Hello! I was a big fan of the series a while a go and it is lovely to see that you are back. I'm terribly sorry that other anons put you through a lot with the voting aspect of the game. Absolutely no one deserves death threats for a story that they are bringing to us for free. However, I am not going to lie, I always feel a bit worried when a fandom majority vote is what has long lasting effects on character life/death. It was ok when it was everyone voting with an equal effect. Now there will be a wealth gap to vote. Only people that pay can contribute. And at least where I'm from wealth looks a certain kind of way.
Since you have characters that are in a minority it feels... Bad. Maybe I'm projecting how racist and transphobic my home country is on the vote for this game. I also don't want you to feel like this is an attack on you because that is not my intent at all! I love the diversity in the love interests and it was what brought me to the game initially. I am worried that if you do a majority vote on Patreon that characters that aren't white/cis will face a harsher vote. Trans lives are in danger and I was not surprised when a nonbinary character died first. I was part of the fandom and people treated them very grossly (it actually made me step away for a bit as well). There were many options but the vocally out and proud person got the boot first. What I'm saying is I trust you more than your Patreon supporters. If the people can't all vote as one, due to the actions of some terrible people, then maybe we shouldn't vote at all
anon, i totally understand your concerns because i absolutely shared them. to be completely honest with you, i had totally misjudged which characters i thought were popular or not and watching the three non binary cast members struggle through that first vote felt Bad. my personal disappointment about ellis being the character to receive the least votes in the vote contributed in no small part to the twist in chapter 3 and their revised arc (which was Not planned when i set out writing body count hahaha). howeverrrrrr, i did learn a lot from the process.
my main motivator behind making the vote patreon exclusive was that the voters would be genuinely invested in the game and that the polling would be much harder to game or manipulate. selfishly, i also think it will reduce a certain amount of the absolute barrage of wild anons from the first time around haha!
in addition to that, though, i think its important that i reaffirm what i have said from the start: i am acutely aware that in interactive fiction in general and particularly on tumblr there is a strong preference for white male characters, and i am not here to write some kind of gross POC/women/nb slasher. as much as i want the audience to have a say in the direction the story takes, i ultimately have final say on what happens in the story that i am writing.
the main way that i intend to have oversight of the voting process is by who appears on the polls in the first place; the first poll was the last time the whole cast will be available for a vote at the same time. since ellis, one of three NB cast members, was the first character to die, i've said that neither of the other NB cast members will appear on future polls. if it's women and POC suffering in the next vote, then i'll be applying similar logic. if that means we get towards the end and we need a white boy only poll then so be it!
that said, if people cannot behave then i will simply take away their toys. although i consider the voting mechanic to be one of the things that makes body count unique and fun, i'm absolutely not above doing away with it if there are Shenanigans that spoil it, ya know?
anyway, i hope that assuages some of your concerns! sorry for another giant wall of text wow i simply cannot answer a question concisely atm
