Yeah im pretty sure (100%) I remember a scene where Ella is fucking her mom and its very apparent this was not a one time thing so for the dev to say Ella belongs solely to the MC is factually incorrect.
So in reality its a list of 2 girls just for the MC. Selina and Cherry. Jus sayin...
Yeah, Ella is a weird element for me as well. She isn't completely dead to me, and neither is her family (gotta catch-em-all! right?), but she is definitely either
a) too naive to realize that she is routinely betraying the MC and is being lead around by her mother like a dog on a leash (as far as we can tell up to this point),
b) is too "kindhearted" to spurn her mother and wants to help fix her wounded emotions in any way that she can (even though her mother's situation appears to be entirely her own fault; again, as far as we know currently),
c) she just doesn't care that she's cheating on the MC/even wants to "bring him into the fold" as it were, or
d) she's also under some magical influence from somewhere.
Also, just a thought, but I'm calling it now that somehow Jason is either
a) in control of himself and is capitalizing on everything going on around him, or
b) is not only in control of himself, but has some amount of fledgling control over the situations around him as well somehow (although this power is brushing up against the power of both Livela and Cherry). Or maybe even
c) instead of Jason being a secret "big bad", the stripper is! The possibilities are several, and they are interesting (although some more than others).
Admittedly, this is all just conjecture and opinion, but as I said before I'm definitely interested to see where it all goes (and yes, I'm still hoping for that true/real harem ending)!