I really wish there was an option to prevent them from getting together in the first place and instead just have them have a platonic friendship instead if you’re romancing Nan and don’t want to go poly with them both (like making our relationship official prior to them meeting or being able to ask Teurix to back off when he tries flirting with Nan when they first meet (it really doesn’t make sense for us not to react when we’re romancing her) or have it so Nan actually talks to you about it before getting with Teurix if your relationship stat is high enough with her, etc.)
EDIT: Of course if you do add the option to prevent their relationship prematurely Author it’d be great if it would also prevent Nan from blushing at his flirting (or making her visibly uncomfortable at it to prevent future flirting attempts or stopping him from flirting with her in the first place), getting touchy with him and moving in with him (I don’t actually remember the latter but I’ve seen ppl talking abt it) and instead having Nan move into the protagonist’s house instead.
I’m going to make some tweaks to the Nan/Aanan thing and push an update to Jason and Abby later today. (Probably this will just be something blatant, like a scene where Nan asks if you’d ever be open to the idea of a thruple, and it’s a simple yes/no flag that permits or forbids it.)
In my head it made sense since I always had it planned for those characters, but I can definitely see how it feels like an abrupt volte-face for players, who apparently are not capable of seeing the inside of my head and sort of are somehow surprised by things that make sense there but nowhere else?!
I think I must have placed the “Nan will choose you” thing way too late, for sure. I was surprised to see one comment where the player said she “left” him and their relationship was at 88%. So I wonder if it’s what @AletheiaKnights says, and people are interpreting “immediate chemistry” as “headfirst into cheating.”
I do not, I admit, understand how normal people approach relationships. At all. In real life or in games! So some of that is playing out in real time here.
(I have to say I think the “I spent the whole game wooing RO and [she] is stolen by another guy” take on this is kinda gross, though. Especially because all the complaints I have seen about it do seem to have Nan as female. Also I wonder if these folks realize Teurix is transmasc and what they think about that. :awesome_face: Or if I made that fact way too obscure, too!)
Thank you for this insight, and for the summary you edited in above!
I have no idea how we’re supposed to know a stranger is trans or not, so I never realized Teurix was supposed to be. I only thought Myrinna was a transwoman because of the statement about her choosing her gender…
I always keep Nan a woman cause I don’t bother with changing the genders. It’s not like I’m having my character only romance people I’d be attracted to or I’d miss out on the other female ROs. I wasn’t even aware I could romance her without Teurix, and I can tell the little romance option is just a little afterthought thing anyway. It doesn’t matter to the game.
It is pretty subtle! But maybe something that transmasc folks might pick up on? I hope?
From chapter 4:
These people wear clothes unlike anything you’ve ever seen—all strips of fabric tied in knots and heavily dyed. Most of them are bare-chested, although a few wear loose-fitting shirts, and one has a tightly bound, knotted wrap around their chest.
…
At the front of the group stands the person with the chest wrap. This person looks around your age, and takes a few extra steps forward, dragging one twisted leg along, before leaning on a thick wooden cane. This person’s expression is guarded—firm but pleasant—and from that and the way the others stand slightly further back, you wonder if this is their leader.
“People of the haunted tor, I bid you welcome. I am Teurix, son of Andros.” He bows, leaning on the cane, and then continues speaking. “We hail from the Moracen Isles, which lie on the western edges of the Crescent Sea.”
The chest binding, followed by “son of” is supposed to come across as a subtle transmasc nudge. But uh… maybe too subtle. lol
Filing it under “things that are clear in my head but nowhere else,” as expected.
That makes sense! I feel like some people maybe do only go for ROs they’re attracted to, but maybe that’s my misunderstanding.
I sent off an update to Jason and Abby just now which has Nan explicitly ask if you’d be okay with a poly relationship and changes some of the way she/they/he acts around Teurix if not. Hopefully that will be live on the game soon and will make for a less upsetting play experience for folks who aren’t interested in poly relationships and feel hurt by the unintentional feeling of being dumped!
I see what you mean with the chest wrap but a character wearing chest wraps could be interpreted by readers as it just being a method of protection against the sun in a hot and humid environment (EDIT: Or alternatively could be interpreted as for covering wounds which is quite possible what with Teurix’s damaged leg), particularly when they’re from a non-modern civilisation rather than them being chest bindings (especially when you use wrap instead of binding.)
A Tale of Heroes is a WIP here in which a character you can romance early on will end up leaving you for another character. A lot of players were disappointed by this, and the game became something of a byword on the CSG subreddits. The subreddits have all the charm of a toxic swamp with no outlets continually fed by raw sewage (I used to be super active there, but when I almost reported a comment as offensive before I realized at the last second it had been posted by one of the moderators, I had the sense to cut my losses), but I haven’t been able to break the habit of lurking occasionally, so I can tell you they’ve been over there since yesterday speculating about your obvious cuckold fetish, because you couldn’t possibly have failed to learn from the lesson of ATOH otherwise. (For the record, as a person heavily involved in this community but not, as a rule, paying much attention to user-made WIPs, I would have barely heard of it myself if it hadn’t been for Reddit. And many CoG authors don’t participate in the community at all and would have had essentially no way of knowing this controversy existed, but the subreddits are a solipsistic nightmare.)
I won’t say I definitely knew, but I had certainly picked up on those hints and wondered. I sometimes like to see that kind of subtlety - it feels like a genuinely diverse world where people are who they are but it’s neither the core of their character nor necessarily any of your business.
I will definitely own that the poly route was not well flagged, and am genuinely sorry if people were upset by apparently being tossed aside for another NPC!
But for anyone who is taking this as a “ugh I got cuckolded by another dude” thing, well… I won’t lose sleep over projections of a person’s own insecurities and (IMO) gross sense of ownership over women (or other people) onto a game that did not intend that at all.
And hey. Maybe this speculation will drive people to buy the game and find out for themselves. I’m fine with hate-purchases.
Yeah, this makes a lot of sense! I will ponder if I want to make it more obvious, but (on balance) I’m not sure it really matters if players know Teurix is trans or not.
Personally that wasn’t my issue with the whole Nan-Teurix thing, it’s that it was completely unavoidable regardless of your relationship with Nan and made it kinda feel like Nan was just leading the protagonist on and faking their interactions and reactions just so we’d help them free their people and then decided to drop our relationship as soon as someone who could do the same, had more solid motivation to help (similar situations what with both of their people being foreign to the more entrenched citizenry) and more actively flirted came along.
It’s not really necessary for players to know IMO but I’d say a good few would appreciate knowing.
It wouldn’t upset me at all, really, but I’d be happy they’ve made a connection with someone else they care about. So… see previous comment about me not really grokking how most people approach relationships. lol
I’m not saying it’s okay to actually cheat on people you’re in a romantic relationship with, and anyone who is interested in a poly relationship [which I am personally not equipped to handle or interested in trying, to be clear!] should be approaching their current partner way before even thinking about it. But even with the most “build your relationship with nan” approach, you are way not in a committed relationship at the point in the story when Teurix first shows up–which seems to be what people are mad about.
I can definitely see how you would arrive this interpretation! Hopefully, the changes I’ve made will nip that in the bud.
The limp is a congenital disability that predates the shipwreck but clearly that is obvious only in my head.
I haven’t played so I can’t really say how well or not any hints came across or how the context is portrayed, but just going by other comments. Since you said you’re inexperienced with romance, I think my advice is to be up front if a romance isn’t really traditional. Yeah Nan is their own person, but at the end of the day, people play IFs to escape, and romance is a big draw for the IF crowd out there. I do play some other romance apps and see people complain when this love interest turns out to be a dark romance for example when they were previously more normal, so people can get pretty vocal about it (which can be justified or not in cases).
I’m not going to speak whether this MC got ‘cucked’ or not, but from what I understand, it seems everyone thought they were pursuing a RO like normal and suddenly this guy comes out of nowhere to swoop her or him away. Or at least, that’s how it came across. You already said you’ll make it more obvious, and I admire when people do less traditional or unique takes on a romance route, but probably the more upfront the better.
Like I spoke about this in the subreddit, but take L from Apartment 502. They’re somebody who portray themselves as a player often hooking up and sleeping with a variety of people. Players can only pursue them on a physical relationship. And they’re not going to stop right away even after hooking up with the MC, but obviously players should know what to expect at that point. People would get mad though to learn they hook up with other people when you’re already halfway through their route however, if they were no hints to that point, even though I agree it happens in real life.
I know romance isn’t a big focus here, so I get why could have thought this and then was surprised.
Thanks! The revision should make it a lot more upfront (the player now has to explicitly say they’re okay with a poly relationship for the stuff that triggers this stuff to show up, otherwise it’s Teurix and Nan just bond over their similar “outsider” experiences).
I hope that helps but am certainly open to other changes if it still feels like it’s out of the blue for most players.
I mean, I’ve been married for nearly 20 years! So I dunno if I’m inexperienced as such.
But the things most people—especially most cis-het folks—consider “romantic” usually seem overly possessive, harmful, mean-spirited, or just plain weird to me.
Oh yeah I meant no offense. I was going by your inexperienced in game comment really.
I won’t lie though that some comments are definitely… not the most sound. And sorry you have to see people assuming you have some sort of fetish as a result of all this.
It feels a bit weird to explain this (and i don’t think it has anything to do with sexual orientation because it works across those boundaries just fine) but a regular person frequently approaches relationship as a source of self-validation – they see a person they’re attracted to/admire, and they want this person they think highly of to appreciate them. So if then that person turns them down and gives this kind of attention to someone else, this is effectively a sign what you represent/have to offer, doesn’t have enough value, at least not enough relatively to what someone else had.
This is a rather naturally hurtful experience, and so i can’t say i buy entirely you’d be completely unaffected and not at all upset if it happened to you personally* In my experience only very self-assured people are really immune to experience of no appreciation from people they look up to (but these frequently come with narcist inclinations, and the lack of attention/appreciation bites them all the same, just from different angle)
*) you may be able to focus on “oh i’m happy for them” instead, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the only emotion you really experience in response. Being happy for someone else and being hurt over not being appreciated are far from mutually exclusive.
Honestly I think that part is hilarious, and that it says a whole lot more about their insecurities than it does about me. But thank you!
This is definitely relatable, and yeah–it’s complicated, like you say!
I guess I don’t see “expressing interest in someone else” or “expressing appreciation for someone else’s attractiveness” as taking anything away from me personally. That is, it doesn’t (to me) usually come across as instead of but in addition to. As noted though, my brain works in strange and atypical ways!
I don’t care about the cheating/cuckholding we’re not in a relationship. But Nan still looks like a terrible person. If she doesn’t want to date me that’s fine. If she in a relationship that’s fine. But her knowing that I have romantic interest in her while she was dating someone else and not saying anything is messed up. Because it feels like she’s just stringing you along.
Is there any sort of overtly romantic behavior the PC can engage in with Nan before she meets Teurix? I don’t recall any - no physical contact, no discussion of our feelings for each other. It’s entirely plausible to me that Nan has no idea anything she’s done could be seen as leading you on. She’s been abused all her life, she hasn’t been socialized into Gigantean culture, there are probably all kinds of nuances she’s missing.
People mention having two dates with Nan before the third party shows up and instantly steals the spotlight, so i imagine there is enough of romantic behavior from MC for a person who is not otome protagonist level dense to know what is happening..?
Or at least enough of behavior which can be (mis)constructed as two dates.
But flirtation is explicit expression of romantic interest (especially when it’s in context of IF with all simplification of interactions which that entails) so this argument does nothing to do away with a notion that Nan is aware MC has such interest in them. Which was the complaint in this tangent:
But her knowing that I have romantic interest in her while she was dating someone else and not saying anything is messed up. Because it feels like she’s just stringing you along.
Let’s not act like people don’t recognize flirting for what it is, and that you need explicit talks of exclusivity, commitment, or getting all handsy before they get a clue a person is romantically interested? Because it’s rather absurd line of defense.
(For the record, as a person heavily involved in this community but not, as a rule, paying much attention to user-made WIPs, I would have barely heard of it myself if it hadn’t been for Reddit. And many CoG authors don’t participate in the community at all and would have had essentially no way of knowing this controversy existed, but the subreddits are a solipsistic nightmare.)
