That's it for the standard scenes. The alternate scenes are also different for males and females, but once again starts out using the same first half for both. I only have Dia's screenshots to hand for females, unfortunately – the character I brought up was not able to pass the roll (it's a DC20, and she has a negative modifier), a fact I realised too late.
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/cHMm8Is.png)
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/DatK7vF.png)
As with the standard scene, the first half of the alternate scene starts off the same for males and females alike, then diverges in the second half, and much of what I would say about this scene would run the risk of sounding like I'm repeating myself more than I already am (confused choices of what to shoot with your camera angles, over-use of face close-ups without cause, ill-suited choices for sound direction, or the lack thereof). I will note that small-sized females have a unique little hop-up animation where we jump up onto Minthara's lap, which I think is neat... if it didn't clip badly. I'd not mention the clipping in this discussion except for the fact that I'd want to expect any animations and poses that were deliberately made for small characters to actually line up for them too...
This scene's first half is a series of rapid cuts between the faces of our two participants, but as before, their expressions aren't emotive enough tow arrant close-ups that obscure the rest of the scene and don't revel to us what is happening – the males have that 'quietly content' look of being only passingly invested in the situation while the females look mostly 'thoughtful' more than anything else. Minthara looks 'patiently confused', leading into 'content'; these are not the kinds of emotions that warrant close-ups of this nature, and close-ups like this, switching back and forth every couple of seconds, multiple times, and first up after a major transition, without giving any indication of the greater scene are just disorienting and making it harder for viewers to engage in the scene.
Here, we've just had a major scene change, but it's obvious we're not in the same situation as when we faded out before – yet we cannot tell what the situation actually is while it's doing these face cuts, and we don't know. If we had an establishing shot of the new scene before this, that would help, but that wouldn't make the slew of rapid face cuts any more appropriate.
One of these shots in the first half does have a better emotive flavour, true enough; I'll grant to be worth the mid-range close-up it's shot as. The shot is, on males, what looks like is supposed to be the “putting it in” moment. They do it on females too, though, where the direction of the motion and the arching doesn't make any sense. I can't say too much more about this first half of the scene, unfortunately – I can't because that's all it is; a series of ungrounded, untethered face close-ups, one after another between the two characters... If this were meant to show or imply romantic emotion, it should not be individual mug shots without much in the way of character interaction – the one or two cheek-brushes with hands that exist
Do help in that regard,
if that's what they're going for, but without the scene being properly established, and without more direct interaction being made clear, they don't manage to do much.
If they're shooting for emotionally intense, intimate or passionate scenes, this just doesn't cut it in any way; a sedate, uniform rhythm, calm to bland expressions, and no focus on anything but faces in direct cuts; nothing to really suggest or communicate passion or intimacy here. We'd need an establishing shot first, for that kind of atmosphere, and the focus would be better off to include the shape and form of the bodies, as the focal point; panning shots work better for this, both for physically passionate scenes, and for emotionally romantic ones. Close-ups of faces should realistically only be for extremes of emotion or experience, or in order to show closeness of the characters – that is, them being together (such as for kissing or nuzzling), not in isolated shots.
If they're making an adult scene, intended to be overt and as you might find in an adult ero-game, then, yes,
That is the environment in which you would use more static cut shots to display your scene... but not all of these face close-ups, because that's not where the focus is intended to be for that kind of a scene; faces are secondary, except where they are directly involved in the action, for full adult scenes.
After the 'putting it in' shot, and one more cut between the character faces, the scene diverges for males and females. For males, it continues on in a way that does indeed seem to flow from the first half – he just put it in, and now we cut to broader and more overt shots that display missionary sex.
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/hBJjlUg.png)
The lighting in these scenes has been sketchy before now, but here it shows up as extremely erratic, to a very off-putting extent. We have cuts that are brightly fire-lit, that overbear the background disproportionately, followed by scenes in such complete darkness that it's hard to really see what's going on sometimes, followed by shots that are flood-lit to an almost unnatural-seeming extent.
The scene continues to use static shots here, as you might expect in adult filming rather than romantic or erotic direction, but the shots they choose don't match with that direction very well. For some, it's not too bad – the mid range shots, where we get a good idea that it is, in fact, missionary sex that is happening, don't suffer for being static shots, and they can fit into both adult scene shooting and erotic/passionate style scenes as well.
The second longer shot is set up to put the focus on the male actor, and more or less completely obscures Minthara – again it creates the sense of one person doing one thing at a time, rather than two people having sex together. The other problem with this shot is the old genital problem – the shot is shot overtly enough that we can tell that our male has nothing going on in his groin, and that's pretty bad news for the scene. I don't really feel that the motions we see line up well with the implied thrusting of the sex, either... the angles strike my senses as wrong, or at least very uncomfortable for ongoing penetration. That may be personal bias, granted, but the 'patiently uncomfortable' expression that Minthara has in the shot directly preceding this one seems like she might agree with me... The long shot at the end is another victim of the invisible genitals problem – only partially mitigated by the distance of the shot.
The close ups we have on Minthara are discordant and jarring, because they are functionally the same angle shot, but one is cast entirely in darkness while the other of extremely over-lit. The second shot spends almost the entirety of its two second cut with Minthara's arm obscuring her face, so we can't actually see much of anything in the shot itself.
Other details to point out here; Just how long is that man's arm? He's shown to have his hand down on the altar slab for support, but is also in an upright kneeling position; there is no way his hand reaches that far... and you can see the distension occurring in the first full missionary shot. Also, holy hell are male elves really that carrot-shaped in the torso? Those shoulders to those hips looks quite... overdone.
I want to say again – this alternate scene proposed itself as an inversion of the default, and thus set itself up with a strong implication of player character being dominant in the scene... but this is just some pretty stock-standard missionary sex, and isn't really a male-dominant activity. It comes off as fairly plain, compared to what was being suggested. The same issues also apply for the scene's pacing and rhythm – it's uniform all the way through with no build up or peak. The scene goes nowhere, and by the end it seems unlikely that anyone finished, or even had an overly good time. The actors look less like they're having sex with each other, and more like they are actors going through the motions of doing so – from the mild and passive expressions to the actions that attend to just specifically the necessary details for the pose and little else. As previously, there's a blend of elements and choices from too many different styles that don't agree with each other here, and they really need to decide what type of scene they're actually shooting.
For female player characters, the scene branches just after the 'putting it in' shot; we last saw her acting like she was thrusting something into her partner, and that doing so felt good – same as for males. Even if you suppose that the pre-divergeance shot was implying stimulation or grinding of some sort, the motion and angles don't make any sense for what we see. Regardless, here, we move into a shot that shows the characters moving into a new position, and we do actually see them together as two people acting at the same time. It's a rarity, and it's a shame that it only comes up here, where the action is both characters doing a slightly awkward-looking shift around, rather than anything active.
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/J6ko7UB.png)
Now, remember as we move forward, this scene is the one where our character has taken a supposedly dominant role, and should be leading the scene... Instead, the scene progress to a single-action, one person (Minthara) manually stimulating the other with a reach-over hand, after which Minthara climbs on top of us, into a poses that is high up on her knees, and continues to have her hand somewhere between out legs, while we make various facial expressions at the camera and otherwise do nothing at all. That's not taking a dominant role. It's the exact opposite.
The first shot, of the characters moving, is too close in to really serve much purpose; we can sort of tell what they're doing, if we try, but it's not really clear without really trying to work it out, which is bad for the scene. A longer shot that panned somewhat while this shift took place would better communicate closeness or intimacy, if that was the aim; here we just see half of two faces wobbling about, mostly.
The second shot, the reach-over, is set up to be tastefully implying what happens, but it's kind of thrown off by the large indistinct blobs of flesh or flesh-like matter taking up the top part of the shot. I had to really look at it several times to work out what I was seeing there. It's Dia's elbow - her hand is curled up back over her shoulder. You could read that as an implication that they're holding hands over the shoulder while this is going on – if that is the intent, that's something that it would be great to actually see clearly as part of another shot; it's so obscured here that I can't tell if that is the intention or not, and it's a missed opportunity.
As this activity is happening, the camera shifts to our face – where we're looking not at Minthara, but staring blankly out towards the camera, and looking... I don't know... worried? Puzzled? Mildly surprised? Confused? The expression is just too flat to read. It changes to a smile, and we look at Minthara, as though we've just realised what she's doing several seconds later... and we're... I suppose, pleasantly content, maybe happy and relieved, that it's not actually a spider crawling up our thigh? Certainly not an expression of someone enjoying good stimulation.
Then Minthara climbs on top – all we can really see is a breast, which is the lighting and shooting focus of the shot, and part of Minthara's back. This isn't even a 'for porn' thing... this is just a 'Why?' The camera cuts again, using these same two or three second static cuts, to Minthara on top of us. This is the same bad angle they use in one of the default scenes – we can't really take in the shot because it's too close up and a large part of it is taken up by our character's back of head or shoulder. The lighting is poorly managed, but the intended focus seems to be Minthara moving above us. Even so, we can't actually see all of her face; it's cut off for most of the shot, but, if her face is not meant to be the primary focus, then what is? There's nothing else in the shot that it could be.
Minthara moves with a rocking rhythm in this shot... but she doesn't seem to be doing anything that warrants that action. When the scene cuts out to a long shot, a moment later, we can see that rather than lying on top of us, Minthara is up high, on her knees, with an elevated posture, and is seemingly just doing something with her hand.
I do want to say... So... the males get to have sex, but the women have to settle for a lazy handy? In the scene where we're meant to be dominant? Really?
In this scene, more than ever, the designers really, really, need to consult with someone who owns a vagina, and who also engages in intimate activity with other people who also own vaginas. This scene is just depressing and sad. It's not romantic, but it's also not erotic or exciting; it's not engaging, and it does too many things that repeatedly shatter the scene or draw the viewer out of engagement with it. More than that, too much of what goes on just doesn't make any sense.
I don't want to speak for everyone, certainly not... but sex with women tends to use more of the body for various purposes. Close, all-over, physical contact and a decent amount of grinding are common staples. Direct genital to genital contact is a thing, and yes it works, but not at all like it's depicted in pornography, generally speaking. Most commonly (in my experience, which is the perpetual caveat here) it comes into play as part and parcel of (or passionately evolving from) grinding and rubbing that is equally focused around thigh-to-groin stimulation; not always but usually mutually given and received between both partners. I'm glad that they didn't decide to make this sequence a “Shot-for-porn” rendition of female genital-to-genital sex... that's ridiculously unrealistic, uncomfortable for everyone involved, it's pretty damn hard to get any kind of pleasure out of it at all even if you're trying, and it is posed that way purely to give the camera a good full-frontal view of both women... So yeah, I'm glad they didn't do that... but what we have instead is something that doesn't even really feel very much like sex at all.
For example: seeing Minthara opt for a high pose, kneeling up and actively keeping her body apart from our character's, feels off-putting and distant; I cannot believe or accept that there's any intention to really give good pleasure there, and certainly there's no passion for doing so. She's just... administering a hand, almost like a medical procedure and equally clinical. She absolutely can, might or perhaps even should have a hand down there, but the way it's set up right now, it's very distant and detached.
Compared to how much time was given to that blowjob back in the default scene, this whole scene for females is criminally short, as well. It feels like the designers just didn't really know what to do here. That's fine, but when you don't know what to do, you ask someone who does. Please do that.
That's both alternate scenes; the conclusion is much the same as for the default scenes:
- Please decide clearly what sort of scenes you want to make, and choose pacing, shooting and sound direction for the scenes that line up and compliment each other, not this scattering of different styles and tropes that conflict and tear each other apart.
- Please consult on the types of sex and intimacy you want to portray; if you're going to make D/s content, or other elements of the broader bdsm categories, then make sure there are people you talk to or people on your team who know about that kind of play, and that you're able to portray it believably and enticingly.
- Please consult with men who sleep with men, and women who sleep with women, or make sure you've got some on your design team, so that you can portray intimacy between those pairings in an accurate and believable way. Same goes for if you intend to have multiple partner scenes down the track; don't just rely on mainstream pornography to as your references for these types of encounters, unless mainstream pornography is what you intend to create.
- Please consider anatomy for the characters; if you're going to show breasts, and they're going to be unrestrained on screen, then they cannot act like lumps of rock glued to the model's chest. They need gravity and motion appropriate (and not over-exaggerated) to their size and weight. If you're going to have shots that give occasional little teases and clips of our nether regions, then the models need to actually be complete down there and have those details, otherwise it completely ruins the scene.