i don't believe regular therapy is going to cut it for thousands of years of torture, so definitely mythical, may even include some rituals like pedro does
I agree it'd have to be another mythical, someone who has also lived a long time and experienced similar trauma. Trauma possibly as the result of persecution or possibly war? I feel like it should be mentioned in the main story, but would be up to MC to help get things set up (R&D). I think that the content could go over some of the same things that were covered in the ruthless route in terms of Asterion's past experiences with other masters.
As for the length of the actual content... What if a small part of the therapy is part of the main story, and then it's up to you to decide if you want to hear more (R&D quest). Again with the implication that Asterion is still going to therapy regardless of what you do. At that point you would unlock the option to do the R&D quest and you can decide to complete the quest to essentially learn more about Asterion's therapy.
I also think it should be heavily implied that at the end of the VN Asterion is still in therapy, it shouldn't be a one and done sort of thing that magically fixes everything. So whether or not you decide to do the extra R&D quest to learn even more about his therapy, it will still be shown that he has been doing therapy the whole time and will continue to do so in the future.
How to introduce a character who is a therapist? Well the hotel takes in people who are without a home, or who are lost. It would make sense that a lot of them are running from abuse or trauma. It wouldn't be too big a leap to have a guest come to the hotel who is a therapist who decides to stay (temporarily or as an employee) to help some of the other guests and employees work through their problems.
Anyways, I hope this gives your team some ideas, and that you'll consider adding an option to let Asterion have some much needed therapy in a future update! Loving the game so far, thanks!
I love that we're talking about this at all, makes for a healthier relationship than your normal VN where the MC is not just playing boyfriend but also playing therapist the whole time. Feels right in place with the effort of the MC to deal with the power difference so we can have a relationship with Asterion.
Mmm, the logic about it being a mythical is sound, especially if you want to use this character to dive into magic or if they have magic powers that could be helpful here - specifically, we already have the Tapir God and tapir are tied to eating dreams/nightmares, so a tapir therapist could make a lot of sense, perhaps? We know there's more Hinterlands content coming, if there's a tapir character there (Matias, the book author, is hinted to be one I think) they could be related to the therapist as some story beats.
But I will say that I also appreciate the idea that a 'normal' human could handle these issues, too. Sort of a 'therapy doesn't need mythical people or magic to be helpful' message. And the idea of it being a human tickles me a bit, haha, contrasting that they have to adjust to the mythicals existing and weird things they do/can do, but at the end of the day trauma is trauma and they're in their element helping these people through it, no matter what they look like - they don't need an extraordinary background to help people, even Asterion and all the crap he's had to deal with.
If you didn't want to just do a human though, you could go for a Baymax style character from Big Hero 6: some sort of robotic helper/AI that was designed for physical therapy but has become some-what sentient and wants to do mental health, and moves into an upgraded clinic after an R&D project. Then there can be a chain of projects to improve it that make more sense as R&D compared to like, needing to make 'better and better offices' for them as the project(s).
Even with that robot idea though, I agree with Foeg_lug on the placement of the content, the right way to have it is probably just having it be a base thing that gets kicked off in the main story so it's always something that's going on and can be referenced in conversations, but the MC can spend time during the day sitting in as support for Asterion during some harder sessions. This way it's not that Asterion won't get help if you don't schedule it, but that you can experience some of that story - people love supporting the moo so I'm sure they will - and maybe the end result of the chain can just be something simple like improving one of Asterion's stats by 1 and a crete themed outfit. It's not super flashy, but that's kinda the point, you're not magically solving all of his problems, just there to show support for some sessions and he pays you back with something kinda personal from his past that he made for you.
I agree with the tapir/baku. I don't know that Matías would come up with it on his own, nor do I think the act of eating dreams in itself is enough, but I think Robert giving him the suggestion and teaming up to help Asterion from multiple fronts would be a good way to handle it.
Having someone that could communicate with the narrator would also be helpful, be it the MC or someone who is acting as a conduit. Basically a team effort to show Asterion how many people care while also being realistic about how many more lifetime worths of experience he has than anyone else in the hotel.