[...] Anyway. Don't mind me rambling. Have a beautiful Sunday.
Those were very thoughtful ramblings, thank you for sharing them
And once LoF was mentioned, it was a great example of your point that we generally just don't have the emotional range and vocabulary to deal with dark topics like suicide, drug use, or life-threatening illnesses with the complexity which they deserve.
When I did my first playthrough, I definitely had a range of different emotions about Cece's arc. Irritation, distrust, skepticism, misunderstanding. Like, while looking with a smirk: “Yeah, sure, this dev guy knows how to draw attention to his characters. This Damsel in Distress was simply waiting for our Prince Charming to arrive before drawing herself into the abyss of the black waters. How the hell did he even manage to catch her on the fly, is he an acrobat or what? What a cheap trick! Well, at least she's hot, me and my MC will have a lot of fun saving her from her theatrical misery."
Later, as the story progressed, it became even more annoying: “What is she talking about? What's wrong with her? Where do these constant mood swings, vague attempts to explain her state of mind come from? This is simply not right, the author is not playing by the rules. The lass was going to end her life, I get it. For... whatever the reason, there just had to be a rationale for this... Unhappy love, loss of someone important, unbearable grief, drug overdose, anything that we've seen in thousands of dramas. But now everything is fine, Prince Charming is here, he saved you, we live happily ever after, and that means a lot of fun and hot steamy sex scenes."
And at the end of the story, after a fun and joyful summer spent at Lexie's house, reuinon at their old school, when everything seemed to be working out and getting better, suddenly bam! We are at the same point where it all began. And the final nail in the head is the author’s remark that Cece’s character has a real prototype.
This came as a shock to me and made me retrospect my view of the game and the characters. I replayed Cece's path, paying more attention to her words and facial expressions rather than her... um... assets. Damn, I was embarrassed that I thought the author was just trying to get attention with the Cece drama when he was telling the real story of how complex and dangerous some types of mental illness can be.
As someone who has never had to deal with such things (and I hope I will never have to), I got my ideas about what it is from mainstream media, primarily movies. And they tend to simplify it, usually in the mainstream, suicide always has a rational reason, it may seem stupid or far-fetched, but at least there is some logic, the desire to end one’s life does not arise out of nowhere. And although such characters often experienced a kind of ptsd after a failed suicide attempt, they easily recovered with the help of counseling groups, friends and loved ones.
But Drifty showed well that not everything is so simple. That sometimes a person cannot even explain with the words what is wrong. But even though “it” cannot be seen, heard, touched or even explained, for an ill person “it” is very real. And "it" can become so intense that a young, cheerful, witty, attractive and full of life girl would prefer to end her life rather than experience constant torment, the essence of which she can hardly even explain to anybody. It’s even more surprising that the author managed to wrap such a complex and serious topic in an essentially entertaining AVN format.
