> But basically that's the entire thing: feelings PRIOR to the moment of consent matter, but not after.
> It's sort of like your "the joke isn't satisfying because there's no Rin to feel the satisfaction, but that's the most satisfying thing of all" paradox, to me. The choice matters, but also after a point of no return, it doesn't :3

Yes, in fact I wanted to point to this very paradox I use in my writing as an example of how Riley's story could've been dome better, but I didn't want to be that immodest. But oh well, now you've brought it up yourself. And you're saying that this is exactly how Riley's story goes. As I see it though it might be where it's trying to go, but then it's missing an essential last piece of the paradox to make it work: the piece where the fact that it doesn't matter does itself matter.

See, it isn't about simply ignoring things that don't matter, but about relishing and savoring how they don't matter. Even if the character is ignoring it, the story should then savor how the character is ignoring it. Even if the character has no feelings, even if they can't have any feelings because they're already dead like in my Suspicious Silence story, even if the whole point of the story is how they have no feelings - no, exactly because it's the whole point of the story - make the story actually savor how the character has no feelings in order to in turn invoke feelings in the reader.

I used to not enjoy necrophilia, because I saw no point if the character isn't feeling anything and really there isn't even a character anymore. But then I discovered this wonderful paradox and how it can be used to turn the very lack of feelings into the very source of feelings. Riley's story only has the lack of feelings, but doesn't properly use it as the source of feelings.

It has to be a story _about_ the lack of feelings, not the story itself lacking feelings. A feelingful tale about feelinglessness, not a feelingless tale.