Subtracting Favor should always be going down, though. If they’re already at -1 Favor and like you less, it’ll be -2. Whereas Fate going down towards 0 shows that they’re not really thinking about you and you have less chances to meet, if that makes sense! That’s why Favor can be negative, but Fate cannot. Often, having lower Fate is more devastating because a lot of prompts throw you with the SCs that have higher Fate. That’s why for Reconciliation, it’s up to the player whether they want to subtract 1 from Fate or Favor for a relationship that’s fading.
I see I see... I am taking this and integrating it into my understanding. I think I finally figured out what's got my mind stuck on this.
A platonic relationship with an SC, left unattended, will eventually trend to 0/0. However, an antagonistic relationship with an SC, left unattended, will eventually trend to 0/-1, 0/-2, 0/-3, 0/-4... and something about that disparity, that the antagonistics keep liking you less and less while the platonics just fade into the background, is triggering me lol. (presumably you're not leaving the romantic SCs unattended lmao)
Or, could it be that platonic SCs are supposed to continue going down in favor, across the "0" line and into negative territory? That would change a lot... and goes into a different line of thinking I had at one point, that maybe Platonic and Antagonistic could exist on the same table, and just let the favor positivity/negativity determine whether they're antagonistic or not, rather than opting into a relationship transition? That would take some of the agency out of they players' hands though, if a platonic went sour on them and they wanted instead to have a chance to salvage that relationship. Fate is a lot easier to raise intentionally than Favor is...
You've entertained me on this topic far too much already lol feel free to ignore my ramblings.
Oh no, Platonic, Antagonistic, and Romantic are all on separate tables for that reason. A Platonic relationship will eventually hit the negatives for Favor because once they’re to 0 Fate, you have to start subtracting from Favor. At that point either you use an Endeavor or two to salvage the relationship, or use a Transition to show the friendship going sour. Regression scenes are optional, which lets you decide which of those you’d prefer. Endeavors can help a lot because you can write them a letter and then visit, which can add quite a bit of Favor!
Omg the skies have parted and now I can seeeee!!! <3
This answers so many of my weird one-off questions around fate/favor. And also reinforces that I had waaaaay too many SCs, but I think I've sidegraded most of the unimportant ones off to NPC land by now. The rest I will weather the storms of fate and see who decides to hate me for being ignored ;)