HTML - Completed - My Time with Her [v1.25] [Demetos]

My Time With Her – Version 1.25 (Final)

This novel - yes, it’s truly a novel, with only a few visual appetizers at the start of each chapter - is one of the best stories I’ve ever read in the femdom genre.
The storytelling and narrative structure are remarkable. Even though the English is sometimes rough - you can clearly tell the author isn’t a native speaker - and the overuse of ellipses occasionally disrupts the reading flow, the narrative still feels imaginative, coherent, and emotionally alive. Demetos did an outstanding job here.

The D/s relationship between Ina and Ani - their emotional rollercoaster - completely pulled me in.
Of course, the story is idealized and romanticized - but hey, that’s what fiction is for, right? Some scenes and "routines" may repeat a little too often, but they never feel out of place or boring.

At the beginning, you can choose between two paths: one in which Ina is ultimately overcome by her inner demon, and another, much longer path that offers three endings - all of them more or less "good".
Those, however, are the only real decisions you can make. Unfortunately, Ina’s darker route is neither properly developed nor finished (about two-thirds of the story were never adapted for it). I truly wish that storyline had been completed.
I love the kind of psychological tension - that mindfuck - that builds when sadistic women get to fully carry out their dark designs, as seen in other hardcore femdom VNs (like Moving Down).
Demetos clearly has a huge reservoir of ideas and knows how to express them in a way that unsettles you just enough - while still keeping you hooked.

What I especially liked were the first 29 chapters, where both perspectives - Ani’s and Ina’s - are presented side by side in two columns.
Contrary to some comments or the only other existing review than mine, I found this dual-perspective format fascinating because it allows you to read the characters’ thoughts and inner conflict. Sadly, this insight into their minds fades toward the later chapters - a pity.
OK - I get the critique that it could have been presented a bit better, but I personally found it creative and a refreshing approach.

Overall, I truly felt I could sense the emotional experiences the author himself must have gone through in his own life - and he channels those emotions beautifully into this story.

Of course, I would have loved to see a fully realized visual novel - with meaningful choices, visuals, music, and sound effects - but that’s not what we got.
However - oh boy - if you can look past that, you’ll find yourself knee-deep in a truly engaging and emotional story that you won’t be able to stop reading until the end.

Read it - do it!
You’ll be rewarded with a good 20–30 hours of pure head cinema.

(Disclaimer, I didn't finish this as it felt like it was just going to keep escalating the aspect I didn't like. Maybe it hits some turning point later in that will put egg on my face here, but it didn't feel like it was coming. I'm mostly here just to give an overview of the game's content for prospective players and offer some critique for the dev, even though I'm not the target audiance.)

To prehaps too crudely simplify it: This is a game that tries to spin a romantic weave of twin-souls exploring the depths of their sexual relationship. However, if you wipe away the veneer of flowery language and inner-thoughts for the actual content to be consumed, it's really just a highly abusive relationship with the the mean sort of 'you exist to please me' permanent denial type of dominance. The male never gets to cum, the woman holds all the power, etc. Just because there's drama about her regrets and we get a vision into the male's thoughts where he's written to be a perfect doormat who loves the pain, doesn't make it any less obviously one-sided abusive content.

Butttt, even though that is not my cup of tea, I'm gonna try to be as fair as I can here and not too deeply let that influence my score because it's probally someone's flavor and they'll love it for that. I will say however, I do find it clashing with the highly romantic tone and presentation, which generally implies a more mutual and gentle femdom relationship where you're genuinely interested in reading both character's perspectives as they build trust and complete something the other is missing. A true two-way street. Without that, it sort of makes the whole romance focus of this game, and it's twin POVs, feel inappropriate.

Which largely brings us to the core presentation of it and the game's primary 'gimmick': the simultaneous POVs. I think overall... it's a failed experiment. It's a really interesting idea, but expecting the user to read each page twice, and the lines not even matching up from left to right so you could even skim back and forth, just doesn't really work in practice and adds very little for how much extra effort it must be on the dev side. The female's POV is also often nearly double the length of the male one, so it's clear she's the primary story anyway. The male's POV feels like it exists for little else than to be an occasional permission granter for her abuse. It's also just way too much walls of text. I'm firmly of the belief that text games should always break things up to fit into a single screen, two competing columns telling the same story just makes that harder.

I think a better system would be a more traditional single omniscient third person POV where you can write in whoever's thoughts you want to showcase at the moment. Less reading for the user, less writing for the dev, and far more ability to focus on important content where you need it rather than 50% of the story being ignorable duplicate text.

I will say however, if you are into this cruel fdom sort of stuff, the story is pretty much a constant feed of content and it's well described with great prose; the writer does very much knows how to write the erotic scenes themselves and there are plenty. Even though I'm not a fan of the painting as a whole, I can still see the skill of the brushstrokes at play here. It's enough to elevate it to a 3 as I try to be as objective as I can, even though my personal preferences would put it lower. I'd be curious to see their next project(s) and if it may align with my tastes better.