I don't hate Black Magic, but... *minor spoilers*

Choice of Games games Heroes Rise
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Wow. It feels like the writer really, really wants me to be with her! Or Lucky, to a lesser extent.
My true choice, Jenny, hardly gets anything - though the Jenny ending was pretty satisfying for now, and I understand that she just has a less flirty personality. The fact that my character keeps mentally cheating on her is a bit jarring, though ^^’’
I was saddened by the fact that you can choose to remain neutral with Lucky to be considerate of Black Magic, but you get no such option if you’re with Jenny.

One particular glitch is that Black Magic will seemingly ALWAYS call you at the end of the first game to ask if you’re okay with his/her secret, with no regard to whether or not you’ve actually found out said secret. Make the mistake of saying you don’t hate him/her, and boom! You’re in a relationship! x)

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i ended first game with 1 with black magic no romance, no secret. Well, game say i am his gf now secret and i am really sad for him sure with1 . Game just asume you love BM the only think i avoid is the kiss at begining the rest is basically same text

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You should send in a bug report about that glitch. That does sound like a bug.

I can see why the Jenny path was frustrating. You share a room with her, yet once again you don’t have anything close to a relationship until the end of the game. I actually disliked how the Jenny relationship seemed to be reset at the start of the game, as if it didn’t exist at all. I wish that I’d tested the Jenny relationship out during the beta to give better feedback on it.

I think you are right, that she should be taken into consideration and that seems like something of an oversight that she wasn’t.

At least you found the ending satisfying.

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I already reported it but is not a glich due ALL my no BM romances have same text game asumme you love BM and know his secret and you miss him

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I was frustated that the Jenny option isn’t much different from when you’re friends. And when you compliment her, “she gives you a look that says, ‘Don’t go there’.”

I always go down the BM path, I loved his character from the start. And when I finished The Hero Project, I was actually really upset by the ending, sad as it sounds.

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In my opinion, Black Magic is becoming an extremely interesting enemy; technically speaking, he/she is also an Infini, only he/she has never tapped into enough life force to gain those powers. Whether the writer intended it from the beginning or not, the Black Magic that the game has portrayed so far makes for a rather bad romantic partner while making for an extremely good antagonist.

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@Wyrsmpawn I agree but author never going so far, many fan of BM romance .I don’t like it but recognize that is a tons better than the puppy zero personality of lucky , the only normal romance is Jenny and game act like you aren’t in romance with her at all

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Black Magic is a terrible LI solely for the scene in which he/she creepily caresses that one girls cheek in his/her hidden room. I mean the last he/she could have done was act a bit more professionally about his/her big secret instead of coming of as an unhinged psychopath.

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9

^ Agreed.
I only wish we could have seen Lucky as in depth as Black Magic. I suppose at least Lucky is genuine. Black Magic was too good to be true, and it’s impossible to tell what is real and what is a facade.
I still want to see how it plays out, though.

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I see mothers caressing the cheeks of their children all the time, sometimes even their grown children. I don’t think caressing the girl’s cheek is necessarily creepy, I took it as a sign of caring/affection, as if to say, “Yes, I may be using this child as a human battery, but I truly do care about her well-being, and I still am looking out for her.”

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@P_Tigras in criminology we saw cases of psychos that enjoy take people and jailed, before killed they act as they care for them, even try to help them, until the serial killer decided the victim dont deserve his cares and kill the victim. BM could be something similar and shares many personality similarities:

Extreme Manipulation

Total incapacity of forgive

Lack of Emphatic conexion

in second game BM show all, the explanation with cameras, break after you dont follow his orders, try to manipulate you using the bath scene.

And the kiss camera, is a totally control situation if you kiss him he gets mad because you take a iniciative. If not he takes control.

Take cheek its a caring gesture normaly, but in that contest people maintain jailed is a pure control gesture.

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@MaraJade: What bath scene? I remember the fiery bedroom scene, but there was no bath scene as far as I remember.

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The bath scene’s in the second game. Black Magic sure does like to play with the elements.

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Well Mara I think Magic does have empathy, if s/he didn’t they would be draining their foes of life energy to play god, not draining some catatonic/comatose patients of so little life energy that they aren’t harmed.

Magic does however come across as so shallow, selfish, and manipulative that it doesn’t make sense to me that s/he would stay with the PC after the public humiliation Prodigal puts the PC through.

Sure the PC does hopefully save the city and gets revealed as an infinite, but the PC also has it revealed they only got their award thanks to a supervillainess manipulating things, that said supervillainess has been leading the PC around like a rat in a maze, might be wanted by the police, and gets their real name revealed as well as their parentage by “fallen” superheroes who are in jail for murder. Not to mention how much emotional support the PC ought to need after the first game.

Does anyone think with the way Magic was acting in the sequel that they’d stick by the PC after all that? With the selfish way Magic acts, I’d have to say no, they’d drop the PC like a hot potato.

A significant other who drops their paramour for not following orders in a reality tv show isn’t the SO who will stick by their paramour through scandal and tough times.

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Personally, I don’t think the PC’s relationship with Black Magic after the first game is really about him sticking with you after what Prodigal does to you. To me, it came off more like you were his secret booty call, until such time as he decided having a public relationship with you would benefit him.

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Good point, dolphinzgirl, but considering Prodigal mentions hooking the two up when outing the PC, there must have been rumours.

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I think the main problem with the Black Magic relationship is that supposedly you talked after that fire-alarm booty call in the first game. You were actually meant to connect. Black Magic did inundate you with messages too.

I suppose that then you discover Black Magic’s secret, shattering everything that Black Magic had hoped to create and spinning it all out of control. Black Magic can’t control you, can’t stop you from seeing that dark side of them. I think that was likely the game-changer, which was the reason Black Magic put distance between you. The reason why Black Magic hasn’t really kept in touch.

And when you kiss Black Magic in front of the cameras, exposing the relationship to the public, against Black Magic’s wishes, again they’ve lost control. Whereas when Black Magic kisses you, they’re in control.

I do think Black Magic’s something of a control freak, that it’s important to them. They’re so used to other people controlling their life, or just having no control at all. It’s telling that their only friends are those Black Magic can control completely, keeping locked away in a room. And that Black Magic thinks so much of their own fans, of the adoration from those quarters and what they will think, while not really having any sort of relationship with them other than as a mysterious, unknown superhero. And there’s Diva, of course, who Black Magic slept with, possibly to get onto the team, and well most certainly Diva’s the one in control there.

I don’t really think that you are just a booty call to Black Magic. I think though that Black Magic is just so broken, so incapable of actually having a healthy relationship, and perhaps scared of getting hurt again, becoming too close to anyone. Not to say that the physical isn’t important, but it seems like in the second game that’s the only real way Black Magic has of connecting with you.

I did find the first kiss in both games a strange contrast to each other. In the first game, it’s better if you make the first move and kiss Black Magic, in front of their team mates too, if I recall rightly. (I may not, I don’t have the game downloaded on this computer). In the second it’s bad if you do. Black Magic is terribly contrary.

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@Dolphinzgirl Good point. I completely agree.

@MaraJade First, a lot of people who aren’t sociopaths exhibit some of the symptoms of a sociopath on their bad days. This is why every list of sociopathic traits comes with a disclaimer, otherwise just about everyone could be tarred with that label.

Second, yes, there is reason to be wary of Black Magic’s manipulativeness, and to question the potential conflict of interest.

Third, I can certainly empathize with those who feel the entire situation is creepy. The whole human battery thing rings all sorts of warning bells in my mind.

My original point however is that caressing by itself isn’t what makes the scene creepy, it is what we the audience are reading into the context of that caressing that is the issue.

Once again I’m with @FairyGodfeather on BM. I think she means well, but she’s badly broken inside. On Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, she’s got too many security/belonging/esteem issues to be fully actualized. Her insecurities are thus great enough to sabotage any relationship she enters, once she feels she’s lost control.

Oh, and I don’t think she wants to totally control her lover per say, just her own life, and that includes her love life. Unfortunately her lover’s ability to affect her life also brings up deep-seated insecurities within her. She is as @FairyGodfeather has mentioned, a control freak.

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I have a serious problem with Black Magic in the second game. In the first, he displays some very deep trust issues, but he still tries to be sweet and loving. He’s the one who tries calling your hero before the final fight, and afterwards too. I think this indicates that he’s sincerely interested in them.

But in the second, he’s just a creep. Ultimatums are bad in any relationship, but especially over something as trivial as a vote! If the hero had been cheating with Lucky, and Black Magic said “Break it off with him or we’re through”, that would have made sense. But I feel like if he wasn’t being blackmailed/coerced/drugged/someone took over his body, he would have been more upset (i.e., hurt, disappointed) over your hero voting against him, effectively ending their relationship. Instead he just acts angry, which tells me that he didn’t really see your hero as a true emotional investment, or a real romantic partner. They were just convenient. And maybe really good at sex.

But this is completely opposite from the way he seemed to treat you in the first game. I honestly don’t know what to think about him right now. I hope in the third game it’ll all come together to make sense and you’ll reconcile with him one way or another, but maybe he’s really just a jerk and he doesn’t care about the hero. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

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@yermong From what I remember, I really didn’t like Black Magic’s sudden personality change between games. That said, although BM seems to be the “wrong” love interest in the second game, I still prefer him over Lucky. I think BM is just lost and broken. :frowning: I can’t believe he doesn’t care, because of the connection you seem to have with him in the first game, should you choose to go down that route. I was genuinely upset by the ending of the second game. Cannot wait for the third!