View attachment 1471043
It was a good night. #SlowAndSteadyWinsTheRace
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Sushi in what appears to be a house (rather than a restaurant). I wonder... is Jill is trying to upstage Josy and offer the MC her own homecooked meal? He did mention that back on their first date (though not specifically that it was with Josy).
I also wonder who posted this. If it's the MC, that might indicate the interminable blackmail plot is finally over Which would definitely be grounds to party!
Still, can't get too carried away. Need to stay calm while we wait patiently.
I'm calling it.
Jill is gonna turn out to be the kinkiest girl in the game.
Nah, my money's on Bella.
I understand what you're saying and I'm also certain that you understand that sometimes people are products of their environment. It may be a stereotype that a lot of poverty stricken people are criminals but their environment leaves them little to no choice in the matter. A lot of different life variables predict the outcome you're gonna have. If you're born into a poor family, it's a LOT harder to succeed by legal means than it would be if you were born into non-poverty. It's a pretty big reason people turn to crime.
I don't disagree, seeing someone's life ruined by a lousy upbringing is tragic.
But even if I don't blame that person for being the way they are, the problem is that they're still the way they are. It's very likely that Quinn would not have learned to manipulate and exploit others if she was raised by Neil instead of Rox, but in the end we still have to deal with the Quinn who grew up learning to manipulate and exploit. Even if she's capable of changing with the help of others, it's going to a slow process and she's going to be a nasty piece of work in the meantime.
Can Quinn change? I certainly hope so. But the evidence so far isn't good. While it's cliche to say Quinn needs to want to change, it's nonetheless true. And right now, Quinn absolutely wants to stay the way she is. It's not like Quinn has never been offered kindness before. The HOTs treated her as a friend, and we've seen how she responded. Tommy likewise considered her his closest friend and even offered to be her fall guy should it ever come to that. Yet when Tommy called her out on her fuckup at the prep party, Quinn immediately lashed out and utterly dismissed his criticism. Even when he returned and apologized for his mistake, she still refused to admit she had been anything but 100% in the right. Kindness only counts in Quinn's eyes so long as it's strictly on her terms; justified criticism is tantamount to betrayal.
And that's why I dislike the Quinn's path thus far. If Quinn is ever going to change, the first step has to be for her to accept that her current attitude is wrong. Yet Quinn's path is all about validating her choices: not just being a DIK, but do drugs with her, never take someone's side against her, and back off the moment she doesn't want to hear something. I don't think Quinn's ever going to change if we act that way.
If there's a way to help Quinn without being on her path, I'll certainly try to take it. But there's only so much I can do when Quinn herself is dead set against it.
(And just to be clear, my distaste for Quinn is not the same as distaste for her as a character; the game is definitely better for having Quinn in it!)
Your questions are great and you actually sound pretty genuine and amenable to changing your mind on Quinn, which is a nice change from some of the hard line stances people take over the girls in here
Because Jamie and boop have explained it, I'll also add my thoughts on your specific questions.
Quinn slaps Riona, pimps her out, puts her down by saying her grades couldn't cut it to stay at college, and is basically a terrible friend to her. Despite all that though, I don't think I've ever seen a single person on here claim that Quinn doesn't care about Riona. She does. She lets her smoke their product for free, despite the obvious shit situation they're in, and is clearly looking out for her in the extremely brutal and realistic sense that comes with being involved with drugs and abuse since you were old enough to measure your height with chalk on a wall. Now, you might not subscribe to this explanation of Quinn's behavior at all, and that's perfectly fine. All I'm asking you to do, is to put the really bad actions that Quinn takes during the story, and to contextualize them in another way.
A lot of people who dislike Quinn, maybe most people who dislike her, bring up Quinn slapping Riona as exhibit A for that dislike. That's completely understandable, because if that's how Quinn treats her friends, she can't be a very good person. But the mistake these people are making, in my opinion, is attributing Quinn's slap to malice. It wasn't malice, it was survival. When you're fighting a war, when you're in the trenches, and the guy next to you starts panicking and having doubts, you can't take the risk that they might pop their head up and get their brains blown out. You grab them, and you slap the shit out of them, for their good and yours.
Quinn's fighting a war. She's been fighting a war since she was a kid, as far as we know. Riona's fighting it with her, for reasons we don't know, and we don't know exactly how bad it is, but we do know that she's starting to lose her nerve. Have doubts. Maybe even start to believe she could do well at college and be something else. Quinn can't have that. She's probably seen what happens when people in her business try to get out, especially with an outstanding debt. Quinn needs Riona's head in the fight, for her own good. That's why she slapped her, in my estimation. To remind her things are serious, not out of some sadistic reflex.
That's my own personal view on it anyway, to be read in conjunction with the other explanations of Quinn's behavior from the others. If you can bring yourself to maybe rethink Quinn's motivations for slapping Riona, you might view her other actions in a new light. She really is a great character so it'd be nice if more people took a closer look at her for their own enjoyment of the story at least.
An interesting notion for sure, but I'm afraid I can't agree.
First off, I've never believed Quinn is actually letting Riona smoke for free. I think that was just a lie to justify her behavior to Tommy; you'll note she explicitly asks Tommy not to corroborate the story. If Riona really was smoking off the books there'd be no reason to pretend the shortfall was unexplained back when we first learned about it. After all, if Quinn just wanted to motivate Riona, surely reminding her of her role in the problem would be more effective than slapping her.
Secondly, I can't help but notice that Quinn didn't slap Mona when she lost her nerve. Mona was fighting alongside Quinn too (over Riona's objection no less!), and she was far less calm than Riona. So why did Riona need such drastic action while Mona just got a sob speech and some blackmail?
To me, the key distinction is that Riona flat out defied Quinn whereas Mona was in full obsequious mode. As I said above, Quinn reacts extremely badly to criticism, so I think Quinn just lost her temper when Riona called her a fucking idiot. Mona, despite being physically incapable of keeping any secret, kept apologizing to Quinn and agreeing to do as Quinn asked, so Quinn never felt the need to lash out at her. That's my take, anyway.
As for Quinn really caring about Riona... maybe? The problem is that Quinn is such a self-centered person that it's difficult to tell genuine affection for Riona
as a person apart from affection for what Riona represents
as a tool. By in large Quinn has no use for Riona's advise and ignored Riona's concerns about being followed; the one time she did listen to Riona was after Riona threatened to quit. I don't think it's fair to say unequivocally that Quinn doesn't care about Riona as a person because we've never seen a situation where Quinn had to deal Riona as a person and not as a tool. But I do feel that every time we've seen Quinn deal with Riona, Quinn's first and foremost concern has always been about herself and not Riona.
To me, that's a far cry from affection. YMMV of course, but I think people looking for hidden depths in Quinn are mistaking potential for reality. Quinn may change someday, but for now I think she is precisely what she appears to be on the surface.
