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I was just getting my distro setup and will note that if you own RPG Maker MV you can also import the project and run it natively in Linux. I haven't tested everything, I'm curious if the data crystal will work, for example.  So use at your own risk and so on.

That cookbook is pretty lame, honestly.  There's way more subversive stuff than that, look up anything by Uncle Fester.  And most of these were not in stock at the store, but we could get them, though there were plenty of controversial, racy, subversive or just plain weird books that we carried normally (sure everyone has the Kama Sutra, but have you read Magic Eye Kama Sutra?  It's like a guidebook, but in stereogram form!).  I miss working at the bookstore, I always found something new and interesting to read, but I don't miss all the crazy people. 

I see what you're saying, but just to clarify, you need to drill down on this just a bit more on what the map says for the states not wholly controlled by the GOP:
CA - AB3080 - Introduced by Juan Alanis (R)
NJ - A4146 - Introduced by by Jay Webber (R)
NM - HB295 - Sponsors John Block (R), Rep. Alan Martinez (R), Rep. Harlan Vincent (R)
PA - HB2143 - Introduced by Jill Cooper (R)
DE - HB265 - 17 sponsors, 11R/7D
IL - HB4247 - 8 sponsors, all R
IA - HF2546 - Introduced by John Wills (R)
OH - SB212 - Sponsors Stephanie Kunze (R), William P. DeMora (D)

So, yeah, there's some bipartisan support, but let's not kid ourselves about 'both sides' here, this push is being done overwhelmingly by one party with some support from the other side.  And I'm not seeing a lot of public crowing on this front from the D politicians, while the Ken Paxton's of the US won't shut up about the (imagined) dangers of pornography.

Regarding reaction to your specific work, from a content standpoint I think there's a big difference between fantasy scenarios (like CS) and realistic depictions of rape.  Hypno-erotica has a pretty large following and it's relatively harmless because mind control isn't actually real.  Games where realistic rape is emphasized and eroticized are going to be more objectionable to audiences across the political spectrum.

That being said, you're right.  Most people would not understand the difference.  Most people are reductionist and reactionary.  

Courts would be a recourse for protection (see Larry Flynt), but not if they are stacked with justices who are willing to trample on free expression under the guise of protecting children, like the very conservative 5th circuit in their recent ruling.  A progressive-minded judge is far more likely to consider the lack of harm in written or illustrated works or even artistic merit therein, rather than just object to it on moralistic grounds, and rule accordingly.  There's a reason only one party objects to the work of the ACLU.

I think we probably agree on a lot of things.  I am a life-long believer in free expression, I've sold books to people for everything from a how-to guide for fisting, to home methamphetamine manufacturing and everything in-between.  If it is legal to sell it, people should be allowed to buy it, and the list of things illegal to sell should be limited to that which causes harm in its production. Free expression is the cornerstone to our society and I will fight tooth and nail (metaphorically speaking) to protect that expression, even if I disagree with it.

And to be completely honest - I don't think seeing a cartoon rabbit getting railed is all that weird.   This world is way, way crazier than that.

Historically, censorship is not a right/left dichotomy. Tipper Gore was big into censorship and it definitely cost her husband votes in 2000.

However, let's look at the states that have passed laws effectively banning pornography:  Montana, Utah, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina and Virginia, with Arizona and Kansas having bills coming up for vote.

Of these only Virginia had split control between parties in the legislature (at the time the law was passed).  All the others had one particular party in control of both chambers.

Now,  I don't mean to imply that this is an entirely one-sided issue - it isn't -  But just because both sides are bad doesn't mean that both side are equally bad.  

I think framing it as right/left is a bit... I don't know, it's not a good way to discuss it.  What we are seeing is a rise in authoritarianism (worldwide) and, in the US at least, one party has gone all in on authoritarianism while the other just dabbles in it.

In the 90s censorship was targeting music and video games, similarly from both the right and the left.  Book bans - same thing.  I worked in a bookstore in the 90s  and we had to deal with calls to ban books from all sorts of groups, our history has been a constant struggle to push back against government overreach in order to protect free expression.  The internet is simply the latest battleground and with new techniques to ban content without directly banning it, by going after payment processors and removing anonymity - we're not banning content, you just have to report all your purchases of it to the government, which of course effectively bans it.   

One new thing I noticed on my latest play-through:

Outside Mahir's place there is some graffiti that reads "Aut Furit, aut Lachrimat, quem non Fortuna beavit." which means, "He whom Fortune  has not blessed either rages or weeps."  It's the epigram for a 17th century collection of instrumental music called "Lachrimae" (literally "Tears") by John Dowland.  This is referenced one additional time, at the end of the hero-path (fighting your way to Khazeem), when Mahir removes the conditioning he uses the trigger word "fiLachrimae"  - now my Latin sucks, but this looks like fi Lachrimae, the present imperative conjugation of factus - to become - and Lachrimae - Tears.  So he orders Mezz to "become tears", clearly a reference to the earlier phrase.  

What does it mean?  I have no idea, exactly.  Maybe just that Mahir is a music and Latin nerd, but it probably has longer-reaching implications.  I'll have to think about it more.

Notably, John Dowland has another song that was reworked from a piece in Lachrimae called "Flow my tears" which is referenced in the book (and title) of the Philip K. Dick novel "Flow my Tears, the Policeman said".    While this novel doesn't really relate to Cruel Serenade directly, I would observe that the setting of the game is pretty clearly inspired by Philip K. Dick's broader body of work, especially his use of unreliable narrators, memory alteration and generally just being trippy.  And writing cyberpunk dystopias, of course.

I suspect the masterminds motivations for Mezz are a bit more complicated than that.  I think 'fan' is being used euphemistically, I wouldn't take the statement at face value.

I don't want to dive too much into speculation land, but I have some ideas.  

1. I agree that the next game will likely be in one of the towers since the quest in this game was to gain access to a tower.  For the enemy type?   Could be Dobermans since we see them slumming in the gutter in GT, but I could easily see bitshift going in a different direction.  Each game has its own color too, neon pink for CS and neon green for GT.  I don't know what to expect in the next game, but maybe neon blue for the tower.

2. We know there is a mastermind behind the events in the first two games, having provided the ear clips to Diezel and probably the Dragon's Breath to Mahir (this is not explicitly stated, but the Dragon's Breath is a new development for the hyenas so it's likely they got it from the same source since Mahir is a cat's paw for the mastermind).

3. I'd wager that Scratch is also a (likely unwitting) cat's paw for the mastermind since it's through him that Mezz gets sent to both the island and the gutter which were both set-ups.

4. We don't know what the mastermind's goals are, but we know they have some mind control power at their disposal, at least enough to control Mahir.   The mastermind is a 'fan' of Mezz, but we don't know what that means and whether messing with our protagonist is a primary or secondary objective. 

I have some other much more speculative ideas about what's actually going on, but they have limited support from the actual text, so I am reluctant to share them just yet, we are only on game 2 of a planned 5 so it's still really early in the story.

In the Beg command dialogue one of the random responses has a typo:
"Mezz: Shove it it! "

I presume this is intended to be:

"Mezz: Shove it in!"

Note that  the cologne has a duration, you might need to re-apply it periodically.

The force daze after 4 fights of not being dazed happens at the start of turn 2 instead of during the enemy action, which interrupts the player action effectively adding an extra turn of stun.  It's extra punishing but when it happens you just went 4 fights without being dazed so it's not too bad.   This appears to be the only place where enemies act first.  In other circumstances you choose your action, then you act, then the enemies act.

I kind of figured that the alley is supposed to be the hard mode for when you have abundant combat resources to spend while the other route might have it's own deterrents.  

Overall mechanically I think things are fairly well balanced until Entertainment District 3, if you've used up your Dazzle Blasts at that point you pretty much have to save scum for some good luck.  If you do have DBs you can still get hosed by RNG if you miss or just overly spread the damage.  If you enter the alley already Slipping you will probably auto-lose to the Trainer without good RNG from either Hard Knocks or Hard Times.   It's kind of a bummer since you can basically end up in a near-fail state on your game with no chance to recover short of just getting really lucky.

It's surprising how many buttons this game pushes for me.  Top notch writing.  I look forward to seeing what you have planned for updates.