gino.pilotino
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What a strange question, where did that come from? I mean, curiosity is fine... but something must have prompted you to ask, right?
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- Thread starter baconsmoke
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Literally just curious, figured the number could be high, since the dev literally makes everything available at a $1 sub and doesn't gatekeep
gino.pilotino
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Well, I've been supporting it since On Distant Shores. After reading this story for the first time, I cancelled my subscription on 16 September because of the inconsistencies in the characters. When I started reading it for the second time, I renewed my support because I began to understand certain things a little better. Unfortunately, the inconsistencies in the characters remain. So I didn't support it for about a month.
It seem that inconsistency in character behaviour is a common issue with L&J as well.
Anna who should be:
MC "Anna is smart and logical and confident."
MC "She's also secretly a lioness."
MC "She will come out swinging when she thinks someone she cares about is being mistreated."
MC "The day she comes to your rescue, you know you're in her inner circle."
Meanwhile we see that she is not particularly confident (maybe she is at work) and does nothing for MC most of the time.
- Tennis dates where Lacey is getting hit on? Takes a while before speaking up and even then never inform MC of what was happening.
- Agrees and schemes on very hurtful plans to MC, Bastion and Lacey trying to "play nice" with Jared.
- Additionally never informs MC that Lacey was going to the parties or that the graphic dept was not working overtime (maybe she didn't know fully).
- She is still friends with Mia, no matter how many times she hurts MC willingly and cruelly, the messages are one of the biggest and most evil thing someone could do to her best friend and to a person in general, they garner exacty one llittle week of not speaking which is then peddled as "petty".
- Hid Lacey's recent drug uses
A "Okay. We'll do our best to support you."
We never see her blow up against Mia seriously, aside from some off screen stuff which was probably retconned in because her first reaction to the messages was this:
A "I... I read those terrible things you wrote to him."
A "I was very, very angry at you Mia."
A "I think of you as a friend, but..."
A "what you did was not okay."
And her reaction to Mia going on about her pimpin' past was this:
A "Mia. You know damn well this is mostly your fault."
A "Why do you insist on trying to sneak in things about Lacey's past every chance you get?"
A "You're going too far."
A "Well work on it soon."
Compare this to the blow up about the Lorenzo encounter #1:
A "Your husband is out there."
A "Waiting for you, like he always does."
A "And Mia is having to explain everything to him for you."
A "Again."
A "You never do."
A "And yet it keeps happening, doesn't it?"
A "You keep hurting him."
A "The first thing out of your mouth to that man should have been, 'I'm married'."
A "'Please leave me alone right now'."
A "That's it. That's all you had to do."
A "Instead we have to spend time looking for you and texting you."
A "Only to find you in the restroom, talking to this man that you apparently hooked up with in college."
A "Is that a great look Lacey?"
A "I am at my limit."
A "How much longer will it be before the 'mistakes' you keep making end up going too far."
A "How many times will this happen before we walk in on you 'mistakenly' having sex with a man?"
A "Because you didn't realize that was something you shouldn't do."
A "I cannot continue to watch you do these stupid, selfish things."
A "If you don't get your life figured out, I will take [MCFirst] from you."
A "Not share him. Take him."
A "I will spend every hour of every day getting him to fall in love with me."
A "I will pack everything up and we will leave this damn city."
A "And leave you as far behind as I possibly can."
Quite a difference, yes?
Then how is it possible to reconcile all this without an explanation (or several apologies) with how she is described? I have a hard time with it, and so do many other folks I had the chance to tallk with.
I won't even start again about Mia....well maybe just a little.
MC "Once Mia knows you're cool about something, she will totally step it up."
MC "It's her love language to poke and prod to see if she can make you squirm a little."
"Which is good, because she knows how to make me smile."
"The only girl I know that perfectly blends sweet and vulgar into one personality."
This is how she is described...she makes MC smile...the woman who ruined his loved one's life...makes him smile....GRRRRREAT!
Mia isn't vulgar, she is just obnoxious and disrespectful, you can't try to make her sweet with literally 2 hugs and some gaslighting.
The messages are written in an extremely hurtful way, containing wrong information that seriously ruins MC trust (already at all time low) in his wife, but she is sweet.
She tries to break them up again, this time with drugs too! But she is sweet! She never meant to hurt anybody!
Instead of being fucking ashamed and maybe show some care towards MC during his king weekend she callls him bitch if he gets something wrong (to be clear I only got one answer wrong in my first playthrough and that was from Veronica), tries to steer the activities her way, keeps on bringing up Lacey's past (in front of her boss too! two birds with one stone) and we discover that she is so disrespectful and unhinged that she stole naked pictures of MC to build a dildo for herself (I will skip the fact that you need a mold to do that).
So she will "step it up" with anyone and their dog, she simply does not give a fuck if they are cool with it or not, all it matters is if she is cool with it ot if she feels "comfortable around you".
Comfortable enough to say heinous shit, be obnoxious, and try to ruin every single moment possible.
So we already have 2 mainstay characters that are extremely inconsistent in any player perception.
But they are not the only ones, take Christine for example:
M "Hey."
C "(sniff) Whatever."
M "Ooookay."
J "Christine, please be civil."
C "Civil? This disaster is her fault."
M "What are you talking about shortstack?"
C "We saw the text messages you bitch."
M "Wait what?"
C "Yeah. We were trying to find some friends to help us with whatever he's going through."
C "Only to find out this is your fault just as much as his wife's."
M "I really am going to pay for this the rest of my life aren't I?"
C "As you should."
C "Do you two know about his wife's little plan?"
A "Unfortunately yes."
M "We tried everything to talk her out of it."
C "I'm surprised it wasn't your idea."
C "Someone in here needs to defend him."
C "And surely he can't count on these two to do it."
Christine, for the whole Bastion situation, is the MVP, tells things as they are, wants to defend MC and is morally strong.
She calls out the scheming, she is great overall, actually one of the first breaths of sanity in the story up to that point.
Then in act 2 she becomes a schemer too and allies with two people, one she dislike and one that she utterly despises, why?
C "Oh, Mia's great."
C "I'm not enthused about her past."
C "But as I've gotten to know her, she's pretty cool."
Seriously? First of all the player never sees Mia being cool, ever.
She is either scheming, gaslighting, making light of MC pain and feeding off false info which create more issues (you know, if you are not sure 100% about a deicate topic, maybe it is time to stfu).
Not "enthused" about the past? What about the present? What about the messages? What about being ok with Lacey's plans?
Her morph into this sort of softdomme is also pretty weird, she was pretty direct before but in act 2 she starts spewing out orders and treat MC with little respect.
Anyway these are the most glaring to me, but others such as Veronica also fall a bit short sometimes.
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gino.pilotino
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This is exactly what I meant, and it is the reason why I initially decided to stop supporting the professor. Absurd inconsistencies. Characters ruined just because it served the story. Anna is not like that. Anna was not supposed to be like that. Anna was supposed to be the protector. And she became what the professor made her become.
Well, how she or what she was supposed to be, only the author knows.
Maybe she was always meant to be underhanded and putting her friendships in front of MC well being.
I am merely pointing out that she, very much like Mia, do not fit the description or the perceptions the other in universe characters give us.
And that definitely creates frustration, as much as the lack of consequences for any evil or bad actions taken by a female character.
Honestly I just completed this story a week ago, and it has definitely left me thinking of many things, and I can see it has for others as well with 175 pages of posts lol.
I really hope we see the MC get some help during the next chapter, like many on here have said, he needs therapy and build friendships more so than finding another lover. Like a few I have seen while scrolling through the recent posts have written, I think the MC best course of action would be to get help and separate himself from Lacey. No, I am not saying he should choose any of the other girls either, as the lad is clearly not ready to start something after everything he has gone through. I know some people love redemption stories, but Lacey at this point has dug herself so deep, I don't see how she can save her relationship with the MC anymore.
Unless the author really works on her for a chapter or two where she stops acting ridiculous and is actually there for the MC fully, I don't see a good ending for them. Even then, many readers would like the option to not stay with her and maybe choose a route where he leaves it all behind. As it is now, every girl present in the story knows what the lad has gone through or has contributed to his suffering in some way.
I really hope we see the MC get some help during the next chapter, like many on here have said, he needs therapy and build friendships more so than finding another lover. Like a few I have seen while scrolling through the recent posts have written, I think the MC best course of action would be to get help and separate himself from Lacey. No, I am not saying he should choose any of the other girls either, as the lad is clearly not ready to start something after everything he has gone through. I know some people love redemption stories, but Lacey at this point has dug herself so deep, I don't see how she can save her relationship with the MC anymore.
Unless the author really works on her for a chapter or two where she stops acting ridiculous and is actually there for the MC fully, I don't see a good ending for them. Even then, many readers would like the option to not stay with her and maybe choose a route where he leaves it all behind. As it is now, every girl present in the story knows what the lad has gone through or has contributed to his suffering in some way.
Saphfire
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I am a bit worried now, for two main reasons:
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Well, we just have to wait and see, but my overall happiness level today will be lower.
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I admit I'm like you now... worried about what's next regarding MC's development, and I have the feeling that all the bullshit Lacey, Mia, and co. have is going to magically disappear. If I understood the professor correctly in his explanation of Act 3, it's almost like everything is MC's fault, who doesn't really understand Lacey, but damn, she's the one who lied about everything and is still lying!! And then this rather stupid conspiracy really comes from Barty, WTF? We'll see...
MC has a monologue where he has a "lightning strike" understanding of what was happening around him, sadly it really doesn't match the reality of what we read:
"I could see how someone would become obsessed with her."
"She's pretty, she's very nice, she's feminine, she has a highly sexual past."
"And topped with the idea that you could control her because she's vulnerable."
"I understand how someone might fixate on her and invent a scenario in their head of what that might be like."
"The reality is, she is all those things."
"But, she's also a lot of work. She can be high maintenance."
"She is strong-willed. Being with her requires a lot of patience."
"Once she convinces herself of something, it's damn near impossible to talk her out of it."
Assigning a strong will to Lacey makes her character pretty shady, so she is strong willed but spews haf truths and lies al the time to cover herself?
So she convinced herself that destroying MC future was the right thing, great.
"She has friends and a therapist."
"And between all of them, there are no secrets."
"I think they probably fantasize that she's this domesticated, compliant, sex-fiend."
"And never stop to realize that once you have her, she's a human being that needs a lot of work to keep happy."
"Just like anybody."
"They're probably convinced that once they 'have her', the work is done and they now own a sexbot."
"It's easy to obssess over what you think she is, as opposed to dealing with what she actually is."
"But they don't see that."
"It's why Isaac couldn't hold on to her."
"It's why Jared couldn't figure out how to seal the deal and had to resort to threats and blackmail."
"And it's ultimately why Barty is going to fail."
I said this before, but the story presents a pretty different thing about Isaac, without the call from Anna it would have been a long relationship as long as Lacey survived, Isaac seems more competent than MC, so he might have been able to send her to teraphy btw but this is my speculation.
Jared did not know anything before the PI, and was enticed by Lacey, so I don't know wtf MC is on about here.
"She wasn't a party favor in college because all those men had control over her."
"She actively chose to become what she did and she allowed it to happen."
"And once she decided to stop allowing it, then she was done."
"Like she said, she wasn't that person because of ketamine."
"Ketamine just allowed her to become the person she decided to be."
"She's not a pawn on the chessboard of life."
"She's the queen in her demented little world."
"I'm her king, because she allows me to be her king."
This is the biggest mix of copium, mental gymnastics and delusion I have ever seen since superman 3 when he turns back time by spinning the earth in the opposite direction.
How does this explanation make anything better? Does Mc even listens to his wife important dialogues?
L "I KNEW!!"
L "I knew..."
L "I knew what I was doing would hurt you if you ever found out."
L "You were right..."
L "I just didn't care about anything but what I wanted."
L "How you felt was never inside my mind when I made my decisions."
So, those men didn't have control...which we already knew since act 1, but Lacey willingly did everything, this paints her in a very bad light, no matter the reasons.
At least underine the desperation to try an be able to come back to MC...but nope.
She is not a pawn, but MC definitey is, how can he define himself king is beyond my comprehension, Lacey decides about his life without any consideration, she never considers his feelings in her choices or actions, he is THE pawn.
"That's why she told me she's not afraid."
"Because everything outside of us, is just noise to her."
"Maybe that's what she's been trying to tell me all this time."
"I've been afraid, because I don't understand her."
MC "Huh?"
MC "I think I just had some kind of epiphany."
If that is the level of understanding we need to get as players I am appalled.
"So, why would someone who's emotionally jealous think I should date other people?"
"Is it because she wants me to experience new things and thinks I need to make her feel a little jealous?"
MC "Maybe that's part of it."
"Maybe there's more to it."
"She's afraid of Kelly... because... she thinks Kelly won't respect her boundaries."
"All the other girls will. Because Lacey is the Queen Bee."
"If my dating pool is made up of people who won't try to emotionally take me away from Lacey..."
"Then she's not afraid."
"Because sex isn't love to her."
Proven by the material that this concept is bullshit you might not equate sex with a stranger with love, but if a loved one is involved then all hell breaks loose.
Plus Kelly was a stranger, so it is already a contradiction.
Drop the queen bee discussion, it just doesn't work, Lacey is constantly backstabbed, and it makes me think badly of the people that would follow a trauma ridden girl which has been proven over and over that she makes horrible decisions.
"She's not afraid of me feeling good with someone else."
"She's only afraid of no longer being my queen."
"Of being replaced."
"As long as she's the one who's emotionally closest to me."
"Then she doesn't care what I do."
"As long as I don't love them as much as I love her."
MC "I finally fucking get it."
MC "I finally understand."
She has shown time and time again that she is worried about MC having sex with someone else, and that it was the self inflicted punishment, if you remove that then all what Lacey is doing is performative?
And the players have a pretty different understanding tbh.
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I get the frustration, and honestly for me that’s part of the fun of this story.
But don’t judge too harshly, you don’t want to prompt re-writes before even seeing Act 3
I really hope this isn't the route the story is taking. The MC beating up on himself is what I would say a result of the damage Lacey has done to him over his life. He still views everything as if he is the one responsible, that he must adjust to fit Lacey's needs and his anger/hate/jealousy is unfounded. If the story attempts to validate the MCs doubts, and then piles on with the supporting characters to enable him in that line of thinking, yeah... not going to be happy as it will almost have a "feeling" of how western NTR games always seem to make the MC be a dupe who is the problem.
Hahaha come on like everything I say or write has any chance to sway the story, I love L&J to death but it doesn't listen to me, just like Lacey does with MC.I get the frustration, and honestly for me that’s part of the fun of this story.
But don’t judge too harshly, you don’t want to prompt re-writes before even seeing Act 3
Honestly, I do not think I am a harsh judge and as I said it before, I am willing to wait for more quality or consistent characters.
In any case, I can chalk up the epiphany from MC as victim talk, which could be fine, if you see it that way it make absolute sense, the victim trying to justify his torturer, the pawn being gaslighted in thinking he is a king.
MC does it constantly, look at the Dianne dialogues.
I hope this is recognized, else we have to take that epiphany as true and it, in my opinion, shatters the story and MC in particular, pretty badly.
Lacey still goes on her way and doesn't respect his wishes (looks quite bad), the rest of the cast does the same (again can this man get a modicum of respect from his friends and peers?) and he just floats around taking the hits like a punching bag without ever having a chance to retaliate o stand up for himself.
And as a last point, that realization completely removes Mia's responsability over the situation, throwing away almost 2 acts of information.
This is kind of what I am saying, there is a heavy disconnect with the perception the player has of MC, he beats himself up constantly, calls himself immatire or an asshole (which is then confirmed by his "friends"), and is supposedly "dangerous".
But all we see is a goody two shoes that never hurts a fly, never stands up for himself, let people walk all over him without repercussions and never gets angry unless he is pushed beyond any reasonable limit which then is very short lived and ends in him apologizing like it is his fault.
Ok some of it can be chalked up to being a victim of Lacey, but he acts like he is a victim of everyone.
At some point we need to see him make some choices for himself, he didn't even manage to make a choice during a low stake event like the KW, not a single one.
Maybe more importantly he needs to start holding people accountable, and the list is long now:
Lacey (she is the only one that would recognize it)
Mia (insanely long list)
Anna (long list)
Jeanette (went with Mia's plan behind MC back)
Kelly (went with Mia's plan behind MC back)
Isaac (public humiliation, tried to steal Lacey recently)
Until this is done, MC will always feel like a powerless witness, because while we can somewhat accept the porn logic where all women fall for a simpy and whimpy guy, a reader could never feel an ounce of respect for a doormat.
- Jul 12, 2020
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*catches up and sighs heavily*...well...
Can't disagree with any of this DF. I can already see myself being very disappointed with Act3 and my slow walking away...something it seems our intrepid MC is not capable of doing.
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I’ll reserve judgment until Act 3 releases and remain optimistic
Besides, us agonizing and screaming at the characters and their choises is half of what keeps us engaged, no?
I’m just wondering whether the routes will get expanded upon so see some actual deviation in the storyline depending on our choices
Besides, us agonizing and screaming at the characters and their choises is half of what keeps us engaged, no?
I’m just wondering whether the routes will get expanded upon so see some actual deviation in the storyline depending on our choices
Depends. If it goes the route I fear, then the only thing the story will have going for it is the "train wreck" circus incidents and only if the MC continues to retain at least some dignity in his reactions (short as they may be). If it loses the circus elements and turns into a "kick the MC" fest of blaming him for things, well... that is something that will cause me to lose interest.
I'm going to remain optimistic just because it's been stated in game several times that MC needs therapy. Lacey even speculates that MC is afraid a therapist would tell him he's the problem instead of her. So I obviously could be wrong, but I feel like the author is intentionally writing MC in this way. His "epiphanies" are simply rationalizations