VN Ren'Py Being a DIK [v0.10.1] [Dr PinkCake]

[Gladheim]

There is an essential flaw in the Maya/Josy path in this game, and it's not enough to just say 'that's the way it is, you just have to live with it' when roughly half your audience is turned off by these two characters. DPC needed to either moderate the way he crafted the initial crisis, or he needs to give the player the option of cutting these two characters out of the MC's life.

Man, but dont fuck me, what you're saying doesn't make sense, eliminating some characters just because a few don't like it, have you stopped to think about that? it's like you remove Chewbacca from star wars because you don't like him. And I could give you a thousand more examples. This is the story the DPC wants to tell, not the one you want him to tell.

 

[DavDR]

Yeah, after the "rejection" scene, mc:

• Then he goes off and Fucks Jade and records it
• The he meets up with Riona at the prep's mansion and fucks her left, right and center
• Then he joins Mel, Sarah and Heather in the spa, gets a blow job from Sarah and Mel and cums on Heather's tits (haha! Sorry...)
• Then he makes out with Camila, gets a blow job and then ass fucks her
• Then he makes out with Lily, gets a blow job and wanks himself off into her cunt
• Then he fucks Sage
• Later that night he gets a blow job from Cathy
• Back at Bella's hose he makes out with Jill

The he looks at Maya and Josy and hates them with a deep passion...

No, you chose to have the MC participate in all of those sex scene's. That is not the MC, it's you and the way you're playing the game. I swear 90% of the arguments on this forum result from people who are completely incapable of imagining that someone else might make different choices than they would.

 

[shazba]

No, you chose to have the MC participate in all of those sex scene's. That is not the MC, it's you and the way you're playing the game. I swear 90% of the arguments on this forum result from people who are completely incapable of imagining that someone else might make different choices than they would.

Yeah, maybe just read my last post:

I agree that if he only involves himself with Maya and Josy and they reject him, he would take it a very different way than what actually happens in the game. He already has spent a few days (?) avoiding them once he found out they were already in a relationship because he felt hurt, then when he puts his cards on the table and they actually reject him, he'd feel more hurt.

The way the scene plays out though, the MC sees it as closure. I agree that's not realistic, the heart (well the mind, but you know what I mean) just doesn't work like that. Getting dumped (which is effectively what that was, except it was being dumped by two girls simultaneously, which I have to admit has never happened to me but I imagine it'd be worse than being dumped by just one girl at a time) always leaves you feeling down, no one puts their heart on their sleeve, gets dump and goes, "oh well, glad that's sorted". They usually feel like shit for days.

But on the other side of that coin, if you spend all your effort only on Maya and Josy, you wouldn't get dumped. All you have to do for it to work out with the girls is have had sex with at least one of them (and you have to blatantly choose not to have sex with Josy to miss out, there's no conflict with that) and simply not be a DIK. You can even be NEUTRAL for it to work out.

You can contrive the game such that you try to make your character a DIK (not a CHICK nor NEUTRAL) while only following the Josy/Maya path, but that's a bit silly.

Totally proves I can't consider other choices...

 

[Hazeti]

Yeah, after the "rejection" scene, mc:

• Then he goes off and Fucks Jade and records it
• The he meets up with Riona at the prep's mansion and fucks her left, right and center
• Then he joins Mel, Sarah and Heather in the spa, gets a blow job from Sarah and Mel and cums on Heather's tits (haha! Sorry...)
• Then he makes out with Camila, gets a blow job and then ass fucks her
• Then he makes out with Lily, gets a blow job and wanks himself off into her cunt
• Then he fucks Sage
• Later that night he gets a blow job from Cathy
• Back at Bella's hose he makes out with Jill

The he looks at Maya and Josy and hates them with a deep passion...

this epilogue doesn't upset me.

at that point if I'm interested in Maya and Josy I'll have the right affinity, otherwise little changes.
but for me it is a sign of how DPC has not given it much thought.
then in the next chapter he makes it disappear in the memories and the girls follow MC anyway.

the fact that the two girls kiss makes perfect sense, it is simply really selfish towards MC, but it doesn't make sense, it happens to make selfish gestures transported by emotions

it remains for me a wrong scene (the whole scene, not the epilogue) that does not satisfy any player and angers half of them

We have to learn to erase that scene from our minds, it is as if nothing of what happens there had existed, believe me it will be much better for you and the story that comes after that is also better understood. It's the only part of the game that doesn't make sense to ME because of how Josy and Maya are shown there, which has nothing to do with what they were like before and after.

This has been discussed plenty of times at this point but the Maya and Josy path has been completely botched , the whole three way route has been okay so far and i liked the hints that were thrown in EP 6 with Maya's expressions that she is falling hard but the friendship and rejection route make no sense at all. IMO if the player rejects them or they reject the player than their part in the story should be cut short and more focus should be put on the other girls but they still hang around the player as much as the others if not more and that can and has pissed players who were either rejected by them or who just don't want anything to do with them anymore but they are like

 

[DavDR]

Yeah, maybe just read my last post:

Totally proves I can't consider other choices...

Then what makes you think that the MC would choose to go for a further relationship with M/J after he knows exactly how they've been leading him on and using him? In my main playthru I initially pursued Josy. At college I befriended Maya and chose to give Sage guitar lessons but that was about it. After discovering that Maya and Josy had been using the MC as an emotional crutch, I entered into the FWB friendship with Sage. If I had been given a choice I would have told M/J to get lost, not having a choice I chose just friends, thinking it was the equivalent of a woman telling you she just wants to be friends when she's really thinking I don't want to sleep with this guy.

Now those are the choices I made. Why don't they have any meaning in this game? That's the issue at the heart of the criticism that I, and I believe many others, have with this game and with DPC's writing in general. It's not believable. It's not the kind of reactions that we believe a real person would have. Yeah so maybe you should read other people's post.

 

[Elum Eno]

Perhaps episode 7-8 will see Maya and Josy compromise: Josy joins the HOTs and moves into the house to hide that she's at B&R from Maya's dad, while Maya stays in her dorm.

This could set the stage for MC to pursue each one individually, and possibly for Quinn to sink her claws into Josy and corrupt her, getting her to join the restaurant.

Or let Lily work her magic and get Josy working at the Pink Rose...
I can already see Tommy walking in all happy because he got the guys a job at the Pink Rose only to see Josy working with his favorite Lily.

Talk about Daughter Daughter time!!! (which now would be Sister Sister time)

 

[shazba]

This has been discussed plenty of times at this point but the Maya and Josy path has been completely botched , the whole three way route has been okay so far and i liked the hints that were thrown in EP 6 with Maya's expressions that she is falling hard but the friendship and rejection route make no sense at all. IMO if the player rejects them or they reject the player than their part in the story should be cut short and more focus should be put on the other girls but they still hang around the player as much as the others if not more and that can and has pissed players who were either rejected by them or who just don't want anything to do with them anymore but they are like

View attachment 933035

To me they seem like nice girls, why wouldn't you want to be their friend just because they don't want to have a threesome... All that "betrayal" nonsense is way too dramatic. All three made mistakes, and they were mature enough to discuss it together and a decision was made. The MC would have to be hurt if he said he wanted more and they said no, but he'd get over it, it's not like he isn't pursuing other romances, and really he only dated Josy twice and made out with Maya a few times. Still there probably just needed to be a short period where we saw the MC dealing with the rejection and getting over it.

 

[felicemastronzo]

I agree that if he only involves himself with Maya and Josy and they reject him, he would take it a very different way than what actually happens in the game. He already has spent a few days (?) avoiding them once he found out they were already in a relationship because he felt hurt, then when he puts his cards on the table and they actually reject him, he'd feel more hurt.

The way the scene plays out though, the MC sees it as closure. I agree that's not realistic, the heart (well the mind, but you know what I mean) just doesn't work like that. Getting dumped (which is effectively what that was, except it was being dumped by two girls simultaneously, which I have to admit has never happened to me but I imagine it'd be worse than being dumped by just one girl at a time) always leaves you feeling down, no one puts their heart on their sleeve, gets dump and goes, "oh well, glad that's sorted". They usually feel like shit for days.

But on the other side of that coin, if you spend all your effort only on Maya and Josy, you wouldn't get dumped. All you have to do for it to work out with the girls is have had sex with at least one of them (and you have to blatantly choose not to have sex with Josy to miss out, there's no conflict with that) and simply not be a DIK. You can even be NEUTRAL for it to work out.

You can contrive the game such that you try to make your character a DIK (not a CHICK nor NEUTRAL) while only following the Josy/Maya path, but that's a bit silly.

In my opinion it's not that hard to find yourself with a DIK affinity at that point in the game.

I at my first run, which I do blind, without suggestions, I got DIK.

in the end the only major choice that Maya and Josy don't get along with is to take the number of the restaurant and the joint on the roof, the rest is quite arbitrary.

certainly in a reasoned run, you do not struggle to get to the fourth chapter with the right affinity

 

[shazba]

Then what makes you think that the MC would choose to go for a further relationship with M/J after he knows exactly how they've been leading him on and using him? In my main playthru I initially pursued Josy. At college I befriended Maya and chose to give Sage guitar lessons but that was about it. After discovering that Maya and Josy had been using the MC as an emotional crutch, I entered into the FWB friendship with Sage. If I had been given a choice I would have told M/J to get lost, not having a choice I chose just friends, thinking it was the equivalent of a woman telling you she just wants to be friends when she's really thinking I don't want to sleep with this guy.

Now those are the choices I made. Why don't they have any meaning in this game? That's the issue at the heart of the criticism that I, and I believe many others, have with this game and with DPC's writing in general. It's not believable. It's not the kind of reactions that we believe a real person would have. Yeah so maybe you should read other people's post.

I didn't interpret them using him as an emotional crutch. They both liked him, but it was complicated. Both thought their relationship with each other was coming to an end but when they saw each other things changed. Plus I'm not suggesting there be a "further relationship", just simply be friends. Some people can't be friends with ex's, others can, and in this case they weren't even the mc's ex's, at no point did they consider themselves in a serious relationship with the mc.

The main problem here is that some people can't identify with how this situation panned out. That's life. Not everyone behaves the way you want them to. And while you have some influence of the mc, this is his story that you're reading. There are lots of things you can't do. It's a scripted, somewhat linear story, it can't possible cater for all tastes and it makes no illusion that it will.

 

[R1viel]

My two cents on the Maya/Josy rejection path. I can see the arguments for MC being upset/ cutting ties with the girls but him trying to act mature still trying to be a good friend also makes sense. He says in episode 5 he's not the type to break up a relationship for his own happyness.

That said with what we've seen so far of the MC, I'd like to see a couple of scenes where M+J are hanging out with MC and his inner monologue starts to suggest he resents seeing them in the relationship but is unhappy he feels that way.

personally I feel that would be more inline with the character of the MC we've seen so far.

 

[DavDR]

Or let Lily work her magic and get Josy working at the Pink Rose...
I can already see Tommy walking in all happy because he got the guys a job at the Pink Rose only to see Josy working with his favorite Lily.

Talk about Daughter Daughter time!!! (which now would be Sister Sister time)

If that happen's then I'm done with the game.

My biggest complaint with this game and the way DPC writes is that he doesn't stay true to his characters. He doesn't have them behave in a manner, or make decisions that are consistent with their character as written. Instead he often portrays them making decisions that only advance the plot, rather it's in character or not.

DPC has shown us a Josy whose primary crisis in life is her parents divorce, the introduction of a new Mother and Brother, that left her feeling like her beloved Father did not love her anymore. After finally getting a reconciliation with her Father the LAST thing Josy's going to do is behave in any way that would lesson her in her Father's eye's.

 

[Holy Bacchus]

There is an essential flaw in the Maya/Josy path in this game, and it's not enough to just say 'that's the way it is, you just have to live with it' when roughly half your audience is turned off by these two characters. DPC needed to either moderate the way he crafted the initial crisis, or he needs to give the player the option of cutting these two characters out of the MC's life.

Cutting them out is not a solution. That's just an extreme action because of how botched that was scene and because it was botched, it put these characters in an unnecessary bad light in the minds of some people. What needed to happen was for that scene to be revisited, for the outcome to be different in that there was no rejection of the MC by M&J, but for the MC to automatically choose friendship on the DIK path.

Everything up until that point was fine, even claim it to be other things like the "lies", "deceit", etc, because the problems really just come down to this one scene. The sudden way he gets rejected and his cold indifference to it are strange, and that's all that needed to be fixed to make this scene better and for perhaps less animosity towards M&J.

 

[moskyx]

This has been discussed plenty of times at this point but the Maya and Josy path has been completely botched , the whole three way route has been okay so far and i liked the hints that were thrown in EP 6 with Maya's expressions that she is falling hard but the friendship and rejection route make no sense at all. IMO if the player rejects them or they reject the player than their part in the story should be cut short and more focus should be put on the other girls but they still hang around the player as much as the others if not more and that can and has pissed players who were either rejected by them or who just don't want anything to do with them anymore but they are like

View attachment 933035

People have to understand that this is not a dating sim. This game evolves around a story and it seems Maya's (and Josy's) story is the main story DPC wanted to tell in this game, so the MC will be around them either way. The problem with the narrative is how you can build a true friendship when you have been romantically rejected. Because of course that situation can happpen in real life, but I still don't feel the common steps for it are rightly portrayed in that game's route.

As shazba has said above, we see the MC stating that, even if rejected, he feels it's closure. But for many players that's a hard thing to achieve as easily as the MC seems to do (and it doesn't really suits his characterization till that point: regardles how dikish or chickish your choices would have been, he seems to be too much emotional to just accept that as rationally as he does). It kind of reminds me te whole mourning process in AL but in a worse version: there you have a devastated MC who's slowly recovering his life and it takes him a year to be on his own foot again (and that's understable), but for the player it comes in just a minute after a hard shocking moment and that's difficult to digest (I was even turned off by the last sex scenes as I was not mentally in the mood for them). Here we have a romantic rejection that is always hurtful, and in this case especially so for players invested in M&J that only made some minor wrong choices (like being a bit more DIK sided or just not too pushy with those conflicted girls), but the MC quickly forgives that and everything goes on as if nothing has ever happened. Well, that's just not reasonable for a big bunch of players, so there a writer has a problem.

 

[shazba]

People have to understand that this is not a dating sim. This game evolves around a story and it seems Maya's (and Josy's) story is the main story DPC wanted to tell in this game, so the MC will be around them either way. The problem with the narrative is how you can build a true friendship when you have been romantically rejected. Because of course that situation can happpen in real life, but I still don't feel the common steps for it are rightly portrayed in that game's route.

As shazba has said above, we see the MC stating that, even if rejected, he feels it's closure. But for many players that's a hard thing to achieve as easily as the MC seems to do (and it doesn't really suits his characterization till that point: regardles how dikish or chickish your choices would have been, he seems to be too much emotional to just accept that as rationally as he does). It kind of reminds me te whole mourning process in AL but in a worse version: there you have a devastated MC who's slowly recovering his life and it takes him a year to be on his own foot again (and that's understable), but for the player it comes in just a minute after a hard shocking moment and that's difficult to digest (I was even turned off by the last sex scenes as I was not mentally in the mood for them). Here we have a romantic rejection that is always hurtful, and in this case especially so for players invested in M&J that only made some minor wrong choices (like being a bit more DIK sided or just not too pushy with those conflicted girls), but the MC quickly forgives that and everything goes on as if nothing has ever happened. Well, that's just not reasonable for a big bunch of players, so there a writer has a problem.

I felt the mc waaay overreacted when Josy first shows up, so then, to paraphrase you, you'd think he'd go off the deep end when they finally reject him when he still wants a romantic involvement with them. And then strangely he doesn't. Perhaps he's already come to terms with whatever the outcome was going to be before he even confronted them. He's spent a few days (staying with Bella, Derek or Sage) thinking about the whole situation, so maybe when he tells them he's looking for "something more" he may have already emotionally prepared himself for the outcome. There are ways to justify they way things turned out, it's just for those players who felt hurt during that scene they felt their own personal reaction wasn't dealt with.

 

[felicemastronzo]

People have to understand that this is not a dating sim. This game evolves around a story and it seems Maya's (and Josy's) story is the main story DPC wanted to tell in this game, so the MC will be around them either way. The problem with the narrative is how you can build a true friendship when you have been romantically rejected. Because of course that situation can happpen in real life, but I still don't feel the common steps for it are rightly portrayed in that game's route.

As shazba has said above, we see the MC stating that, even if rejected, he feels it's closure. But for many players that's a hard thing to achieve as easily as the MC seems to do (and it doesn't really suits his characterization till that point: regardles how dikish or chickish your choices would have been, he seems to be too much emotional to just accept that as rationally as he does). It kind of reminds me te whole mourning process in AL but in a worse version: there you have a devastated MC who's slowly recovering his life and it takes him a year to be on his own foot again (and that's understable), but for the player it comes in just a minute after a hard shocking moment and that's difficult to digest (I was even turned off by the last sex scenes as I was not mentally in the mood for them). Here we have a romantic rejection that is always hurtful, and in this case especially so for players invested in M&J that only made some minor wrong choices (like being a bit more DIK sided or just not too pushy with those conflicted girls), but the MC quickly forgives that and everything goes on as if nothing has ever happened. Well, that's just not reasonable for a big bunch of players, so there a writer has a problem.

the problem is that this is not the case, or at least not always.

and I'm talking about the game, its characters, not the players

if MC is rejected (but if he accepts the friendship it changes little) when he talks with Josy it is evident that he has not given up, and it is evident how Josy pushes him to hold on, and in the same way if he talks to Maya he has reasons to hope .

and then later speaking with Derek he can confess that he still has feelings for one of the two girls.

so it's not exactly true that MC is okay with how the matter ended. they are two optional passages, but they testify that for MC and in part for the girls it is not necessarily a closed question.

therefore the ending of that scene is simply false, it testifies to an unreal pacification, an apparent clousure

 

[shazba]

the problem is that this is not the case, or at least not always.

and I'm talking about the game, its characters, not the players

if MC is rejected (but if he accepts the friendship it changes little) when he talks with Josy it is evident that he has not given up, and it is evident how Josy pushes him to hold on, and in the same way if he talks to Maya he has reasons to hope .

and then later speaking with Derek he can confess that he still has feelings for one of the two girls.

so it's not exactly true that MC is okay with how the matter ended. they are two optional passages, but they testify that for MC and in part for the girls it is not necessarily a closed question.

therefore the ending of that scene is simply false, it testifies to an unreal pacification, an apparent clousure

If you do go down the path of seeing one of the girls when Josy meets her dad, and then telling Derek that you still have feelings for one of them, that makes more sense that the mc is still hanging around them, hoping things will change (and possibly just torturing himself).

 

[DavDR]

My two cents on the Maya/Josy rejection path. I can see the arguments for MC being upset/ cutting ties with the girls but him trying to act mature still trying to be a good friend also makes sense. He says in episode 5 he's not the type to break up a relationship for his own happyness.

That said with what we've seen so far of the MC, I'd like to see a couple of scenes where M+J are hanging out with MC and his inner monologue starts to suggest he resents seeing them in the relationship but is unhappy he feels that way.

personally I feel that would be more inline with the character of the MC we've seen so far.

What's mature about letting yourself be used by someone? I'm not saying he has to totally unload on them (though that would be satisfying), he can be civil and simply say that he thinks it would be best that he and they go their seperate ways. Personaly remaining M/J's friend who's always put upon to solve their problems sounds more clingy and dependent to me.

 

[gamingdevil800]

Except I've never responded like that. Don't get childish. I'm happy to discuss this, it doesn't bother me that you don't agree. You're trying to convince me of yours (and other's) opinions and I'm doing the same. Keep it civil.

Guarantee next episode Maya will pull some "oh mc is my boyfriend" schtick on you whether you agree with it or not. Using you as an emotional crutch to get out of trouble with her Dad. Which will cause it's own share of problems for those who ain't interested in them anymore.

 

[shazba]

Guarantee next episode Maya will pull some "oh mc is my boyfriend" schtick on you whether you agree with it or not. Using you as an emotional crutch to get out of trouble with her Dad. Which will cause it's own share of problems for those who ain't interested in them anymore.

If she rejected you and then drags you into that subterfuge, that's pushing the friendship and I would totally get it if people got worked up over that - it's just rubbing salt into the wounds.

Having said that, I don't see why she needs a boyfriend to placate the dad, she just doesn't need a girlfriend...

 

[lemonfreak]

If she rejected you and then drags you into that subterfuge, that's pushing the friendship and I would totally get it if people got worked up over that - it's just rubbing salt into the wounds.

Having said that, I don't see why she needs a boyfriend to placate the dad, she just doesn't need a girlfriend...

Her not having a girlfriend doesn't rule out the possibility of having one in the future, her having a boyfriend shows she's 'cured'

* I obviously don't believe that but I did have relatives who thought that way; they're dead now and good riddence *