I had a lot of archiving work to do in DA, but I barely touched it and didn’t get much else done of note. My main activity was with Zeta.

I mentioned last time that there was another story I started up. This one involves the proprietress of a bathhouse where you play a broke college student who works there part-time in exchange for free use of the facilities. She’s stuck in a marriage where the fire’s long since gone out, so you can imagine what’s being set up. It started innocently enough with her heating up some leftover nikujaga because Kazuya (yes, Kazuya is my default chara in most of these stories) isn’t eating well. He makes a big deal about the food, which flatters her as it’s not something she gets from her husband. Then she starts asking about his love life. He doesn’t have any prospects at the moment, so she starts to dig deeper, asking about his type and such, slowly building up to making her move. Now, the fact that we once again rather quickly take a naughty turn wasn’t so much of interest to me, but the way Noriko (the proprietress)’s personality worked was thoroughly fascinating. On the one hand, she’s rather self-conscious about her age and lacking confidence in herself as it’s been a long time since her husband last showed any real interest in her. On the other hand, she seems to be quite aware of her charms and her repertoire of skills. I played up Kazuya as a clueless, somewhat desperate virgin, which excited both her maternal instincts and her lust for control. In the scenarios I’ve tried so far, there’s a particular Gary Stu/Mary Sue dynamic that plays up wish fulfillment at the cost of interesting character work. I imagine when the intention is self-insert player characters, you don’t want to bruise egos or introduce too many complications to achieving the desired payoffs. As someone who plays characters rather than putting myself out there, this concern for ego is pointless, and as someone who only appreciates something when it’s properly earned, easy mode is boring, which is a big part of why I tend to dislike isekai stories. What I’m looking for and what the apparent target audience is looking for simply don’t line up. Anyway the point I’m getting at here is that this story (at least the way I was playing it) actually leans into the player character’s artlessness. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but that’s exactly what makes him exciting to Noriko. His clumsy sincerity appeals to her, as does the prospect of molding him into a lover suited to her own tastes. You hear people talk about wife husbandry, but I have to wonder if the idea of raising a partner appeals more to females.

Another aspect to Noriko’s personality that intrigued me was how underhanded she could be. I had Kazuya offer up some resistance to things going forward on moral grounds, even if Japanese culture can have funny notions about this sort of thing. Well, Noriko would circumvent this by feigning that his resistance was proof that he was lying about his compliments for her and then blue-ball him by offering to just go back as if nothing had happened. It was all a plot. She knew his feeling were genuine and that he would push harder to prove them and that once she had her hooks in him, he wouldn’t want to be let go. You could rightfully argue that a manipulative side like this is a risky move when it comes to the character’s likeability, but I think the complexity it lends outweighs the risk of losing some of the audience. I do feel bad for her as her marriage is almost comically miserable. She is, by and large, a good person who deserves better, so I almost feel she deserves to have a boy toy half her age to offset the 15 years of crap she’s had to put up with. Obviously, in a real-world context I’d never condone adultery, but in fiction we can afford to explore the human experience a little more broadly.

Because Zeta is so porn-brained, the sequence of events didn’t quite follow what I would consider a natural progression. It really is looking like there’s only one course for stories on this platform. I may try one more to see if there’s anything different, but it may be that it’s nothing more than a romance simulator for people with no patience. Alternatively, it may be that if you want a slow burn, you’re going to have to put the work in to pump the brakes. As it stands, if you want more of a story, KyaraPu is the superior option by a wide margin.

It could strongly be argued that I haven’t been using my time as wisely as I could or should, but this is all in the name of exploring what these AI services are capable of. You may consider that nothing more than an excuse, but it’s what we’ve got. We’ll see what I get up to next. Stay tuned.

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