(again sorry for the long posts. i just love this game and after a while of not playing i just got every single ending for the second test for heather. here are my thoughts. this is more of a way to vent because this game is my new hyperfixation. sorry for the oncoming weirdness)
I’ve been playing the second test for heather and got all possible endings. The best one really fleshes her out a lot and makes Sebastian a bit more empathetic but I still feel the worst ending is more adequate for heather while at the same time makes Sebastian look really bad. It’s strange how Sebastian is characterized in this test, he’s almost two different people on the best and good to the bad ending.
I think the thing that is bothering me is how the reader knows heather is faking compliance while at the same time being livid against Sebastian. But how much compliance is too much compliance? I think there’s no equilibrium between rejecting Sebastian and the good girl act for the sake of not being punished. Not only that, in some dialogue it’s implied that act might become a new facet of her life which is nice but from scene to scene it feels like it’s basically a bimbofication process instead of corrective therapy for a criminal. Not only because it happens super fast from the readers perspective but because Sebastian IS trying to rehabilitate heather while simultaneously playing with her body in a way that feels predatory and abusive. The two ideas don’t really complement each other so that leaves me thinking Sebastian is not helping her but making her a sex toy in mind and body just because he can.
Which sure fine, it’s a fetish game. But the narrative takes itself so seriously It feels like heather would put up more of a subversive fight canonically. Instead her personality does a 180 and suddenly she’s enjoying it
then again maybe she just really is moving towards this because she’s a human being who was put in a sensory deprivation chamber with time dialation, infinite food, and is forced to routinely watch her brother be molested and herself partake in weird tests.
so is it Stockholm syndrome? maybe its more complex than that. it’s clear he wants to help heather but it feels so scummy that he also pushes his fetish onto her as an ulterior motive. When the ulterior motive of “muh fetish” gets in the way of actually helping someone who is a product of their environment and maybe mentally ill (sociopathy, although not a real scientific term anymore still describes an affliction) then Im willing to say he’s evil.
Like dude. Have you played Lisa the painful and joyful?
Wonderful games
Let me tell you something heather is a direct reflection of buddy and Brad armstrong
Specially buddy
From the abuse of her condition of woman to the horrible place to grow up, to the terrible parental figures. buddy does horrible things througout lisa the joyful all in the name of pride and spite but its a self discovering journey where she has to decide either if she succumbs to her ways of become a better person. heather doesnt get that chance neither she gets what she deserves( actual punishment for her crimes). instead she gets half baked measures that was put in place by another predator in her life. once again she has no control of fate.
thank you for coming to my ted talk. if i had to make a suggestion to the dev (dont listen to me. i love this game!) is that there are some karmic response from the world to the trio, either drama or something comes back to bite their ass and makes them feel bad.