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DeviantFun
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100% But the scene I mentioned was before the molly.
Considering the extreme attraction and thirst Lacey has for MC, I cannot see her acting like that.
But now we are more in the realm of opinion, for me, in the club, she wanted to desperately dance and knew full well MC was there, not throwing herself at him makes no sense.
Another point I brought up and to which I agree completely, see? we really think alike.
It was also a very good hook for some soul searching for MC.
Written like that, it does hit the point that sex for Lacey is just a thing and sex with Lorenzo doesn't mean shit.
She is tired of going back and forth with him, but she does not want to be shared because it would mean MC cares less for her, and said that would do so only if asked by him.
This is for Lorenzo benefit.
The rest that you are written is spot on.
I liked that scene, I dropped a couple of ideas that I would have liked more, but I completely get the idea behind that scene.
Plus, you might not know me, but if there is some Mia bashing, I am all in, go Lacey!
I also send the same ideas and feedback (not all of them, only the ones I deem very objective) to the author directly, and he is always very graceful on his approach even if it is hard for him for several reasons, I am sure.
But let me be honest with you, as a failed writer who got shot down a LOT and then saw some heavy garbage being published, I think sifting through feedback good and bad is an important skill to learn and keep.
If you base your work only on the simps, you will never improve and it would be a waste of his talent.
Did you pick up the fact that her going off on every single one of them is also a clear message of her abandoning her non confrontational nature? (well she is pretty confrontational with MC)
This is definitely a growth point for her.
I think that I find this very untrue at the moment, the story warps the characters a lot at the moment, and they will act and do things out of character just to meet the story / scene / act needs.
This is not a constant obviously, but especially for the forced drama it does happen frequently.
My main suggestion for the Prof is "be careful with your characters" as like real people you only have one chance at a first impression and making them do something awful because you need it in the story might taint the readers perception.
All of the above and I am not trying to be facetious, I truly think you hit the nail on the head.
Probably the main one is being worried about him and being worried if he would come back (both are seen predominantly in the material, one when he leaves at the KW and the other at the pizza place)
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Lady Lydia
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I think that indeed it would likely have been a good idea for the Dev to bring forth the thought process of Lacey and made it seen clear for the players, get a absolute insight into her true character, the problem right now is everything we see if pretty much from the MC's PoV, with sometimes a short dip in other people minds, but considering how abnormal Lacey's thought process is, we should have absolutely been given insight into her regular thought process, so that we'd know her true thoughts on the various subjects, because right now we can't trust anything she says, or even anything the Dev says because they are both unreliable, because Lacey will say whatever she feel she should say, not the truth, while the Dev will tell us its perception of the character, which can change as time goes on but also might be distorted by the various elements of the Dev's psyche, added to that being said it would also have helped if Lacey acted the way she claim to feel, she says something, act in a way that contradict her statement and without having an insight into her minds its impossible to figure whatever its because she is lying, she is delusional or she plain doesn't know better.
DeviantFun
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But isn't not knowing what is in Lacey's mind half of the mystery?
I do not mind the occasional reveal here and there, but I think one cool thing the author did, is that the reader has to go through the same journey as MC about trusting her.
Granted, it is easier for the reader, MC has no basis aside from her words and her action and constant disrespect of him do not help.
Noooooooo I love Mia! She's my second favorite character. Lacey's first, Kelly's third. Except... well, there's another thing that rubbed me the wrong way.
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I agree this is a good skill, and in an ideal world every writer could do this... but the reality seems to be that most can't. I've seen a lot of games go south because the authors were torn in all directions by their communities. It makes me think the lesser of two evils is just getting feedback from people you trust and not reading public forums. But barring that, polite DMs balanced with compliments and what you *do* like is probably the way to go though.
I guess this is where we disagree. I mean I agree that at certain moments the characters get warped and bend to the scene rather than the scene bending to them, but... I guess to me it feels like it warps them for that scene, but it really doesn't take anything away from the general idea of what's going on. The specific details of the instigating action are less important to me than the resulting fallout and the consequences that follow. I think mostly I'm willing to overlook a lot if I'm touched emotionally, which this game definitely does for me. I've known less extreme versions of Lacey. I've dated less extreme versions of Lacey. It's deeply personal for me, so I connect with it. I am a less extreme version of the MC. I'm very familiar with the pain of someone genuinely loving you but being so fucked up psychologically that they can't help but do awful things in the moment. So I connect with it a lot, and I'm willing to look the other way with inconsistencies - or even see how the inconsistencies can make sense in some cases, since people like that are often *not* consistent in their behavior. But that's not to excuse the weaker aspects of the writing, just saying why I can deal with it and even justify it.
NewGuy2022
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As a literary ploy at the end of an update? Sure, I get that. I wasn't attacking the writing.
I'm very much a "fool me once: shame on you; fool me twice: shame on me" kind of guy. Right now I'm predisposed to think Lacey acts only in what she perceives to be her best interest, self-gratification, etc. Sort of how you'd expect a child to behave prior to developing more refined ethics.
Some observers here claim they believe she really has changed and that people like me are judging her unfairly harshly; ok... ...but before I change my preconceived notions of her motives (formed by the story so far) I'll need to see more than mere words. This is a good opportunity for her to show us all how much (if) she's grown. She'll get bonus points from me if she shows genuine concern for his welfare vs. only worrying about how things will affect her or make her appear to be.
What exactly do you mean by this? I'm genuinely curious about that...
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Lady Lydia
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The problem is while in theory the mystery is good, in practice it looks to everyone here less like a real mystery and just that Lacey does whatever the Dev want her to do to accomplish their narrative, I could appreciate a good mystery if I felt their was a good mystery, here Lacey's mind isn't a mystery its just whatever bullshit the Dev wants.
So its why I say we would have needed her actual insight, because since Lacey has shown little consistence as a character, we need her thoughts to be revealed to have hopefully some consistence. Right now it feel at some point Lacey suddenly decide she should be a slut, another she decide she should be a expert relationship guru, another time she decide she should be a good wife, but it feel that she is like a fucking Cylon and those thoughts engage in a specific direction when the Dev beam into her head the command for her to act one way or another.
Lady Lydia
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One thing I still can't figure out is how bad the characterization and story is in this game, the first game was fine until the twist at the end, Augusta is actually good, all the characters that should be likeable are likeable, but here, their are so many problems with the characterization and story, it such a narrative pit compared to the two others, what the fuck is wrong with this story? Why does it go so poorly in every ways compared to the two other games?
Like I said Augusta is great, the characters and story work and make sense, where did the Dev skills for all of that has gone when it comes to this game? If this game was the first game the Dev made I could understand, but the first game the Dev made was less of a clusterfuck then this. And Augusta was started while this one is still in process of being made, so the writing skills of the Dev should be similar, yet their is a clear difference for the worst between this one and Augusta.
The problem is either A the Dev decided to write the most railroaded story ever, where the character and narrative follow precisely every stations of the railroad the Dev want them too without any consideration and the Dev will just at the end wave away magically all issues away.
Or like I speculated their is a in story reason for everything to be bullshit, likely supernatural in nature due to it existing in the setting. Because the Dev can have his characters have great insights, than 5 minutes later act like a mindless drone, what the fuck happened? How come Lacey for example can be such great relationship expert, except for her own relationship, what about every other characters around? So many of them act erratically when it come to the MC or Lacey, yet at other times they are shown to be perfectly capable of reasonable thinking it doesn't make sense.
Like I said Augusta is great, the characters and story work and make sense, where did the Dev skills for all of that has gone when it comes to this game? If this game was the first game the Dev made I could understand, but the first game the Dev made was less of a clusterfuck then this. And Augusta was started while this one is still in process of being made, so the writing skills of the Dev should be similar, yet their is a clear difference for the worst between this one and Augusta.
The problem is either A the Dev decided to write the most railroaded story ever, where the character and narrative follow precisely every stations of the railroad the Dev want them too without any consideration and the Dev will just at the end wave away magically all issues away.
Or like I speculated their is a in story reason for everything to be bullshit, likely supernatural in nature due to it existing in the setting. Because the Dev can have his characters have great insights, than 5 minutes later act like a mindless drone, what the fuck happened? How come Lacey for example can be such great relationship expert, except for her own relationship, what about every other characters around? So many of them act erratically when it come to the MC or Lacey, yet at other times they are shown to be perfectly capable of reasonable thinking it doesn't make sense.
Joratox
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I apologize upfront if it was discussed and I missed it, but there are so many wordy posts that I can't really get through all.
I haven't seen any post that touches on the fact that the MC is not a "blameless victim" in all this story. What I'm getting at is that the MC is a prime example of savior syndrome to the extreme and he probably had this mentality since he as a kid. Lacey was just the perfect medium to latch on and overdevelop this syndrome. We see it later on everything MC does...with Mia, Christine, Jamie, Bethany, etc and also with supposed enemies, like Isaac, Lorenzo, even Barty at the beginning. The more fucked up a person is, the more MC tries to get involved...so no fucking wonder he's surrounded by a cast of unstable people.
There's plenty of documented cases out there of people even going to the extremes of hurting people in order to be able to save them and care for them, or keep them in a constant state of danger intentionally just to be the hero. On some level, he does this to Lacey, he needs her to need him, otherwise he'd just not have a reason so exist.
MC and Lacey are such a toxic combo for each other even from their childhood. She was an abuse victim and he was the savior, the only savior. She was in desperate need of help and who better to help if not the one that makes helping his whole existence. I don't for a minute believe that he was this normal kid and he got this way solely because of Lacey. He was just too young and forged his messiah complex too soon, too fast and too strong to deny. This was somewhat bad to Lacey too...I'm not saying he shouldn't have tried to help her, but the way he did it left little space for actual growth. She only knew 2 extremes, abuse and overprotective care from a friend that wanted to be her whole world. Whatever she says, it's probably the reason she ended up leaving for college to be away from him, to be able to know who she was outside of him (it failed spectacularly...but oh well).
I've seen a lot of "Why doesn't he leave her ? It would fix everything"...It won't fix a damn thing. Unless MC goes to therapy, learns about his issues and "fixes" himself...if he actually leaves Lacey he'd just kill himself eventually, unless he finds someone else in dire need of saving and ends up not dying because that someone else needs him.
Getting to another thing I wanted to say. For the new readers...don't put too much stock in whatever is discussed in the thread. This is such a complex story that if you hand pick 10 people that read it, you'll get 10 different takes on it. I'm talking about people that actually read it, not the ones that skipped through (or have the media literacy of a small kid, it may sound harsh, but they are out here in force on this forum/thread) and were very quick to throw the label of whore on Lacey/other female cast and the label of weak, simp or victim on MC. If you enjoy reading and like complex characters, go try and make your own opinion on it.
I haven't seen any post that touches on the fact that the MC is not a "blameless victim" in all this story. What I'm getting at is that the MC is a prime example of savior syndrome to the extreme and he probably had this mentality since he as a kid. Lacey was just the perfect medium to latch on and overdevelop this syndrome. We see it later on everything MC does...with Mia, Christine, Jamie, Bethany, etc and also with supposed enemies, like Isaac, Lorenzo, even Barty at the beginning. The more fucked up a person is, the more MC tries to get involved...so no fucking wonder he's surrounded by a cast of unstable people.
There's plenty of documented cases out there of people even going to the extremes of hurting people in order to be able to save them and care for them, or keep them in a constant state of danger intentionally just to be the hero. On some level, he does this to Lacey, he needs her to need him, otherwise he'd just not have a reason so exist.
MC and Lacey are such a toxic combo for each other even from their childhood. She was an abuse victim and he was the savior, the only savior. She was in desperate need of help and who better to help if not the one that makes helping his whole existence. I don't for a minute believe that he was this normal kid and he got this way solely because of Lacey. He was just too young and forged his messiah complex too soon, too fast and too strong to deny. This was somewhat bad to Lacey too...I'm not saying he shouldn't have tried to help her, but the way he did it left little space for actual growth. She only knew 2 extremes, abuse and overprotective care from a friend that wanted to be her whole world. Whatever she says, it's probably the reason she ended up leaving for college to be away from him, to be able to know who she was outside of him (it failed spectacularly...but oh well).
I've seen a lot of "Why doesn't he leave her ? It would fix everything"...It won't fix a damn thing. Unless MC goes to therapy, learns about his issues and "fixes" himself...if he actually leaves Lacey he'd just kill himself eventually, unless he finds someone else in dire need of saving and ends up not dying because that someone else needs him.
Getting to another thing I wanted to say. For the new readers...don't put too much stock in whatever is discussed in the thread. This is such a complex story that if you hand pick 10 people that read it, you'll get 10 different takes on it. I'm talking about people that actually read it, not the ones that skipped through (or have the media literacy of a small kid, it may sound harsh, but they are out here in force on this forum/thread) and were very quick to throw the label of whore on Lacey/other female cast and the label of weak, simp or victim on MC. If you enjoy reading and like complex characters, go try and make your own opinion on it.
Pugthulhu
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Pugthulhu
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As I said before, this is not an issue.
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Nimbus Commando
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Bro Anna and Kelly are a million times better than any of the others are they perfect fuck no but my god they are way better and what marriage bro all Lacey does is act like she is not married does dumb whore shit blames it on drugs or muh brain damage lies and lies again and endless gas lighting and gets forgiven because the MC is so fucking pathetic and goes and does shit again and around around we go Lacey is one of the worst fucking people in this.
Pugthulhu
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I also want to reply to the drug talk. I've never used any of these drugs, I've been around people who have used, but I have no personal experience. I respect everyone who has experience and appreciate your addition to the story.
As for the drug use in this story, it is fictional drug use in a fictional story. I don't know the Professor's experience with any of these drugs if he has any. But what I do think is he is trying to tell a story and he needed a tool in order to make things happen in the story and he used the drug he found that was as close to what he was going for as he could. He could have just made up a fictional drug name and used it, but he didn't.
Rather than sitting and talking about how one drug doesn't do in real life what it does in the story, just accept that the results we've been given is the way it worked for those in the story.
As for the drug use in this story, it is fictional drug use in a fictional story. I don't know the Professor's experience with any of these drugs if he has any. But what I do think is he is trying to tell a story and he needed a tool in order to make things happen in the story and he used the drug he found that was as close to what he was going for as he could. He could have just made up a fictional drug name and used it, but he didn't.
Rather than sitting and talking about how one drug doesn't do in real life what it does in the story, just accept that the results we've been given is the way it worked for those in the story.
Pugthulhu
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I should have removed Anna's name from the quote I posted. She was not part of this.
However, In Act 3 when Lacey said "I'm the worst person in this VN". FuckKelly stepped up and said "Hold my beer."
Nimbus Commando
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Act 3 was more vanilla than it's previous act. One thing I felt that could be avoid to break MC at the end after he tried to mend the broken pieces. And I don't get the reasoning behind in bringing her past 3 lovers together. Author could have build better story by individual characterizing those 3. And what was the reason in Lacey's meltdown in the end. I thought act 2shows her powering through worse cases. I felt like Author was trying to create cheap drama at the end.
Nimbus Commando
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Bet the next act is simple, MC forgives it all, then he becomes best buds with his wifes fuck buddies like the pathetic retard that he is.
Pugthulhu
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Lacey is not even on the same level as FuckKelly. Hell Mia and Abby are closer than Lacey.
Lacey is a incompetent street their. Mia and Abby are mob boss level. And FuckKelly is becoming a full blown super-villain.
I do believe that before this is over, she will use that power of attorney to steal their stuff.
Nimbus Commando
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Honestly, rather have my shit stolen and just go postal on them than deal with Lacey being a with fucking worthless sack of crap endlessly fucking your life up and making you feel like shit then crying her eyes out saying sorry to only gaslight you and lying endlessly, and then she just does it all again will agree with you though Mia Abby are also pure scum.
Joratox
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Uhm...
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