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Diamond Song
395c02
Hi, I got sick for a bit and am still kinda sick but wanted to check in to see what you guys were up t--
o h . . .
I don't feel like responding to all that point by point, but I'll say a bunch of words that are probably related.
I probably said it earlier, but the best I could figure for thread 4's poor numbers (at the time I didn't know 3 also suffered) was that people didn't like it getting too serious. It felt like the people who were in it for the plot left because of the orgy (a scene with its own stresses which is a story for another time) and all that remained were people wanting the Lewds.
With that in mind, thread 5 was intended to be much, much lighter. Ceri's parents were mad at her, but the weight of the scene was greatly reduced to maintain a lighter tone.
The scene with Daatra broke everything. She's not intended to be romanced, and either my warnings were poor or people chose to ignore them. I suddenly had to choose between story and the lighthearted fun I assumed everyone actually wanted.
I think Story won in the end, so DR6 might take things a little more seriously than DR5 tried to. But, I don't intend to invoke Cerebus Syndrome.
And... sorry, but there's no way to explain this without a mild callout. I do not want what happened to Coxwette happening to DR. I don't want paranoia and fear being so strong that Ceri never has sex again. I don't want people arguing over this and that. This is a patreon quest. Sex will always be on the table. Even if I do want to put more focus on the story, there are things that absolutely have to happen because real people pay real money for this quest and the things within. Assuming you remember to be submissive until Ilan returns, it will always be safe for Ceri to have sex with Skif, Gulketi, Siphon, Eezeryh, and eventually a couple newcomers. Everyone else will depend on the situation and who they are. Go after Myra or Sheriim (dad) at your own risk.
The mall adventure was meant to introduce a patreon character, in fact. But the owner pulled out at the last moment. We did get a cameo in the minigame, at least, someone we will see again soon...
Now, back to the heart of the matter.
Yelling at Ceri for Mallventure had 3 possible paths:
The path where I try to placate everyone and have fun (what we saw)
The path where Ceri ignores complainers and mallventures anyway
The path where Ceri agrees with complainers and exits the mall via PORTAL
The first two are easy. one we saw, and one would be what we saw except people are more angry and frustrated and we miss out on some nice Siphon development. It's the third one where actual thought is required. Because it's a quest, I can't say for sure what would have happened, but I will venture this guess:
Ceri portals outside. Likely people would want here to re-enter the mall in Daatra's outfit. Ceri might have still felt guilty about wearing it. She might have turned into something using the last blip of her MP. In whatever form that'd be, she'd go back into the mall, where she'd try to find gulketi. This path would have her see more stores, but overall nothing interesting would happen... unless...
Let's assume people are just as laser-focused on SECRETS in this timeline. Siphon would have likely met her and given her a map in this timeline too (albeit of the mall and not the vent system). Ceri would go there and touch it. That consequence would likely have happened in this timeline too. Since mallventure was canceled, I bet there'd have been a much larger push for her to poke/lick it, since those people who got snuffed would really want to have something happen.
There'd be no minigame, as it was pretty clear we didn't have the time/energy to do the entire mall (as would be required in this timeline). Instead, she'd end up at EYE CREAM. Gulketi would likely be there. Maybe they do a tiny bit together, but I was tired either way so the thread would end very soon after they meet up.
In the scope of this thread, mallventure didn't hurt anything that wasn't already hurt by a plainly wrong decision with Daatra, and a choice I believe would have been made either way. Not to imply portal touch was inevitable, but from what I know of suggester trends, it seems equally likely in this timeline.
In the grand scheme, it did affect some things, since the whole nudity parade happened at the end. But even if that ends up being a negative, it's a negative that will deepen the story and help flesh out the world. Even consequences have their upsides.
And I was not intending to threaten people. Ceri chose to start ignoring dissenting comments because had she not, I'd still be doing thread 5 right now as she'd have taken time out of every single update to argue with herself. If you weren't going "ok fiiine" after Siphon literally made it easy mode, it was only going to hurt the story to try and continue like that.
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