Wow! I got a reply from
the Avaron! I've probably read hundreds of your comments on various threads. I consider you something like a celebrity around here. I hope I don't come across too starstruck in my reply.
Well, I hear you on a lot of that. Just like most others, as I'm reading these recent updates, I often think how I wouldn't like to treat Lym that way or wish that the MC could handle certain situations differently. This sort of feeling isn't too unusual for me when reading AVNs, but it feels more frustrating in Oppai Odyssey than in many other cases. I've tended to believe the greater irritation I feel is due to how much I like the rest of the plot and character interactions, so having to read the MC's bumbling mistreatment of Lym I find myself fuming at the squandered romantic potential. In other stories that I don't like as much, I might just close and delete the game. Though I imagine I have an easier time identifying with male characters than most women, I'm rarely able to successfully self-insert, because frankly not many AVN MC's are written congruently enough to me and how I conduct myself (aside from effortlessly amassing a harem of beauties hopelessly in love with my footlong and my unmatched prowess, of course... that part is always spot on
). Since I seldom feel personal emotions about MC's and their flaws, even with "lesser" games, I have no difficulty playing devil's advocate regarding the important characters' and sometimes the writers' decisions that I disagree with. In trying to give Cryo the benefit of the doubt, I have remembered silly rom-coms where I find myself facepalming the clueless, flawed protagonist couple whose problems could be resolved by a little self-awareness and proper communication. Some of those films and shows are able to redeem themselves parlaying the audience's frustration into a big payoff of relief and gratification when the characters mature and grow.
Trying to figure out which cases this type of conflict & resolution works and in which it fails hard is a job for smarter critics than me, but I do think you're right about it feeling unnatural, inorganic, or maybe "untempered" would be the word I would use. In many AVNs, I think writers give readers too much worrywart internal monologue, and here I think Cryo could give the audience a few more clues about the Captain's motivations and apprehensions about his choices. I think MC's concerns over how much to bring Lym up to speed on the conspiracy and why so little haven't been made adequately clear to a lot of readers, nor has his state of mind. If we had it better spelled out why Cap thinks Lym is too dedicated to the USF to be able to accept a corrupt conspiracy in its ranks, and why that means that he can't tell her anything, and why it is he has to be cold to her instead of just sneaky about excluding her from some of his plans, then I think that would help settle our anguish. If we had more indication that he feels bad about stonewalling her, or if we read how much he misses the support of his longtime friend due to his own decision to keep her in the dark, then I think most of us might feel a little better after lampshading how shitty Cap's being to Lym.
My prediction is that at some point, it's going to be Lym swooping in to save the day when Cap and Nyx's plans fail, proving what a dunce Cap was for not relying on her in the first place. It could be after this recent failure, or maybe Cryo wants to rub a little more salt in our wounds first, handing Lym some more emotional abuse and Cap another smackdown before sending them on to victory. I've no clue what Cryo intends to do, but the feeling I get is he's not an idiot nor intends to flush the story down the loo in order to troll his fans over our love of Lym. There is some vocal Lym-bashing on the Discord, but I think it's mostly intended to be humorous trolling of the Lym fans on there.
