Diane often goes off on "business trips," the parents think she's cheating but MC (not sure our his dumbass could do it, but that's a different story) pretends to be so in love he can't even imagine it.
But why would Diane put herself through something like that? What's her motivation? Are the MC and Haley paying for her gym and Peloton memberships? Diane's someone who doesn't seem to want to be involved with drama other than her own (in other words, the opposite of Lisa). I can't imagine any scenario in which she'd deliberately subject herself to the scorn of the MC's parents (and, because she'd have to play along to make it work, fake scorn from Haley).
Diane fills in at the moment, and, purely through repeated contact, falls for MC and it becomes more a threesome thing.
Random threesomes are always possible in a universe of porn logic, but didn't the devs say there wouldn't be a harem option? If I'm remembering that correctly, I only see this happening if Diane and the MC (and Haley) are in an actual relationship, as the siblings are/might be with
Sandra or Adriana. Like I said, we're not
out of time to change the MC's relationship with Diane, but I think it's rather late in the story to be setting up Diane (or Lisa) as sources of stability and public cover.
As far as moving goes, I think you're moving the wrong person. MC could just grab his laptop and go sleep wherever. If the parents found some clothes at Haley's, there's a bunch of lies you could do.
To be honest, there's no reason to move anyone as long as you're willing to accept that you're greatly reducing the amount of time the siblings will fool anyone. Dad's pressing the siblings to
get away from each other for reasons that seem pretty obvious, especially to anyone playing the game. But once you start moving chess pieces around
Three's Company-style you start running into problems.
If Haley takes Diane's apartment (the MC can't just move in with Diane because Haley can't afford their apartment on her own and she's clearly not going to move
away from him) and Diane moves into the MC's, they're not going to want to sleep in/live with the other's possessions, so you have to switch their stuff around. Except what if Diane meets a dude and wants to bring him back for a quick shag in her own bed? She's going to bring him to the apartment she shares with the MC, whether or not they're actually sleeping together themselves? It's not
unheard of, especially these days, but it's an impediment to her own desires...and again, why would she voluntarily enter into such an arrangement when she could just keep her own apartment? I suppose the MC could go upstairs and bunk with his sister whenever that happens, but that seems like it's risking exactly the sort of exposure "beard Diane" is supposed to reduce. Also, since Haley would be in actual fact, if not public fact, living with her brother, why would she want to live in Diane's world? She, too, would want her own stuff around her. Yes, there are convenient lies to explain away inconsistencies, but eventually they accumulate into a giant pile of instantly recognizable BS. Frankly, they should've run out with her panties on the MC's childhood bedroom's floor, but perhaps that's what put Dad on his current frowny-faced warpath.
More logical would be moving the MC to Diane's apartment and making Haley and Diane roommates. Then both places are set up for plausible deniability. But I still don't see why Diane wouldn't say, "you know what, I'm good living in my own place, thanks." For her to be a realistic beard there really does need to be some reason she wants to be with the MC for more than an occasional roll in the hay, and so far there isn't. Maybe the "friend or fuckbuddy" choice all those chapters ago will eventually pay off somehow, but it's getting late in the day.
Adriana also has the added benefit of mudding the incest waters being her MILFy self.
As i was trying to explain to someone else a few pages ago, apparently only semi-successfully, the "shock" of
the MC and Adriana going public with their relationship might be sufficiently jarring to completely distract the parents (or anyone else) from trying to figure out what's really going on between Haley and her brother. And, frankly,
I think Adriana's been characterized pretty well as the sort of person who could go for, or at least accept, something like this.
Oh, I wasn't talking about Sandra at all, I was more thinking Lisa or Alana. But yeah, that would make zero sense if Haley got pregnant, unless they sold it as IVF.
Yeah, I suppose Lisa could work as Haley's girlfriend. (Not Alana; Haley doesn't even know her, unless she was present during the argument with Lisa at Sandra's...which was so long ago that I don't remember if she was or not.) But Lisa as currently characterized is
way too free-spirited and flighty for an arrangement like that. Plus I'm not convinced that Haley trusts her like she does some of the others. And she'd be right to be wary. Lisa's not overtly dishonest but she
is manipulative. Haley doesn't really need competition for that role.
The only person who needs the beard is the MC. Haley can simply be a single mother living with her brother and his wife/significant other. Haley never names the father and her brother steps in as the "substitute father figure". If the beard pulls the plug then brother and sister continue to collaborate in raising "her" child.
This is plausible, especially as if Haley's in that situation her mother would be even more disappointed in her than before and so there's zero chance that Haley would be relying on her parents for help, leaving her every reason to stick with her brother for support. (In fact, now that I think about it, this would be an entirely reasonable way to end the story, assuming there
is going to be pregnancy, which remains speculation at the moment.)
On the other hand, Haley's choice to live either a publicly celibate, or unattached, or single-mother life until the end of her days
and never leave her brother is always going to be something that'll draw curiosity at best and suspicion at worst.
One difficulty with a resolutely unidentified sperm donor is that it will inevitably bring Haley's ex back into the picture; he'll know it's not his based on timing alone, but he'll also know that Haley was almost certainly having sex with someone else while they were still together — which she was — and he'll want to know who. This also assumes that Haley and her brother don't want another child in the future, which would require yet another explanation. At that point you'd have to go with the IVF cover story, and that seems like a ridiculous amount of dishonesty to sustain over the course of a lifetime. Even if Haley's relationship with her parents falters, her brother's isn't likely to, yet he (and whoever he's "with") would still have to lie and cover for her.
So I probably mislabeled Sandra as a beard. Usually a beard knows he/she is a beard. Haley's plan is to seduce her into a polyamorous threesome where, as far as Sandra knows, she's the MC's wife and she and her husband are in an intimate loving sexual relationship with her sister in law. A true three way mutual relationship where all are equal participants.
Yes, but one in which Sandra understands that she's
also the beard in terms of their public relationship. I mean, she's a very smart woman and would figure it out even if the siblings didn't discuss it with her, but of course the only ethical thing to do would be to make sure everyone's on the same page before progressing into said polyamorous relationship.
It may be the case that the MC loves Sandra, but he loves Haley far more, and Haley is playing a role with regard to Sandra, certain that she'll never know that she's a third wheel. Sandra has chosen the MC and has become enthralled with Haley. Unless Haley or the MC gives Sandra a reason to reassess the situation, she has no reason not to accept that she is an equal partner in a household of three.
I actually think that, if you're on the Sandra route, Haley's done a fair bit of work to not only bring balance to their relationship, but also to build some fairly strong bonds between the two women.
It's worth noting that, on that route, the siblings have a lot less sex than they do on the other route, whereas Haley goes out of her way to give her brother and Sandra opportunities to have sex. I think that's a show-don't-tell way of suggesting that the MC and Sandra are in a much stronger place, romantically and sexually, than they were closer to the beginning of the story, during which it wasn't clear the MC felt anything more than amused affection and attraction.
That's not quite how it played out in Dreaming of Dana. [...] I think the possibilities for beards in this game make a hell of a lot more sense.
Thanks for the clarification; it's been a really long time since I've played that game. My recollection is that I didn't really like
any of the bearding options in DoD, though in each case it was for a different reason. Of the three I seem to recall that the submissive assistant (Andrea?) was my favorite and seemed the least implausible.
