Ok, while we're at it, i think I've found another, like, interesting parallel and shit.
So, I apologize in advance for the long comment it's my autism but I don't get to choose the Hyperfixation.
Anyway, here's another couple points:
1) The family being Irish-Italian (Something that is then paralleled by both the Mormon-Jewish family in Ophelia's futa game, but Also Amber's being Japanese-British) and how that is, like, apparently a big plot point from at least the Italian Side is still getting me but moving on from there, a couple pointers:
For one thing, the naming conventions.
Hunter is named Hunter despite being apparently a first generation Sicilian immigrant (Or at least I think that's what's implied? His ties to the mafia and other shady shit would make sense since his family might have emigrated from Italy during Operation Gladio or Paperclip, but at the same time his comments about Raegan getting shot might imply a second generation immigrant son of Anarchist expatriates from Fascist Italy (Sacco and Vanetti to give people an idea)). The naming here is quite obvious, he's literally the Hunter, and the women in the house are the Hunted.
Ophelia is not an Italian Name mind you, tho it was found for the first time in a Jacopo Sannazaro's poem as Ofelia, Shakespear having been and read lots of shit in Italy before writing the Hamlet, and it literally means "Help," which makes sense with her role as nurturer but also someone in need of help.
Brenna is an Irish Name, which means "descendant of the sad one," which was probably David's idea being Irish.
Catherine is actually one of the best possible naming conventions here, since it doesn't just mean Pure, but she's also named after a renowned Catholic Saint, which is in line with her characterization. Saint Caterina da Siena was fervently catholic, and had vowed to renounce all pleasures of the flesh at the age of 7, which leads to her becoming Mega-Vegan and a Nun, was victim of mystic visions of Jesus and other Saints, and died as a warrior-nun (Yeah apparently she was also that) defending Rome from the invaders which, again, extremely in line with Catherine in game.
Sterling means "of great quality," which is probably just based on the idea that he's probably the best possible choice here.
Aliza means joyful and it's another Italian sounding name that isn't really Italian.
Drew has been pointed out by multiple people that is both a male and female name but means something like "strong warrior man," and I have to actually give a small criticism here since the name Andrea would have worked the same. Andrea in Italy is a Male Name, but it's considered a female one abroad, and is in turn the Italian version of Andrew, which is the nickname Catherine gives her (I assume by merging Aunt and Drew, Aunt Drew, Andrew).
Another great name? Lucia. Lucia is an obvious Italian Name, but she's from the Irish part of the family (her being blonde would have also given it away), working thus as a foreshadowing to her mother naming her after her father (either Drew or Hunter) origin instead, perhaps subconsciously. Lucia obviously means Bringer of Light, which works for her role in the story as the MC's secret keeper, helping him "bring light" to the strange events of their lives so to speak. Lucia is also a renowned Italian Literary Character, a demure bride to be in The Betrothed, but I assume this is unintended. It could be an ironic parallel tho mind you, since Lucia is the epitome of virginity and Christian purity, while our Lucia is kinda also that at first due to awkwardness, but then ends up becoming an extremely horny being.
2) So, the pregnancies. They can be read on MULTIPLE layers.
First one, is an obvious one. As an Irish-Italian Catholic family, they would be more likely to keep the babies to term rather than abort of course. This explains why most bad endings and the cult endings have the women keep the babies, despite that would greatly impact their and most importantly their impregnator lives (As the Cult AU implies, with the line from Lucia's mom about having to baby proof the house now).
Second one, it's obviously a power play by Hunter. The women getting pregnant isn't just a fetish, is the ultimate mark of his "ownership" of them, forcing them to carry to term a parasite by him, while still treating them as sex slaves. It's a symbol, it's him filling the "power vacuum" and becoming their new Padre Padrone (Owner Father, or Pater Familias in Roman terms) to use Italian terminology. He becomes the "man of the house," to whom every other member lives depends (financially and sexually now), and who has right of life and death on them. It's in line with his extremely dated, extremely retrograde view of sexuality and women, and it's in line with an Italian man of his age unfortunately.
Which in turns explains why Sterling is so aghast at the possibility of getting any of the women pregnant. He recognises and realizes, outside of the obvious incest issues, how getting them pregnant would only ruin their lives and in turn his. It's more mouths to feed, it's people talking behind their backs, it's women having to suffer 9 months of pregnancy and then years of child bearing, some of them being right on the cusp of entering the work force. He values the female characters as people with their own identity and lives and dreams, outside of the base need to fuck them.
Other big parallel of course it's, as mentioned, how the Hunter and Sterling see the female characters. Hunter fucks them to make them his, while Sterling fucks them to become theirs, so to speak. He is trying to make them flourish in a dangerous world, he's helping them specifically because he values them as people before than sex partners.
Drew also seems to follow this pattern, of wanting to emotionally connect with the girls before doing any sort of sexual connection, maliciously or not we'll need to see later.
Hunter on the other hand is all physical. His personality is terrible, and his cum tastes like raw, warm shit, because he doesn't care about those women well being outside of them being sex dolls for him, broken and trained. The cum taste is therefore a BIG symbolical thing, one character deciding to improve himself to improve a sexual act that would bring only him pleasure for the woman, the other letting himself go because he doesn't care, he has a monster cock and knows how to eat pussy so who cares how he treats them or how he looks.
Self Improvement is actually a pretty big theme in the game, between the MC being trained, or Kevin's depression hindering him from getting slimmer while Aliza, also depressed, managing to overcome it via the help of a support group in her family, a support group Kevin doesn't have leading to him becoming a sex criminal, which is in turn not used to justify his crime, only to explain how can shit like this lead to his life.
Like, this I feel will become the biggest part of the final confrontation. Hunter menacing Sterling, telling him once he grows old he'll become just like him, or just like his father, fighting or terrified of one of his sons one day overpowering him and becoming the new power in the house, the new Pater Familias, only for Sterling to end the cycle of abuse and telling how, no, he's not like him, because those aren't just conquests to fuck to him they are his family, his friends, and so will be his children one day, and he'll become the father neither Hunter nor David ever were, so to speak.
Hunter's role in the story is then quite needed unfortunately. Hunter works in a very specific role, which is not as an adversary, but as a facilitator. Without Hunter, all the consent issues, the drugs, the mind games, they would be the MC's fault. He'd be actively pursuing these women via underhanded means, which would make him a two timing scumbag at best, a monster at worst.
By putting the blame of the eventual harem on Hunter, the MC's is now as much of a victim as the women are, making him far more sympathetic. As a reactive protagonist, rather than a proactive one, he is far more palatable and far less of an asshole for us.
Of course arguably you can do the same thing if the one pulling the strings were a member of the harem obviously. Seen it in plenty of stories going that way, and it's usually even more palatable since an hot woman in a porn game/hentai can be forgiven way more easily than a male character (Think Mallory fucking with Penny).
3) I think it's safe to assume the game we're playing is actually the game pitch Lucia gave her game dev friend on the net. The first chapters are "normal" and "boring" so to speak because they are based on second hand knowledge from Lucia, who can't envision those people having anything too weird before she shows up, then all chapters after she appears become a wild insane romp because they are based on her exaggerated first-hand accounts, so to speak.
4) Also I know I just said Hunter thinks of these characters as sex toys to be broken and shit, but I'd also argue that dude does seemingly care about Catherine specifically in a grandfatherly capacity at times, specifically ONLY when he decides to renovate her room on a whim and with no underhanded means, and during her Birthday when he SPECIFICALLY doesn't start shit with anyone so not to ruin it. Remember, Lucia is on "hunter watching" mode, but she never reports Hunter doing anything while in the good ending, while in the bad ending is Lucia the one propositioning Hunter to begin with to expose him, which leads to him fucking her in one of the last places anyone but Sterling would go to.
Keep in mind she tackled one of his eyes out when that was happening.
5) My idea for the ending: Big confrontation with Sterling and Lucia leading the charge, Hunter tries to defend himself, and he seems to be believed by the family even if they are closer to Sterling and Ophelia doesn't need his financial support anymore, because all proof Sterling had is not so substantial, and the meds in the safe are gone.
But then, Drew comes forward and she's the one to expose him instead, revealing she's Lucia's "sperm donor," and revealing his abusive upbringing, which leads to him calling her an ingrate and saying something quite fucked up, souring everyone's spirits, and leading to this very specific set of events:
The air vents activate, lowering everyone's inhibitions, which usually would lead to sex but at the same time there are a lot of impulses people's self control control, way more violent ones.
Aliza and Ophelia instantly get in the middle to protect their sister, since it's canon how Ophelia doesn't like when her father talks shit about Drew, and Aliza seems like the kind of person who would die for her sisters.
This leads to Hunter seemingly backtracking, which leads to Drew to goad him on further when she mentions how he never cared about Aliza before she got in shape and was quite abusive to her, as Ophelia herself mentioned, which leads to Hunter to commit the biggest blunder of his life by mentioning how it doesn't matter now because she's hot.
Catherine has 5 long panels of her doing the "deep thinking" meme while an argument envelops in the background, before she suddenly narrows her eyes as her brain finally caught up to her fists and she realizes that her grandfather had been an asshole to her favourite aunt, and is being an asshole to her second favourite aunt right now, for most of their lives, and she straight up punches him in the nogging.
This dislodges his gold tooth, which leads to Brenna to see it and also connect the dots and go, with the newfound knowledge by Drew that he has been spiking the food with hallucinogenics and shit, "wait- Holy shit you're the guy who tries to rape while pretending to be Sterling!"
This revelation is what tips Ophelia over the edge in turn, because how dare he try something like that to one of her daughters, and we do that one scene from Community where Hunter is being chewed out by Ophelia for being an awful father to her or her sisters while he claims he's having an heart attack and she doesn't believe it until he does actually collapse.
An ambulance is called, meanwhile I'm assuming the air vents are also exposed, we have a celebratory family orgy I guess this is still a sex game after all, I guess we can have a bad ending where Drew doesn't come forward and Hunter is the one having the orgy while the MC, like, falls off the stairs or some shit and I guess Jesus is also there.
Post sex, Sterling and Drew have an heart to heart conversation. This can lead, like, to a skippable sex scene I guess, a man can only hope, be as it may she mentions how she's not doing this for him or even the others she's doing it for herself, and how in the end she's still her father's daughter, even if it was nice playing house with a family who loved her for who she was for a while. She claims she's gona leave him and his "turf" alone, how she has the whole world to explore instead, and they leave on amicable if still guarded terms. She then goes to Lucia and go "sorry for never being there kiddo" and Lucia goes "Eh, don't really care, then again I would have liked if there was someone trying to stop my mother from forcing me into shock therapy to "make me normal," but it turned out fine in the end... cousin fucking and extreme autism notwithstanding."
Then, as the three look at the night sky and ponder the adventures to come, we move to a scene outside, the ambulance has crashed against a tree, the driver dead, the back doors open as Hunter flees in the night, the heart attack actually a ploy to escape authorities and his family. He is in the dark woods, in an hospital gown, vowing revenge, no matter how long it'll take, against Sterling and the others, he vows to ruin them with the videos he made of them (Not knowing, in his deep web, that Kevin had been tasked by Drew beforehand to find them in the cloud and take them down, erased as it is his laptop, as a "gesture of goodwill" from both of them toward Ophelia specifically, both for Kevin being Kevin and Drew fucking David), or to use his contacts to make them disappear, to torture them in way worse than he promised Erik with a Big D...
Only for a white butterfly to fly nearby, resting on his now naked, exposed cockhead, taking one taste of his disgusting precum and wilding out, all around him...
As he slaps his hands to strike it, failing to hit the butterfly, but emitting a loud clapping noise in the deep of the woods...
As a large dark bear raises from her slumber from the shrubbery behind Hunter, her younglings slumbering behind, as she perceives the loud threat in her family, the snack she could feed them with, a growl predating the slaughter to come.
The Hunter becoming the Prey, as the game ends.
