Mark isn't the kind of guy who want sex without feeling and what is the point to risk all his established relationships for a random girl, especially with Amanda and Eva that take their job of monitoring him (for security reasons) very seriously?
You know, if I am the dude I'd be terrified of losing a testicle or two after doing something like that. Even more so, not knowing what kind of weapon (proper or improper) would they chose to use on me.
With two bombshells like that both available and with a incredibly demanding job to do as CEO of a billion-dollar company, while planning the future of your big family from thousands of miles away, who has the time or inclination to flirt with a stranger?
Enjoy the tropical seaside interlude on the white beaches of Aruba with Amanda and Eva; these unique experiences will never be repeated.
Interesting. I get more of a "get to know the girl first" vibe from the MC than a "Always willing to lend a third leg if asked and interested" vibe from him. But as you say, we all project to some extent. That's why most of us play.
It's exactly the same thing that happens with books. You absorb films passively, but you actively experience books. It's the same here. And that's why sometimes we don't like certain beautiful stories. Because we read them by putting ourselves into them. So it can happen that we start reading a story at the wrong time. Perhaps at that moment in our lives, with the mood we are in at that time, that story does not fit with us. But it is not the story's fault, it is because of how we feel at that particular time in our lives. Obviously, I am talking about stories that are worth reading.
Yup, despite reading the same story, all our MCs are going to be "different" due to our projection on them. But that can also help Trope to be creative when reading our opinions - he gets to see how we interpret the MC from our perspective instead of his. And sometimes that may lead him to be more creative, or more risky, or to add in things he may not have considered before. It's all good.
I agree with all of you. Every MC is different because we only see some of his choices (enough to shape our vision of him), sentences, and thoughts (sometimes influenced by the choices we took for him).
Add to it that our own motivations and what is more important to us weigh those choices in a different way for every player, and you have 100,000 different MCs for 100,000 different players.
For some players, he is a reckless guy who fucks (and maybe impregnates) everything that moves. And every MC of those players will be different among them.
For other players, he is a caring guy who only has sex with the people he loves (even if he fucks and impregnates everything that moves).
For yet other players, he is picky and only makes love to a small group of women among the ones he cares for (maybe only one per playthrough) because he finds them more attractive than others.
And so on.
All those players would be right. And all of them would be wrong if their MC were transplanted to another player's playthrough.
That's why all players have thought, "That guy is an idiot" at some points in the game. Because he doesn't react how they would think their "customized" MC would react.
For some of them, it was during Jack's beating ("My MC would have crushed that guy's skull"). For others, it was during Emma's maid scene ("My MC would have fucked her brains out"). And yet for others, it was during Kiara's denial phase ("My MC would have caught all the hints without Betty's help").
We can recall a lot of moments where the MC didn't behave as "our mental image" of the MC would have behaved (yes, even "my" MC wouldn't behave like the MC sometimes). Or we would be surprised by how (and mostly why) other MCs behave.
The latest example, I think, is Debbie's
pregnancy. Some players would impregnate her without giving a second thought to it. Others would hesitate, thinking, "What does Trop mean when he says in the walkthrough, 'It won't affect her swimming career too much'?". Others won't impregnate her because they don't like pregnancies, or because the MC is so ugly that they don't want his genetic pool to continue in existence, or because they don't use the walkthrough and think it would end the girl's career, or... 100,000 different motivations. There are even players who didn't get the option because they rejected Debbie, because their MC doesn't like her.
As a writer, it's great to see those differences in how players see the characters that we (yes, 'we', you and me) have built. That means that the (main) characters are not flat or unidimensional. They can be idiots sometimes (I would bet at least 30% of the players are hating Kate right now because of her behaviour after the no-date). Sometimes, they don't behave like we (the players) would behave or as we think the characters should behave. But if something like 'Would the MC fuck a random girl at a bar in Aruba?' arises, that means they feel alive.
