I understand, and I try to take this stuff in stride. But, most of this stuff doesn't feel like engagement with the story. Like, this chapter gave people some interesting stuff (I think) to speculate on, and theorize on. Cherry, Lucien, Pepper, Markus, Carl, Trevor, Kara.. There's stuff there to interrogate and question character motives and such.
But instead, people want to nit-pick about why I didn't write an entirely different story. It feels like the Cinema Sins brand of media engagement, where people just want to, "Gotcha!" the author.
This is really the thing. Like.. I've been doing this shit for two years now, and still every decision I make gets second-guessed, and people demand detailed responses to explain myself. Should I just spoil the next several chapters? Oh, but then my explanations wouldn't actually cover every single path and iteration of the game, so people would still nitpick little details left unexplained.
Like, someone was questioning, several pages back, why I'd suddenly introduce Lucien in Chapter 8. Rewind to Ashe's short story, and oh hey, I actually set up him, and his motivation, in June of 2023! Shit, it's like I actually consider some of this stuff!
Or hey! Remember when Guy was talking to Maya like four chapters ago, and he explained a good guy is only as good as their bad guy? Shit, maybe I was foreshadowing something! Who can say!
I'm not saying it's perfect. The game's a work-in-progress, and sometimes I make errors and need to back up and nudge dialogue or events back into place. But, a lot of the stuff people want to pick at, is just stuff that hasn't been explained yet.
Criminal elements have been a part of the game since literally Chapter One. Like, literally the very first installment of the game, when Nicki hinted towards a predatory loanshark bothering her and Brent. I could sit here and explain how every girl's plotline brushes up against drugs and coercive sex work, but I'll spare myself.
I appreciate the thought you put into this comment, but I can't hit every point. So, I'll take the broad strokes. I think Guy has shown, over the course of the story, to be a little bit of a man-of-action. It depends on how people want to play him, but he's a bit of a risk-taker that'll go shadow a famous photographer on a lark. He'll walk down dark alleys. He'll confront people like Markus, Jamie, or Erik that he views as bullying people or disrespecting him. In this chapter, we see him get a gun shoved in his face, and he doesn't have a strong reaction to it. I don't think he's entirely unprepared for challenges.
Now, to speak broadly to the idea that this current challenge is at odds with the overall tone of the story, or Guy's ability to meet it.. I've never been shy about taking a lot of inspiration from comic books. One thing about comics, is that they tend to give the hero challenges that are strongly correlated to their expertise.
This is a world where sex, money, desperation, and exploitation is the main focal point. So, why would our hero not have an enemy whose main trade is sexually exploiting desperate people for money?
