[Spoilers] Thoughts about Gretchen and Stella

[Lillianson]

In Ch1, I chose to help Duke, which led to Stella shooting Gretchen soon after.

I just finished Ch3, and Stella doesn't seem upset or like she's mourning the loss of her dog at all. And my character didn't even get the chance to ask her about it.

Anyone else found that a bit off?

It might be that Stella is bottling up her pain and not letting any of it show, but I think an option to bring it up in Ch2 would have been nice. This was the first thing I wanted to talk to her about in Ch2, but I couldn't.

[thick paint]

There are options to bring this up in episode 2 as well as in later episodes. The ones that come to mind in episode 2 is when you sleep over at her place "How are you so chipper?" and later if you take the walk to the mine together with her and chose to discuss what happened in the woods where she lets the mask slip a little. I think she'll refuse to if you've got too low of a relationship with her, though. She in general behaves a lot colder if you've got a bad relationship with her.

[Lillianson]

Ah, that explains it, as I didn't sleep over at her place and I went to the mine with Sybil. Glad to know that it can be explored. :)

[stone.fire.smoke]

you shouldn't forget her character bottles up and compartmentalizes her trauma, putting that happy go-lucky persona front and center. its how she copes. Losing Gretchen is a major issue for anything more than casual acquaintance with her; I would speculate losing Kaneeka or Reese after Gretchen in the later episodes would probably finish her off mentally.

As it is after the ghost hunt she shuts down until you find her again, without Gretchen its even more obvious how frazzled she is.

[Lillianson]

I guess I didn't improve my relationship with her enough? ^_^"

In Ch1, I didn't join her for the trip to the woods, because it seemed dangerous and I had literally just met her at that point, but I was polite with the refusal.

Then in Ch2, I was mostly focused on not pissing Tabitha off, so I guess I missed some opportunities for Stella-bonding.

[Dethlane]

No. When Stella's hurting, she shuts down and opens up only to those she trusts enough. That's just the way she is. And Gretchen is sort of an anchor for her. Without this cute dog around to keep her cheered up, Stella is much more closed and guarded. Her flashback in ep4 (partly) reveals why she's that way.

[Snowvalley]

Your relationship isn't good enough.
- Bad relationship: Stella refuses to talk aboud it. She shuts down when you ask her.
- Good relationship : Stella talks about it after you ask her.
-Great relationship: Stella starts talking about it herself.

Stella is tricky because, if you compare her to Kaneeka:
- Kaneeka won't shut up about her dislike/hatred of someone. You'll immediately know where you stand with her.
- Stella sillently shuts down. She doesn't show it if she dislikes you. you'll just run into a brick wall at some point when you try to get closer to her.

I spend ALOT of time before I figured out how to get her to drop her walls.

[Kurozora Konoi]

I saved both Duke and Gretchen, so I'm not in your situation, and people explained already what's going on. But I'd like to add that generally speaking, if it's not out of character for your MC, I recommend believing in the supernatural and being keen on that + taking what she does seriously. My MC believes in anything supernatural, so of course he accompanied her to the woods (refusing was not an option anyway, until recently).
With that and being into the same stuff as her alone, I didn't have trouble to have her open up to my MC on my playthrough.
With that being said, it's possible it's harder to do with Gretchen gone.

[Lillianson]

Originally posted by Kurozora Konoi:

I saved both Duke and Gretchen, so I'm not in your situation, and people explained already what's going on. But I'd like to add that generally speaking, if it's not out of character for your MC, I recommend believing in the supernatural and being keen on that + taking what she does seriously. My MC believes in anything supernatural, so of course he accompanied her to the woods (refusing was not an option anyway, until recently).
With that and being into the same stuff as her alone, I didn't have trouble to have her open up to my MC on my playthrough.
With that being said, it's possible it's harder to do with Gretchen gone.

Oh, I had no idea that refusing used to not be an option! (I bought the game recently.)

Yeah, that makes sense, I guess I need to make more of an effort for her to like me. The character I played was very cautious and focused on self-preservation, so building relationships was not a priority for her, especially since she thought she'd only be in town for a week anyway.

And maybe then I'd be actually able to find Stella in ep4 (because I used up all available options and still didn't find her, I'm guessing the successful option unlocks if your relationship with her is good enough).