Visual Novel / Daughter for Dessert

Daughter for Dessert is an episodic adult visual novel developed by the Love Joint studio.

The main character (MC for short) is the owner of a diner. He has raised his now-adult daughter, Amanda, from infancy following her the death of her mother, Lainie, in childbirth. MC does the cooking and the office work, while Amanda and her best friend, Kathy, wait the tables, and the two of them consider their diner as a second home.

However, the diner is failing. There’s only one regular, an obnoxious and pervy police detective by the name of Moe Mortelli, and most days, the dining room is empty or close to it. MC is considering selling his business into liquidation, but he ultimately needs to trust Amanda to help him run things in order to get the diner on track.

And through it all, MC’s relationship with Amanda takes an, ummm, interesting turn. MC finds what seem to be erotic stories about himself and Amanda on Kathy’s phone, and over time, it becomes clear that Amanda has feelings for him that have nothing to do with their father-daughter relationship. While Amanda is embarrassed and ashamed when MC finds out the truth, MC is nothing but supportive, and agrees to help Amanda explore her sexuality in order to resolve her feelings.

And even though MC doesn’t get out much, he has plenty of other dating opportunities at his diner as well. Kathy, Amanda’s best friend and fellow waitress, is up for some fun. Heidi, a former bar owner whom MC hires as the hostess, is ready for a relationship now that she’s no longer working all day, every day just to get by. Veronica, who failed at building a startup company and takes over MC’s office duties, will get straight to the point with no strings attached. And finally, Lily, a free-spirited hitchhiker whom MC eventually hires as the diner’s cook, can eventually eventually, with time and patience, let MC past her fun and often goofy exterior and experience true intimacy.

However, a woman shows up who threatens both the existence of the diner and MC’s relationship with Amanda. Cecilia, Lainie’s sister, and wealthy, powerful, and angry, and she hints that she has some serious dirt on MC. Sure enough, Amanda starts to drift farther and farther away from MC after Cecilia’s visit, and MC is forced to reveal some tragic details about Lainie and himself in the hopes of getting her back. Can MC salvage his life in the face of Cecilia’s allegations?

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This game provides examples of:

#-B

• 6 Is 9: The flyers made to promote the diner’s reopening are supposed to say that the diner opens at 6:00 AM. However, when no customers show up for a couple of hours, the staff double-check the flyers, and find that they actually mention an opening time of 9:00 AM. And sure enough, customers start flooding through the door at 9.
• Accidental Pervert: MC walks into the bathroom and sees Amanda coming out of the shower.
• Accuser of the Brethren: Cecilia. She is determined to destroy MC, since she holds him responsible for Lainie’s death - and legally, he did steal from her bank account.
• Actually Pretty Funny: If MC takes Heidi on a date to a nice restaurant and asks if she would ever date Blake, she tells him exactly why she couldn’t: he has an anal prolapse. The protagonist then starts making a bunch of jokes about Blake's “problem,” and Heidi laughs along in spite of herself.
• Addressing the Player: The prologue, introducing Amanda’s birth, Lainie’s death, and the start of your business. This gives you the chance to pick MC’s name, and also to use an alternate name for Amanda.
• A Friend in Need: Amanda confides in Kathy that she is attracted to her own father. Kathy not only doesn’t judge her, but also agrees to post erotic fiction stories that Amanda writes about the two of them on the internet. If the inspiration for the stories were to be discovered, it would be traced back to Kathy, not Amanda.
  • Mortelli also has his moment at the end. Sacrificing his professional reputation, and quite possibly his freedom, he intentionally sabotages MC’s trial.
• Age-Gap Romance: Besides being in a relationship with his 19-year-old daughter, MC also has the options of dating Kathy and Lily, who are of similar ages.
• Alliterative Name: Just about the only character with a last name: Moe Mortelli.
• Alliterative Title
• Always a Child to Parent: MC is reluctant to give Amanda more responsibility at the diner, and he doesn’t tell her that he’s thinking of selling the diner either.
• Always Gets His Man: Mortelli. He finds MC’s stolen toaster (though he declines to say who was responsible), and he figures out that MC was the one who broke into his office.
• Ambiguously Jewish: Saul has a Hebrew-derived name common among Jewish men, and his profession (law) is thought of as stereotypically Jewish, yet his own beliefs and heritage are never mentioned.
• Amoral Attorney: Zigzagged with Saul. On the one hand, Saul’s job at the beginning involves buying up distressed businesses at low prices, he drops his offers if the owners won’t quickly make up their minds to sell, and he conspires with Mortelli to tamper with evidence at MC’s criminal trial. On the other hand, he offers the business owners far more than what they think their own businesses are worth, he gives them ample time to read their sale contracts, and he represents MC at his trial for free, despite MC’s insults. Plus, he insists that he has a sense of “honor, which is not for sale.”
• And Your Reward Is Parenthood: The “good” Amanda ending involves Amanda getting pregnant, then flying to Hawaii with MC to start fresh away from everyone who knows them.
• A Real Man Is a Killer: The essence of what Mortelli tells Saul when physically threatening him. And he actually points his gun at MC when confronting him about breaking into his office.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Cecilia wants to destroy MC’s life based on something he’d done 20 years before - all the while, “forgetting” some of the key mitigating and exonerating details around this incident, and possibly crossing several legal lines as well.
• Army of Lawyers: The prosecutors in MC’s trial. According to MC, Cecilia probably bribed them into giving him this treatment.
• Arrested for Heroism: MC confronts Amanda and Cecilia in her hotel room to counter Cecilia’s lies and win Amanda back. He’s arrested because he had to break into the hotel room to do so.
• A Taste of Defeat: Cecilia, when MC is acquitted at his trial.
• Attack the Mouth: MC knocking out Smoking Dog in his flashback about rescuing Lainie. She was about to undergo some occult ritual now that she could no longer be used for her money.
• Awful Truth: MC doesn’t tell Amanda the whole truth about who her mother was. This backfires, as Cecilia offers answers about Lainie to Amanda, and uses her information to drive a wedge between MC and Amanda.
  • MC also doesn’t tell Amanda that their diner is failing, even when he’s contemplating selling the business to a liquidator. She finds out anyway when she catches Kathy looking for another job.
  • After MC and Amanda have sex for the first time, Kathy asks what happened. The best option is to lie, and say that MC and Amanda just talked.
• Bad Liar: Amanda makes up a story that she’s at a job interview when she’s going to talk with Cecilia. When MC asks which company she interviewed with, she stumbles over making up a ridiculous-sounding name.
• Bad Review Threat: A customer once comes into the diner for the ambience - but not to order any food. When Kathy ejects her, she promises to leave a bad review for the diner online.
• Bail Equals Freedom: Averted. Saul bails MC out of jail, but he still has to stand trial for breaking and entering.
• Bar Slide: In the drink-mixing mini-game (on the Heidi path). MC must mix each drink correctly, and then slide it down to the customer.
• Beach Episode: After MC gets out of jail on bail, Amanda takes him to the beach. She reveals that a time when MC saved her from drowning was when she started getting romantic feelings for him. It is also a pivotal scene when the player can choose to stay with Amanda, or to be with one of the other women instead.
• Benevolent Boss: MC. He drinks (and frolics) with his employees, understands if they need time off, and gives second chances to employees who put out shoddy work.
• Best Served Cold: Possibly why Cecilia waited almost 20 years to track MC down and try to destroy his life. As an adult, Amanda could make her own life decisions without MC’s consent.
• Big Damn Heroes: MC rescued Lainie from the Church of the Aquarian Revelation as she was about to undergo a sinister purification ritual.
• Big First Choice: The choice between Heidi and Veronica in the bar.
• Big Secret: Averted. MC’s relationship with Amanda doesn’t come out during Mortelli’s investigation of him.
  • Played straight when MC visits Kathy to ask why she hasn’t shown up to work lately, and he finds out that Kathy hasn’t been writing the popular erotic stories she’s been posting online. Amanda has.
• Birds of a Feather: MC and Heidi (both responsible owners of small hospitality businesses).
• Bitch Alert: Cecilia in her first appearance, before even revealing her identity.
• Bittersweet Ending: Any “bad” or “neutral” ending with any available girl. Either it won’t last, or they’ll fail in their business ventures, but they’ll still have some happy memories.
  • Even the “good” ending with Amanda qualifies. She is still together with MC, but they have to leave behind everything they know and start over due to Amanda’s pregnancy.
• Black Comedy: MC’s innuendoes about Blake’s anal prolapse.
• B-Movie: In-universe. Amanda and Kathy spend their sleepover watching ridiculous, poorly made movies from the “Shark Murderation” series.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Mortelli.
• Boring Return Journey: MC’s and Amanda’s trip to Whiskeyville is complete with car games, the two of them marvel at the scenery, and they meet Lily for the first time. On the return trip, MC and Amanda drive home in silence, embarrassed about an awkward encounter they had in their destination town.
• Born Detective: Averted with Mortelli. He mostly became a cop to follow in his father’s footsteps, and he long thought of himself as too stupid to do the work that would be required of him as a detective.
• Boyish Short Hair: Heidi is a hard-nosed businesswoman who runs a tight ship and doesn’t take shit from anyone.
• Brainy Brunette: Kathy isn’t a nerd and has trouble concentrating on projects, but she’s full of ideas, she’s a talented writer, and she can think outside the box.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Mortelli in the later chapters when he’s having a conversation with MC, and says something along the lines of, “I’m gonna miss this place.”
• Breakout Hit: Palmer, the lead developer, built his fan base from this game.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: MC and Lily.
• Bullying a Dragon: MC poisoning Mortelli and breaking into his office.
  • MC and Lainie defrauding her lawyer to get $250,000 from her bank account also qualifies.
• Burner Phones: Discussed. Mortelli had one of these in order to cheat on his wife.
• But I Read a Book About It: MC in his flashback about hacking into Lainie’s family’s lawyer’s computer. He’d never hacked a computer before, but he’d read books about it to prepare.
• But Now I Must Go: Saul after getting MC acquitted at his trial.
  • With his nameless mention in Double Homework, it is clear that Mortelli does this as well.
  • Lily, in her “bad” and “neutral” endings, will eventually leave MC at his diner to travel around again.
• But Thou Must!: After the successful relaunch of the diner, Heidi brings up her date with MC to the video game arcade, and says that she would like to go out with him again. She will even say this if MC previously chose Veronica over her, and thus never when on any dates with Heidi.

C

• Calling the Old Man Out: Amanda gives a muted version of this to MC. She gives him crap for not telling her enough about her mother, but she doesn’t directly say what she finds out.
• Calling Your Orgasms: Implied for MC. In almost every sex scene, the player has a choice of where the semen goes... which means that he communicates with each of his partners about it.
• Can't You Read the Sign?: Lily doesn’t see the sign stating that only paying guests are allowed to use the hotel swimming pool...because she climbed over the fence to get there.
• Captain Oblivious: Lainie. Having grown up in a wealthy family where her every move had been scripted, she knew nothing about either the hardships people face in the world or about ulterior motives people might have.
• Caretaker Reversal: Invoked by Amanda after MC comes home drunk from the bar.
• Car Ride Games: To pass the time during the trip to Whiskeyville, MC and Amanda play a game of 20 Questions.
• Cartesian Karma: When Heidi tries to take the car keys from a very drunk MC, he calls her a “Nazi bitch.” When he goes back to the same bar another night, Heidi not only behaves coldly toward him, but charges him double for drinks.
• Cheat Code: A number of them are available for the player who is unsatisfied with his gameplay choices.
• Chekhov's Gift: Mortelli giving his gun to MC. He uses it to force Cecilia’s hotel room door open (but not to kill, injure, or threaten anybody).
• Chekhov's Gunman: Heidi is introduced as a woman serving drinks in a bar, whom MC calls a “Nazi bitch” in a drunken stupor. She becomes one of the main girls in the story.
  • Also, Lily first appears as a hitchhiker on MC’s and Amanda’s trip to Whiskeyville. She then crashes an awkward moment between the two in Whiskeyville, and then shows up at the diner looking for work (MC having given her his card).
  • Saul also counts. MC runs into him for the first time walking into a bar. Later, Saul offers to buy out his failing diner.
  • Cecilia does not immediately introduce herself, but orders a meal at the diner, and gives Amanda a $1,000 tip. Only when she returns does the player find out who she is.
• Chick Lit: Used in-universe. The story practically starts with MC finding Kathy’s series of popular erotic stories while looking through her phone. They were actually written by Amanda. Additionally, Heidi is a fan of the stories.
• Chick Magnet: MC, obviously.
• Child Naming Request: After Lainie’s death, MC named their daughter Amanda, after a relative of hers. However, the player actually has the choice to pick another name for Amanda.
• Child of Forbidden Love: MC’s and Amanda’s baby in the “good” Amanda ending.
  • Amanda herself counts as well, as the daughter of a hot dog vendor and daughter of an old money family who disapproved of her having anything to do with someone outside her own class.
• Child of Two Worlds: Amanda grew up in her father’s world of salt-of-the-earth small businesspeople. However, her aunt eventually shows up to draw her into her mother’s native world of wealthy socialites.
• Chilly Reception: How Amanda treats Lily when she arrives at the diner, and MC starts training her as the new cook. She even consults Veronica about potentially firing her.
• Chiptune: The mood motif for the video game arcade where MC takes either Heidi or Veronica.
• Choice-and-Consequence System: This basically determines which girl MC is with at the end, as well as the quality of the ending with that girl.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Veronica is a dating option for MC early in the the game, and soon afterward, she is hired at the diner as the office manager. However, her only appearance after that is to tell Amanda that she can’t fire Lily just because. She doesn’t join the first attempt to get Amanda back from Cecilia, she’s not at MC’s not-going-to-prison party, and MC can’t finish the game in a relationship with her. Amazingly, even if MC took Veronica to the video game arcade instead of Heidi, the dialogue between MC and Heidi will flat-out say that this date was between Heidi and MC.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: MC is shown to be a smoker at the beginning of the story. He relates his smoking to his situation as the diner is about to go out of business. Notably, after the diner becomes successful, he is never seen smoking again.
  • Possibly true with Kathy as well. She smokes right along with her boss, and we know she’s dealing with a lot at the time.
• Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends: Mostly played straight. Heidi is the first to bring this up, since she doesn’t like casual sex, and she wants MC to choose whether or not to be serious with her. Then, MC has to choose between Amanda and any other girl that he’s seeing at the time. Averted if MC dates Veronica early in the game; her romance with MC just fades into the background without comment.
• Cliffhanger: A common occurrence, especially toward the end of the story, is to have a chapter with this kind of ending.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Averted with Amanda early in the game. Even though she’s smitten with MC, and has been since she was a small girl, she doesn’t even seem to be affected when she walks in on him having sex with someone else (Heidi or Veronica, depending on player choice). It’s played straighter later on, when Amanda gives the newly hired Lily trouble in her job. This change is justified, as by this point, MC and Amanda are more or less official as a couple.
• Closer to Earth: Subverted with Lily. She offers MC and Amanda tidbits of wisdom on living life to the fullest, which all seems great until they realize that her advice doesn’t work in a world where people have responsibilities. Double subverted in the “good” Lily ending, where MC decides that he wants an end to the drudgery that has defined his life up this point, and starts traveling the world with her.
• Closet Key: Heidi for Kathy. She flat-out tells MC that Kathy is bisexual, and actually asks Kathy about it. The two of them end up having fun together, with MC having the opportunity to join in.
• Clothing Reflects Personality: Several examples:
  • Heidi always wears clothing that wouldn’t be out of place at work. She is driven, punctual, and diligent, and she is perfectly capable of running a business by herself.
  • Zigzagged with Veronica. She wears fancy dresses, which leads MC to believe that she is sophisticated and successful. However, when he actually has a conversation with her, he finds out that she’s not really that successful; she had a business, but it failed, and in retrospect, she found the idea ridiculous. She did, however, learn a thing or two about running a business.
  • Lily wears clothes that are typically dirty and sweaty, emphasizing her lack of self-care.
  • Saul wears a fancy suit (except when he temporarily takes a job cooking at the diner). He is extremely elitist and tends to have a patronizing attitude toward most people.
  • Cecilia wears expensive clothing and jewelry, and sure enough, she identifies strongly with her wealth.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Mortelli. He’s a positive guy, a good cop, and a loyal friend to MC, but he lets slip details a little too easily, doesn’t understand why racist humor and raunchy jokes are so offensive to some people, and has a very loose definition of the word “secret.” And he takes the theft of a toaster a little too seriously.
• Clueless Mystery: The subplot about the stolen toaster. We never even find out who stole it.
  • The backstory about Lainie’s life with MC and death, and the crime MC committed with her help.
• Cold Ham: Saul speaks in a manner that is at one polite and patronizing, full of large words and grand declarations.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The name bar for each character has a different color.
• Condescending Compassion: Saul, with his annoying politeness and his show of sympathy for the business owners he buys out, has shades of this.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Mortelli is a police officer who is sworn to uphold the law, but also is a friend and regular customer of MC’s. He ends up putting his loyalty to his friend first.
• Consummate Professional: Heidi, a former bar owner, becomes known for running a tight ship and taking even her boss to task after being hired at the diner as a hostess.
  • Amanda also shows shades of this, coming up with a comprehensive plan to save the diner, setting up endless rehearsals for the reopening, and later, displaying obvious frustration at Lily’s initial incompetence in the kitchen.
• Cool Code of Source: Played with in the flashback of MC and Lainie getting the funding to start the diner. MC hacking the computer of Lainie’s family’s lawyer contains a minigame where password lines show up amid huge blocks of code.
• Cope by Creating: For a time, Amanda deals with her crush on her father by writing erotic stories about a father-daughter couple who run a diner.
  • Notably averted with Kathy. She has dreams of being a successful writer, but she tends not to do anything when something’s bothering her.
• Cope by Pretending: Amanda tries this after MC rejects her initial advances. Once MC figures out what’s really going on, he gets sexually involved with her so that she can stop doing this.
• Cop Show: Defied by Mortelli. He vows to track down MC’s stolen toaster, and in subsequent scenes, he updates MC on the progress of the case, talking about the more boring aspects of the police work. When MC expresses incredulity, Mortelli reminds him that he’s a real cop, not a TV cop.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Subverted. The setting and early events make it looks like MC will eventually corrupt Amanda, maybe even with Kathy’s help. In truth, Amanda is anything but innocent, and she throws herself at MC.
• Country Music: Olivia’s Leitmotif.
• Courier: MC disguises himself as one to break into Mortelli’s office.
• Courtroom Antics: At MC’s trial, when questioning Mortelli on the witness stand, the prosecution double-, triple-, quadruple-, quintuple-, and sextuple-checks Mortelli’s answers before the judge puts a stop to it.
• Courtroom Episode: MC’s climactic trial for breaking and entering.
• Crazy Enough to Work: MC breaking into Mortelli’s office to find out what his friend isn’t telling him.
  • Also, Lainie’s scheme to get startup capital for the diner in the flashback.
• Crazy Sane: MC is seen dealing with the stresses of running a failing business by getting together with Kathy (his employee, remember) to drink excessively and smoke weed.
• Creature of Habit: Played with for both MC and Amanda. MC makes changes in his personal life, but has trouble seeing past what’s right in front of him at the diner. Amanda likes routine, but takes the lead in revamping, re-branding, and relaunching the diner.
• Creepy Long Fingers: Saul.... along with so many other things that are at least borderline creepy.
• Cringe Comedy: MC wakes up from a sexual dream, late for work and sporting morning wood. Amanda is the one who wakes him up. Among the choices for what that thing sticking out of his sheets is are his car keys, a banana, and a dildo.

Amanda: I’ll choose to believe that.

• Crossing the Desert: Lily, when she finally leaves the diner, goes into the desert on foot.
• Cult Defector: Lainie. The Church of the Aquarian Revelation and its leader, Smoking Dog, adored Lainie when she was spending big bucks to feed the whole congregation, but when her family cut her off, they forced her into a horrifying purification ritual. Only then did she realize that the “church” was only after her money.
• Cultural Rebel: Zigzagged with Lily. Her Korean heritage is clearly important to her, yet she has openly resisted her parents’ attempts to make her into their cultural paragon of a good Korean girl.
• Cultural Stereotypes: Cecilia is an old money snob who thinks she’s superior to everyone else, spares no expense in making herself comfortable, and throws her weight (i.e. money) around to get her way.
• Cultured Badass: Played with in regards to Mortelli. He’s a cop who has no problems with getting physical or in-your-face when required by the job, but one of his earliest assignments was to infiltrate a chess club to root out suspected Russian spies. He learned a lot about playing chess on the way.
• Cut and Paste Environments: The backgrounds used for outdoor city scenes can be counted on one hand.

D

• Daddy's Girl: Up to Eleven with Amanda.
• Dads Can't Cook: Averted. Not only is MC good at cooking, but he owns a diner in which he handles everything related to the kitchen.
• Damsel in Distress: Double subverted with Amanda. Cecilia has not coerced Amanda into anything, but she’s managed to win her niece over by giving her information about her mother that MC didn’t. Still, it requires a hell of a rescue operation to get her out.
  • Played straight with Lainie in MC’s flashback. MC had to rescue her from the cult that she’d fallen in with to save her from a purification ritual.
• Dance Party Ending: After MC is acquitted, Amanda, Kathy, Heidi, and Lily throw a not-going-to-prison party for him, and crank up the jukebox for some music. If MC still has to choose between Amanda and one of the other girls, the choice is mandatory here.
• Dark and Troubled Past: MC lost Lainie in childbirth, leaving him to raise Amanda on his own. Not to mention, the two of them committed a technical crime shortly before she died. MC still thinks and dreams a great deal about Lainie.
• Darkest Hour: MC has finally has the opportunity to tell Amanda the whole truth about her mother. However, he gets to that point by breaking into Cecilia’s hotel room, and he ends up in jail. Now, he doesn’t know if Amanda even cares about him anymore, and he’s not even sure if he can trust his lawyer (understandable, as it’s Saul). And his best friend, Moe Mortelli, was the arresting officer, because, as he mentions, whatever his intentions were, what MC did was a crime. And there’s evidence to prove it.
• Dark Secret: Amanda’s attraction to MC.
• Dash Attack: MC used this to knock out Smoking Dog and rescue Lainie from her purification ceremony.
• Dead Sparks: What happens in the “bad” epilogue with each girl. MC and his partner just lose interest in each other.
• Death by Childbirth: Lainie died while giving birth to Amanda, leaving MC to raise her alone.
• Death by Origin Story: Lainie again. The conflict between MC and Cecilia, with Amanda being caught in the middle, revolves around Lainie’s death.
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: MC puts the responsibility for stealing Lainie’s money on Lainie herself.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Played with. Amanda sees Lainie in an unambiguously positive light all throughout the story. Thanks to manipulation by Cecilia, she goes through a period when she feels betrayed and lied to by MC. Still, Amanda is thoroughly in love with MC.
• Deceptive Legacy: MC never told Amanda the full truth about Lainie while she was growing up. Cecilia, preying on Amanda’s desire to know more, feeds her a version of her mother’s life that makes MC out to be a villian in order to drive Amanda and MC apart.
• Deep Sleep: Throughout the story, MC oversleeps several times when he’s supposed to open the diner. Each time, it’s because he’s been pushing himself too hard and trying to do too much, and each time, Amanda and eventually Heidi can handle opening the diner instead.
• Deep South: Whiskeyville seems to be here. It’s a sleepy little town with a diner and not much else, and Olivia, who fixes their jukebox, speaks with a drawl and wears sexy cowgirl clothes.
• Defective Detective: Mortelli is a skilled detective, but his marriage is constantly on the rocks. He doesn’t help himself by keeping porn at his desk, nor by sleeping with prostitutes.
• Definitely Just a Cold: Lainie’s coughing. MC didn’t pay any attention to it, but unbeknownst to him, a doctor had given her a serious enough diagnosis to get her a check from $250,000 after she’d been cut off. She eventually died while giving birth to Amanda.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Implied with Heidi. She invites MC to her class reunion, leading to a lot of speculation about what the relationship is between the two of them. Her former classmates note that she has never brought a guest to a reunion before.
• Defying the Censors: In the title, no less. Material portraying incest is banned on Patreon, but naming your erotic game “Daughter for Dessert” is hard to beat in its disregard for that rule. Still, there's a disclaimer in the game stating that none of the characters are related, so....
• Deuteragonist: Amanda takes lots of initiatives that affect the story in big ways.
• Diabolical Mastermind: Invoked (delusionally) by Cecilia to refer to MC.
• Dialogue Tree: For the girls’ romantic paths, especially when it comes time to choose which one to stay with at the end of the story.
• Didn't Think This Through: The first attempt to talk to Amanda at Cecilia’s hotel room. MC, Kathy, Heidi, and Lily have no plan for what to do after getting to the hotel, and the security guard won’t let them through.
• Differing Priorities Breakup: Some of the “bad” and “neutral” epilogues involve some form of this.
  • Defied in the “good” Lily epilogue. MC realizes that Lily is leaving the diner for good, and he realizes that he doesn’t want to stay at the diner for the rest of his life, so he leaves everything to Amanda and leaves to travel with Lily.
• Diner Brawl: Averted. Mortelli intimidates Saul after the diner successfully re-launches, but Saul just makes a beeline out of there.
• Dirty Business: Invoked by MC just before breaking into Mortelli’s office.
  • Lampshaded by Mortelli himself after he single-handedly derails MC’s prosecution.
• Dirty Cop: Exploited by Mortelli and Saul to get MC acquitted. Mortelli “loses” and taints all evidence against him.
• Dirty Old Man: Mortelli has cheated on his wife in the past and slept with at least one prostitute, but now, he limits his sexual “activities” to bawdy comments directed at the diner’s employees, as well as encouraging MC to get sexual with them (or, barring that, someone).
• Disinherited Child: Zigzagged with both Lainie and Amanda. After Lainie fell in with a cult, her father only let her access her money if she could prove that she would only spend it on herself. Then, she died in poverty after having MC use her treatment money as startup capital.. Amanda is then unaware of her mother’s family’s wealth until Cecilia shows up and promises her access to her mother’s inheritance, but only if she were to forsake her father.
• Dislikes the New Guy: Amanda toward Lily when she first shows up at the diner looking for work.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Mortelli physically threatening Saul over his offer to help liquidate the diner.
• Disproportionate Reward: Olivia offering sex to MC for being “a good person.”
• Distant Prologue: The prologue starts with Lainie’s death, and MC raising an infant Amanda on his own while opening up a diner to support them. The story proper starts 19 years later.
• Distinction Without a Difference: Mortelli claims that his tryst with a prostitute in Las Vegas isn’t a secret.
  Mortelli: “[My wife] just hasn’t asked the right questions."
  • Lainie, Cecilia, and their family hate when people call them “rich.” They prefer to say that they own a lot.
• Do-It-Yourself Plumbing Project: MC attempts to fix the dishwasher, bragging to Kathy about his ability to do so. If he succeeds, he gets to have sex with her.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Occurs if you decide to rename Amanda. Cecilia will call her “Amanda” when she first has a conversation with her, no matter what name she actually has in the game, because that is the name that Lainie always intended to give her.
• Don't Celebrate Just Yet: Even after being acquitted at his trial, MC realizes that Cecilia won’t just give up on her vendetta against him because of that.
  • In the Heidi epilogues, MC and Heidi come up with an ambitious plan to stave her off, franchising their diner into a chain to gain a comparable level of wealth to what she and her family have. It actually succeeds in the “good” epilogue.
• Downer Beginning: At the beginning of the story, Lainie dies giving birth to Amanda.
• Do You Want to Copulate?: Veronica. She propositions MC in a “businesslike” manner for a mutual masturbation session in an alleyway when they first meet.
  • Subverted with Kathy. She takes a nude selfie just because, and isn’t upset when MC finds it. She also sends MC a nude picture for jerkoff material, provided that MC asks nicely. However, she’s hesitant to do the deed with MC due to Amanda’s feelings for him.
• Drama Bomb: After MC and Amanda have successfully relaunched their diner and decided to act of their mutual feelings for each other, Cecilia shows up, throwing a wrench into their relationship.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: MC goes into his diner one morning, and notices footsteps inside. He investigates, following the footsteps into the back alley. Mortelli then announces his presence by cocking his gun, which is pointed at MC’s chest.
• Dramatic Thunder: Heard in MC’s flashback for how he met Lainie. Fresh from his disappointment that he wouldn’t get the job he’d been promised, MC went to work at his hot dog stand...and then the rain starts falling, heralded by thunder.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: In the first chapter, MC dreams that Lainie comes back to him. They get started in bed, and Lainie says that she is only there to prepare MC for someone else. MC looks at the doorway, and sees...Amanda.
• Dream Sequence: MC has these in which the screen fades to white around the edges.
• Dress Code: Amanda and Kathy wear uniforms to work.
• Drink-Based Characterization: While the gritty, fast-paced MC drinks beer, the classy, upscale Veronica drinks fancy mixed drinks.
• Drinking the Kool-Aid: Amanda buys into Cecilia’s narrative about her mother’s death.
• Drugs Are Good: Subverted. MC enjoys smoking weed with Kathy, and they come up with some cool creative ideas. However, Kathy falls asleep while at her computer, trying to get started.
  • Also subverted in the marijuana-fueled threesome between MC, Kathy, and Heidi. While it’s fun, especially for MC, Heidi starts acting weird afterward, and she later reveals that casual sex isn’t her thing. The drugs were just drawing her into something she’d rather not do.
• Dumb Blonde: Averted with Amanda, Lainie, and Cecilia. All three are/were intelligent and resourceful (even though Lainie was more than a little naive).

E-F

• Early-Bird Release: Each chapter had two releases: one to supporters on Patreon, and the other to free users.
• Eastward Endeavor: In the “good” epilogue with Lily, MC and Lily wake up in some unspecified country that seems to be somewhere in Asia.
• Elephant in the Living Room: Letting this trope take over can take the player off Heidi’s romantic path. Some time after MC goes to Whiskeyville, Heidi asks MC if he wants a date, and the two of them go to a restaurant. Their server is Blake, a handsome young man who filled in briefly for Kathy. MC is insecure about the possibility that Heidi could potentially prefer Blake over him, and Heidi knows it. MC can ask her about it; if he doesn’t, then Heidi will end things with him, but if he does, Heidi reveals an embarrassing secret about Blake that means she would never date him.
• Enter Solution Here: When MC breaks into Mortelli’s office, this is how to get into his computer. The password hint is “red, green, yellow,” and the password is found on the notice board, in pieces with the colors underlined.
• Episodic Game: The game consists of 19 episodes, with choices from the previous episodes automatically applied to each subsequent episode.
• Erotic Dream: MC has one about Lainie... and it becomes about Amanda.
• Erudite Stoner: Kathy has shades of this. She’s a pothead who regularly thinks in meta ways.
• Establishing Character Moment: Mortelli’s first entrance into the diner. He’s a friend and regular customer of MC’s, and a skilled and dedicated police officer, and he can be more than a little pervy toward women.
• Establishing Series Moment: The first diner scene. It shows MC running his diner, helped by Amanda and Kathy, with Mortelli eating his toast and drinking his coffee. It also introduces, through “Kathy’s” stories, the idea that MC and Amanda could end up in a relationship.
• Ethical Slut: Kathy. She’s definitely sexually open and quite possibly a feminist. She takes and keeps Amanda’s confidence regarding her attraction to MC, and gives her an outlet for it. She only reluctantly starts a relationship with MC because of Amanda’s feelings. And she thinks it’s a mistake for MC and Amanda to make love, even if they both want it.
• Event-Driven Clock: MC’s foray into Mortelli’s office has no time limit. This gets hand-waved, with MC arranging for Mortelli to be on the phone with the officer at the front desk, betting that he’d talk for long enough so MC can take his time going through everything and gathering clues.
• Evidence Scavenger Hunt: The minigame where MC looks for clues in Mortelli’s office. He finds some valuable information: Amanda has been meeting secretly with Cecilia, and Mortelli has been digging into the diner’s finances. Oh yeah, and Mortelli found MC’s stolen toaster.
• Exposition Break: Subverted. In the flashback sequence when MC explains his relationship with Lainie to Mortelli, there is actually a minigame.
• Face of a Thug: Mortelli, ironically.
• Fainting: MC passes out from exhaustion in an early scene at the diner.
• Fake Defector: Subverted with Saul. Saul is trying to buy up MC’s diner when he is first introduced, and we later find out (after he is fired) that he was instructed to buy out specific businesses. Then, after a temporary stint as a cook at the diner, he reappears alongside Cecilia. However, when MC is put on trial, Saul represents him pro bono, and conspires with Mortelli to sabotage the prosecution.
• Fake First Kiss: Can be played straight or averted in MC’s relationship with Lily. MC can kiss Lily, but not take anything beyond that.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Saul cooking in the diner after getting fired from the liquidation company. However, instead of being bitter, he is grateful for the employment in the time when he is trying to find another job in law.
  • Could also be the case for Heidi (who sells her bar to break the cycle of long days every day just to barely get by) and Veronica (who founded a startup that eventually failed).
• False Soulmate: The premise for the “bad” epilogues, and also the “neutral” epilogue for Lily.
• Family Business: The diner, run by MC and his daughter, Amanda.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: A number of players didn’t like MC’s backstory regarding his relationship with Lainie.
• Fan Disservice: If MC doesn’t have much success with any girl throughout the game (besides the railroaded successes with Amanda), a nearly nude scene with Mortelli is unlocked.
• Featureless Protagonist: Lampshaded in the final picture scene:

MC: Pictures always seem to miss my face.

• Feminine Women Can Cook: Downplayed with Amanda. She certainly knows her way around a kitchen, but that’s mainly due to her working in a diner.
  • Deconstructed with Lily. As she becomes more vulnerable, or more “feminine,” as it were, her cooking skills improve.
• Fiction 500: Cecilia and her family tout the fact that they are enormously wealthy, and Cecilia even confirms Amanda’s comparison of Lainie to Paris Hilton.
• Fiction Isn't Fair: The prosecutors at MC’s trial, though played mostly for laughs:

Lawyers: Are you sextuple sure?

• Fiery Redhead: Downplayed with Heidi. She’s assertive, but her temper is always controlled.
• Figure It Out Yourself: When MC asks who stole the toaster, Mortelli doesn’t say, but invites MC to take a guess.
• First Girl Wins: The Amanda epilogues.
• First-Name Basis: The only character with a last name is Mortelli. However, even is his case, all the major characters call him by his first name at least sometimes.
• First-Person Perspective: The whole story is told from MC’s perspective.
• First-World Problems: Played for laughs with the temporary closure of the diner. Mortelli is so broken up about it that he breaks into MC’s apartment to get the toast and coffee that he’s so fond of.
• Fish out of Water: Lily when she is hired as the cook at the diner. Amanda in particular has little patience for her learning curve.
• Flashback Cut: Small flashbacks about MC and Lainie appear throughout the plot. They are eventually tied together.
• Flashback Effects: Much like with dreams, the screen fades to white around the edges to signify a flashback.
• Flashback-Montage Realization: When Kathy reveals that Amanda is writing the erotic stories instead of herself, and that this is because she’s attracted to MC but ashamed of it, MC flashes back to snippets of past scenes which contained hints of this.
• Flyover Country: Whiskeyville and the trip to it take place here. The city where the main story takes place is probably in California, but it might take place somewhere in here as well.
• Follow in My Footsteps: Averted. When Amanda is thinking about leaving the diner and striking out on her own, MC would be perfectly fine with her doing so. He doesn’t want to saddle her with running the diner if that’s not what she wants; he’s only upset that she has the wrong impression about his relationship with Lainie.
• Follow the Plotted Line: There are some scenes in which time appears to be of the essence, but it doesn’t really matter if MC gets distracted from what he “should” be doing.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Lainie was naive and too quick to trust people, and Cecilia is a shrewd manipulator.
• Footprints of Muck: The footprints through the diner that Mortelli uses to lure MC into the alleyway.
• Foreign Fanservice: Invoked by Lily.

Lily: Is it because I’m a sexy Asian teen?

• Formerly Fit: Mortelli, an overweight veteran cop, was in much better shape when he first joined the police force. Justified, as the irregular schedule of police work leads to many cops eating unhealthily.
• Formerly Friendly Family: When Cecilia starts feeding Amanda information about Lainie, she grows cold toward MC, and makes secret plans to move out.
• For Your Own Good: An unusual example. Mortelli beats up MC while shouting, “This is for your own good!” It actually is for his own good, as it‘s part of a plan to get MC acquitted.
• Four-Girl Ensemble: MC’s employees at the diner (minus Veronica): Lily is the sweet girl, Amanda is the snarky girl, Kathy is the sexy girl, and Heidi is the mature girl.
• Freudian Slippery Slope: Bonus points for its occurrence in a “therapeutic” conversation with an actual psychologist, and more for MC still trying to hold the conversation with the impetus for the first slip still in effect. While a psychologist customer tries to analyze MC from in front of the bar, Kathy gives him a blowjob from under the bar. As a result, MC blurts out a lot of things in succession. The psychologist doesn’t even pick up on anything unusual going on, and instead gives a bizarre interpretation of what MC tells her. She then declines to charge him for her “services,” as he is such an “interesting case.”

G-H

• Genius Bonus: When Mortelli is telling his story about his infiltration of a chess club, he drops names of real chess openings.
• Genius Ditz: Although Lily has few academic or real-world skills, she can come with deep-sounding philosophical sayings about living life to the fullest. Subverted, as her sayings only make sense for someone without any responsibilities (and Lily herself comes to realize this, coming to the diner to ask for a job).
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: MC and Amanda have very different ideas for how to manage their employees. MC wants to pay wages that are above the market rates but fair in his mind, while Amanda wants to pay at or close to the market rates. Also, when Lily struggles in the kitchen, MC wants to give her a chance to get the hang of the work, while Amanda would rather just fire her.
• Get Out!: A non-angry version. On the trip to Whiskeyville, Amanda comes into MC’s room, and things start to get sexual. Not wanting things to go any further, MC tells Amanda to leave. It damages their relationship until MC learns Amanda’s secret.
  • A more conventional one occurs when a “customer” comes into the diner without any intention of ordering anything. Kathy delivers the two words.
• "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: A justified example. Mortelli renders every piece of evidence against MC inadmissible, leading to his acquittal.
• Ghibli Hills: MC can go to a natural pool in the wilderness with Lily. The water is okay to swim in.
• Girl Next Door: Amanda has this vibe, especially with the theme song she gets.
• Girl Watching: Defied by MC whenever Mortelli comments on one of the girls who works at the diner.
• Godwin's Law: An in-universe example that is off the internet. When Heidi tries to take the car keys from a very drunk MC, he calls her a “Nazi bitch.” Needless to say, she is less than pleased when he shows up again, and she repays the insult by charging him double for drinks.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: Discussed with the diner’s toaster, which has a gold-quartz heating element. Mortelli says he can never eat any other toast now that he knows he’s been eating toast cooked with gold.
• Good All Along: Played with. For a long time, it looks like Saul is working with Cecilia to ruin MC. However, for his own mysterious reasons, he conspires to sabotage the criminal case against MC, all while representing him for free.
• Good Lawyers, Good Clients: Zigzagged. The supposedly corrupt prosecutors are representing the government, not Cecilia personally, and as for Saul, who represents MC for free, his client (MC) actually did commit a crime (albeit not for an evil purpose), he engaged in a criminal conspiracy in order to exonerate his client on a technicality, and his motives for doing any of these things are unknown.
• Good Ol' Boy: Downplayed with both MC and Mortelli. They both believe in laws, but have their own morals that are independent of the law. They are also both implied to be politically conservative. However, none of this is mentioned all that much.
• Good Parents: MC is this to Amanda, giving her a helping hand and providing for her as best as he can, but teaching her some often hard life lessons all the same.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: MC and Kathy are both hiding their failures to quit cigarettes, but when they smoke marijuana, it’s portrayed as positive overall, with no mention of an addiction.
• Grass is Greener: In the “good” Lily epilogue, MC casts off the life of responsibility that he has led for his whole adulthood thus far, wanting to have adventures with the love of his life.
• Grease Monkey: When MC can’t make a repair to something mechanical in the diner, you know it’s a serious problem.
• Greasy Spoon: The diner that MC visits in Whiskeyville is nondescript, but has delicious apple pie, and MC appreciates that the food isn’t pretentious.
• Group Picture Ending: At the end of their celebration, MC and the girls take a group photo.
• Guide Dang It!: The minigame about hacking into the lawyer’s computer is almost impossible if you don’t know something about it going into it.
• Hacking Minigame: In his flashback, MC hacks into Lainie’s lawyer’s computer to get money after her family cut her off. The minigame revolves around guessing the password.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Amanda is the wholesome, “innocent” dirty blonde with long, straight hair, while Kathy is sexually open with short, black hair.
• Halfway Plot Switch: Approximately half of the story revolves around MC and Amanda saving their diner, while the other half revolves around the wedge that Cecilia drives between MC and Amanda, and MC’s attempt to clear up what really happened between Lainie and himself.
• Ham and Deadpan Duo: MC is deadpan at times, while Mortelli is a ham.
• Happiness in Minimum Wage: Blake. He seems to enjoy waiting tables, and tells MC (when the latter takes Heidi on a date to his new workplace) that it was “an honor” to have worked for him, if only for a short time.
  • When MC trains Saul as his temporary replacement in the kitchen, Saul seems to take to cooking surprisingly well. Even though he’s still looking for a new job in law, he welcomes the change of pace that cooking brings.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Kathy loves to socialize over a beer or twenty. Notably, she seems like a regular at Heidi’s, even though she’s presumably under the legal drinking age.
• Harem Genre: All of the available sexual partners (minus Olivia) end up working for MC at the diner.
• Hates Small Talk: Veronica seems to be like this.
• Have We Met?: MC thinks Cecilia looks familiar when she shows up at the diner.
  • MC also thinks Saul looks familiar when they first meet. This is a subversion, because although MC thinks Saul might be related to Lainie’s family lawyer, it’s never stated for sure.
• Have You Come to Gloat?: Subverted when Saul visits MC in jail. Saul hasn’t come to rub anything in, but to pay his bail and offer free legal representation.
• Hidden Depths: The naive Lainie eventually hatched a shrewd plan in order to get MC the startup capital he needed for his business.
  • Subverted with Amanda. Her stories are popular in the erotica circuit, but according to Heidi, the objective quality of the stories isn’t that good.
• Hidden Object Game: MC’s search through Mortelli’s office largely consists of this.
• Higher Education Is for Women: Played with. Mortelli is implied not to be a college graduate, and while MC did graduate college, his degree has never been any help to his professional life. Notably, Amanda and Kathy, who both come from humble origins, are in college, and Amanda uses some of her college lessons to help save the diner.
• High Priest: Smoking Dog, most likely.
• Hint Dropping: Amanda tries to seduce MC by small but significant actions, such as delaying covering herself when he sees her in the shower. The culmination is in Whiskeyville, when she walks into his hotel room naked. Still, it takes MC finding out that Amanda is actually writing the father-daughter incest stories that Kathy is posting for him to figure out what’s going on. Justified by the taboo on incest.
  • Later on, Amanda asks MC if he notices anything different after he gets home from work. After he gives a generic answer, she is angry that he didn’t notice the work she put into her makeup.
    • Then, Amanda does this for a third time. She gives vague clues that she wants him to tell her about her mother, and when he doesn’t take the hint, she surreptitiously moves out of their apartment.
• Hired for Their Looks: Discussed leading up to the reopening of the diner. Mortelli notes that apart from the owner (MC), all the people who work at the diner (Amanda, Kathy, Heidi, and Veronica) are attractive women.
• Hitchhiker's Leg: Averted with Lily, who uses a childlike attitude rather than sex appeal to get a ride from MC and Amanda.
• Hobos: Lily before arriving at the diner. She travels to different places on the whim of an app she downloaded, not working, subsisting on her social skills and the kindness of strangers.
• Hollywood Economics: MC used $250,000 that Lainie had swindled out of her family lawyer to: a) launch his diner; and b) keep it open through nearly two decades of slow business. In reality, the startup costs of a diner would eat up well over half of that sum, and even if the diner lost only $5,000 per month, the money would run out well before the ten-year mark.
  • After reopening, the diner starts doing well - well enough, in fact, that it can afford to close for a few days in a month. However, any non-chain food service business operates on a slim profit margin - if it makes a profit at all.
  • Averted with Heidi and her bar. Even though Heidi’s is a popular hangout, Heidi herself struggles so much to make even a modest profit that she sells her business into liquidation.
• Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: In the “good” Lily ending, this is pretty much what MC goes through when deciding to leave the diner to Amanda and travel the world with Lily.
• Horrible Housing: Kathy describes her studio apartment as “crappy,” but it’s mostly an informed attribute, since we don’t really get to see its condition. All we really know about it is that it’s small.
• Horror Hippies: The Church of the Aquarian Revelation appears to have been like this. They are portrayed as a bunch of New Age cultists who used drugs and conducted terrifying rituals under the influence of a sociopathic leader.
• How Dad Met Mom: Interestingly, the player (and Mortelli) sees the story before it is told to Amanda. At the point of a gun, MC divulges everything about his relationship with Lainie to Mortelli. He tells Amanda (thus filling in the parts that she didn’t hear from Cecilia) mostly offscreen after Amanda picks him up from jail.
• Huddle Shot: Occurs after MC passes out in the diner. He wakes up to find Amanda, Kathy, and Mortelli all looking at him.
• Humble Goal: All that MC and Amanda want to do is rescue their business from failure.
  • Subverted in Heidi’s endings, when MC decides to franchise the diner.
  • Also, after college, MC wanted a run-of-the-mill industrial engineering job. Due to offshoring, he couldn’t even get that.
• Hurricane of Puns: MC joking about Blake’s anal prolapse when Blake is serving Heidi and MC on a date. There’s no indication that Blake gets any of them.

I-L

• I Didn't Tell You Because You'd Be Unhappy: MC didn’t tell Amanda everything about her mother because he didn’t want to burden her with all the details of how and why she died. However, this left Amanda open to being manipulated by Cecilia, who used this mystery information to drive a wedge between MC and Amanda.
• Idle Rich: Lainie, Cecilia, and their family don’t work. They don’t need to. Even so, they object to the term “rich.”
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Discussed by Cecilia and Mortelli. She believes that MC stole the money intended for Lainie’s medical treatment and used it to open his diner. In truth, Lainie never told MC that she was sick, and MC was never sure what she said to convince her family lawyer to give her that money.
• Illegal Guardian: Inverted with Cecilia, for whom neither MC nor Amanda ever sought, but who shows up nonetheless to entice Amanda with her money and take a sledgehammer to MC’s life.
• Illegal Religion: Sort of. The Church of the Aquarian Revelation is not itself illegal, but it has associated itself with illegal activities such as drug use.
• I Minored in Tropology: MC, the diner owner, went to college for engineering. Somewhat justified by MC’s backstory.
• Impassable Desert: Averted. Lily even wants to cross the desert on foot when she decides to leave the diner.
• Incurable Cough of Death: An interesting variation with Lainie. MC noticed that Lainie had a cough, but didn’t think anything of it, and it is clearly implied to have caused Lainie’s death in childbirth. However, Lainie might have been able to get cured if she so chose; however, she concealed the full extent of her illness from MC so that her treatment money could instead go to the business that MC wanted to start.
• I Never: MC goes with Amanda and Kathy to the new bar that crops up where Heidi’s used to be. They play “Never Have I Ever” over a pitcher of sangria.
• I Never Told You My Name: When MC goes to Heidi’s alone, he bumps into Saul, whom he has never met before, and he is shocked to learn that Saul knows who he is.
• Inherent in the System: MC graduated college, and went to the plant where he’d been promised a job. The foreman told him that there wasn’t a job for him after all. When MC called him out, the foreman let slip that the company management was planning to move all the plant operations to China.
  • Invoked by Amanda when MC is interviewing candidates for new jobs at the diner. MC wants to pay what he thinks is fair, but Amanda insists that he should pay the much lower market rate. MC defies this and pays the higher wage anyway.
• Inheritance Backlash: Amanda defies this trope. She doesn’t accept her mother’s very large inheritance because, as per her aunt, she can’t take her father with her.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Subverted with Amanda. Amanda seems innocent, but she’s been secretly writing father-daughter erotica based on her own desires.
• Inspector Javert: Zigzagged with Mortelli. He investigates MC in the toaster theft only to eliminate him as a suspect, but then actually believes that MC stole Lainie’s treatment money (and MC’s break-in into Mortelli’s own office solidifies his suspicions). Then, when MC explains his side of the story, Mortelli immediately believes him.
• Instant Book Deal: Kathy’s epilogues are like this. And in the “good” epilogue, it’s a smashing success.
• Instant Seduction: If MC talks with Veronica rather than Heidi at the bar, she gives him a handjob at their first meeting.
• Instant Web Hit: The erotica stories written by Amanda and posted by Kathy. Heidi heard of the stories before meeting either Amanda or Kathy.
• Internal Reveal: When MC reveals his new girlfriend to the rest of his staff.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: MC breaks into Mortelli’s office because he realizes that Mortelli has been withholding certain information from him, and wants to find out what exactly his longtime friend knows.
  • All the other girls (minus Veronica) come along for the first attempt to “rescue” Amanda from Cecilia. However, he only hatches a workable, if foolhardy, plan and carries it out by himself.
• Intimate Telecommunications: At one point early in the story, MC is particularly horny, and has the option of asking Kathy for nudes. Kathy will only indulge him if he asks nicely.
  • When MC gets out of prison, he finds a naughty picture from a girl (Kathy, Heidi, or Lily depending on the choices he made) to give him strength for what lies ahead.
• In Vino Veritas: Averted, especially with the drinking game that MC, Amanda, and Kathy play at the new bar in town. Despite the wine, the many secrets that they are all keeping from each other, and the game that they are playing together, none of them lets anything slip.
• Iron Lady: Heidi runs a tight ship as a bar owner, and doesn’t take crap from anyone.
• Irrational Hatred: Cecilia blames MC for Lainie’s death, and seeks to destroy his life because of it. She “forgets” some important details that would refute her belief on this issue (for example, their father had cut Lainie off by the time of her death).
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Remarkably, two different ones:
  • The first half of the story is dominated by MC and Amanda learning how to process their mutual attraction.
  • The second half is about Amanda wanting to know more about her mother, with Cecilia giving Amanda information that MC withheld from her.
• Jumping the Shark: Discussed in-universe. KathyKat’s erotic stories about a father-daughter couple go from them running a diner together to them opening their own porn studio.
• Jury and Witness Tampering: Inverted. Mortelli tampers with his own testimony (and the evidence) because he doesn’t want to see MC go to jail over something that he firmly believes is right.
• Just Fine Without You: Averted. When Amanda and/or Heidi run the diner, it is genuinely well-run, even without MC there.
• Justified Criminal: MC and Lainie technically committed a crime by tricking Lainie’s family lawyer into giving them $250,000. However, it was the only way they could think of to climb just one rung on the economic ladder.
  • Lampshaded by Mortelli when MC breaks into Cecilia’s hotel room to get through to Amanda. It was perhaps the only way for MC to get his daughter back without losing her forever.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks: Deconstructed with MC. He wants to shield Amanda from the struggles he and Lainie went through, but that means that he has to deprive Amanda of the full knowledge of one of her parents. Not to mention that Lainie’s relatives could show up at any moment and force the information out into the open.
• Kill the Cutie: Lainie’s death. Lainie chose to forgo medical treatment in order to get MC startup capital for his business. It ended up costing her life in childbirth.
• Lap Pillow: Happens when MC and Amanda are watching a movie together. Amanda falls asleep, and her head falls into MC’s lap. MC gets out as gently and discreetly as he can manage.
• Last Episode Theme Reprise: The theme song plays during MC’s not-going-to-prison party.
• Last Request: It is possible that Lainie’s was to have her daughter named Amanda, after one of her relatives.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: If MC is seeing both Amanda and another girl by the time of his party, Amanda will make him choose between her and the other girl, and then the main game ends.
• Leitmotif: Almost every major character and every situation has a theme. Lily has two: an initial one for her carefree, goofy exterior and another once MC brings out her femininity (if the player decides to go that route).
• Lending a Backhand: Subverted with Saul. When Saul announces his intention to represent MC legally, MC is convinced that Saul is just trying to screw him over. Saul, however, actually gets him acquitted.
• Let Off by the Detective: Mortelli renders all of the evidence against MC inadmissible so that he’ll be acquitted of burglary, as Mortelli is sure that MC did the right thing given the circumstances.
• Let's Get Out of Here: A long-term example if MC chooses to be with Amanda at the end. MC realizes that, if he and Amanda are to stay in their relationship, it won’t be safe for them to stay where they are, especially because Cecilia still has a grudge against him. This is especially pronounced in the “good” ending, where MC and Amanda move to Hawaii because of Amanda’s pregnancy.
• Like Father, Like Son: Amanda, who loves the diner as a second home, has mastered how to run it, even though MC is reluctant to hand over the reins to her even for a day.
  • Mortelli is a cop who loves being in law enforcement, as was his dad.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Kathy, the liberal, bisexual feminist, had a very conservative upbringing.
  • Lily doesn’t think the cultural image of a “good Korean girl” is for her, no matter what her parents say.
  • Lainie had a very different attitude toward the world from that of the rest of her wealthy family, wanting to mix with the common people. She was also quite a bit more naive than they are.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: Patrons who contribute at least $20/month get extra sex scenes during the story.
• Limited Wardrobe: Each character has a single outfit that he/she wears about 90 percent of the time, with a strong justification for wearing just about anything else (e.g. Amanda wears a bikini to the beach).
• Line to God: The creators have a website and a Patreon page.
• Lingerie Scene: Amanda has these early on as a way to present herself sexually to MC. As time goes on, she eventually gives MC a good look at her naked body, and then progresses to coming onto him.
• Loading Screen: A simple one for some scene changes.
• Local Hangout: Heidi’s Bar. Kathy is a regular there, and MC goes there twice at the beginning of the story. And when a new bar opens at the same location, it inherits this trope.
• Locked Out of the Loop: A rare lampshaded example. Mortelli lets slip that he knows MC’s “biggest secret.” Cecilia and Saul also know the “secret” to which he is referring, and they let Amanda in on it as well.
  • Also, MC confides in Kathy when he initially decides to sell the diner, but doesn’t tell Amanda. Amanda finds out anyway when she runs into Kathy, who is applying for another job at the time.
• Lockpicking Minigame: MC has one of these to open Amanda’s bedroom door. If the player doesn’t give up, MC sees Amanda pleasuring herself.
• Loners Are Freaks: Lily is an unusual version. She has no trouble making friends, but travels alone. She uses a tabletop RPG-style app to find things to do, doesn’t find holding down a job to be palatable, doesn’t pay attention to signs or other cues to socially or legally acceptable behavior, and doesn’t mind being the target of racially offensive jokes.
• Long-Lost Relative: Cecilia, when she shows up to offer Lainie’s inheritance to Amanda. MC swears that she looks familiar when he first meets her, and she eventually announces herself as Amanda’s aunt.
• Loose Lips: Mortelli lets slip several clues that MC is, or is about to be in, serious trouble that would upend his life. This leads to MC breaking into Mortelli’s office to find out what the detective knows but isn’t telling him.
• Loser Protagonist: MC is an unmarried single dad with a failing business and nothing else to his name.
• Love Overrides the Law: An example both romantic (from MC’s persoective) and not (from Mortelli’s). Mortelli sabotages MC’s criminal trial because, in his view, MC only did what any loving father would do.
• Love Will Lead You Back: Averted when Amanda moves out of MC’s apartment. MC is convinced (rightly) that Amanda won’t come back unless he can somehow find her and explain his side of his and Lainie’s story.

M-N

• Made O' Gold: The toaster that was stolen from the diner was expensive, and Mortelli describes it as “the Cadillac of toasters.” Why? It has a gold-quartz heating element.
• Making Room for Baby: Averted in the “good” ending with Amanda. MC and Amanda do not get a place to accommodate their new baby. Rather, they move to Hawaii to hide Amanda’s pregnancy from the people who know them.
• Malt Shop: The main setting for the story is a diner with a 1950s look.
• Mandela Effect: In-universe. MC, when searching his mind for a restaurant to take Heidi, suggests a place named “Mortelli’s.” However, Heidi knows that the restaurant in question is really named “Mortadella’s.” Then, Heidi lampshades it, using this exact term to describe MC’s train of thought.
• Marijuana Is LSD: Averted. When MC and Kathy smoke weed, they don’t hallucinate one bit.
• Medium Blending: Done masterfully with several of the minigames, in which elements of well known video games and mobile games are inserted into the gameplay. This is especially true in the video game arcade scene when MC takes either Heidi or Veronica there, and plays a faithfully reproduced 80s video game (the player has a choice between Pong, Asteroids, and Centipede).
• Medium Two-Shot: Used at almost any time when MC is having a conversation with two characters, especially while standing up.
• Mellow Fellow: Blake is never shown to get angry or excited about anything, even when surprised or when people make jokes at his expense.
• Memento MacGuffin: Sort of. Amanda named the jukebox in the diner “Lainie” after her late mother.
• Mind Screw: Mortelli tries to get MC to guess who stole the toaster when he asks, and the screen shows over a dozen options for MC to guess (including Mortelli himself). None of them turn out to be correct.

Mortelli: You ain’t a detective.

• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Possibly. At the beginning of the story, the crime that Mortelli investigated is the theft of the toaster at MC’s diner. It isn’t clear how Mortelli gets dragged into investigating MC for defrauding Lainie’s family lawyer, but MC suspects a connection between the two investigations.
• Minor with Fake I.D.: Implied with Kathy. At 19, she is a regular at Heidi’s Bar. The story takes place in the United States, where the legal drinking age is 21. And given how straight-laced Heidi is, she would definitely be diligent about checking IDs.
• Misplaced Retribution: Cecilia blames MC for Lainie’s death, but Lainie herself eschewed the treatment that could have saved her life, and hid her illness from MC until she died. If Cecilia were to blame someone other than Lainie, it would most reasonably be her father, who had cut her off prior to the whole incident.
• Mood Motif: Used for most situations in which the focus isn’t on a particular character (and in some when it is).
• More Friends, More Benefits: Downplayed. There is a harem ending which is very hard to get, but other than that, there is no discernible difference between the number of girls that MC has sex with.
• Most Common Card Game: While waiting for customers to show up for the grand reopening of the diner, Amanda and Kathy pass the time by playing Go Fish.
• Most Gamers Are Male: Averted in-universe. In a bonus scene, MC walks in on Amanda playing video games, leading to some sexy time.
• Motive Rant: Subverted with Cecilia. She makes her distaste for MC known, but stops short of saying what he supposedly did to earn this distaste. She eventually tells Mortelli and Amanda separately and offscreen.
• Mourning an Object: Lampshaded when the jukebox breaks down. Amanda is so sad that when MC can’t fix it, she tracks down the repair shop which covers it with a warranty. However, she still says that it’s silly of her to mourn over a jukebox.
• Mr. Fixit: MC generally fixes everything in the diner himself rather than calling professionals. Kathy questions him about why he finds it so easy when he’s about to fix the dishwasher, and MC handwaves it by stating that he just sees the logic of it.
• Multiple Endings: There are three endings for each of the main girls (Amanda, Kathy, Heidi, and Lily): a “good” ending where MC joins his chosen girl in an ideal life, a “neutral” ending where MC has an okay relationship which may be permanent depending on the girl, and a “bad” ending in which the relationship, well, ends badly. Additionally, there is a hard-to-find harem ending, as well as an ending with no girls.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: A justified example. Since Lainie died when she wasn’t too much older than Amanda is now, we only see the two of them at around the same age.
• Must Have Nicotine: Downplayed. While MC and Kathy both smoke, it’s seldom shown.
• Must Make Her Laugh: Heidi decides to form a real relationship with MC if he can make her laugh in the course of their first “real” date.
• My Girl Is a Slut: Downplayed, if not outright subverted, with Kathy. While in a relationship with MC, Kathy still has sex with women (and sometimes brings them into her sessions with MC), but she is never shown or spoken to be sleeping with other men.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: Amanda has no sexual experience before she starts fooling around with MC.
  • Subverted with Heidi. After sharing sexual experiences with MC and Kathy (sometimes both at once), Heidi stops in the middle of a love fest, and tells MC that since she doesn’t like casual sex, he has to choose right then and there between her and Kathy (or someone else).
• My Greatest Failure: MC not telling Amanda the whole truth about Lainie, nor about his relationship with her.
• My Secret Pregnancy: Taken to its logical extreme in the “good” ending with Amanda. When they get the news, MC and Amanda leave behind their friends and their business to start over again in Hawaii.
  • Given her family’s attitude toward her relationship with MC and Cecilia’s attempt at revenge on MC, it’s very possible that Lainie kept her own pregnancy with Amanda secret from them. Otherwise, Cecilia probably would have come looking for Amanda sooner.
• Mysterious Backer: Saul becomes this in the lead-up to MC’s trial. Saul states that he has his own reasons for representing MC for free, and he disappears after the trial is over. MC speculates that he might be a relative of Lainie’s family lawyer whom MC and Lainie previously hoodwinked, but Saul’s motives are still unclear.
• Mysterious Parent: Lainie. Amanda, thanks to MC’s selective truth-telling, knows very little about her. However, when her sister, Cecilia, shows up at the diner, she proves very consequential.
• Mystery Episode: Downplayed. At the end of the story, MC asks Mortelli who stole his toaster. Mortelli asks MC who he thinks it was. In the end, it’s impossible for him to guess the answer.
• Naïve Everygirl: Subverted with Amanda. She gives off an innocent vibe and gets attached to places and other inanimate objects, but she’s not self-conscious about her appearance, and she has a natural knack for business. Plus, it turns out that all her “accidental” sexual passes with MC aren’t accidental at all.
• Naïve Newcomer: Played for laughs with Lily, who comes to the diner seeking employment despite being a drifter who is woefully unaware of anything about the working world. It takes a lot of hand-holding to get her work to a place where she is a reliable employee.
• Nature Lover: Lily is perfectly capable of surviving in the wild, even in the desert.
• Naughty by Night: Veronica. She is a respectable businesswoman by day, but sometimes, she is willing to get sexual in a dark alley with a guy she just met.
• Naughty Under the Table: Happens if MC advises Kathy to be more spontaneous. When a psychologist customer gives MC an impromptu therapy session, Kathy starts sucking him off underneath the bar.
• Near-Villain Victory: Happens at MC’s trial. Right when Mortelli takes the stand, the player has no reason to believe that MC can be found as anything but guilty. However, it turns out that Mortelli has ruined all of the evidence against MC, leading to his acquittal.
• NEET: Lily, at least before she comes to the diner looking for a job. Her life consists of a giant scavenger hunt/RPG conducted through an app, and spouting sayings that Amanda terms “the wisdom of someone with no responsibilities.”
• Nepotism: Somewhat deconstructed with MC letting Amanda make major decisions at the diner. Amanda grew up around the diner, and pretty much saves it with her daring reopening plan. However, Veronica has to remind her at times that she can’t just make any decision she likes.
• Nerves of Steel: Mortelli. Faced with a break-in of his own office, he methodically uncovers who the culprit is.
• Neverending Terror: Even after his acquittal in court, MC knows that Cecilia still has it out for him, and will take another crack at getting revenge on him.
• Never Recycle a Building: Averted with Heidi’s Bar. After it closes, a new bar opens in its place.
• New Age: The Church of the Aquarian Revelation is the dark side of this.
• New Baby Episode: Right at the beginning with Amanda’s birth, and Lainie’s death in giving it. Subsequently, Amanda’s upbringing in the diner is briefly explained.
• Nice Guys Finish Last: Defied by Kathy. She will only do anything with MC if he is nice to her. This is established if MC tries to get Kathy to sext him. He gets what he wants if he’s nice about it, but if he’s forceful, well...

MC: Send nudes. Now.

Kathy: Just ask nicely.

• No Accounting for Taste: Mortelli has cheated on his wife (including at least once with a prostitute), he once had a burner phone just for this purpose, he talks inappropriately about just about any other (especially younger) attractive woman he sees, he keeps a stash of porn at his desk, and in addition, his job keeps him at work for long hours, sometimes during the night. He and his wife are still married.
• Nocturnal Crime: Averted. Mortelli’s break-in at MC’s apartment and MC’s break-in at Mortelli’s office both take place during the day. MC’s and Lainie’s deception of Lainie’s lawyer also happens during the day. The same is true of Lily trespassing in the hotel swimming pool. However, Kathy’s underage drinking hijinks and (probably) the toaster theft happen at night, and MC breaks into Cecilia’s hotel room in the evening.
• No Going Steady: Until the end of the story nears, MC can have commitment-free sexual relationships with all of the girls.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Exploited by Mortelli, MC, and Saul. Mortelli beats MC up in the middle of the woods to invalidate MC’s signed confession to breaking into Cecilia’s hotel room.
• Non-Action Big Bad: For obvious reasons, Cecilia prefers to use money and information rather than violence to cause problems for MC.
• No Pregger Sex: Averted in the “good” Amanda ending. When MC and the pregnant Amanda visit the location of their new diner in Hawaii, one of the first things they do is “baptize” it... by having sex in the kitchen.
• Notably Quick Deliberation: It barely takes any time at all for the jury to find MC not guilty of breaking and entering. Justified, as all of the evidence against him was ruled as inadmissible during the trial.
• Not Himself: Amanda doesn’t show up for work and doesn’t call out. At another time, she insists that she’s studying with “friends” that MC never heard of. She also says once that she had a job interview with a company with an obviously fake name. And through all this, she sleeps in her own room rather than MC’s. That leads MC to believe that something’s wrong, and sure enough, Cecilia has been feeding her information about Lainie, manipulated in a way to make MC look like a bad guy.
  • Kathy stops coming to work when MC and Amanda are in Whiskeyville. Heidi chalks it up to Kathy’s temperamental mindset, but MC is convinced that there’s something else behind it. When MC visits Kathy at her apartment, he discovers a big secret that she and Amanda have been keeping from him.
  • Mortelli is away from the diner for long periods of time following Cecilia’s threat, and when he does show up, he acts weird, even for him. He’s also been listening to Cecilia, and secretly investigating MC.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The struggling diner becomes profitable after its reopening. MC is more cavalier after this point about giving people jobs or doing things that cost him money.
  • Lampshaded by Amanda on the beach trip. She says she wants to go “back to the way things were,” and MC asks whether she means before or after the trip to Whiskeyville. She clarifies that she means after the trip.
• Not Proven: MC gets off for breaking into Cecilia’s hotel room because none of the evidence against him is both present and admissible, thanks to Mortelli.
• No Warrant? No Problem!: Mortelli examines the diner’s financial records secretly, with no mention of a warrant authorizing their search or seizure.
• Now, Let Me Carry You: When MC comes home smashed after a night at Heidi’s Bar, Amanda implores him to let her take care of him like he used to take care of her.

O-R

• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Not a housewife, but a customer comes into the diner once with no intention (as she says matter-of-factly) of ordering any food. Kathy is not amused, and expels the woman.
• Obsolete Mentor: A non-technological example. MC has mastered the techniques of the diner business, but he’s oblivious to the need for specialization. Amanda has to twist his arm to get him to serve a particular niche rather than “everybody” (mostly whittled down to just Moe Mortelli).
• Odd Friendship: Lily and Mortelli. Lily apparently doesn’t care if Mortelli says anything inappropriate or even racist towards her.
• Old Money: Lainie and Cecilia come from this type of family. They offer Amanda her rightful inheritance if she forsakes MC.
• Old-School Chivalry: Discussed. MC insists to Amanda that he is still chivalrous. However, he explains that chivalry has gone through some slight adjustments, namely, more cursing.
• Omnibus: After a bunch of updates, the developers would periodically release downloadable bundles of episodes.
• Omnidisciplinary Lawyer: Saul. He has been established as a corporate lawyer, yet he dips his feet into trial law to help MC get acquitted. Possibly deconstructed, since he does cheat to win.
• Online Alias: KathyKat, the author of several erotic stories where the main characters have striking resemblances to MC and Amanda.
• Only One Female Mold: Averted, and how. Even the girls’ vaginas look different.
• Only Useful as Toilet Paper: Discussed in-universe. According to Heidi, the stories supposedly written by Kathy don’t actually have a good literary quality; they just play on the fantasies of the readers (she herself being one).
• On One Condition: Amanda is only offered her mother’s inheritance on the condition that she cut ties with MC.
• On the Next: At the end of every episode, there is a montage of pictures from sexy scenes to be included in the next episode. The same montage is shown regardless of whether the player cannot access certain scenes shown because of choices in previous episodes.
• Opening Monologue: The story begins with MC giving a cursory backstory to Amanda and himself: Lainie dying while giving birth to Amanda, MC making a meal for Amanda which would eventually become her favorite food, MC always drumming one important life lesson into Amanda, and MC opening a diner to teach Amanda the value of hard work.
• Open the Door and See All the People: Just when it looks like the grand reopening of the diner is a bust, the group notices that there’s a typo on the marketing flyers: they accidentally wrote that the diner will open at 9:00 instead of 6:00. And when they open the door at 9....
• Opposites Attract: MC and Lily. While MC is grounded and responsible, Lily is the quintessential free spirit.
• Optional Sexual Encounter: Every one that doesn’t involve Amanda... and one at the end that does.
• Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: The story contains a disclaimer in every chapter that basically states that the story doesn’t violate any laws or Patreon guidelines.
• Outdoorsy Gal: Lily all the way. She can even survive by herself in the desert.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Discussed between MC and Lainie in the flashbacks. MC tells Lainie about his dream of opening a diner, and Lainie asks him if he’d like to open a restaurant instead. MC replies that he doesn’t see himself as a good enough cook to run his own restaurant. And we know that MC can cook.
• Pac Man Fever: The video game arcade scene (where MC can take either Heidi or Veronica if he makes the right decisions with either one) features only games from the 80s, while Amanda and MC play a game in a bonus scene with what looks like a Super NES control.
• Pain Mistaken for Sex: Inverted with Amanda in one scene. MC picks the lock on her bedroom door because he thinks she’s in pain (or some kind of distress). She’s actually masturbating.
• Parental Incest: MC and Amanda, as referenced in the title.
• Parental Obliviousness: MC is unaware of Amanda trying to get his attention in a sexual way. Justified for obvious reasons.
• Parent-Child Team: MC and Amanda running their diner together. MC is reluctant to give Amanda any leeway to make decisions at first, but she proves that she’s more than up to the task.
• Parents Are Wrong: MC admits to Amanda that he should’ve told her more about her late mother.
• Parents in Distress: Amanda takes care of MC once when he comes home drunk from the bar, and opens the diner when he sleeps in next morning.
• Parent with New Paramour: Happens in any ending with Kathy, Heidi, or Lily. After getting out of jail, MC announces his relationship to all the diner staff. How Amanda reacts depends on whether MC decided before to continue their own relationship. If he did, Amanda is hurt and angry, but if not, she is understanding and accepting of her father’s new girlfriend.
• Parting-from-Consciousness Words: MC has some mundane ones before passing out from a night of heavy drinking.
• Pastimes Prove Personality: Kathy’s activities include writing and smoking marijuana, and she is very liberal and free-thinking.
  • Invoked by MC regarding Lily. MC surmises that her participation in a real-world scavenger hunt/RPG is due to a lack of decision-making ability; she’ll only do something if someone else tells her to.
• Patriotic Fervor: Invoked by Mortelli at certain points, especially in his flashbacks, when he explained to his father that he would make a good police officer.
• Pen Name: Kathy posts Amanda’s erotic stories online under the name “KathyKat.”
• Photo Montage: The party scene at the end consists mainly of this.
• Pipe Maze: The minigame for fixing the washing machine is a Pipe Mania knockoff.
• Please Subscribe to Our Channel: Every chapter ends with a link to the developers’ Patreon page.
• Plot-Driven Breakdown: The washing machine breaks down, giving MC the chance to impress his way into Kathy’s pants by fixing it.
• Plot-Driving Secret: How MC got the money to start his diner.
  • Eventually, the sexual nature of MC’s relationship with Amanda.
• Plucky Girl: Lily never abandons her positive attitude, and she’s braver than some others give her credit for.
• Plug 'n' Play Friends: Subverted with Lily. Although she gets along perfectly well with MC and most of the staff (and even with Mortelli) from the moment she arrives at the diner, Amanda is the one exception. Amanda goes so far as to say that Lily should be fired.
  • Double subverted with Heidi. It looks like Kathy has stopped coming to work when Heidi is running the diner, but in fact, Kathy has no issue with Heidi at all. There’s something completely different on her mind which is driving her to stay home.
• Point-and-Click Game: The minigame in Mortelli’s office.
• Police Brutality Gambit: Zigzagged. Mortelli plans the gambit with MC and Saul to render MC’s written confession void.
• Porn with Plot: With multiple plots, actually.
• Posthumous Character: Lainie, who died giving birth to Amanda, is shown throughout the story in flashbacks, which are eventually tied together to narrate MC’s relationship with her.
• Post-Robbery Trauma: Averted with MC. He calmly orders a new toaster and goes about his business as usual when his very expensive toaster is stolen.
• P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl: The title is a reference to Amanda, the main face of the game.
• Precision F-Strike: From Amanda as a response to MC saying that modern-day chivalry involves cursing:

Amanda: Go through the fucking door, milord.

• Precocious Crush: Amanda mentions on the beach trip that her attraction to MC started as one of these, and never went away.
• Pre-Meeting: MC bumping into Saul outside Heidi’s Bar before Saul properly introduces himself.
  • Also, Cecilia visiting the diner before revealing her identity. She’s rude to MC, but gives Amanda a $1,000 tip.
• Previously on…: Each episode after the first begins with a narrated montage of the events of the previous one. It’s tailored to the choices the player made in the previous chapter.
• Prison Episode: MC’s few days in jail after breaking into Cecilia’s hotel room.
• Prison Rape: Invoked by MC. He doesn’t shower until Saul bails him out.
• Proverbial Wisdom: Subverted with Lily’s saying. As MC and Amanda realize after hearing them, Lily’s supposed “wisdom” assumes that responsibility is absent or even bad.
• Public Exposure: In an early scene, Kathy sends MC photos of herself with her naughty bits hanging out in different parts of the diner. When MC goes to the place in each photo, she’s not there. He eventually finds her in the alley in the back, and Kathy tells him that she took those pictures before.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Heidi can do this to MC twice in one night when he comes to her bar, hoping to pick up a girl:
  • Since MC called her a “Nazi bitch” the last time he was in her bar, she charges him double for any drink he orders. And when he expresses surprise:
    Heidi: You heard me. Double. For. Drinks.
  • Later, if MC decides to hit on Heidi anyway, he can offer to tend the bar for her (simulated by a minigame). And if he fails:
    Heidi: Just as I expected. You. Suck.
• Rambunctious Italian: Mortelli is loud and talkative, and shows emotion easily. His temper even drives him to point a gun in MC’s face once - even though he never loses his temper.
• Ready for Lovemaking: Amanda tries to get MC’s sexual attention in increasingly blatant ways. It’s only when Kathy tells MC about Amanda’s secret crush on him that he reciprocates.
  • After the secret comes out, this trope resurfaces in a downplayed fashion. Amanda, wanting to impress MC, makes changes to her appearance that are very subtle for a man. MC notices so little that Amanda herself has to lampshade it to open his eyes.
  • Olivia dresses in skimpy clothes, and is quick to invite MC into the back of her shop alone, and then flirt aggressively with him.
• Really Moves Around: Lily has a wanderlust which always comes out. She walks and hitchhikes for transportation, and can sleep either in a tent or in the houses of friends she makes along the way. She attempts to settle into a job at the diner, but eventually, she leaves to keep traveling. In the “good” Lily ending, MC bequeathes the diner to Amanda so he can travel with her.
• Really Royalty Reveal: When Cecilia announces her true identity to MC and Amanda, she reveals that Amanda’s mother is from a very wealthy family. They offer Amanda her mother’s inheritance, but only if she leaves the diner and MC.
• Real Men Cook: MC cooks at his own diner. While the business is initially in trouble, the food quality isn’t the problem.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: MC is this at his diner. In particular, he doesn’t give up on Lily, even when she’s slow to learn how to cook the dishes on the menu.
• Record Needle Scratch: Used a couple of times in scenes when one or (usually) more characters are shocked.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Kathy (Red Oni) is wild and unconstrained (and goes to bars while underage), while Amanda (Blue Oni) is grounded and responsible, and likes making plans.
• Rejecting the Inheritance: Double subverted with Amanda. While her first response is to say that MC is more important to her than money, she warms up to accepting when she learns details about her mother’s past that MC didn’t tell her. Then, when MC breaks into Cecilia’s hotel room to tell her the whole truth, Amanda walks away from her inheritance for good.
• Relationship Upgrade: Downplayed. The closest thing to a moment is when MC announces his choice of a girlfriend to his whole staff. However, the choice is in the making for a long time before that.
• Relative Error: An ironic one early on. Mortelli, on seeing Amanda, thinks she’s MC’s girlfriend. If only he could see what they would eventually get up to....
• Rereleased for Free: A free version of each episode was released about 2 to 3 months after the release of the corresponding paid version.
• Rich Bitch: Cecilia is rude and condescending to just about everyone outside of her family.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Lainie had a large family fortune but also extraordinary naïveté, especially about the ulterior motives of people who wanted to use her.
• Rich Language, Poor Language: Cecilia, Lainie, and Saul have dialogue that is significantly more polished than that used by, say, MC or Mortelli.
• Road Trip Plot: MC’s and Amanda’s trip to Whiskeyville. Apart from their main object (to fix their jukebox), the trip proves very eventful.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Even though Amanda isn’t being held captive, MC breaking into Cecilia’s hotel room to confront the two of them has shades of this.
• Romance Ensues: MC and Amanda finally have a chance to get lots of alone time on the trip to Whiskeyville. Amanda has an attraction to MC that she acknowledges (if only to Kathy and herself, while MC has an unconscious attraction to Amanda. Slightly subverted, as MC rejects Amanda’s advances; he only reciprocates when Kathy tells him about Amanda’s feelings for him.
• Rule of Two: Subverted. Cecilia has Saul as her legal muscle when she makes her debut, but he represents MC for free at his criminal trial, and plays dirty to get him a not guilty verdict.
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: Discussed by Mortelli when describing his early days as a cop. He infiltrated a Russian crime ring hidden inside a chess club.

S

• Scam Religion: The Church of the Aquarian Revelation seems like this, at least for Lainie. She’s in good standing as long as she can provide them with free food.
• School Is for Losers: Averted. Amanda and Kathy are both in college to better themselves.
• School of No Studying: Lampshaded by MC when Amanda uses studying as an excuse not to come home. This is the only time that either Amanda or Kathy references homework or studying.
• Scolded for Not Buying: Kathy doesn’t take kindly to a “customer” who comes to the diner for the ambience, but doesn’t want to order any food.
• Screen Name: KathyKat.
• Screen Shake: Used for an unusual purpose: to show surprise or realization.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Discussed with regards to Lainie, Cecilia, and their family. Especially with Lainie herself saying that her family would murder MC if they ever saw him hanging out with her.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Even though he knows that MC committed a crime, Mortelli chooses loyalty to his friend over loyalty to the law, because MC only did what any “real man” in America would have done (in his opinion).
• Screw Your Ultimatum!: After delivering his contract to buy up the diner for liquidation, Saul returns to follow up. He says that MC needs to agree to the sale right now, or else his offer will be cut in half. MC refuses outright. Justified, as the ultimatum came on the back of the wildly successful reopening of the diner.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Chapter 16 ends with Mortelli’s gun pointed in the audience’s face. He’s lured MC into the back alley to interrogate him, since he’s figured out who broke into his office.
• Secondary Character Title: Not by name, of course, but obviously referring to Amanda.
• Second Episode Introduction: MC’s embarrassing first meeting with Heidi.
• Second Love: Anyone could be this for MC, Lainie being his first love.
• Secret-Keeper: Having to tell someone that she was attracted to MC, Amanda told Kathy.
• Secretly Dying: Lainie had a mysterious illness that she kept from MC, but used to get money after her family had cut her off. But instead of using it for her treatment, she gave it to MC to start his diner. And as for Lainie, her illness killed her while she was giving birth to Amanda.
• Secret Relationship: Whichever girl he chooses, MC will only tell the rest of the main cast near the end of the story. Justified, as MC and all the girls work together, and introducing a romantic relationship can cause tensions in that situation. Especially justified with Amanda because of the taboo nature of this particular relationship.
• Seemingly Profound Fool: Lily. Her sayings give MC a seductive view of a worry-free life, but Lily herself is an Extreme Doormat who has trouble holding down a job.
• Seize Them!: Cecilia to Mortelli when MC breaks into her hotel room.

Cecilia: Your job is to protect the innocent from the guilty, and that man is clearly guilty!

• Self-Care Epiphany: MC, realizing that he hasn’t had sex in a long time, goes to a bar, hoping to pick up a girl.
  • MC has another one soon after, when he sleeps in, and Amanda has to open the diner for him. He wonders when he’s last has a day off.
• Sentimental Shabbiness: Amanda wants MC to do whatever he can to get their jukebox fixed, no matter how impossible it is, even making a long trip to take it to the designated repair shop in Whiskeyville, than to buy a new one - understandable, as she named the jukebox “Lainie.”
• Sequel Hook: In the “good” Amanda ending, MC and Amanda start up a new diner in Hawaii. Especially since Cecilia still has a grudge against MC, it’s bound to yield some interesting stories. In fact, Word of God confirmed in late 2019 that a second season was in the cards, but no additional updates have been announced as of May 2021.
• Serial Escalation: Parodied at MC’s trial. When Mortelli takes the stand, the prosecutors ask him if he’s sure of his testimony, and when he says he is, they ask if he’s double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, and sextuple sure. The judge isn’t amused.
• Serial Killer: Discussed. Kathy talks about the true crime shows that she watches at one point, and they go over which serial killer that Kathy sees in MC.
• Service Sector Stereotypes: Yes, even in a story set in a diner where the developers took pains to make the characters unique, we have one of these. Kathy is an adrift feminist woman, the black sheep of her conservative family, who lacks the focus to succeed at what she really wants to do (writing).
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Saul speaks in embellished sentences with lots of big words.
• Sex at Work: MC has chances to get down with Amanda, Kathy, and Lily inside the diner at different points in the story.
  • If MC succeeds in making all drinks to order when running Heidi’s Bar, then Heidi will have some after-hours fun with him.
  • MC has the option of having sex with Olivia in her repair shop.
• Sex Changes Everything: Invoked three times throughout the story:
  • The morning after MC and Amanda make love for the first time, Kathy asks MC how his talk with Amanda went. If he tells the whole truth (“We had sex”), Kathy says that he made a big mistake because of the implications of sex.
  • If MC, Kathy, and Heidi have threesomes, Kathy pulls away from their second one. When MC goes after her, Heidi says that she’s not into casual sex; sharing her body is a commitment for her. Thus, MC has to choose right then and there whether to commit to Heidi, or to someone else.
  • If MC decides to break things off with Amanda, he says that it could be unhealthy or even dangerous to continue their relationship.
    MC: There are long-term consequences to doing what we did.
• Sex for Solace: After MC hears about Amanda’s attraction to him from Kathy, he tells her what he’s heard, and promises to help her explore what they discovered about each other. Then, they make love. Justified, since Amanda already came on to MC before.
• Sex God: MC leaves a good impression on every girl he sleeps with. For instance, he and Kathy are both rendered speechless after their first time together.

Kathy: Wow....

MC: Wow....

Kathy: Wow....

MC: Wow....

• Sex Is Good: MC seems to enjoy himself all around, and so do all the girls.
• Sexless Marriage: Possible with Mortelli and his wife, given his great interest in other women and the lack thereof in his wife.
• Sex Starts, Story Stops: Olivia is a one-shot character who fixes the broken jukebo and sleeps with MC "because [he’s] a good person," and is never heard from again in the story.
• Sexy Mentor: MC to Amanda, since he taught her the ins and outs of running a diner.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Kathy is unembarrassed when MC finds her nude pictures after looking through her phone, and sends him more if he asks her nicely. She is also unbothered by Mortelli talking dirty to her.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Saul, as befits his profession.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: Lainie was the epitome of this trope.
• Shipper on Deck: Inverted with Kathy, who wants to prevent any romantic involvement between MC and Amanda.
• Shower of Love: MC and Amanda make love in the shower a couple of times.
• Shower Scene: MC walks in on Amanda in the shower (before he knows her secret). He’s surprised that Amanda makes no move to hide her body.
• Shrines and Temples: In the “good” Lily epilogue, MC and Lily wake up near (or maybe inside) one of these. The country isn’t determined (and it’s unlikely to be Japan, since the ethnically Korean Lily would probably be unwelcome there), but the general idea still holds.
• Sideboob: When Veronica is introduced, she’s wearing a dress that shows this.
• Silence of Sadness: Amanda, having been sexually rejected by MC during their stay in Whiskeyville, barely talks during the return trip. Neither does MC.
• Silent Treatment: Downplayed. Amanda doesn’t completely stop talking to MC after Cecilia starts feeding her information about Lainie, but she does withdraw from him, skipping work and making flimsy excuses afterwards, and also sleeping in her own bed rather than his, while refusing to tell him what the issue is.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Beneath her wholesome and almost innocent image, Amanda knows not only the nuts and bolts of running the diner, but also what is needed to save it. She is also more willing to fire poorly performing employees than MC is.
• Similarly Named Works: This work has often been confused with Dating My Daughter due to the similarity in the names. There is no other relation between the two: the premises are very different, and the developers of each story have very different styles and convey very different outlooks in their works.
• Simple-Minded Wisdom: Lily says a lot of things that seem like profound revelations on the importance of relaxation, but a closer inspection reveals that they are predicated on a lack of or aversion to responsibilities.
• Simple Score of Sadness: A slow piano piece comprising of a couple of measures of descending notes is used to convey a sad scene.
• Single-Issue Psychology: A direct line is drawn from Cecilia’s priveleged status and her extreme sense of entitlement.
  • Invoked with Amanda. She directly says that her romantic attraction to MC comes from a time when he saved her from drowning as a small child.
  • Implied with Lily. Her passive personality is hinted to be reflective of her strict upbringing, and her free spirit is framed as a rebellion against the same strict upbringing.
  • Interestingly, this trope is also parodied with regards to MC. The psychologist who comes to the diner and analyzes MC bases her assessment only on his childhood experiences. And for his part, MC bullshits these “experiences” as Kathy sucks him off under the bar.
• Single Parents Are Undesirable: Averted with MC. Neither Kathy, nor Heidi, nor Lily has a problem with the fact that MC is a father (especially shocking with Kathy, who is Amanda’s best friend).
• Single Serving Friend: In Heidi’s case, a whole slew of them. Justified, as they were all Heidi’s high school classmates, and their sole appearance is at their high school reunion.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Pretty much all the girls, but Lily most of all. Given her passive personality, she most needs a man to take care of her.
• Sinister Minister: Smoking Dog all the way. His New Age “church” is nothing more than a cult. He openly used Lainie for her money, and then subjected her to a traumatizing “purification ritual” after she got cut off from her family fortune.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: MC once takes a hands-off approach to managing Amanda at the diner in response to her insistence that she’s more capable than MC gives her credit for. She ends up making a rookie mistake.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: MC. He even lampshades it by saying that modern-day chivalry has more cursing than medieval chivalry.
  • Mortelli also swears a great deal.
• Skewed Priorities: Conversed between MC and Amanda when they disagree about the direction in which to take the diner, and about what MC’s role should be in the foreseeable future. MC doesn’t think any specialization is necessary and wants to retain an active role on the ground, while Amanda wants the diner to specialize more and hire more employees to whom MC can delegate the day-to-day operations, leaving him free to look at the big picture.
  • Invoked by Lily’s father in the “good” Lily epilogue. When Lily’s parents are vetting MC for his suitability as a husband for their daughter, MC mentions that he used to own a diner. Lily’s father seizes on the “used to” part, asking how he intends to support Lily once his money runs out, since he has no more income. In the end, though, Lily’s parents bless their relationship, saying that they only want their daughter to be happy.
• Skinny Dipping: If MC has ultimately chosen to be with Lily, the two of them go for a hike and find a natural pool. They go for a naked swim.
• Sleeping with the Boss: Amanda for sure. But MC can sleep with his other employees (Kathy, Heidi, and Lily) as well.
• Slumming It: Lainie did this to escape her stifling but cosseted family environment. Unfortunately for her, she wound up in a cult, then got rescued by MC, a hot dog guy without much in the way of dreams or resources, after she lost access to her family fortune. Then, she hid a serious illness from MC so he could use the treatment money to start a new business, dying in childbirth as a result.
• Smart People Play Chess: Implied in passing. Mortelli recounts how he once infiltrated a chess club, and says that this assignment convinced him that he was smart enough to be a detective.
• Smoking Gun: Inverted and defied by Mortelli at MC’s trial. What nobody expected beforehand was the extent that Mortelli screwed up all the evidence that would have convicted MC.
• Smoky Voice: Kathy really must have indulged in a lot of cigarettes. The voiceovers reveal that at 19, she already has the voice you’d expect on a woman who’s been smoking for a couple of decades.
• Sneaky Departure: Amanda leaves MC’s apartment without telling him - and just too late for him to tell her the whole truth about Lainie. Subverted, as MC previously witnessed Amanda making preparations to leave, including setting a plan for the diner and packing her stuff into boxes (he even helped her move the boxes).
• So Crazy, It Must Be True: MC’s explanation about what happened between Lainie and himself makes this kind of impression on Mortelli. Before MC tells the story, Mortelli rants that MC is a “career criminal” who is every bit as bad as Cecilia says he is, but after he hears MC out, Mortelli believes him so much that he gives MC his gun, just in case it’ll be useful later.
• Starting a New Life: MC and Amanda do this in the “good” Amanda ending to avoid the consequences of Amanda’s pregnancy from their taboo relationship.
• Starving Artist: Deconstructed with Kathy. She wants to be a writer, but due to a lack of focus, she can’t write anything substantial, so she has a job waitressing at a diner to pay the bills in her “crappy studio.” She finally resolves to do better halfway through the story, and in the “good” Kathy ending, this effort bears serious fruit.
• Starving Student: Kathy again, since she’s also going to college.
• "Staying Alive" Dance Pose: By Amanda and Kathy both when they have a jukebox party at the start of the story to fend off boredom.
• STD Immunity: None of the characters catch any STDs despite the amount of sex (all unprotected) that they all have.
• Stern Old Judge: The judge at MC’s trial stands in stark contrast to Cecilia’s hysteria, Mortelli’s intentional buffoonery, and the over-the-top questions and reactions of the prosecutors.
• Stock Desert Interstate: The trips across the desert to and from Whiskeyville has this as the visual.
• Stock Legal Phrases: A few:
  • “Inadmissible” for MC’s “forced” written confession.
  • “No further questions, Your Honor.”
  • “Does the defense wish to cross-examine the witness?”
  • “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”
• Stop, or I Will Shoot!: When he has MC at gunpoint in the back alley, Mortelli warns MC not to try anything funny. The other part goes unsaid, but the implication is clear.
• Stranger Safety: Lily hitchhikes and rooms with complete strangers as she travels the world.
• Stroke the Beard: Several characters do this while thinking.
• Struggling Single Mother: MC is the spear counterpart. He works himself to the bone in his failing diner, and has a close relationship with Amanda.
• Surpassed the Teacher: Amanda learns not only how the run the diner, but also how to save it. MC only learned the former.
• Surprise Party: The diner’s staff throw a poorly disguised party there to celebrate his acquittal.

Everyone: Happy Not-going-to-prison Day!!!

• Suspicious Missed Messages: The first sign that something’s up with Amanda. She disappears, and when MC tries to contact her, she doesn’t respond.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: MC is able to break into a detective’s office and search the place without any police officer ever walking in.
  • Inverted with Cecilia’s hotel. MC can’t even get past the door before a giant security guard who looks like a nightclub bouncer blocks his path. MC has to rent a room just to get in.

T-Z

• Take a Third Option: When Heidi tells MC that he has to choose between Kathy and herself, MC can say he’s choosing someone completely different instead.
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: Smoking Dog and the Church of the Aquarian Revelation did this to the wealthy but naive Lainie. They sought to punish her severely after her father cut her off.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: MC butters Mortelli’s toast with raw chicken grease in order to put him out of action so he could break into the detective’s office. His plan works; Mortelli has to run to the bathroom for a while.
  • Nor is this the first time MC does something like this. In a flashback, we see MC putting laxatives in the water cooler in the office of Lainie’s family’s lawyer so he has time to hack into the man’s computer.
• Teamwork Seduction: Double subverted. Heidi enlists MC to try this stealthily with Kathy, because Heidi in sure that Kathy is bi. Kathy pretends to be offended, but she’s actually up for a threesome with the two of them.
• Teen Pregnancy: Possible, but not certain, in the “good” Amanda ending. It’s a downplayed trope if it is used, as Amanda is a part-owner (at least de facto) of the diner.
• Tell Me About My Father: Gender inverted. Amanda is desperate to know more about her mother, but MC hasn’t given her much to go on. She’s very surprised that the stupendously wealthy Cecilia is her aunt, and MC’s secrecy about Lainie allows Cecilia to twist the narrative about his relationship with her, making him look like a bad guy.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: A bunch of “interesting” candidates come for the open positions at the diner ahead of the reopening. Since MC sets the pay well above the market rate, a ton of people show up to be interviewed, and MC doesn’t sort resumes; he just interviews everyone.
• Testosterone Poisoning: Mortelli, full stop.
• The Apprentice: Amanda, who has learned from MC how to run the diner.
• The Bartender: Heidi is the bartender who also owns the bar. Not only does she have skill at making drinks, but she can also keep order when customers get unruly. And she doesn’t take any crap from customers who are particularly insulting. In fact, she enjoys bartending so much, and is so skilled at it, she always tends the bar for her high school reunions.
  • MC also has some background in bartending. And if he chooses Heidi over Veronica, he try his hand at running the bar on a bet. And if he succeeds, some after-hours fun with Heidi is in the cards.
• The Beautiful Elite: Cecilia and Lainie, definitely.
• The Confidant: MC is the one that Mortelli tells his secrets to (even the ones that he insists aren’t secrets).
• The Dandy: Saul.
• The Drifter: Lily. Even though she settles into a job at the diner, she eventually leaves to travel the world again.
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: Cecilia will stop at nothing to convince Amanda to come with her. When she initially refuses, Cecilia says that she will “destroy” MC (and that Amanda will come with her afterwards) if Amanda is firm in her decision.
• The Fettered: Mortelli, despite being kind of creepy, has a sense of honor, duty, and justice, and he will not deviate from it.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: Played with. MC certainly misses Lainie, and he has a sex dream about Lainie at the end of the first chapter that seems to set the stage for his relationship with Amanda. However, it’s not clear that anything gets, or needs to get, resolved regarding MC and Lainie.
• The Food Poisoning Incident: Mortelli’s stint in the bathroom after MC secretly spreads raw chicken grease on his toast.
• The Government: Discussed. Mortelli tells MC after his trial that the federal government will be putting everything he ever did as a cop under a microscope in light of his performance on the witness stand.
• Their First Time: Shown with all the girls in a similar way, in which MC seduces each one with a different masculine quality.
• The Lady's Favor: A version of this. When MC gets his cell phone back after being released from jail, he finds a sexy picture sent by a girl (Kathy, Heidi, or Lily depending on player choice) as encouragement for his situation.
• The Lost Lenore: Lainie.
• The One Guy: MC is the only man who works in the diner.
  • Subverted with Saul while MC and Amanda are on the trip to Whiskeyville. Kathy stops showing up to work during the trip, and Heidi temporarily hires Blake to replace her.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Zigzagged with Mortelli’s computer. The password isn’t obvious, and it would be considered “strong,” but it’s written in pieces that are posted on his bulletin board, and the hint tells exactly how to put the pieces together.
• The Peeping Tom: Mortelli has his moments.

Mortelli: Pics or it didn’t happen.

• The Proud Elite: Cecilia, of course.
• There Are No Therapists: Well, actually, one does appear... but she proves to be a quack in her only appearance.
• The Shrink: Yes, the shrink who badly screws up analyzing MC. She’s a little off as well, given her stated reason for visiting the diner.
• The Unsolved Mystery: Why exactly did Saul give MC free legal representation?
  • Who stole the toaster? Subverted, as Mortelli apparently knows, but refuses to say.
• Third-Act Misunderstanding: Thanks to MC’s silence on the matter and Cecilia’s manipulations, Amanda thinks MC let Lainie die so he could use her treatment money to start the diner. MC has to break into Cecilia’s hotel room to allow Amanda to see the truth: that Lainie, who’d been cut off by her father, used an illness that she never told MC about to convince her family to give her that money.
• Token Minority: Lily (East Asian).
• Toxic Friend Influence: Downplayed. MC smokes marijuana and gets very drunk with Kathy, but there aren’t too many negative consequences from doing this, especially long-lasting ones.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Mortelli loves his toast - specifically, the toast made at the diner. When the diner is closed for a time so MC and Amanda can plan its reopening, Mortelli breaks into MC’s apartment to make himself toast.
• Trauma Conga Line: Pretty much all of MC’s adult life. He got an expensive engineering degree with the promise of a good job only to find out that the company he was planning to work for would soon close the plant, got stuck working at a hot dog stand, which was supposed to be a temporary occupation until he finished college, lost his first love in a preventable death due to the demands of her family, opened a diner which consumed pretty much all of his time and energy while almost always operating at a loss, has to conceal his next loving romantic relationship due to its incestuous nature, and gets targeted for ruin by a wealthy relative of his late girlfriend’s who blames him for her death.
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: Narrated by MC about his relationship with Lainie and the events leading up to her death.
• True Crime: Discussed. Kathy tells MC that she’s into these shows, and she even speculates which serial killer is most like MC.
• Twerp Sweating: A highly unusual example in the “good” Lily epilogue. MC has to convince Lily’s parents that even though he has no income due to the fact that he no longer owns his diner, he’ll make a suitable husband. Fortunately for him, in the end, Lily’s parents just want her to be happy.
• Two Roads Before You: If MC is still in a relationship with Amanda by the last scene, he will have to choose between her and another girl (Kathy, Heidi, or Lily depending on player choice). This will decide who will be MC’s final girl in the end.

• Unable to Support a Wife: The main objection that Lily’s parents have to MC being involved with their daughter. With no income, what will he do when their money runs out?
• Undisclosed Funds: We never find out how much Saul offers for the diner on behalf of the liquidation firm.
  • Or how much the stolen toaster with a gold-quartz heating element is.
  • Or how much MC pays for a room at the hotel where Cecilia stays.
  • Averted with the tip Cecilia gives Amanda. We learn outright that it’s $1,000.
  • Averted again with the $250,000 in treatment money for Lainie that gets redirected to starting the diner.
• Unexpected Inheritance: Unexpected and delayed by almost two decades with Amanda’s inheritance of Lainie’s estate. She only has to leave MC behind to get it.
• Unsatisfiable Customer: Zigzagged with Cecilia (before she introduces herself). She comes into the diner, makes unreasonable demands of MC, and berates him when he can’t meet them. Then, she gives Amanda a $1,000 tip. After she returns and introduces herself, she also reveals that she has some kind of a motive for screwing with MC (which is revealed later).
• V8 Engine Noises: Used during the drive to Whiskeyville.
• Video Arcade: MC can take Heidi or Veronica (depending on player choice) to one of these. Amazingly, it’s full of teens who are playing retro games.
• Video Game Caring Potential: All of the girls are written so that the player cares about them.
• Video Game Perversity Potential: The player can choose MC’s name, change Amanda’s name, and set the relationship between them. The possibilities and combinations thereof can be very disturbing.
• Villainous Vow: Cecilia’s promise to ruin MC to get Amanda to see “the truth” about him.
• Villain Reveals the Secret: Cecilia reveals to both Amanda and Mortelli how the money intended for Lainie’s treatment was instead used to start the diner. However, what she doesn’t tell them is just as significant.
• Villain Team-Up: Subverted when Cecilia enlists Saul’s legal assistance. Although Saul appears to be working for Cecilia, he eventually starts giving assistance to MC instead, telling him where to find Cecilia and Amanda after Amanda suddenly leaves, giving him free legal representation at his trial, and conspiring with Mortelli to neutralize all the evidence against him.
• Voice Actors: All lines except for MC’s are voiced. Completely voiced episodes are available in paid versions, while partially voiced episodes are available for free.
• V-Sign: Lily has a habit of doing this.
• Vulgar Humor: A staple of Mortelli’s. It’s not clear that he has any other type of humor.
• Waiting for a Break: Kathy wants to be a writer, but doesn’t have the focus to make good on any of her ideas. Meanwhile, her biggest writing accomplishment isn’t even hers (her hit erotica series actually being written by Amanda). In the “good” Kathy ending, Kathy finally gets her big break after publishing a best-selling book.
• Wealthy Ever After: In the “good” Heidi ending, MC and Heidi get rich and get hitched after successfully franchising the diner.
• Weirder Than Usual: MC uses this to describe Mortelli’s behavior after he comes into the diner after an unusually long absence. And MC is right to be suspicious; Cecilia has been feeding Mortelli information “proving” that MC let Lainie die.
• Wham Episode: The chapter when Cecilia makes her entrance.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out who stole the toaster, or why. Amazingly, it’s lampshaded by MC at the very end of the story. Mortelli has solved the mystery, but declines to name the culprit.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The name of the city where the majority of the story takes place is never named, nor is the name of the state ever mentioned. Using context clues, the story probably takes place in California, possibly in a secondary city such as Pomona or Merced.
  • The location of Whiskeyville is likewise never stated. A prime possibility is Texas. However, there are no towns named Whiskeyville anywhere near California.
• Where Were You Last Night?: The first sign that something’s up with Amanda is that she doesn’t come home for a whole night... and then doesn’t show up for work the next day. And when she shows up, she makes an obviously false excuse.
  • MC also doesn’t come home after Mortelli takes him to the woods and beats him up. His whole staff is worried about him.
• Whole Episode Flashback: The episode when MC explains everything about his relationship with Lainie to Mortelli.
• Who's Watching the Store?: Averted with the diner. Although the diner has an unscheduled closing from time to time to accommodate some special happening or event concerning the whole staff, the diner is never just left unattended without being officially closed.
• Widely-Spaced Jail Bars: Averted. MC is shown in a rather realistic jail cell when he gets locked up.
• Wife Husbandry: Given a whole new dimension with MC and Amanda, given the incest factor.
• Winning Over the Kids: An inversion of sorts, if MC chooses someone other than Amanda in the end. Kathy, Heidi, and Lily all win over Amanda before there’s any possibility of a “proper” romance with MC.
• Wistful Smile: If MC breaks off his relationship with Amanda and then announces that he’s dating Kathy, Heidi, or Lily, Amanda will later give MC one one of these in private while blessing the relationship.
• Workaholic: Mortelli has shades of this, randomly launching into work-related talk and actions while at the diner.
• Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: Part of Cecilia’s pitch to Amanda and Mortelli is a variation of this. She says that the money intended for Lainie’s treatment was instead used to start the diner. However, Cecilia omits a couple of details that are key to giving context to the situation.
• Wrongful Accusation Insurance: Zigzagged with MC. He commits a number of crimes in order to clear his name, but one the one hand, he technically did commit a crime, and on the other, he does things that are worse than what he did in order to exonerate himself.
• Wrong Line of Work: Amazingly, two examples for the exact same job:
  • Defied by MC when he hires Saul to run the kitchen when he and Amanda are about to travel to Whiskeyville. MC spends a bunch of late nights training the now-unemployed lawyer for the job, and Saul does pretty well.
  • Zigzagged with Lily when she gets hired as the diner’s cook. MC has to be be very patient with her, especially since Amanda wants to fire her for her poor performance in the kitchen. Ultimately, though, Lily learns to cook up to the diner’s standard.
• Wrong Restaurant: Deconstructed. MC gives Mortelli special permission to order the same toast and coffee that he’s always ordered, even after the diner gets a complete menu change on its reopening.
• Wrote a Good Fake Story: A version of this with Kathy. She posts a bunch of erotic stories actually written by Amanda and passes them off as her own. She’s doing this as a favor to Amanda, so Amanda can have an outlet for her secret lust for MC.
• You Get What You Pay For: Parodied with Mortelli when MC reveals that the stolen toaster had a gold-quartz heating element.

Mortelli: Now that I’ve been eating toast cooked with gold, I don’t think I can go back!

• Young Entrepreneur: Amanda seems to always know what’s best for the diner from a purely business standpoint.

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