Let me preface my answer. Contrary to the impression one could get when reading the last page, this is
not about Kathleen forcing Edwin into any mother-son action. That would be just another vessel carrying the true content, namely hurting Victoria or both. Replace the above with any other degrading stuff like forcing his mother to eat dog shit or a good old, legalporno-style gangbang and confront Edwin with either the footage or even the live action.
It's about getting into Edwins head (and heart), either for revenge and punishment or to test his loyalty towards his new mistress.
I believe the revenge and punishment path is, given Kathleens predisposition, nearly self-explanatory and leads to two possible outcomes: either it breaks Edwin (bad ending,
TD1900 stated they try to include some) or it sets the stage for the final showdown, because this would provide him a really strong motivation to fight her. Naturally this would be rather end game content.
If Kathleen can confront Edwin with recent, painful evidence about his mother and he feels ... nothing or even gets excited about her degradation (and not the act she was forced to commit) Kat knows for sure that she has won over Edwins soul. He is from now on her loyal disciple and will follow her path to his true destiny. Probably also rather end game content.
There is also a third possibility which is worth exploring in another post: Kathleen stays hidden, but gets Victoria into doing porn again, this time revealing some aspects of her which were already hinted at in this thread, but are unknown to Edwin. This could lead him to reevaluate his relationship to his mother, his values and ideals. Since he doesn't know Kathleen is behind that smut this time, he can't focus solely on her and the stage stays open for all actors.
It's also not necessarily end-game content, it could happen rather soon.
I'd love to elaborate on this in future.
Let's adress this part:
I have outlined a strategy of which i believe would avoid that Kathleen starts to target Victoria for her shenanigans: try to keep a professional and friendly distance from her, just don't raise her interest in Edwin too much. However, if you throw yourself into the spider's web you have to brace yourself to meet the spider's poisoned fangs. There are different paths you can take ingame and i believe Kathleens is one of them.
Consider this: Mina has no affiliation with the club.
Let's say my favourite is Mina, because Rosie is a fat and used victim, Felicia is a gold-digging trophy wife-slut and Veronica a haughty bi-lesbian on steroids. Hana is a skanky, tatooed wanabee rebell with a whore mother and a pimp father, not really wifey material either. My playthrough therefore is to romance Mina, get through the four weeks of competition and leave the club after that for good.
Happy end of story.
May be a boring, but totally viable alternative playthrough. And has all the issues you mentioned above.
I'd like to dissent on this point also.
My current canon playthrough revolves about dismantling the reign of the old owners eventually. I am actively playing to get the above mentioned (potential) punishment and revenge scenario, which would provide myEdwin with a credible motivation to fight against Kathleen, because he has then a
very personal reason to do so and not just because she is a generic bad person. I view the carnations, Hana (plus perhaps her father?) and probably Ian as potential allies to achieve this goal. My game and the competition so far consists of assembling the heroes party needed to face the endbosses, so to speak. All of them are needed, and to form a strong bond between us we need to care for each other. MyEdwin wouldn't throw those relations out of the window, when it's finally time to face his nemesis, on the contrary: he will need to rely on his friends and allies in those crucial situations. He simply can't win alone.
The whole Kathleen-Victoria scenario essentially boils down to this question:
Is Victorias porn-past just a
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or a
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?
As you may by now already have guessed, i believe the latter.
Victorias past, her model and the way she can steer the story into different directions are just too juicy not to utilize fully.
And as always i can be absolutely wrong with my reasoning.
