Yeah. My original issue was that I wasn't sure if being given a choice would ruin the 'feel' of playing a submissive character for people. If I gave the player too much agency, I was afraid it wouldn't feel immersive. Particularly with the hypno component. I was on the fence about if the loss of control feeling was more important to submissive players than the choice to avoid M/F content. A submissive lesbian player contacted me about the scene and was extremely helpful in providing me with feedback about that.
I admit, I'm a little unsure how to handle the Arianna Route in the long run, though. The Hypno Drone kink that my Patrons voted for giving Arianna's Route sort of leans into the idea of her being given orders like in that scene. And some of the examples I gave Patrons when they voted for it were unquestionably M/F leaned. I'm unsure if I'll be able to keep her route 100% lesbian-friendly in the long haul. Honestly, Revina and Trix were really supposed to be the more pure lesbian routes. But both have a futa encounter or two (temporary transformations or Trix's Weekend 1 Solution with Talia). I'm not currently sure how it's all going to play out, to be honest. I need to take a good hard look at what I was planning for Arianna to see if there's a way to support her for pure lesbian playthroughs without too much extra work. Or if I'd be better off providing alternates for Trix and Revina so that those put off by even temporary futa transformations can enjoy those as the lesbian routes of the game...
I understand your dilemma, I can only speak from my own perspective and in my eyes forcing a lesbian to have sex with guys through hypnosis is absolutely abhorrent & seems like a purely hetero male thing to fantasize about, so in my personal opinion it just doesn't really fit a female character much to begin with, at least not one that is supposedly romantically interested in the protagonist. I feel as if that crosses boundaries that should 100% be unquestionably respected.
Getting the protag to do these things feels more like service to those npcs than something that happens for the enjoyment of Arianna, but even less so for the protagonist. I feel like it would be highly immersion breaking.
This is of course just my personal opinion & the factor workload on your end is not really something that can be overestimated as a factor, so if you say you do agree it's not a great route in a way, but at the same time don't feel like you can spare the time and mind to write alternatives for things than I don't see how I could argue against that.
It would be fairly sad, not gonna lie, but in the end it is your decision to make and I don't envy your position.
I can't deny though that I do agree the other routes also don't necessarily qualify as
strictly lesbian either, I don't mind futa stuff in games at all but I fully understand why it's a no go to others, so having that on I think every route so far sure will make some people fairly unhappy.
But forcefully introducing male npcs as unavoidable sex partners just takes it even further. I know I'm not one of your patreons, I do understand 100% why their input is something you really have to keep in mind, but even if I push aside my personal feelings about such things aside (or try my hardest, at least) I truly think that it will not benefit your game quality wise if you have that sort of rather derisive content as an unavoidable part in Arianna's route. A route that strolls away from being focused on the enjoyment of the 2 characters involved and instead shifts towards something that, realistically speaking, is mostly just service for an outside crowd of heterosexual male voyeurs or (focusing on the game world) serves primarily anonymous male npcs with no real ties to the story anyway feels really off. I don't wanna say you shouldn't head your patreon's wishes, I want to explain why I think it wouldn't take away from the dom/sub dynamic if you offer a different route for people not fine with the male sex partners. I mean part of the reason why I'm so invested here is that the thought of loosing out on a sub-route (playing a dominant protag isn't my cup of tea really) hits harder than otherwise, especially since Arianna's sub route is probably my favorite as a whole, the tone works best for me & she is the most appealing romance option from a design perspective. I'm sorry if I am a bit annoying about things. x.x
Revina & Thalia have great routes, but I'm mostly smitten with their personalities and the events on their route, appearance wise they can't hold the candle to Ariana (just personal preferences ofc) so I'm thinking more about this whole affair than I should, I guess. It's fine if you tell me to shut up about it ofc, thanks for even bothering yourself with discussing this with me at all.
Personally it seems to me as if providing alternatives to Ariannas scenes would make kinda more sense than alternatives to the other scenes because those changes are actually more based on a dissonance with ingame stuff and immersion than the others, but you have to do what feels right to yourself & what doesn't mean you bury yourself beneath a ton of extra work.
I hope me trying to speak my mind and make an argument for what I feel would be kinda important to preserve doesn't come across as me trying to belittle you. I will respect whatever decision you make, it's just that your game got me really hooked here and to me it would mean a lot if the Arianna route had an alternative path where the protag can tell her being forced to have sex with men is an absolute and unconditional no-go. The dub-con sharing stuff already is kinda a steep step, I would say, not sure why it would have to be pushed even further into a highly questionable direction.
Edit: I need to add that as a submissive in a dom/sub relationship the certainty that your dom will not cross boundaries - and laying out said boundaries - are a very crucial part of a healthy dom/sub relationship. Normally that's where a safeword comes in, but when you add hypnosis to the equation that obviously becomes a bit difficult, so setting boundaries and being capable of fully trusting the other to respect them is a must, not a can. The lack of that is far worse (in regards to immersion as well) than a dom that doesn't force the sub to do stuff they don't want to do. That is actually more of an abusive thing to do than anything else.
Edit 2: I got half a mind to offer to write alternatives to the Arianna scenes (if the writing and not the visualization is what would eat up your time, which I'm afraid is the actually
very time consuming part) and edit them a 100 times, if necessary, until you are satisfied with my work & I also don't care for any credit, so...if that is actually something that would solve your dilemma let me know. I'm not a professional writer but I have 14 years of writing experience, so if you give me clear orders what you envision/need I'll try my best. Also I 100% understand if you say that's not really a help or just don't feel like it, no reasons required. I'm just trying to express how important that issue is to me. Feel free to tell me that it's a dumb idea by the way, it probably really is, I just don't know what else I can offer on my end, since I feel really not great about being like "oh yeah, this and that and that and this are my thoughts/problems, now gibs solution". You already are such a considerate person and obviously you truly care about finding ways to make as many players happy as possible.
