed to ignore all the nonsense that's happening on the screen because MAYBE it all comes together perfectly and makes sense.
This is some gaslighting. Maybe you are the bully.
I hardly think he quite because of that. Most probably the game income was less than expected, and the negativity around the game made him give up.
Presumptuous once again.
You're just as presumptuous as I am. The developer never stated the reason for him quitting, and even if he did it might not be the whole truth. Yet I'm presumptuous for bringing up how he runs out of real estate, while you're not presumptuous because you assume a completely different unspecified reason. Cool cool cool...
I don't get your point that you are trying to make on this one. The BS are not males, and the MC is a male that does not know how to bully, but tries to?
Your entire tone is weird, to be honest. Your argument is that "feminism" is why the dean is in a bind, and "femininity" is why the bullies can get away with it. Except it doesn't explain why other women who are victims don't get the same treatment as the bullies (bullies getting their nudes leaked = praised for their strength, other women getting their nudes leaked = slut shame them), nor does it explain why their boyfriends were able to get away with it while beating up people with their fists. Pretty sure that had nothing to do with their femininity.
Seems less like a male/female dichotomy and more of a the bullies' halo effect and plot armor, but you do you.