Normalise it while they’re young, so they fight it less when they grow up

“I want you to succeed! By selling your body! But only to one specific person, of course, otherwise that would be a bad thing.”

Something along those lines?

B²G3 romances seem shallow and kind of transactional because it is a mix of characters who don’t know each other having a whirlwind romance in a relatively short period of time.

Add the sense of “we don’t know how much longer we have” and the general dramatisation of High Fantasy and you have one hell of an intense honeymoon phase.

After that, the game doesn’t really cover how your relationship plays out, aside from that short party epilogue. Sure, your shared experience may make for a strong start, but the arguments, the differences, the difficulties adjusting to one another while also grappling with the trauma of what you went through and the challenge of finding your place in this new world… there’s a lot left open that just doesn’t fit in this game’s frame.

It would also accommodate some Aces I know that just find the concept unappealing at best and repulsive at worst. Having to click through scenes you don’t wanna see to get to the good stuff is just annoying, and the impression that your relationship is only “complete” once you do the deed obviously also isn’t great.

Conversely, decoupling sex from romance could help destigmatise it, particularly in monoamorous games. You don’t need to be fully committed to someone to do the special thing with them (though obviously cheating when you are committed is a bad thing). People who do it more casually aren’t being irreverent about something sacred. There needs to be consent, there needs to be trust, maybe make the player “earn it” in some way, but normalise the notion that it’s a thing people can do.

Either way: make it an option, not an obligation.

Open source wasn’t ever perfect, but whatever cracks in there were are being blown a mile wide by these goddamn slop factories.

This is the perpetual issue, not just with AI: Any system will have flaws and weaknesses, but often, they can generally be papered over with some good will and patience…

Until selfish, immoral assholes come and ruin it for everyone.

From teenagers using the playground to smoke and bury their cigs in the sand, so now parents with small children can’t use it any more, over companies exploiting legal loopholes to AI slop drowning volunteers in obnoxious bullshit: Most individual people might be decent, but a single turd is all it takes to ruin the punch bowl.

I feel like we ought to expand that traditional quote about the last fish being caught, the last tree being cut and all: When the last emotion is commodified, you will realise that you can’t buy happiness.