This is a little long and rambling, but I felt the urge to write this out so I’m going to ask you to bear with me.
I’m glad that we got to see Gretel truly healing. It’s all fine and good to see her able to enjoy herself, but it’s another thing entirely to have her confront serious issues head on and not flip out because they are hard. Even better when the issue is not only denying her help, but lashing out in ways that actively makes her “condition” worse. Sebastian almost certainly doesn’t deserve her, but he’s stuck with her now. Luckily, she’s starting to mature enough to help him cope (with the day-to-day pain, at least). It’s also lucky for him that he let Gretel in, because if he didn’t then L would have called him out in what would have been a much less productive conversation.
Speaking of L, she really feels like a child that is witnessing her parents on the edge of a divorce. It’s stunning how Sebastian and Gretel had a massive shouting match right in front of L and assumed that she wouldn’t notice. Her mental block was specifically about not understanding talk about Gretel being the Apostle of Wrath, not that the people closest to her are having a massive shouting match across the table! Both Sebastian and Gretel seem to dismiss her out of hand and think that she just needs to be given some jingling keys and she’ll be out of their hair. I don’t even think that they realize how casually they dismiss her, considering the fact that they are surprised whenever she shows any level of foresight/perceptiveness.
You would think that L figuring out that Gretel/Willow is the Apostle of Wrath multiple times would make Sebastian give her some credit, but he just put a memory block and moved on. This is probably due in part to the fact that L insists on acting like a manic pixie dream girl, but even then he should care a little more. She might choose to act extremely immature, but she is incredibly capable and I don’t think anyone really knows exactly how capable she is. Probably not even herself!
poipoipoi1987 said that the villagers seem to be wrapping up their arcs and becoming samey, and I think that there’s some truth to that. However, I think that has a few narrative purposes. One, it helps to give a welcome contrast to the darker aspects of the story. Two, it is important to show the Apostles achieving the good that they claim to do so they are truly morally gray and not just power tripping hypocrites. Third, it allows the town to take on a new role: supporting the Apostles in their time of need.
The biggest example of my third point being Fresha and Dana. While most of the time was spent on getting them to interact with the rest of the town, they were also able to give back to her as well. When she coddled Ed and Al, they told her flat out that they are good for nothings that only do the bare minimum to get a little money before tearing off on another scheme. They admitted to stealing and she still wanted to bake them cookies! That teaches them bad lessons! Equally important is when, with Sam’s help, they again called her out for allowing Sebastian to treat her like that. They were right on the money with her acting like a battered wife (more evidence for L being the child!). When she needed strength the people she helped were there for her, and that emotional support fueled her character growth. Plus, Gretel kept saying more than she should have in front of her friends, reinforcing Sebastian calling her out for being unable to keep her true Apostleship secret.
The biggest bombshells of the update came from Claire and the Saviors. The parody Apostles being unable to be interrogated shows a level of scary foresight on the part of whoever made them. Envy’s lantern brings up a lot of interesting implications, from being a way to force knowledge from someone, to being able to then push those things onto others. Finding out that doing so counts as an attack to Jean-Luc’s armor brings it’s own implications. Does aging count as an attack, and therefore is the source of Jean-Luc’s immortality? Would forcibly removing it count? Does harmful knowledge count? It certainly gives food for thought.
Those things absolutely pale in comparison to Alex being concerned about Claire’s overuse of Envy’s symbol, and Claire’s dismissal of Alex’s concerns. That opens up the possibility of overexposure transforming the user into the new Apostle. While it might seem to be a stretch based on this alone, there is another, less ambiguous case. Willow never could get rid of her Sin until very recently. It only began when she found a period of stability during the Muffin Update, and felt confident enough to use the symbol of Gluttony on herself to help Steph. This not only furthers my point about the new dynamic between Auburnwoods and the Apostles, it is also when Willow began to replace her Sin. She is becoming the Apostle of Gluttony, and the Gretel she wants to be, because she is replacing the symbol she uses. Claire is in danger of becoming the very thing that she is fighting.
Now, I have a few brief things to say about the fine citizens of Auburnwoods. Fresha and Dana desperately needed to be fleshed out more, and I’m very happy with the way you delivered. Bel/Anya, Heifer/Mistress, and Maya/Jacob are all fantastic pairings that I want to see more of. Sophia and Victoria are so incredibly bad at hiding how deeply excited they are to be with each other that I don’t know why they even bother attempting to hide it, but they are so cute together that I’ll allow it. Plus, it highlights how truly alone that L is.
While she cares so deeply for the people around her, she doesn’t get the same care back. While Gretel and Sebastian might have very few people to confide in, they at the very least have each other, and L’s love when they need it. If Sebastian is alone, then it’s by choice. Neither of them extend the same love and care towards L. She is excluded from the truly important decisions, and she hates it. She clearly expresses both her love for the other Apostles, and her frustrations at them hiding things from her. I’m willing to bet that she doesn’t care about what the secrets are, she just wants to be included to have someone. Her parents(?) don’t recognize her. She’s slowly losing touch with her girlfriend, the female submissive feedee from when we were given four options for sexy time a while back.
The double fake outs showed something else important about this update. Namely, that you recognized that you had been using the same formula the past few updates and that we couldn’t just leave Sebastian to suffer at the end again, even though he was more like Sebastard this update. The Asma sequence was a nice way to showcase the different Apostle powers, and how easy it is to abuse them. The ruthlessly pragmatic way that Claire takes down her targets and even risks mind wiping victims sets her as a more active Sebastian. After that, it made me happy to see both that L is once again far more observant than people give her credit for, but that we finally got to see Sebastian open up more and have some tension release for the poor sod. We even got a great title card out of it.
Okay, I’ve spent far too long talking about things that aren’t fat fetish content on the forum for a fat fetish game, so I’d like to finally turn to the sauce. First off, I just adore Jacob and Maya’s relationship dynamic. Jacob might not be the biggest fan of his fat, but the pampering is a different story. God, he’s living the fucking dream and knows it. Yet despite his wife turning him into a lazy fatty that she does everything she can to pleasure, he still finds a way to take a semi-active role by locking Maya’s head in his fat. Something about that just gets me going.
Mistress gentle doming her Heifer is also such a wonderful dynamic. The light teasing combined with the intimate feeding is just mmmmph! Plus, the passion conveyed by cj’s sprites in just incredible. The belly rubs and the titty sucking are phenomenal. Oh my god I need more of them. Contrasting them nicely is the town’s biggest and least redeemable bitch, Dina! Both her slob and her “clean” sprites are superb. I love a good mess, but I also love showing off her stretchmarks and body hair. Her gaining more rapidly than anyone the Apostles met before coupled with her demanding attitude almost makes me wish I were there. The reality would be awful, but that’s why we have fetish games!
Next up we have the great ass gainers. Sam’s fat fucking ass hanging out when she is looking through the crate is inspired. Her section is short, but thankfully we have Asma. I’m a sick enough fuck to enjoy her entire section, even the murder parts. Her greed and egomania manages to sell it well enough to make me overlook how disturbing it is. Well, the downright exceptional sprite work of cj put in a lot of work as well. The sheer sizes of her and the rest of Greed’s collection are legendary.
Of course, the crown jewel is the Heather section. The humor was on point, the game play was engaging, and the selection of fetishes was wonderful. Once more, I have to give cj credit, he somehow manages to get better each update, and I suspect black magic. It also just felt fun, which is surprisingly rare. There’s a lot of interesting, hot, and cathartic moments, but not much that just feels fun without strings attached.
I know that this has been more of a disorganized ramble then a proper review, but I just wrote what felt appropriate. It feels a little weird to write about L so much and not about Gretel and Sebastian despite the update largely about them, but I like to focus on things that other people don’t cover as much so there’s some variety. There’s more that I could say, and I might make another post about the update down the line, but for now I’ll leave it with a resounding A+ for making me care enough to write this out.
P.S. If you end up making a character named Father Zepp boring, I’ll have words with you!
from start to end 
