Very rarely do I ever like to make a character "mwahaha evil because I wanna be evil." I feel that's lazy. Avatar has some of the best writing I've ever experienced in a show, and I like to lean into grey morality more often than not. There is a reason Cecilia is the way she is. It's trauma-based because of the way she lived. She is a character that is very clearly in need of professional help. And once I have the main story to the right point, the player will be able to choose to either get her professional help or to not have her in their playthrough anymore.
Druthari, our Dark Elf security officer, is another example. She has trauma-based anxiety/panic attacks with specific triggers. She's a very closed-off person whose walls take time to work through. But once she explains her past history to you, everything makes sense. I have a lot of characters like this that have emotional hangups they can't solve on their own. But I also like to flip the script and have a character who is reasonably healthy who sees the main character's hangups, and instead of you fixing her problems, she's trying to help you work through yours.
For me, it all comes together as this wonderful living, breathing world where the characters are deeply crafted like in several of the AAA games you mentioned, these lovingly designed, complete characters that in those games, you never get to explore your connection to. I take that and I splice it with the Adult Entertainment genre, which typically has abysmal story and character depth, but DOES allow you to explore your connections to characters, physically and emotionally. What I hope for is the best of both worlds. Characters with depth, personality, and endearing nature mixed with the option to explore what that means to you in a setting where the story is rich and rewarding in its ups and downs. I like to write in a way that plays the strings of your emotions in such a way that the darkness amplifies the light.
Over the nearly 4 years I've been working on WCA, I've learned that this style is not everyone's cup of tea, and there's no mold I can fit myself into to please these people. So again, I understand if the story is a little too... dire for some? The point of making dire events happen in the story is to make people CARE. And when people CARE, the romance they experience is sweeter, because they feel they've made that difference in that character's life. That's what I'm setting out to do. Not to be a sadist and break hearts by offing someone's favorite girl. That's a big no-no in this genre lol
