VN Ren'Py Love & Jealousy [Act 3] [Professor Amethyst Games]

[funnythings3785]

I think you justifying your opinion by saying that it's the same as Will and Stephen pretty much says everything.

Explain?

The point was that even the people who love that type of behavior do not view that type of behavior "favorable" to the woman who is doing it. Did Lacey feel good about the stories of her that Stephen was going on about? Did she laugh in remembrance, and nod how yes, she really did have a good time doing those things? Or did she start to get sad, cry and feel bad? Why is that?

I use that discussion in "addition" to what all the other characters have literally reacted with in the story.


How did most of the girls react when they saw Lacey's past? Again, was it approving? Or did a lot of them act disgusted? How did Janette act? Christine? Anna? Heck... Veronica even? It wasn't a flattering moment for Lacey.

You are trying to argue against an entire story that has already set the stage of the characters concerning her actions of the past. There are numerous dialogues were not only the girls and people in the story comment to negative effect, but Lacey herself admits to the acts as being depraved and disgusting behavior, slutty, etc...

So I would certainly like to hear your case on how all of that somehow translates to her behaviors being a good thing?

 

[Pugthulhu]

Explain?

The point was that even the people who love that type of behavior do not view that type of behavior "favorable" to the woman who is doing it. Did Lacey feel good about the stories of her that Stephen was going on about? Did she laugh in remembrance, and nod how yes, she really did have a good time doing those things? Or did she start to get sad, cry and feel bad? Why is that?

I use that discussion in "addition" to what all the other characters have literally reacted with in the story.


How did most of the girls react when they saw Lacey's past? Again, was it approving? Or did a lot of them act disgusted? How did Janette act? Christine? Anna? Heck... Veronica even? It wasn't a flattering moment for Lacey.

You are trying to argue against an entire story that has already set the stage of the characters concerning her actions of the past. There are numerous dialogues were not only the girls and people in the story comment to negative effect, but Lacey herself admits to the acts as being depraved and disgusting behavior, slutty, etc...

So I would certainly like to hear your case on how all of that somehow translates to her behaviors being a good thing?

I mean justifying your point by saying its the same thing two horrible people in the story feels about it just clarifies how horrible the opinion is.

Saying that someone is bad because they are promiscuous is pretty terrible. This usually leads to the double standard that it's ok for a guy, but makes a girl bad.

I even ask for clarification so that I didn't misunderstand what you were saying by asking if you are meaning this is bad in the story or in general and you said "both".
So you're saying that women who have had multiple sexual partners are bad people that need to be forgiven for their past when they decide to settle down? I mean that's what you just said.

Then you actually said, Do you think a guy wants to have a serious relationship with a woman who's been promiscuous.

 

[funnythings3785]

I mean justifying your point by saying its the same thing two horrible people in the story feels about it just clarifies how horrible the opinion is.

Saying that someone is bad because they are promiscuous is pretty terrible. This usually leads to the double standard that it's ok for a guy, but makes a girl bad.

I even ask for clarification so that I didn't misunderstand what you were saying by asking if you are meaning this is bad in the story or in general and you said "both".
So you're saying that women who have had multiple sexual partners are bad people that need to be forgiven for their past when they decide to settle down? I mean that's what you just said.

Then you actually said, Do you think a guy wants to have a serious relationship with a woman who's been promiscuous.

As I said, it was an addition to show that not only do people who don't partake in that see it as bad, but the people who do don't have a positive look at it.

Also, I am not making a hypocritical argument... it doesn't matter if they are male or female, it is the same. Promiscuous males are just as bad as the females in terms of it being bad behavior, so that isn't a rebuttal point here (look how Wills girl friend is struggling with the same issues the MC is, doesn't want that lifestyle and was pushed into it by Will, ie... she has a negative view of it).

Well, you asked my personal position, I said both, but for the sake of the discussion here, only the story is relevant right?

If you were interested in getting into some personal discussion over such, I have no interest in that and have stated as such in a previous comment to another that brought it up.

What I am saying is promiscuous behavior in this story is not seen in a good light and I gave you plenty of examples of the stories characters looking at it in that bad light, including Lacey. I even showed how those who partake in it have negative views of the women that they proclaim to want to partake in that behavior.

So, if most of the characters view it in a bad light, including the one who has done it, would not then it be important that this be a recognition aspect for her character in terms of healing?

Edit:

Consider even this. If this were a story where everyone was ok with promiscuity, then why does Lacey have conditions on him being shared? Why does she admit it makes her jealous and uncomfortable, but she is doing it for specific reasons for the MC and so will tolerate it so he can experience it? She apparently doesn't see the behavior as positive does she?

 

[_sebastian87]

Oh boy , wasnt i ready for your game .
great fcking job , and i mean every word. keep it up

 

[KseiPo]

So my first impressions after finishing the 3rd chapter.

1. I have a feeling that writing in this chapter significantly differs from the first two. Don't know exactly why, just a feeling.
2. 3rd day of vacation - what the fuck? Jeanette and Mia knows that MC and Lacey are not mentally healthy and that Lacey is an addict. And they were supposed to take care of them, and especially of Lacey. What the fuck were they thinking?
3. Appearance of slutty Winifred in a "dream sequence" or whatever it was - LOL .
4. Everything is going into a "harem ending" direction - I'm OK with that.
5. Final event of the chapter - I knew that this Lacey is a hallucination, but I expected that MC will just awake in a hospital instead of running away. And I expected that this time he would try to stand his ground and stop Lacey instead of running away. He did mentioned to himself about "boundaries" and similar things several times so I thought this is the first time he would do that.

As a conclusion: Again a great entertainment. Was hard to turn the story off and go to bed.
I do not expect from this author a perfectly logical story. Professor is really great in exploring and expressing emotions. And I think this is enough to enjoy the story. If you want to have everything close to reality and logical - turn some documentary on on your TV. This is a fictional story. Go tell Tolkien about Eagles and how to properly solve the problem with the Ring.

I will read this chapter one or two times and may be write some more detailed view on the plot. But for now I'm definitely not disappointed.

 

[monkeyqueen]

Mini review and commentary - quotes for length. Spoilers inside quotes. Awfully long.

I've read the last 5 pages of commentary but and only skimmed through the thread. Surprised to read so many criticisms of Lacey, she and Isaac are the only decent human beings in the game. 100% team Lacey.

My experience with the game:

I picked up this game a while back after enjoying the Augusta's Home game. I had always avoided NTR games but I liked the AI photos and I liked the other game so why not?

I played it and was thoroughly impressed by the quality of the writing. I also hated the MC with a red hot passion. Never before had I so given into the fantasy of crawling through the screen and slapping the MC in the face. The prof has entirely captured the psychology of the redpilled, reddit-neckbeard, incel "nice guy". It's like the original "nice guy" copypasta was given a name and an internal monologue, it's fucking perfect. Well done, dev!

You must be registered to see the links

I had to ctrl skip through lots of the misogynist break down Gristle goes through while viewing the photos of his wife but that's not a criticism of the author - I just had enough, I couldn't take it. I mean I got the point, right? He's a person entirely captured by Madonna / Whore view of women and he is actively seeking an outlet for his almost limitless supply of anger. So I read and read and read until we got to the first choice. I chose option 1 because it seemed like the only one where he was not obsessing over the fact that his wife - gasp, clutches pearls - had sex with other men before they started dating.

And then he hit her and told himself that he was nice guy. I decided I was out, ended the game and took a shower.

(and that lead me down a rabbit hole to try understand the NTR genre but that's another story)

And then I saw act 3 dropped and I had a Bilbo and the ring moment. Why shouldn't I? Why not make myself miserable? It's the holidays and those are all about pain and drama right? Why not read a tragedy about two crazy people who could come together to heal one another but instead choose to make each other worse?

So I started again this time with option 3 - no "fun" - and I managed to avoid some of the "fun" of the MC physically abusing his wife. Now I only had to deal with his psychological torment of her. Because that's better, right?

Pros / Cons:

Pros:

1. Quality of the narrative. This dev is working with literary tools (like unreliable narrators) that are beyond the ken of most AVNs. Only Corporate Culture comes in close to matching the quality of the narrative and this is the better of the two "games"

2. Psychological insight. I'm convinced that this dev either has a degree in psychology or has done a very deep dive into the psychological literature. Scapegoating, enabling, maddona-whore complex, nymphomania, cutting, masochism, oral sadism and, yes, co dependency are all accurately represented

Cons:

1. it's a visual novel, the choices really don't really matter. Decide to keep MC monogamous? Can't happen - Gristle will get some "fun" whether the player likes it or not. The points system is meaningless. LIs with zero relationship points would give their kidneys to save life of this shitbag of an MC. (looking at you Kelly) The dev really knows how to write but has no idea how to create a game.

Pro tip for dev: join a team as lead author, let others design the game elements for you

2. It's not for humans who empathize with abuse victims. You will need several showers after playing.

Interpretation:

The game is a classic tragedy and it's hard to imagine a good ending for the couple.

pop culture influences for my interpretation - Black Swan, Fight Club, Lord of the Rings

Lacey has been trained to think like a classic scapegoat and as such she will always agree with the MC's interpretation of events. "Accept the abuse and then build up the ego of your aggressor. Agree to survive." Here the dev has brought level of sophistication to the classic "the wife is liar" NTR trope. If Lacey says "you are right" that's not a accurate reflection of reality - that's the POV of a scapegoat anxious and eager to believe that everything is always her fault and the result of her own mistakes. She's not "lying" she's employing survival strategies.

I think the key to her personality is the Isaac story - she went from scapegoat to masochist and through the blinding pain had a therapeutic moment. At some point she got her fill of degradation, humiliation and pain and forgot about her father while having sex. Lacey was freed of her father's image if not his influence. For Lacey, psychological insight is born from pain, pain heals.

Ripping off the bandage > slow and steady healing

Because of this she seeks out people who will confirm her belief that she is worthless and unworthy of love. She is incapable of understanding that he she actively surrounds herself sadists because she unconsciously believes that a) their ill treatment will benefit her in some way and b) she deserves it. And she found perfect tormentor - a man who abuses her while wearing the mask of a "good guy". She legitimately believe that Gristle will build her up but she doesn't understand that he is psychologically wired to tear her down.

Gristle - again - is a classic "nice guy" misogynist and sadist trapped by a Maddona-Whore worldview. Like other nice guy incels he wants a virgin bride who will only have eyes for him and he lusts after women he sees as sluts. He is also absurdly co dependent and believes that his wife cheated on him at a time when they were weren't together because they were somehow psychologically together.

The keystone to Gristle's personality is misogyny - he hates women but is nonetheless attracted to them. He desires them but believes his own arousal degrades them in some way. His best hope for healing would be to directly confront the sexism has nurtured over the years and to fully understand the psychological origins of his desire to control women. His jealousy springs from his belief that women who have sex are dirty whores - and a dirty whores are subject to being stolen by any man. He's even jealous of ugly, sad old men who leer at his wife because his wife's sexual nature makes her a whore.

The tragedy unfolds

Tragically, his wife has misdiagnosed him. She believes that his jealousy springs from his lack of self worth and not from his shitty views of women. So she has manipulated events to provide him with a harem of women who continually fluff his self worth not realizing that this is making him worse, not better. As as result he feels even more entitled and justified when he gives into his aggressive desires. After all, he's a nice guy not someone closeted sadist who gets off on calling his self-sacrificing wife a slut!

Lacey believe that it is lack of experience with women - and not his shitty views of women - that make the MC the miserable fuck that he is. So she hatches a plans to destroy Gristle's one redeeming quality - his conflation of sex with intimacy. She believes that is he comes to understand that is possible to divorce sex and intimacy he will be less jealous once he realizes that she can only have intimate, loving sex with her husband.

Not that Lacey is entirely without some insight into MC's psychology but she trapped by her belief that pain precedes healing and that the greater the pain, the greater the gain. But she fails to understand that what is medicine for a masochist is just pain for a normal person and fuel for the "justified" anger of her sadist husband.

Because she has misdiagnosed Gristle she fails to understand is that if Gristle gains an ability to separate sex and intimacy he will just use sex to abuse her even more. Which would feed into her lack of self worth . . . and so the ouroboros spins.

While the MC has - tragically - convinced Lacey that her motives are selfish she truly believes that it would be good for the relationship if she felt jealous; perhaps she will better empathize with the MC's jealousy if she feels it herself. So instead of hiring a sex worker to teach her husband that sex and intimacy can be separated she convinces her "friends" to sleep with him and she deliberately leans most heavily the ones that might pose a threat to the relationship.

Unfortunately, this particular variety of pain doesn't help our masochist heroine at all so she decides to hurt/heal the MC even more by showing him that she can have sex without intimacy. Tragically she ends up discovering that she did gain something from her fuckshit husband - an ability to feel intimacy during sex with other men. So the experiment has just the opposite of it's intended effect - the MC's irrational jealousy now has some basis in reality because his devoted wife has learned that she now has the potential be happy with someone other than Gristle. Oops!

And then the worst happens. Lacey figures out that the jealousy is doing something for her - she takes expressions of jealousy as confirmation of her belief that there is one who cares for her as a person. So she comes up with a plan - a good one this time - to convince the MC to become a cuck. If they can't cure their crazy they might as well adapt to it, right? Unfortunately that leads to no insights on the part of the MC but feeds into Lacey's desire to NURTURE his jealousy. Oops!

Up until this point I was convinced that this was a remarkably well written NTR game. But then Las Vegas happens. Come one dev - you know that shark jumping moments always happen on vacation, right?

Shark jumping moments

Sadly this excellent game decides to jump the shark by introducing Abby. After humanizing Mia and letting her stand down from her role as evil witch / corruption agent the dev decides to reintroduce Mia as Abby. Someone who wants to make the MC even worse while posing as someone out to help him out.

I will give the dev credit because at scene in bar I thought the MC might just getting better.

Abby: "what is the source of your pain"?
Fuckshite: "it's Lacey"
Abby: "that's right"

No Gristle the correct answer is: you. You are the reason you are suffering. Even notice that your therapist doesn't contradict you when you say you are a bad person? That's because you are a bad person and you are the author of your own suffering.

Up until this moment I had been pretty impressed the with author but I am worried that Abby says that her true calling is writing which makes me think Abby is a self insert and not just a plot device. Hope not

Pro tip for the dev: Dev, if you really think Abby is right you need to ask your therapist to play this game because you got issues to work on. The right answer is that Gristle is the source of Gristle's pain.

Porn logic:

For some reason the harem members all start of catch feelings for Gristle. Why? Because he's good at fixing servers Because he's genetically designed to be ripped despite spending no time at the gym? I mean come on! He's a needy fuckwit and any same woman should be able to discern that. I can accept that Anna loves him because the share the same misogynistic worldview. I can even accept that Christine is looking for a daddy figure but there is zero - zero - reason for any of the other women to like this fuckface.

Dev, if you are going to go into harem logic make him a vampire lord or something similar because that would be easier to believe in than "sexy, sexist, angry IT guy gets a harem because no one figures out he's secretly a douche".

Which, come to think of it, would be a great name for a shovelware novel . . .

Speculation

The dev is going into dissociation aspect of the story. The dissociative states have formed their own personality:

You must be registered to see the links

We see this in Lacey's Smeagol / Golum scene. The question is: has Lacey accepted so much abuse that she has become the Black Swan that we see in the final scene? Perhaps but I suspect that Gristle is the one who lost it. He is the monster. There are no text messages. That final "I am evil college Lacey" never happened. Gristle is about experience dissociative fugue:

You must be registered to see the links

Anyway. Thank for the pain dev. I hate you. I also appreciate your mad skills.

 

[radical686]

Huh... the way I remember things didn't Lacey and Mia came in after the MC was gone and Lacey figured he wasn't around and got worried? I mean the MC literally saw the hallucination, than gathered his stuff and fucked off, if Lacey & Mia had been there wouldn't one of them have came in physical contact and figuring he was out of it and snap him out?

I mean would the BDSM session have been bad enough to cause him a mental breakdown watching the video? After everything else? I mean sure it sounded like it was cringe, rather than really super sexy, admittedly still of questionable enough nature to cause the girls to shy out of wanting the MC to see it. Did Lacey make a ahegao face and that was bad enough for him to breakdown? After the entire Vegas vacation and a few therapy sessions you'd expect if he had to snap it would have happened in Vegas after the girl's day, not a while later after getting therapy a few times.

I think what you said in the first paragraph is one possiblibility. He just imagined it all. Another possibility is that Lacey or both Lacey and Mia were actually there and her "where is my husband" comment was in reaction to Marcus saying he went somewhere else. We really don't know.

As for the physical contact question, according to the DSM, physical contact is not enough to break a Dissociative episode, and may actually make it worse. The Dev has done his work on this. The most common things that works are trying to ground the person with your voice, using their name, saying soothing things, and to encourage them to engage in deep breathing. Deep breathing was actually used by one of the side characters earlier, and the street guy he gave $12 to in the bad side of town gently telling him how to get to the better side of town, and in that case a park familiar to him, allowed him to walk to a familiar place where the Dissociative episode finally broke.

It's complicated to say what "bad enough" means in his mind. I was looking for and thinking of what could be a trigger. Like NewGuy2022, I didn't notice anything else that could be a trigger, and I was actually expecting him to look at the video and be triggered. If she had some kind of euphoric expression on her face during the BDSM session, I think he would interpret that as she was sexually attracted to the Dom, had an erotic or sexual reaction to what was happening, etc. He was already having difficulty with Dissociative episodes, then I don't think it would need to be much. He already has a lot of difficulty with thinking he isn't good enough for her/what she needs.

The ending for Act 3 is definitely a cliff-hanger. What actually happened is likely to be explored in Act 4.

 

[funnythings3785]

Mini review and commentary - quotes for length. Spoilers inside quotes. Awfully long.



Pros / Cons:



Interpretation:



The tragedy unfolds



Shark jumping moments



Porn logic:



Speculation

The dev is going into dissociation aspect of the story. The dissociative states have formed their own personality:

You must be registered to see the links

We see this in Lacey's Smeagol / Golum scene. The question is: has Lacey accepted so much abuse that she has become the Black Swan that we see in the final scene? Perhaps but I suspect that Gristle is the one who lost it. He is the monster. There are no text messages. That final "I am evil college Lacey" never happened. Gristle is about experience dissociative fugue:

You must be registered to see the links

Anyway. Thank for the pain dev. I hate you. I also appreciate your mad skills.

Interesting take I will give you that. Not sure how you pulled all of that out from the dialogue though.

 

[Lady Lydia]

So my first impressions after finishing the 3rd chapter.

1. I have a feeling that writing in this chapter significantly differs from the first two. Don't know exactly why, just a feeling.
2. 3rd day of vacation - what the fuck? Jeanette and Mia knows that MC and Lacey are not mentally healthy and that Lacey is an addict. And they were supposed to take care of them, and especially of Lacey. What the fuck were they thinking?
3. Appearance of slutty Winifred in a "dream sequence" or whatever it was - LOL .
4. Everything is going into a "harem ending" direction - I'm OK with that.
5. Final event of the chapter - I knew that this Lacey is a hallucination, but I expected that MC will just awake in a hospital instead of running away. And I expected that this time he would try to stand his ground and stop Lacey instead of running away. He did mentioned to himself about "boundaries" and similar things several times so I thought this is the first time he would do that.

As a conclusion: Again a great entertainment. Was hard to turn the story off and go to bed.
I do not expect from this author a perfectly logical story. Professor is really great in exploring and expressing emotions. And I think this is enough to enjoy the story. If you want to have everything close to reality and logical - turn some documentary on on your TV. This is a fictional story. Go tell Tolkien about Eagles and how to properly solve the problem with the Ring.

I will read this chapter one or two times and may be write some more detailed view on the plot. But for now I'm definitely not disappointed.

You mention Tolkien as an example, my counter question is, did Tolkien kill Boromir just to create drama? No, it was all done in the service of the narrative, the difference with this game is the Prof does things in the service of drama, its one of the issues many of us complain, their is far too much unrelenting drama without ever getting some good cooldown between the bouts of drama, the way the characterization is made and the narrative is made is done in the optic of generating a maximum amount of drama.

A good characterization and narrative goes the other way around, the drama happen because its a natural outcome of the characterization and narrative. If you question the claim that the Prof mold its characterization and narrative purely to cause drama I'll point to Act 3, where several characters all suddenly act in ways that are uncharacteristic to the previous Acts.

Hell from Act 1 to Act 2 their was a shift in characterizations too, so now we are up to in many cases three variation of characterization, and its not like Lacey changing her characterization due to therapy I am talking of other characters, Lacey and the MC are just about the only consistent characters sure the MC changed, but that make sense under the immense strain he suffers since Act 1, while Lacey marginally changed due to her therapy, but the intensity of that change deviate drastically from what we hear to what we see.

Some changes make sense while other doesn't really, for example many of the MC's girls have turned into sycophants for Lacey even if they have no inherent attachments to Lacey and are only attached to the MC, while you could think that it happens because they want in with the MC's wife into their relationship, it doesn't explain just how much they can support Lacey over the MC. I have some supernatural theories to justify some of that sort stuff, but I won't repeat them so I don't have to deal with those that start complaining the moment supernatural is mentioned in a story by a Dev which has supernatural in every single other of their games.

 

[KseiPo]

I don't claim that there is no illogical changes in narrative or characterizations, I mentioned this actually as my pt.1 - I'm not quite sure what it is exactly, but I feel that something is off, i just can not explain it yet, may be after I read it more I would be able to do it. I wanted to say that I can ignore most of such issues for the sake of a good story. And Professor is definitely not Tolkien, so its acceptable that his story has much more such issues.

I also forgot to mention one thing that also bothers me regarding girls behavior - how Kelly with support of Jeanette and Christine are playing with MC's mind by slipping sexual phrases. As if he was not at his limit already with mental issues. What are they doing? This looks pretty evil in my book. Not something that person who loves would do.

 

[Lady Lydia]

Mini review and commentary - quotes for length. Spoilers inside quotes. Awfully long.

Pros / Cons:

Interpretation:

The tragedy unfolds

Shark jumping moments

Porn logic:

Speculation

The dev is going into dissociation aspect of the story. The dissociative states have formed their own personality:

You must be registered to see the links

We see this in Lacey's Smeagol / Golum scene. The question is: has Lacey accepted so much abuse that she has become the Black Swan that we see in the final scene? Perhaps but I suspect that Gristle is the one who lost it. He is the monster. There are no text messages. That final "I am evil college Lacey" never happened. Gristle is about experience dissociative fugue:

You must be registered to see the links

Anyway. Thank for the pain dev. I hate you. I also appreciate your mad skills.

I have been told I should just accept everyone has their opinion but, what the fuck is this?

The MC having issues with Lacey having sex before their marriage... well I can understand Lacey having sex with other people in College, but fucked a few football team worth of guys in College I'll admit is over the top, the problem is that she told him after returning she never had a boyfriend, and let it be implied she hadn't really gotten any sexual experience, while by many metrics by Act 3 many people would agree it was a clear lie, she dated Stephen, Lorenzo & Isaac, she just decided to twist that around on the notion she didn't love them so they weren't her boyfriends, which most of us would agree its not how it works.

Look I would never judge any other women for their sexual proclivity, but if it reach 'was the cumdump for an entire College' degree I'll admit its a bit much and expecting her husband not to be horrified by it, in particular her mentally broken co-dependent husband, its ridiculous.

Now about him hitting her, do you mean the slap? Which happen uniquely on the 'Punishment' path, that she pretty much encouraged him to do because she saw how terrible he felt after she had hard cheated on him and he had a mental breakdown over in guilt after ward? I wouldn't support a man hitting a woman under most circumstances, but he was justified that time, if you think his wife hard cheating on him isn't worth a slap you are being petty, I am sure the majority of us, and by that I mean women, would agree its fair enough.

I don't know where you pulled that severe delusion the MC is misogynistic, his best friend in College was Anna, a girl, most people he feel comfortable surrounding himself with are women / girls, all of which he showed genuine affection and care for, nothing in the entire game ever had him blaming women in general before Abby he wasn't really even able to blame Lacey.

Look I have some measure of misandry, but your rant about the MC goes well into the realm of raging man-hating mania. Its absolutely insane and doesn't remotely fit the character at all, even the people that did bitch otherwise about the MC do so typically because he is too 'weak' for their taste, but the way you took it is completely unhinged.

 

[Lady Lydia]

I don't claim that there is no illogical changes in narrative or characterizations, I mentioned this actually as my pt.1 - I'm not quite sure what it is exactly, but I feel that something is off, i just can not explain it yet, may be after I read it more I would be able to do it. I wanted to say that I can ignore most of such issues for the sake of a good story. And Professor is definitely not Tolkien, so its acceptable that his story has much more such issues.

I also forgot to mention one thing that also bothers me regarding girls behavior - how Kelly with support of Jeanette and Christine are playing with MC's mind by slipping sexual phrases. As if he was not at his limit already with mental issues. What are they doing? This looks pretty evil in my book. Not something that person who loves would do.

About Kelly, its not evil, its understandable if albeit in poor timing, which again feel like the Prof did in service of drama, rather than the narrative. Alright so let me explain, a woman playing mind games with a man they are interested in? Nothing new, its part of the relationship playbook for women to do that. Think about it from Kelly's point of view, she was promised the MC pretty much by Mia in Act 1, she was told she would have this wonderful chance with a great guy, a one in a lifetime opportunity, she was brought in to be groomed to be 'other woman' to take Lacey's place in case she went beyond the pale so to save the MC from pretty much self-destructing if anything happened to Lacey.

So during that free pass week she got a taste, and once she got a taste she was hooked, however unlike many of the other girls around the MC she is being kept at arm length due to Lacey feeling threaten because Kelly is basically better Lacey from what Mia's PoV anyway. We are now Act 3, Kelly has been hooked by the MC, but she isn't allowed to get closer to him, so she has been growing eratic, she want him desperately, she see that Lacey is regularly causing him a ton of suffering, so now she has reached the point of deciding to say fuck it and go on the offensive with some mind games.

Now the question is, does she realize just how badly the MC is doing? I really doubt it, I doubt anyone else than his therapist really has a good idea of how close to breaking apart he is, so its not about harming the MC but getting what she would believe to be her due. Like I said is it of incredibly poor timing? Yes, but again this game is built on the Dev making everything happen whenever they feel they want drama.

So in a game where everything stem from the drama, I don't feel you can blame anyone but the Dev for whats happening. If a story is written in the optic of supporting the characterization and narrative foremost I could blame the characters, but here I feel the Dev is exclusively to be blamed for how the characters and story are turning out because all of it exist to generate drama.

 

[NewGuy2022]

Consider even this. If this were a story where everyone was ok with promiscuity, then why does Lacey have conditions on him being shared? Why does she admit it makes her jealous and uncomfortable, but she is doing it for specific reasons for the MC and so will tolerate it so he can experience it? She apparently doesn't see the behavior as positive does she?

My comments are about my perceptions of the game. I make no reference to my personal real-life views on the matters.

Early in the game when Lacey first met up w/ MC after college he asked her the "boyfriends" question. Poorly worded on his part, yes, but at that time I believed he was asking her, "did you have sex while we were apart" or, if you prefer, "I waited for you; did you wait for me?" She said, "no boyfriends." She has known him since their childhood and, I believe, would have understood what he was asking and this tells me she knew that she misled him with her answer. I'm being kind here and not saying that she lied.

If sex was meaningless to her (that is, not connected to romantic intimacy) and if she had no boyfriends (so, the sex was not intimately romantic) and if promiscuity did not matter to her (not a bad thing)... ...then why did she deliberately mislead the MC with her answer?

If being sexually active was not a bad thing to her in this context, why not say something like, "I had casual hookups with several guys but nothing within a relationship." After all, if sex did not equate to love and she had no boyfriends, and she didn't view promiscuity as something "bad", why would she mislead the man with whom she so clearly wanted to start a marriage for life (and with whom she wanted to have children)?

 

[monkeyqueen]

Interesting take I will give you that. Not sure how you pulled all of that out from the dialogue though.

i said quite a lot so if you would quote or mention a certain portion i could give a better response

 

[monkeyqueen]

she never had a boyfriend, and let it be implied she hadn't really gotten any sexual experience, while by many metrics by Act 3 many people would agree it was a clear lie

It was a white lie designed to save his feelings. So if these were normal people a conversation would start with "I'm hurt that you lied to me" continue onto "I did but I did so to save you feelings" and end with "I understand that but you also need to understand that I am also hurt and it will take us a while to get past this"

And besides it was a lie that hid a larger truth - those men meant nothing to her because she was sex toy to them and they were a twisted form of therapy for her.

And if anything he started the emotional cheating with Mia when he agreed to NOT TALK TO HIS WIFE until Mia did everything she could be bring him to his misogynist break. I mean if cheating is breaking an agreement

I don't know where you pulled that severe delusion the MC is misogynistic

I mean this will all respect since I have enjoyed some of your comments but my reaction to this is. What. The. Fuck.

Seriously - do you NOT find degrading words like "whore" "slut" and (your favorite) "cumdump" misogynist? Seriously. This is not a grey area - this is textbook sexism. If you go on long angry rants calling women who have sex these terms you are probably a misogynist yourself. I'm being entirely serious. I am not trying to shame you but I want you to understand that you use sexist terms and you are okay with them - if you use these in your sex life I hope you are getting consent to do so.

Look I would never judge any other women for their sexual proclivity,

Okay, good.

but if it reach 'was the cumdump for an entire College'

Sweetheart, you just did the thing. You used a sexist term to shame a woman for having sex. Be honest - you kinda knew that when you gave the disclaimer, right?

expecting her husband not to be horrified by it, i its ridiculous.

Do you seriously believe this? Guy has a wife who utterly devoted to him and he is upset that she wasn't virgin. Her "crimes" were a) having sex b) telling a white lie

A sane person would be hurt, would talk it out and conclude "I'm hurt but I get that she was trying to protect me. And besides I have wife that gives 10/10 blowjobs and that would not have happened if I married a Maddona"

I wouldn't support a man hitting a woman under most circumstances

Good. I agree

but he was justified that time,

You just did it again. You said he was justified. He wasn't. He is an awful human being - he's a wife beater. Fuck that incel.

if you think his wife hard cheating on him isn't worth a slap you are being petty, I am sure the majority of us, and by that I mean women, would agree its fair enough.

Then it sure sounds like you are considering some pick me's as representative of all women. I don't know a single woman who would agree with you and I know many who would disagree.

I don't know where you pulled that severe delusion the MC is misogynistic,

I really hope you are trolling me. He goes off on long, verbally abusive rants about her being a slut, cum rag, a whore etc. Look I have played dozens and dozens of games on this site. I have watched porn after porn video. As a gooner I am telling you are thinking with porn brain. If you no longer see long verbal rants about "sluts whore and cum buckets" as sexist language you are letting your gooning fuck with your sense of reality.

If you and your lover do that and do with consent that's fucking great - love you for it - but consent doesn't erase the misogyny of it all anymore than consensual "race play" erases the racism of it all.

Sincere life advice:eEither take a break from porn or read things that will encourage you to consume porn with a critical eye because if you are missing the misogyny in this story you are missing 90 percent of it.

his best friend in College was Anna, a girl, most people he feel comfortable surrounding himself with are women / girls, all of which he showed genuine affection and care for, nothing in the entire game ever had him blaming women in general before Abby he wasn't really even able to blame Lacey.

a. Anna is a misogynist. She's a pick me. She's a red pilled woman. She is seething with self hatred that she directs at Lacey because Lacey is always willing to be the hate sink for anyone who comes around. And for some unexplained reason she wants to destroy the relationship and have Gristle for herself. If Gristle and Anna were to get together the would form a men's rights organization.

b. As I said in my review - that's the part that doesn't ring true. I refuse to believe that no one other than Mia has picked up of the MC's rampant hatred of women. It's the keystone of personality. Remove the sexism and what are you left with? Someone who is a good at IT. I mean the six pack abs without exercise are more believable than "this guy has a harem" / women feel comfortable around him

(and it is harem despite the dev's denials)

the MC do so typically because he is too 'weak' for their taste, but the way you took it is completely unhinged.

The MC is weak because he can't look himself in the face. He's raging misogynist who refuses to confront the real origin of his problems and prefers to use his wife as a scapegoat.

 

[monkeyqueen]

...then why did she deliberately mislead the MC with her answer?

If being sexually active was not a bad thing to her in this context, why not say something like, "I had casual hookups with several guys but nothing within a relationship." After all, if sex did not equate to love and she had no boyfriends, and she didn't view promiscuity as something "bad", why would she mislead the man with whom she so clearly wanted to start a marriage for life (and with whom she wanted to have children)?

Because Lacey is

a) not not a complete idiot
b) she wanted to be with Gristle and knew that would spoil her chances
c) she genuinely care for Gristle's feelings and tried to soften the truth for him
d) Lacey hates herself and loves Gristle because he sees her as a scared child, not a degraded sex toy

And Mia fucked that all up. If Gristle had any degree of self awareness and he was not trapped by his misogyny he would simply realize "she has past but she choose me over a 100 different men" but she knows that Gristle is too weak to come that realization and she just expects abuse from men

 

[monkeyqueen]

How did most of the girls react when they saw Lacey's past? Again, was it approving? Or did a lot of them act disgusted? How did Janette act? Christine? Anna? Heck... Veronica even? It wasn't a flattering moment for Lacey.

You are trying to argue against an entire story that has already set the stage of the characters concerning her actions of the past. There are numerous dialogues were not only the girls and people in the story comment to negative effect, but Lacey herself admits to the acts as being depraved and disgusting behavior, slutty, etc...

You MUST read this story as one

1) told by unreliable narrators
2) from a first person POV
3) as a psychological study of flawed people

Starting with the first. Lacey has memory problems, she dissociates, she engages in psychological denial, she takes memory distrubing drugs. The dev has told us time and time again that her pov is not be trusted. Indeed one harem member (can't remember which) tells Gristle than he needed to understand that he has only the heard the story from one POV

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Second, this is not a 3rd person story - we will never learn the truth. This is specifically an unreliable narrator from a 1st person view. Which is to say it's written just like a song of ice and fire. If you know that story is The Imp as good as he thinks he is? As good as others say he is? Or does that the fact that he's noble impact what other people say to him? Hard to tell (until GRRM decides to make him a slave and we realize that all the people saying that's he's super competent aren't right)

Third Lacey has chosen friends who abuse her. The prof acutally knows some psychology and he probably knows that the children from abusive households tend to marry people who abuse them in the same way. If Lacey were healthy she would surround herself with women who support her and accept her as she is. But she's not a healthy person - she's person who deliberately seeks out abusers.

Anna is absolutely a sadist and sexist - just like Gristle. The motivations of the other aren't clear but we shouldn't dismiss the possibility that they are just giving her what she asks for.

Think back to the Las Vegas conversation - Gristle wanted to go to bed and talk in the morning. Lacey insisted on the abuse - don't go to bed, please hurt me first - because it's her role in the marriage and it's what she craves.

Perhaps the best bit of self care Lacey has done is to be nice to some of the strippers in Las Vegas. If she were to make them part of her social circle she woud have SOMEONE in her life who doesn't want to abuse her because she GASP - looks for fainting couch - had sex in college.

 

[radical686]

Not sure if this is a narrative inconsistency or not while replaying Act 1.

MC is talking to Mia about Lacey's college experience AFTER Lacey cucked the MC on her trip with Veronica out of town.

During the conversation, Mia talks about Lacey's early relationships with Stephen, Lorenzo, and Phillip. In that discussion, she claims Lorenzo had a big penis, and it was Phillip with the micro penis, even tho earlier when Lorenzo showed up at the bar, she indicates he was the one with the micro-penis.

Later in the conversation, the MC confirms that Lacey called Lorenzo the micro penis guy, so I'm guessing Mia just got that part wrong. Understandable that not everything we relate is accurate. Loerenzo is confirmed as the micro penis guy in Act 3 with the SPH scene.

 

[monkeyqueen]

Saying that someone is bad because they are promiscuous is pretty terrible. This usually leads to the double standard that it's ok for a guy, but makes a girl bad.

Finally a voice of reason. I mean am seriously stunned that anyone would mistake the MC for anything other than raging misogynist who holds views like that. I mean for fuck's sake the MC calls himself an incel in act 1 - that not so much clue dropped by the writer as much as it the author stepping outside of novel and hitting you over the head with a mallet.

Sorry to say it but if people are missing the misogyny it's probably because they share some of Gristle's shitty attitudes.

I kinda want to end this with clapping hands. You aren't bad person because you had sex. You aren't even a bad person if you allowed others to abuse you. You are just a person with a past.

 

[monkeyqueen]

Noticed another narrative inconsitency/bug while replaying Act 1.

MC is talking to Mia about Lacey's college experience AFTER Lacey cucked the MC on her trip with Veronica out of town.

During the conversation, Mia talks about Lacey's early relationships with Stephen, Lorenzo, and Phillip. In that discussion, she claims Lorenzo had a big penis, and it was Phillip with the micro penis, even tho earlier when Lorenzo showed up at the bar, she indicates he was the one with the micro-penis. That was confirmed in Act 3 with the SPH scene involving Lorenzo.

Is it an inconsistency? She addresses that head on and says that she sometimes confuses the names of the men because she mostly remembers their penis, not their names