Jenna and Grace Read Marcie and Gina Read The Romance Mechanic

"So they called our story a rip off of the Affection Multiplier, almost right off the bat."

Grace smirked wickedly and rubbed her hands in gleeful anticipation at the annoyance that was guaranteed to cause a certain author.

"Yeah, Tony thought that would happen" Jenna shrugged "It can't be, for the simple reason he's never read it."

"Also, there were plenty of those kinds of stories knocking around before that came along, " Grace pointed out "It's just an extremely popular example. So it's a bit like automatically accusing anyone who writes a rock song of ripping off Elvis. I suspect the girls know that though, and wanted to piss Tony off."

"I bet they fucking succeeded" Jenna said with her eyebrows raised ominously "Anyway, he was actually playing Stardew Valley and thought it would be a funny idea to apply the gift giving affection raising mechanic from a farming sim to a smutty mind control story. So if it rips off anything it's that. Or Harvest Moon, I guess. Although he wouldn't use those words, he'd call it a love letter or an affectionate parody."

"Those just sound like fancy phrases for rip off to me. Still, if only Tony had thought to specifically set out the whole Stardew Valley angle as the entire premise of the story at the literal fucking beginning of chapter one then perhaps these kind of mix ups wouldn't happen" Grace suggested snarkily

"we assume the role of Jenna. An unemployed, broke NEET who spends all her time playing video games in her parents basement."
“Yeah, this girl’s a complete failure. Top contender for most pathetic female protagonist only tied with dickgirl-guys losers from that one awful sex story."
“Thinking about it, we do had our fair share of pathetic female protagonists through the years. Maybe we should make that a new wall of shame category. For gender equality.”

"AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! That is priceless!" Grace had genuinely fallen off her chair in hysterics. The bruised arse would be worth it.

"What the fuck?" Jenna was re-reading the text in the hope she had misunderstood something,

"AHAHAHHAHAHAHAH! You've inspired a whole new fucking category you're so useless. Oh shit, that's amazing. You can end the review right there HAHAHAHAHAHA! God it actually hurts to laugh this much"

"Ah, who cares what they think. Stupid fuckin' slags!" Jenna folded her arms aggressively, her face reddening with anger.

"Well, quite. I expect that told them" Grace had finally managed to regain her composure enough to continue with the review of the review "Let us pick up from where we left off. Now where were we? Oh yes, they had decided you were so pathetic that..... HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!"

"In order to level up your targets affections, you have to shower them with gifts or by giving them compliments. It is a rather simple system"

"It's the Stardew Valley romance system." Jenna said with an expression that suggested she assumed everyone in the world was fully familiar with the game "it's simple but sure fire method for raising the romantic interest of whichever women you are interested in was the whole point of the story."

“Holy fuck that’s a lot of targets for only day 2! Slow down, you nympho"

"As I see it, you got a similar number of women to mind fuck into bed to how many bachelorettes the player is typically able to romance in these kind off games." Grace reasoned "You usually meet them all in the first few days due to the almost default small village setting that is replicated in our branch, then level up the ones you like best or run into the most first. For better or worse, the game dynamics are being deliberately replicated."

“But due to how the app works, nobody reacts to it. There is no humiliation or embarrassment. I like the idea but am not too impressed with the execution.”

"What part of 'this is Stardew Valley's romance system brought into real life' are these fuckwits not getting?" Jenna wondered tetchily "Nobody in the game questions why this random bloke shows up in their village, starts giving the local talent turnips or daffodils on a daily basis, and before long is shagging them all. They should start a new wall of shame category for the stupidest fuckin' slags who can't understand a really basic concept."

"It's actually a legitimate argument though. It sort of gets adjusted as the story progresses so people do react but not with shock or outrage, and they certainly don't try and stop or help the person who is being made to humiliate themselves, which is usually me, presumably as that would spoil the readers fun."

"So what these bitches want is a system where people will see that things are amiss but only enough to point and laugh at the victim?"

"It seems that way" Grace surmised "Anyway, shall we crack on? I'd rather get this shit over with and myself away from your company as hastily as I can."

“While I do somewhat like this. I have the sinking feeling the author is just putting the AI prompts he used in here.”

"Marcie has obviously never tried to use AI art prompts to create porn with a UK censored generator. The original was rather more tame before it got put through the nudifier" Grace corrected "Though it's an accurate observation in sentiment"

“You know what’s not uneven? Their fucking personalities"

"Oh wonderful, now we're being advised to develop our characters by a pair of hornied up anime tropes" Grace seethed "No wait, I take it back as I'm the exception. But they don't think that will last for some reason,"

"It's probably a fair enough comment as far as it can be sixteen chapters in with, like, eight or nine characters to flesh out. It's like they knowingly chose the embryonic path to review then bitched about it not being developed enough, then didn't even bother reading the longer, better fleshed out and more popular route."

"Indeed, it's almost as if we're being roasted here" Grace rolled her eyes at her frenemy "Rather skillfully as it happens. Although I fear these two may confuse 'Girl A is smart, Girl B is dumb, Girl C is meek and submissive while Girl D is a total bitch' with varied and distinctive characterisation. If you're able to have a roster of characters that nears double digits after a few chapters and they are all completely distinguishable from each other then chances are you made them cartoonishly one dimensional, whereas this story was aiming for a cast who felt more true to life. In the real world most people do seem fairly similar, until you have time to get to know them."

"Cartoonishly one dimensional" Jenna repeated with a laugh "that must be why they liked you the best"

"Oh do fuck off you wall of shame category creating cunt." Grace snapped back "Anyway, I've had enough of this. Let's do some sort of summary so I can get the fuck out of here."

"It's a bit of a mixed bag of criticisms really. Some of it is reasonable, some of it is them being stupid fuckin' slags. A lot of their issues seemed to come from the decision for the story to stick closely to typical farming sim romance mechanics which, considering the title, ought to be expected. But for some, particularly people who have never been hooked on one of those games, that can mean a system that doesn't make a lot of sense in a porn story. I'm pretty sure it was never designed with that in mind, after all. For anyone who has put hours of their free time into accumulating banana puddings to successfully woo Abigail with, it ought to resonate a lot more.

"Well I for one have never bothered with those stupid, geeky games you enjoy so much and it seems fucking dumb to me" Grace added "Though the lack of characterisation complaints such a short way into the story are a tad premature. Also, I'm irritated that you won our little bet. I thought the Affection Multiplier would get a mention after someone had already said the words Harem Hotel, but it was the other way around."

"Was that before or after they put me on their fucking wall of shame?" a still salty Jenna enquired rhetorically.

"Yes, you were getting pelters throughout that review, weren't you?" Grace had now shifted into shit stirring mode "Are you just going to take that?"

"Well, seeing as these two seem too fucking dense to understand what the Stardew system is, there's an easy way to demonstrate it to them" Jenna picked up her phone and scrolled down to her Love List. "Oh look. they both made it. This thing must have a much lower bar than I thought,"

"Oh, and Marcie is already on a full heart, presumably 'cos we made the horny little tart get off. Well, this should all be very entertaining. What kind of gifts do you think these stupid slags like best?"