Following the release of Tia’s Path Home (I hope everyone has been enjoying it!), I thought that it might be nice to write a small post about Tia, the protagonist herself. This post will be spoiler-free for the game and comic, at the cost of me perhaps remaining abstract on some details.
Tia is a vigilante
As I wrote in the March 25th teaser, Tia Shulen is a street vigilante, even though she would never call herself that. A vigilante can be described as a citizen who undertakes law enforcement themselves despite not being part of a legitimate law-enforcement agency (such as the police) nor sanctioned or affiliated with them.
There are four reasons why Tia became a vigilante:
- In the last decade before the events of Tia’s Path Home, her neighborhood (roughly ¼ of her city) has degraded into a lawless hellscape ran by gangs to the point where beat cops dare not set foot in the city blocks they run (especially after the kidnapping of the previous chief of police who swore to fix the gangs situations a while before the start of the game, who was only seen again in a disturbing video released by the gang that abducted her).
- As a serial-runaway who ditched school very often, Tia spent the better part of her teenage years in these streets, growing attached to them while witnessing their erosion in real time. After she joined a small gang of harmless misfits herself at 18 and said gang suffered from the other gangs until exploding one year later, she felt more compelled than ever to do something about the gang situation.
- Tia is a natural busybody. Despite her standoffish “fuck off my face” attitude, she cannot stay idle when she witnesses something unfair going on. It makes her blood boil, and leaving things as they are would make her feel sick in her stomach with guilt.
- Lastly, even if Tia wanted to stay idle in the face of crimes, she could not because she is quite literally a magnet for trouble. Thugs and perverts target her so often that it sometimes feels like she is cursed, or like someone with a grudge is pulling strings behind the scene. Being proactive against the gangs is a way for her to protect herself. “The best defense is a good offense”, as they say, at least in Tia’s case it is. Of course, she could just move away from these streets, but she grew too attached to them to leave it alone. Plus, with her own brother becoming a cop, protecting these streets is also protecting her family!
Overall, Tia is successful in fending off thugs and in being a thorn on their side on a weekly, if not daily, basis. However, faced with the relentlessness of the gangs which almost matches her own, she has had to pay the price of defeat more than a handful of times. She was even left for dead at least once, even if reports of her death were greatly exaggerated!
Tia’s personality
Tia is headstrong. often sounding confrontational or abrasive, and sometimes smug or disdainful. That is why, despite all the good she does for the community, she is not exactly popular, nor does she have a lot of friends (with the notable exception of the gang of misfit she was involved with for over a year).
Those who know Tia best praise her resourcefulness, bravery, resilience, and ability to adapt to the unexpected. They also have plenty of criticism. She is short-tempered, too meddlesome for her own good, stubborn, and too eager to kick the hornets’ nest. They often say that “She does not know when to quit.”
Tia tends to speak her mind too much, which can be both a flaw and an asset. She often does so bluntly when she loses her temper or through purposefully cutting remarks aimed at one’s shortcomings. Tia’s ability to use her words to hit where it hurts could be a blessing, if only she could repress the urges to use this as her primary mean of communication with both those she loathes and those she likes the most.
Tia’s remarkable stubbornness and resilience are a large part of why she can hold her own so well against gangs, as resourcefulness alone would not be quite enough. Of course, “not knowing when to quit” also comes with sizeable drawbacks, leading her to put herself in danger much more than necessary.
Tia’s short fuse plays into her stubbornness, but is also another flaw that can greatly hinder her. While Tia is resourceful and flexible enough to get out of sticky and even seemingly desperate situations, anger can give her tunnel vision, leading her to act dumber than she is. But with that said, anger is not what hinders Tia the most in her crime-fighting activities and when fending off the advances of thugs and perverts alike. The main hindrance comes from perhaps a surprising place: her sexuality.
Tia’s sexuality
We of course cannot discuss the protagonist of a hentai game without talking about her sexuality! In Tia’s case, it is even more important because it is part of what defines her as a character.
This might come as a surprise to those who already played Tia’s Path Home, but, under most circumstances, Tia does not have a lot of sexual drive. While she, broadly speaking, considers herself bisexual, the truth if that sex is not an important part of her relationships, regardless of gender. She tends to favor the mildest activities, such as hugging and snuggling, rather than straight out sex. She also tends to prefer the company of women, especially when it comes to physical promiscuity.
Despite her usual lack of sexual drive, there are specific kinds of situations in which her libido goes through the roof: when there is a clear element of danger. This can take different forms, such as the danger of being caught, harmed, life-threatening perils, and even more abstract dangers such as damage to her pride! In the game, her state of undress is a source of vulnerability and humiliation both, explaining why she is so easy to turn on from beginning to end!
This does not mean that she will have a sudden urge to masturbate in the face of danger. Danger alone is not enough to turn her on, an element of sexual stimulation still has to come into play (for more details on how that works, you can check out this silly attempt at modeling her sexuality). Said stimulation can be very direct and physical (such as groping or masturbation), but it can also be more psychological, such as promises to be taken for a ride, or simply being conscious that it is a possible outcome in the near future.
Tia’s fighting style
As a street vigilante, Tia gets into fights fairly often, and, to be blunt, she does not come out on top by being an incredibly skilled fighter. She only has a basic understanding of martial art and fights like a street brawler, without a proper fighting style.
Tia’s main asset in a fight is her strong resilience, as well as the tendency for people to underestimate her based on her looks. She is, after all, a petite blonde who does not exhibit strong muscles (she is, in fact, athletic, but a poor diet does not make that evident to the eye). She hits harder than one would expect, both because she hides actual muscles under her thin layer of “fast-food fat”, and because she is not afraid to hurt herself by punching or kicking harder and faster than reasonable for a body like hers. Yes, it hurts, and the pain can last her for days after a tough brawling session, but what matters is that it allows her to overcome!
Of course, Tia knows that there is only so much she can do with her bare hands. That is why she fights dirty. Anything lying around can be used as a weapon, and when she expects a fight ahead of time, she can often come carrying her own. She almost always wears fingerless gloves reinforced with steel plates at the knuckles.
For as long as her head is cool enough, she will not hesitate to use the terrain to her advantage and use deception to turn the tide of a battle. When the situation calls for it, she can even go as far as to “play dead,” using to her advantage her ability to remain conscious through attacks nobody would expect a small frame like her to stand.
To summarize, Tia can keep on fighting through both pain and exhaustion thanks to her outlandish resilience and stubborness, even if it means that she will hurt for days, or weeks, afterwards. It allows her to play the long games against opponents tougher than she is, and to pull off stunts you would never expect from a petite girl such as her (such has swinging a sledgehammer around smoothly). But of course, these are in nominal circumstances, against foes looking to take her down. This is not always the case (cue sinister music).
When the fight gets spicy
Tia is at her best in traditional confrontations but the addition of a sexual element throws a wrench in the proverbial plan. If her opponent is just looking to take her down, no problem, Tia is in her element, but what if the opponents make their sexual intent clear? That is when we fall back to the equation of peril+libido described in the chapter on Tia’s sexuality.
The worst possible situation for Tia is when her opponents go as far as to switch priority mid-fight from trying to take her down to trying to turn her on or even to “use” her. All things considered, Tia remains a petite woman facing larger and stronger men, sometimes multiple at a time, making her easy to overwhelm and overpower in a straight fight, especially if she is already “distracted” by arousal.
Tia’s resilience and stubbornness help her well when she has to take a beating and yet outlast her enemies anyway, but it does not help her all that much if her opponents are just looking to overpower her to keep her in place. Of course, even then, her stubbornness would help her bide her time until the enemy thinks that she gave up and eases his grip, but the big problem is when her opponents seek to grab or overpower her with lustful designs in mind.
As soon as an opponent who managed to grab or overpower Tia starts to grope her all over or, worse yet, goes straight for her most sensitive spots, Tia will find it incredibly hard to win the sudden fight not just against her foe, but against herself as well! While her ability to withstand pain is incredible, it is only matched by her vulnerability to lust and pleasure when in peril.
An opponent who focuses on sexual assault will have a huge advantage over Tia by having her fight a losing battle against her growing lust and resulting sensitivity to sexual pleasure. Were her opponents successful in overpowering Tia long enough to engage in actual intercourse when she is in such a state, the lustful tomboy would be instantly neutralized and at their mercy, overwhelmed as she would be by pleasure.
Conclusion
While not entirely thorough, I hope that this post provided valuable, and interesting, insight into Tia and her inner-workings. One focus was to convey what Tia does, why she does it, and what mindset she does it in. Another focus was on her vulnerability, and how sex is an integral part of it.
Much of the content that I create for Tia focuses on the sexual peril and the defeats that she suffers. Most are “what if” plausible yet non-canon scenarios, but even the canon stuff, such as the To Hell and Back webcomic, tends to focus on the parts of the canon which are the most sexually loaded.
In canon, Tia is quite competent, and almost always comes out on top, but only almost. She has her share of defeats, ordeals, and even trauma. This is part of my philosophy in creating content where I do not want all defeats, nor all sexual stuff, to be non-canon, while also striking a nice balance between success and defeat in canon, so that defeat can keep the character grounded and drive character development. But in truth, no matter how competent Tia is, because even the canon content focuses mostly on her direst ordeals, there is a disproportionate focus on her defeats over her successes. This is a bit of a challenge to properly convey how competent Tia is as a result, but I strive to do a good job at it.
If you are interested in knowing more about Tia, I have a few more posts to look forward to in the work, please look forward to it! In the meantime, you can check out this post that focuses on her sexuality, and go check out the game and the webcomic if you have not already!
