I'm doing my first full playthrough and I gotta say I'm more than a little creeped out by how easily the MC and Laurie arranged themselves with the whole enthrallment thing. Supposedly their relationship was oh so important that he just couldn't cut her out of his life to protect her, but there wasn't much ink wasted explaining how this relationship and Laurie's personality are going to change dramatically. It went pretty quickly from the enthrallment being necessary to protect Laurie, to the MC giving her orders and she calling him Master.
In some places it's very explicit how lucky the MC is supposed to be that he got a vamp teacher that practices self-control and hates the other vampires for giving into their animalistic nature. The game even gives positive feedback for acting morally in Sharon's presence, which according to the walkthrough mod actually has the positive effect of giving relationship points. In other places though things just are what they are without any judgement.
Like hey, let's just order Laurie around and suppress her personality, because that's how thralls are supposed to be treated, even though she's your childhood friend that means so much to you that you risk your own life to protect her from powerful vampires. Or hey, let's just lock a naked woman in a cage, because she's a dirty vampire hunter, even though you established right away that she's just an amateur that never even had a chance to do anything to you.
On one hand this game has so few sex scenes that it can barely be considered porn. But on the other hand it contains some pretty hardcore kinks of the kind that people rather keep to themselves. Like slave play and giving childhood friends orgasms by feeding them your blood.
Hildegardt I am curious if you have any previous experience with Vampire the Masquerade? (this game pulls a fair amount of inspiration from that body of work published by White Wolf, and now owned by another group)
From your post I am guessing you have not read much of this particular forum, but this particular Adult Visual Novel
is not porn. The sex scenes actually are all optional up to this point, except for an implied start of a sex scene with your creator.
As for Laurie, yes I get that it might seem odd to you that the Main Character is adapting to life as a vampire, and that one of those ways is that there was a crime committed by the MC, and Laurie exposed it to Astrid who promptly got the three of them (Sharon, Laurie and the Main Character (MC)) into a shitload of trouble. The only solution was to blood bond Laurie and do the Scottstown cleanup that Marcius ordered.
Sharon is being far more civil than she could be entitled to be to Laurie given the circumstances. This is of course due to her humanity being very high, and she is 2/3 of the way bonded to the MC, who is also 2/3 of the way bonded to her.
In Vampire society Andrew and Laurie have no status whatsoever. Normal humans have less. His childhood friend is too spunky for her own good and shot off her mouth at Astrid, which is how we got where we are. The non-vampires of this story are important to the story, but relationships forming with Laurie, Sharon, Carmen, and Ivy (plus one other, most likely Calisto but possibly Inanna aka the Vision Girl or even Malia/Kassandra) all have different dynamics as you can see if you used the walkthrough. Vampire relationships with humans are generally very one sided, with the vampire being the dom and the human being a submissive. You have that option at several points to make Laurie your sub or just normal loving feelings.
Laurie is integral to the story of course, but she is definitely a thrall at the moment, in no way equal to the MC or Sharon or even Astrid as far as vampires are concerned. To enjoy this game and not get frustrated I would like to offer some advice;
1- It is not a porn novel. Expecting there to be a lot of lewd scenes will only frustrate you. It is possible to get to the end of current content without a single sex scene if you make the correct choices.
2- Vampires in this game are more or less similar to the Vampire the Masquerade vamps. They definitely have complex emotions, but they are driven creatures, and tragic. That said, there is probably going to be a path to some sort of a happy ending for this novel, but I doubt that it will be without loss. It is a vampire tale, and not the porny Japanese type vampires, more like Bram Stoker's vampire. (if possible looking at the wiki for Vampire the Masquerade might help quite a bit)
3- Humans are basically food for the vampires. Some are worthy of becoming trusted servants. Some are destined to become blood dolls (food kept close for those occasions when hunting is inconvenient.) Mostly, humans are just an inconvenience.
If you can adopt those outlooks, I do not think you will be frustrated as you seem to be in your post.
Peace