A bit uncomfortable with Cosmina & Reed *Spoilers*
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 3:33 am
I just want to start off with that I loved the game overall. Most of the routes were satisfying and even if Lynn's ending didn't work for me at first, it kinda grew on me a bit as I replayed. Polyamorous relationships (or whatever Lynn's light+ ending counts as) aren't usually my thing, but I can understand how that might be something someone who is into those kinda relationships would appreciate seeing in a game. The relationship I had a bit of trouble with was Cosmina and Reed and not for the polyamory. Once the game starts to imply that they are siblings, I couldn't help but think of them as siblings even after it was cleared up that they weren't. You spend so much of the game time, all of childhood and some of adult, thinking that they're siblings, maybe even twins. Add in the fact they look so similar and it made a lot of their romance kind of uncomfortable for me. Consciously I know they're distantly related enough that it could be considered ok, but in the back of my mind is this cloud of "this is incest" shading their many sexualized moments.
And what makes this even worse is that I want to like this route. I like Cosmina and Reed as characters. When its just Amber and Cosmina or Amber and Reed, I like those moments and actually like how those relationships develop. I like the arc of their route. I actually think I could even like the polyamorous endings if it didn't have that incest-y vibe for me.
I don't even really know what could make this better, maybe if they didn't look sooo similar or if there never was a suspicion of them being siblings(or atleast getting that reveal out of the way earlier on). I'm not expecting anything in game to change, I might be the only one bugged by this and I know this is a finished product and it's probably too late to change something big like this. I just wanted to throw it out there that this was probably the first time in any of these games that I felt legitimately uncomfortable with a relationship and I'm kinda hoping this kind of faux-incest thing doesn't become a reoccurring trope in future games.
And what makes this even worse is that I want to like this route. I like Cosmina and Reed as characters. When its just Amber and Cosmina or Amber and Reed, I like those moments and actually like how those relationships develop. I like the arc of their route. I actually think I could even like the polyamorous endings if it didn't have that incest-y vibe for me.
I don't even really know what could make this better, maybe if they didn't look sooo similar or if there never was a suspicion of them being siblings(or atleast getting that reveal out of the way earlier on). I'm not expecting anything in game to change, I might be the only one bugged by this and I know this is a finished product and it's probably too late to change something big like this. I just wanted to throw it out there that this was probably the first time in any of these games that I felt legitimately uncomfortable with a relationship and I'm kinda hoping this kind of faux-incest thing doesn't become a reoccurring trope in future games.