I'd like to hear why you think this. I don't remember anything in the game that would lead me to believe this, but it could be true. We could find this out if when they go to see the house with the realtor. If Lacey recognizes it without being told who the seller is.
There is no proof in the material that any of this happens, actually the dialogues are pretty clear, but Mav is hyperfixed on some inconsistencies that he just cannot swallow, he should learn from Lacey, she does it effortlessly.
I think there is to much info from the MC and others to say this. I don't remember if it ever talks about MC going to her house and meeting her parents, but he saw the bruises and such. For this to be a lie would mean that Lacey has been planning this and faking the bruises since she was 6. That does not make sense.
As for her not talking about it. Well if her childhood abuse was a pile of dead fish, she went to college and started shoveling shit on that pile. Before long she stopped smelling the fish.
You are correct, there is no indication in the material that MC ever went to Lacey house or even meet her parents in passing.
The abuse is the premise of the whole story, and during the rules we discover MC sees way more than bruises, so without that the whole castle shatters.
You have to accept a bit of "Lacey lies, everybody lies. nothing is real" attitude from some of the folks around here (you know who you are guys, no sense in hiding), and some of the theories are WILD
.
You are looking at this as a rational person. They are far from rational. I think them looking at each other as the monster is not about the past. Hell if it's true Isaac looked at the MC as a monster before he knew the history. No for them this is about the preset. MC sees Isaac as the man that can come in and take Lacey from him. Isaac sees the MC as the guy who took Lacey from him. In reality you are right that the history does not compare between the two, but they are not thinking about that. And when you think about what Isaac told the MC. He was having a great time with Lacey for three weeks. THey were talking about going away together and then she got a phone call that a friend of hers was in trouble and she left. I don't want to talk about how crazy it is that he just happened to get drafted by the team in the town where the MC and Lacey went after college. However, at this point he gets a call (from Jared) that Lacey wants to reconcile. He goes to the house and finds she is married.
Look, I see what you mean, and I can see how Isaac in his ignorance could think that (even if his "love story" is weird as fuck), is the reaction from MC that I find silly.
Isaac was having exactly what you say: fun for three weeks with a girl that was high 90% of the time and we have photographic proof of how Lacey is when she is high thanks to the last Mia lesson (bonus point later about this), since she was taking more K than she ever did we can safey assume she was rolling on the floor, this time crying.
The going away together is contentious here, I always assume that she was convinced to do so until the call, but we have no proof of this, Lacey says that it was only briefly and says that when she discovers red bra she thought she could come back to MC.
So we cannot pinpoint exactly when Lacey decides she is not going away with Isaac, I have my own theory that red bra or not, without the call she would have gone, but it is speculation on my part and is not supported 100% by the material.
Next question do we know for certain that Jared made the phone calls to Isaac and Lorenzo? Could FV/Barty been working this since then? It would explain why Barty showed up. If it was Jared how would he know to call Barty? If he got the info from the MC's phone, there would be nothing there about Barty. Or am I just reaching on this?
This is a great question.
So the reason I think the calls are not from FV is because....FV did not exist in act 1.
The author did not plan too much ahead with L&J and you can see it in how the characters morph wildly from act 1 to act 2, how some concepts are retconned (such as the aftermath of the JD) or (bonus point) Mia last lesson which was supposed to be "fun".
It is a great point and it could be retconned in even if, at that time, FV had no grip over Lacey and could lose her to Jared etc.
Your theory is so nice that if the easter egg from Augusta was not in, there is another thing that could be assigned to FV.
Yes, I went all in on roleplay.
Speaking of the KW games though. I did have a few problems with them
1. Lacey is ask for 2 truths and a lie about her sexual fantasies. Surely she has many fantasies. Why does she tell the one that involves Isaac? Did she think the others were worse or was she trying to trigger the MC? From the was she was acting at the party it didn't seem like she was trying, but it just doesn't make sense to me.
2. Why did the MC freak out about the penis name question? When Lorenzo showed up he had already had a long talk with Lacey (and Mia) about micro-penis and The Pencil. MC ask her her about it and she tells him that the only reason she met them was because of sex and their penis was the only thing of them she remembered. Why did they both go through this again like they hadn't already?
1. She is asked about her darkest fantasies and al the girls swore to be truthful, she was not trying to trigger MC, in fact she is the only one with Anna being the most worried about it.
Lacey is stubborn and doesn't want to back down, the objective of the game is to know each other better after all.
And tbh, this part is obviously done for storytelling, to give the player some insight and create some drama, if you think about it WHY would you do something like that during the weekend dedicated to MC? Why don't you ask him what he wants to do? Why is Mia deciding the activities with MC sitting there silently?
2. MC knew all that sure, and they discussed it once, in fact during the question and in the aftermath MC knows and knows the details.
They went through this because you can't tallk about one hurtful thing and then set it as "done", actually MC and Lacey should be going over her past one million times until MC can make sense of it or has it expunged (not forget nor forgive) from his system, which is what he needs.
Really, they went through like they went through it before.
The silly parts for me are these:
- Lacey laughs about the rave question, she never laughs in front of others, Mia never heard her laugh for example, and she is making fun of MC while the night before she is sad about his sheltered life (night before).
- MC hears about Lacey going to fairs, raves and having great fun in general with a varied and rich nutrition ranging from veggies to desserts, yet he hyperfixes on the dick naming (which is still bad overall).
- Veronica attitude, even if we assign the questions to het being a bit drunk, no one in the whole world would say something stupid, realize it, and then underline it: "I am a total bitch" and so on.
You think it maybe, but you smile, nod and move on because you, as an adult with social graces, know full well this is what you do to make people less unconfortable.
Well I will say this. If there ends up being supernatural and succubus in this game them I am positive that The Monster is future MC. Right now the game is rooted in a real world so it can't be time travel, but if you start adding magic and monsters in to it that opens it up.
I had the theory that the monster is MC during PTSD, else why the author would show us MC losing his memory so easily? what purpose does it have in the story?
But then the Winifred (head of accounting) theory came out and I like it a lot.
Lacey:
Her motivation is a big topic for me
Why does Lacey come back? Based on what Mia says she loved the MC and listed to his messages all the time. This leads to her coming back for love (or at least her version of it).
Is there anything that has happened in the game (not speculation) that goes against this? If she loves him and fears losing him the lies make sense at least to her.
No, you are absolutely right, and there are no hints or indication in the game that her motives are different.
Is her motivation all about control (wanting a cuck)? It's possible, but at no point in her life has she ever showed control. She didn't have control as a child. In college she gave control to Mia and then the men she was with. So why would she all of a sudden desire taking control herself? I think it's far more likely that she wants someone who will take control. It fits with what we know about her alot better. As for her sex life up to marriage she is treated as a toy. She had no control over her sex life. Why would that change so drastically?
I talked about it in the previous post, the cuck part is there mostly from MC and to fulfill some fetish / keep the door for the future open, as it is hinted that MC could be willing to share her and other LIs.
Somebody who knows more than me would have to list her verified lies. What are the motives for those lies? Are there any that don't fit with her using them to keep the MC from leaving her?
Well there are several that pop into my mind, and one that even the author fumbled on.
- Isaac being "just a jerk"
- Her never having a BF
- Barty visit (where the fumble happens, a promise to Barty is painted as more important than being honest with MC, in reality Lacey should have been scared that the videos could reach MC if she did not comply with Barty)
- Being groped by Jared
- Her actual enjoyment of phase 1 and 2
- At the beginning she says that no one wanted her as a GF, while we know at least 3 people did (Stephen, Lorenzo and Isaac)
I am sure there are more, but I would have to do a refresh of the script in my mind.
As for her brain damage and the clinic.
We don't actually have the scene where she goes to the clinic. So from what I remember, in a conversation that the MC was not part of Lacey tells Mia she has an appointment at the clinic and Mia asks if the MC would be ok with her going with Lacey. We don't know if Mia went, but I have no doubt that Mia would not ask about it the visit if she didn't go.
None of this proves whether she went or didn't it's just pieces.
Don't get pulled in the crazy theories!
You have three choices: smile and nod / start and endless fight posting parts of the script that corroborate your position / flee.
So, let's assume Lacey is not going to therapy. Why?
I think the most likely scenario for this is that she did go to the clinic without Mia. The clinic either told her she had no brain damage or that her brain damage will not get better.
If she finds out there is no brain damage she has to accept that everything she has done was not because of brain damage. So she lies to the MC because she thinks if she tells him he will realize that she is a monster and he will leave.
She had already talked about her fear if she found out it couldn't be cured so I won't detail that.
The brain damage is actually one of the things that K could do, but the amounts she would have to take in 1 year would be MASSIVE, like really massive.
Lets accept the brain damage is there, how much Lacey plays into it is the real debate, for example, her "trusting" Jared, while in reality she wanted the validation and attention (directly admitted by her later).
Her ideas and so on do not differ from how she was before, she decided to leave and create a big mess after the 13 years, she decided bastion was a good idea, she decided that Mc needs to fuck around.
You see? where does the brain damage start and where does Lacey ends? I think it is just overplayed.
Another thing to take into account is Christine.
It is well established that Christine knows Ketamine addiction. She was able to watch a few minutes of a video and know whether or not Lacey was high. What does she know about the brain damage?
Christine is smart and I can believe the researched the hell out of K addiction with her sister.
And she is not a fan of Lacey, so if she could tell Lacey's story didn't match up I think she would say something.
Act 1 Christine is dead, my sweet cotton candy is now a great friend of Mia, her morals and sense of justice (which were pretty high at the time) are in shambles.
But as I said before, the whole memory/brain damage/K effects are to be taken at face value as they do not hold a lot of scrutiny.
Just take it as it is presented, unless we discover more later.
Last post of the night.
I went through the timeline and wow. I can't imagine how you did all of that. I am impressed.
I see that there are some things that you can't fit and do your best to put them in. So we can already see that it's possible the writing is not fixed to a set timeline and maybe the author is not as fixed in his story.
The first thing I saw on the timeline I thought well that isn't right.
After Lacey leaves you have an off the grid period saying that there is a fixed date because you can't move into the dorms yet.
I can tell you. I graduated high school at the end of May (don't remember the exact day). I moved into the dorms on I believe on June 1st and started taking classes the following Monday. For my first two years of college I took classes and stayed in the dorms during the summer. In my third year I worked for the school during the summer and was able to stay in the dorms.
Thank you for the insight, this is helpful, do you remember when did you have the prom? was it in May before you left?
Edit:
Another question about the timeline.
on Lacey's 23rd lie, you have that Lacey tells MC that her appointment is today and this shows on the same day as the Isaac visit. I just went through that scene while I was trying to remember her therapy stuff. The morning after the Isaac visit while taking a shower she tells the MC "Every Thursday I have my therapy at the clinic", MC responds "So you start tomorrow" and she says yes. She didn't tell him the appointment was "today" and it wasn't the same day as the Isaac visit.
Could the dev have corrected small mistakes like this since you put together this timeline?
Could be (I don't think so) but the timeline is on shaky grounds already, we know of missing days and such that are there due to writing errors.
Tbh I don't think these mistakes "destroy" or "damage" the story anyway, but it would be nice to clear them up.
I questioned the same thing when Act 2 came out.
Thought it also made sense for FV to take advantage of the chaos Jared was causing.
There was also no reason for Jared to know about Lorenzo, Isaac or Barty, unlike FV who has A LOT of inside information.
However, we have no confirmation this is the case, and while i think it’s rational to assume that FV is playing the long game and could have been doing things from behind the scenes for a while (hell, FV could be familiar from college, and not actually a character we have met yet), from a writing perspective, i think it is unlikely for the Prof to have the villain arcs overlap so significantly
This could be and would create a nice tie in with act 2, but as I said I am not sure FV was even planned, why would Jared need a
PI if the info were fed to him so easily?
Slight correction here:
Except for her abuse, Lacey has always been in control. Everything always happened on her terms. As children MC could only touch her when she allowed it. She unilaterally decides to abandon Mc after prom. She agreed to go along with Mia’s lessons. The parties in college: it was stated the she and Mia would be deciding what happened that night and guys could either join in or not. Pursuing the fake job offer from Jared and partying for three week after work. The Damian affair and the jealousy date, Lacey actively controls these events, just like how she directs the king weekend and the girls around MC to her needs and wants.
While Lacey hands over the reigns and says she leaves the decision making to someone else, be it MC, Mia, Isaac or Jared, make no mistake, she is always in control and will just stop doing what other suggest when she wants, the shining example still being the Damian affair
This is very true, and it ties in with what I said about the brain damage, Lacey has always been like this.
I would make a small asterisk next to the college period, because she was suicidal and broken, Mia gave her an out but later on she decided to please her, because it was what gave her gratification, a friend that liked her.
In fact during the KW (and in other parts but this is a big one), Lacey underlines how one of her best experiences was with 2 boys BECAUSE Mia was impressed and happy with her.
So yeah she chose, but in this case we are taking the choice of a severely damaged person, on the rest, no matter how desperate she was to either fix herself or fix MC I am completely with you.
