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Stories that left you disappointed for a reason
- Thread starter Sant
- Start date
Oof, with the likes of Rotting Ink (Rot of Witchwood, Our Last Liaisons, The Mad Heir) and Locria (To Crown a King, etc), I'm afraid we've actually arrived to this very point. In OLL one of the ROs is the MC's biological sibling, and the incest asks are slowly but surely becoming more widespread (at least on Tumblr, and mainly for Itch IFs, but who knows how long this sickness will be contained?)
I know! The author for this one in specific can't really take any criticism, even if it's for the good of their story. Also, not them showing favoritism for a specific RO in this IF and their other one too.
I don't really like talking about the writers because, as a writer myself, I know how things can be difficult sometimes, but god, this one can't really be contradicted. To tell the truth I don't even know why I still follow them, I'm always mad when I read their asks! lol It's a shame really, because I really like their other IF and the way they write, but yeah.
When people bring the cheating debate to their ask box and say they don't approve, they always seem mad and say people are disrespectful. Apparently you don't understand the complexity of R if you don't find their cheating hot and profound and whatever. Cheating shows you how deep this character can be because at the end of the day you're still R's one and only and they still love you madly (so madly they're not even gonna approve if you chose you want your MC to have a job, because god forbid us from wanting our MC to be a functional independent adult), so what if they cheat on you, it's just s*x anyway!I remember when I first read this IF, I just stumbled across it while looking for something new. I started reading, thought it was kinda interesting, and then went to the author’s tumblr to learn more about the story, the ROs, etc. Then I found out about R’s whole deal and I just couldn’t believe they were a romance option. Like, it doesn’t make any sense to me to date an RO who cheats on you and will probably do it again. I figured people in the asks would agree with me, but apparently not. Most of them were actually hyping R up like “the angst between them and the MC is sooo good, their complexity is amazing!” Complexity? What complexity? Being trash? Why do ROs have to be assholes to the MC to be considered complex?
Oh, and after the cheating you're gonna be able to have hot angry s*x with R because why not. Cheating is not bad enough... 
Also all the asks they get about R and M and the stupid future s*x scene between MC and the two of them are so annoying and apparently R is into having s*x with M even if you aren't, because R is a h*rny idiot who can't keep it in their pants and MC is not enough for them
(and yeah of course they've been asked about poly with those two lol) I can't really understand the appeal of R as a RO anyway, you can't even have a nice MC, in the first chapter their relashionship bar only goes up if you're rude and do sh*tty stuff or if you worship them and the stuff they do!(Also, I just saw it, hi fellow portuguese
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The guy is rude but not wrong
That guy went ballistic
. Man must have really been p*ssed off. I've played this IF just once and did one of the RO routes in which said RO literally smashes some rando while you are actively on their route and it just turned me off from the whole thing. The game apparently has a specific set of options you have to pick to get a good and perfect ending according to author and I remember people complaining about this too. The difference between myself and the guy in that post is that if I don't fancy an IF or find that it has so many flaws I'll just dip out rather than spend my time fuming while typing my criticisms
You are right on the criticism thing. I just mentioned it in the post above but in one of the RO's routes I can't really remember their names now,said RO has a scene where they have s*x with some random joe they save from bandits along with their crew while you are actively on their route and when people asked the author about it,it was just kinda in a sense rudely dismissed. It was such an awkward scene to have to read because it just comes out of nowhere and surprises the reader. I don't think I played it since among some other things I had gripes with as well
It might sound controversial, but I don’t see anything wrong with a RO who isn’t in a relationship with the MC yet being shown as sleeping with others — as long as it’s not with another RO and I don’t have to read the details.
Of course, this should go both ways: the MC should also be free to do the same without being punished or penalized later.
What really bothers me, though, is the way some authors respond to it. All it would take is a bit of understanding, a clear explanation, and politeness in their answers. And a Warning on the page.
Not everyone wants to encounter that type of content.
Sometimes, authors have to see this kind of harsh criticism to wake up a bit from their cozy nap in their echo chamber of mindless readers that would praise anything — even a single f*cking comma — in their writing.
Pfft, as if anyone would wake up (esp at this level of popularity). The usual response would be to retreat even deeper into the echo chamber. Horde of adoring fans makes sure there's no need to listen to criticism, you just need to barely set foot outside Patreon.
I think War of Heirs (rip) had a route where you could romance your first cousin as a male MC. You could still play it in the Dashington archive here, but I doubt the writer is ever coming back.
Bastard of Camelot, with the Dragon bestie being an RO for some reason. Still don't get why people requested that, or why Llamagirl fulfilled said requests. The game is already stuck in the childhood stage as it is, and we haven't even met all the LIs yet to have a rewrite adding another.
You know what? Going to be controversial, but in a game with drug abuse, emotional abuse, codependency, cheating, emotional manipulation and with the author patting themselves on the back for how 'messy' everything is and how, 'no, MC won't get better, there is no becoming nice and stable for MC, haha that's not my IF
and wow, yeah, every RO is toxic' I am not surprised she got an ask about escalating the toxicity. First of all, her content is literally so full of red flags it looks like a communist parade, and, second of all, it's an IF where it actually wouldn't be out of place (like MC hitting R and realising that this is a breaking point and they can't be together with R without turning into a monster. Cue break up. Literally, can't save your love from dying etc etc. Or give them a therapy arc. Or a trainwreck bad-end arc where codependency and abuse escalate, slap a billion trigger warnings on it, add psychological horror to the tags. It wouldn't even be unrealistic because emotional abuse and co-dependency often do escalate into physical abuse). I have seen the ask where she got asked about it (I hateread her, sue me), and most of all I am surprised that she worded it as if a lack of physical abuse in her IF is some high moral ground (considering that MC and every RO minus one is some kind of drug\alcohol addict, it's really not). Basically: if you are writing an unhinged red flag game, let MC be a red flag and a villain too. Horror and thriller are popular for a reason. Alas, so far from what I have seen, the can't save your love from dying MC is mentally 13 and all their 'messiness ' comes from them having zero critical thinking abilities....speaking of which. I just got reminded of my biggest pet peeve: IF authors who write MC as 'not smart\bright' and pride themselves on it. At least let me choose if MC has two braincells or twenty!
Well as they say, characters can only be as smart as the person writing them
That kinda kills the whole point of an IF. Like, if no matter what I pick the MC’s still just some messed-up addict surrounded by even worse, toxic ROs, then what’s even the point? If you wanna write a problematic MC, cool, but if choices don’t actually change anything about them, might as well just make it a bookthe author patting themselves on the back for how 'messy' everything is and how, 'no, MC won't get better, there is no becoming nice and stable for MC, haha that's not my IF
I can name countless IFs that really should’ve just been a book instead, but the authors refuse and end up making an “IF” where the MC has whatever personality they want to shove onto them. And that’s when they’re not straight up taking the spotlight away from the MC to hand it over to their favorite character
Like, just make it a book already and stop giving me useless choices that don’t change anything.
Okay so war of heirs is disappointing because with the way some of y'all talked about it i thought the wip already had the incest route but no it barely even got out of the metaphorical womb of IFs (A prologue and 1 Chapter)
Anyways IF authors like to dip into that mature themes nowadays but honestly I think most of em either hold back on the gas pedal because of purity culture or they only like the superficial themes like it's an aesthetic so we end up having mature IFs that's better off as shoddy erotica
I don't even know why it was even requested in the first place. All I wanted was to have a dragon companion with varying personalities depending on what you choose and said dragon being your only constant anchor in the presence of a pretty dim childhood but nope some readers on Tumblr:"Can this whole a** dragon be an RO?
I would like to know the thought process behind this but knowing and seeing a handful of if's and the outlandish asks on Tumblr I just consider it the norm at this point.