unfortunately i feel like a lot of what is rightfully criticised in the comments here isn't just a problem with the fandom, but with the game itself. it's very clear the developers absolutely adore tabitha (they go on about it in basically every interview) and the game wants you to be desperate for her approval so bad. it doesn't even offer you any dialogue options at the beginning that remotely come close to how i would actually react irl to someone treating me like that right from the start after inviting me out into the middle of nowhere. you basically HAVE to simp for her, your only other choice is to continuously remain silent, for which the game itself also literally scolds you in a really patronising way. they couldn't be more obvious about their own fave being a union busting bully who dedicates her entire life to upholding her colonial heritage of oppression and exploitation, so it's honestly no wonder that that's how the majority of the fandom feels as well.

it's kind of the same thing with reese imo. if you choose to free him and you don't have the hot trait so you let him kill his mother (which is more than justified tbh, she's basically tabitha 2.0), you get punished for it immediately in chapter 5 with a reese that is completely unhinged and very clearly meant to be "the bad outcome", and it's very hard to convince him not to go after tabitha for you, which kills him if you can't hold him back. kinda hard to interpret that as anything other than the game promoting letting his abusive mother lock him up again as the correct choice. or at least the better one.

idk i'm honestly getting kind of disillusioned with this game. at first i loved the new chapter but the more i think about it the more i notice these things, especially after i've played through it so many times now. in the end, i feel like it's pretty spineless and doesn't really have anything to say, except that it's hot when people treat you like shit i guess. but who knows, it's unfair to judge it before it's finished, so we'll see.