A few thoughts on episode 8
Since the release of the episode yesterday the fandom has been divided about it, with lots of people expressing their unhappiness online. The main criticism revolves around how most characters behave toward Roy, which several perceive as sexual harassment/bullying.
Objectively we can all agree that what happens during the episode would be unacceptable in a real work place scenario. HR would be up in arms and people would be mass reported. When I played I did feel a bit uncomfortable and awkward. Clearly this isn't the best episode so far, most characters act really immaturely. The writing won't be remembered as great, even disregarding this situation, some parts of the dialogue dragged and it wasn't super engaging. (The real strength of the episode is the moment with the crush that imo was pretty good but this is another topic.)
On the other hand I also have to admit that all people involved in the situation are friends more than simply co-workers, and most of the "harassment" starts from Devon who is Roy's best friend, plus Elenda is also a very close old friend and Brune is his ex (if we can call her that). Amanda is the least close to Roy and indeed she's the only one who immediately takes herself out of the equation. Thomas is the only one I'm unsure about, and he sort of orchestrated the whole thing, so it really depends on how close he and Roy are.
Now, about Ysaline, we have choices to not entertain the teasing at the office, and if we are on Amanda, Roy and Jason's route we can (and must if we want the illustration in the first two cases) not spy on him. The real issue in my opinion is that if we want Devon and Thomas' illustrations we must spy on Roy. I can understand how some people would rather make another choice but the game in this two routes forces your hand.
However what I definitely do not agree with is the criticism about this silly otome game having to be an accurate representation of reality, and that the game is normalising the behaviours and relationships it represents. We are all responsible for our own online experience and should be able to distance ourselves from what makes us uncomfortable without demanding things to adhere to what we personally consider acceptable. This is an issue that is recurrent in our fandom, unfortunately. There's really people out there demanding that Beemoov rewrite the episode because in their opinion it's normalising sexual harassment. I don't play My Candy Love to learn how to behave in real life and nobody should. It would be a very weird and dangerous thing to do. We even had to agree to a disclaimer before starting the game exactly on this topic.
TLDR: It's fair to feel uncomfortable and find the writing cringy and immature (or amazing and funny, to each their own) it's a personal opinion that anyone should respect. However, saying that the game is a representation of real life and should provide people with good examples on how to behave is not true and is a dangerous outlook on fiction.
