DDADDS Spoilers but I’ve been seeing a lot of people say they don’t remember any lines about Joseph explicitly saying he was with Mary when he slept with Robert. Hell, I’ve seen people say they don’t think they slept together at all. Unfortunately though, yes Joseph did in fact cheat on Mary with Robert.
Screenshots admitting to having sex with Robert and being with Mary at the time, the full scene’s transcript below them:
Transcript - SC means it’s a screenshot above.
MC: Is everything okay between you [and Robert?] He seemed… angry.
Joseph: It’s… hm. How do I put this…?
[SC]Joseph: Did Robert ever proposition you for… erm, escapades?
MC: Actually, he did.
Joseph: And did you take him up on that?
MC: No.
[SC]Joseph: Ah, well.
[SC]Joseph: That is where we differ.
MC: WHAAAAAT?!
[SC]Joseph: I know, I know. Father of four. Family man. Married for Christsakes. I should never have even… but I was in a bad place, and with Mary constantly out I…
[SC] [Joseph settles himself before continuing. This definitively gets under his skin.]
You can’t really get more blatant than that. There’s no hiding the fact that Joseph cheated on Mary, he plainly admits it. You can’t say he’s just saying that cause he doesn’t seem the type when he plainly mentions Mary “being out.” I’m wondering if these lines only pop up if you’ve done Robert’s route previously/have him up to two hearts? But I doubt it, it seems pretty route-specific and unavoidable. Now, another issue I’ve seen is “Why does Robert act weird around Joseph??”
More screenshots, another short transcript below:
[SC]Joseph: I made a hast decision. One which Robert does not exactly… ah… he has a weird thing about casual… um…
MC: But he asked you.
[SC]Joseph: You’d have to ask Robert about the weird Robert politics of… that. He’s been weird about it ever since.
If you’ve slept with Robert at the start and went through his auto-locked bad end, you already know he does indeed “have a weird thing about casual… [sex].” It stems from it being a self-destructive habit, and also just not wanting to end up growing intimate with his casual partners. This is what he’s referring to mostly, something we can gleam if we’ve already done his route.
Joseph mentions afterwards though (no screenshots, sorry) that “it ended the day it began” in reference to the affair. Implying he dropped Robert quickly. Okay - so Robert and him slept together, Robert started brushing him off as he does with casual partners and Joseph went back to Mary. Except two issues, and here’s where it delves off into more theorizing:
Mary and the photo of Robert in a sweater. The MC heavily implies it’s Joseph’s sweater as… who the hell else has a sweater that matters to this route? I have a feeling Joseph is lying about it “ending the day it began” and instead treated Robert like he treats MC in his good end - he was a side affair. (For those who don’t know, people fished out his good end from the files, and it’s essentially him going back to Mary but saying you can be a side affair.) He theoretically gave the same spiel to Robert about breaking up with Mary, and then ended up going back to her. It’s unknown but doubtful that Robert knew Joseph had gotten back with Mary.
Then there’s his friendship with Mary. Even if he didn’t know that Joseph had gotten back with Mary, it’s still difficult to imagine him and her became pals after that. Except no where does it state that Mary knows Joseph and Robert even slept together. If there is, point me to it as I may have missed it. More than likely though, Robert sees Mary come into the bar once he’s broken up with Joseph, becomes pals with her and listens to her troubles. That gives a proper reason to his dislike of Joseph, while secretly there’s the add on of him previously being lied to by Joseph.
This part is all heavily speculation, and maybe in the future we’ll get more concrete backstory, but for now this is all that makes sense. And also, hopefully if this gets passed around, I can stop seeing confused folks asking if Joseph and Robert slept together because even if you don’t care for my theory, he canonly admits he cheated with Robert.