VN Ren'Py Eruption Imminent [v0.6.1] [MorriganRae]

[Alley_Cat]

Rachel may have her own problems with anxiety, hence not doing things we might expect of her. She's not the MC, after all, so we don't know what's going through her head most of the time

 

[Lynava]

Vanessa looks like an interesting LI to me
Beneath the hard shell is a soft maiden.

 

[Ciaran8023]

Rachel may have her own problems with anxiety, hence not doing things we might expect of her. She's not the MC, after all, so we don't know what's going through her head most of the time

While it's true that we don't know, she still knows better than to do what she did, and she consciously made the decision to ignore her sister with mental health issues for over a year, aswell as to her face.
There just isn't much of a way to excuse that. Hell, Ashe which to all evidence provided seem to have quite severe anxiety and self-image issues still took the courage to confront her sister, so there's even less of an excuse on Rachel's part.

 

[prpa]

Rachel may have her own problems with anxiety, hence not doing things we might expect of her. She's not the MC, after all, so we don't know what's going through her head most of the time

Agree. Also I think Rachel felt the same as Ashe (morning after she says they are both broken), but she was more afraid and reluctant to show it. With alcohol in play, her inhibitions and fears were lowered, so she just went with it. But the next day, after she sobered up, she was afraid that if the relationship continued, she would ruin both their lives, that’s why she ran away.

 

[Ciaran8023]

Agree. Also I think Rachel felt the same as Ashe (morning after she says they are both broken), but she was more afraid and reluctant to show it. With alcohol in play, her inhibitions and fears were lowered, so she just went with it. But the next day, after she sobered up, she was afraid that if the relationship continued, she would ruin both their lives, that’s why she ran away.

This was one of the arguments I replied to back in the day when discussing Rachel and there's something people seem to miss; her running away from Ashe while having been her confidant, emotional support and close friend is FAR worse for someone with severe anxiety issues than just drawing a hard line. She would know this given that she's played that role for Ashe for most of her life.
Which, again, just makes Rachel seem worse in how she decided to handle things.

 

[prpa]

This was one of the arguments I replied to back in the day when discussing Rachel and there's something people seem to miss; her running away from Ashe while having been her confidant, emotional support and close friend is FAR worse for someone with severe anxiety issues than just drawing a hard line. She would know this given that she's played that role for Ashe for most of her life.
Which, again, just makes Rachel seem worse in how she decided to handle things.

From our perspective (and Ashe's), it was a bad way to handle things, I agree with that. But like Alley_Cat said, we don’t know what was going through Rachel’s head. Maybe she genuinely thought she was doing what was best. I remember her telling Ashe that she shuts herself off from everyone, so maybe, by leaving, she believed Ashe would be forced to open up to other people and eventually get better.

 

[pitao]

This was one of the arguments I replied to back in the day when discussing Rachel and there's something people seem to miss; her running away from Ashe while having been her confidant, emotional support and close friend is FAR worse for someone with severe anxiety issues than just drawing a hard line. She would know this given that she's played that role for Ashe for most of her life.
Which, again, just makes Rachel seem worse in how she decided to handle things.

Oh being a human, what a hard thing to be in difficult situations like those, specially at such a young age when emotions speak louder than reason. I guess she knew this but she decided on the easy way out (Rachel) and I understand her, being far from the issue was just a normal reaction of protect herself, to take time to think and reflect about it without constantly being in the middle of it.

I'm not excusing Rachel, I just think most people with her personality that was mentioned before in this discussion and her lack of life experience to deal with a situation like that, would run away also, in the end self preserving will kick in. I probably would act similarly when I had her age, now for sure would face the problem with more confidence.

 

[Ciaran8023]

From our perspective (and Ashe's), it was a bad way to handle things, I agree with that. But like Alley_Cat said, we don’t know what was going through Rachel’s head. Maybe she genuinely thought she was doing what was best. I remember her telling Ashe that she shuts herself off from everyone, so maybe, by leaving, she believed Ashe would be forced to open up and eventually get better.

I mean you realize how this doesn't make Rachel seem like a better person, right?
If that was her thought, then she somehow has forgotten her entire upbringing and interactions with Ashe up until that point, because as I noted, it is the opposite of what one should do with someone that has anxiety and self-image issues.

If Ashe hadn't been opening up to people beforehand, somehow believing that she would open up after suffering humiliation and emotional distress would require a masters degree in mental gymnastics, and again makes Rachel seem like an asshole.

Oh being a human, what a hard thing to be in difficult situations like those, specially in at a young age when emotions speak louder than reason. I guess she knew this but she decided on the easy way out (Rachel) and I understand her, being far from the issue was just a normal reaction of protect herself, to take time to think and reflect about it without constantly being in the middle of it.

I'm not excusing Rachel, I just think most people with her personality that was mentioned before in this discussion and her lack of life experience to deal with a situation like that, would run away also, in the end self preserving will kick in. I probably would act similarly when I had her age, now for sure would face the problem it with more confidence.

I understand the dynamics of losing ones shit entirely, but her decision to stonewall Ashe for over a year and literally to her face is what makes me lean more towards "you're a cunt" territory. It's one thing to make a mistake, but to ignore it and not even try to make amends? That's not what a good person would do.

As you said, I don't think there's any way to excuse Rachel, and that's kind of the point I am trying to make in that she's likely the last person that should be involved with Ashe after what she did.
We don't have any guarantee that she won't do the same down the line, and we even have evidence to her not maturing after her mistake by the way she chose to ignore Ashe when Ashe tried to confront her over what happened. It's just all around continuously shitty decisions that makes me feel that she's a shitty person, not just the incident itself.

 

[memeLordo]

While it's true that we don't know, she still knows better than to do what she did, and she consciously made the decision to ignore her sister with mental health issues for over a year, aswell as to her face.
There just isn't much of a way to excuse that. Hell, Ashe which to all evidence provided seem to have quite severe anxiety and self-image issues still took the courage to confront her sister, so there's even less of an excuse on Rachel's part.

Sometimes it happens not out of resilience, but the necessity to teach the perpetrator a lesson in your eyes. When you experience a strong emotional reaction you can't simply comprehend, on a subconscious level it easier shut-in and make sure that you won't experience it ever again. Thus, ignorance comes to play. And I think Rachel while being on a trip definitely knew she hurt Ashe, but decided to not notice it, even if the situation is left unanswered. That's why even after Rachel returned home, she still didn't want to address the issue.

 

[memeLordo]

Sometimes it happens not out of resilience, but the necessity to teach the perpetrator in your eyes. When you experience a strong emotional reaction you can't simply comprehend, on a subconscious level it easier shut-in and make sure that you won't experience it ever again. Thus, ignorance comes to play. And I think Rachel while being on a trip definitely knew she hurt Ashe, but decided to not notice it, even if the situation is left unanswered. That's why even after Rachel returned home, she still didn't want to address the issue.

That's only my interpretation, because I find this similar to my experience: I too acted this way when my ego got hurt in a confrontation by the person I really love. And I thought to not to speak with them anymore (it lasted over a month), despite this behavior drove this person insane and made hurt them even more. Only later on I realized the way I handled the situation definitely was wrong and very childish of me.

 

[Ciaran8023]

Sometimes it happens not out of resilience, but the necessity to teach the perpetrator in your eyes. When you experience a strong emotional reaction you can't simply comprehend, on a subconscious level it easier shut-in and make sure that you won't experience it ever again. Thus, ignorance comes to play. And I think Rachel while being on a trip definitely knew she hurt Ashe, but decided to not notice it, even if the situation is left unanswered. That's why even after Rachel returned home, she still didn't want to address the issue.

That's only my interpretation, because I find this similar to my experience: I too acted this way when my ego got hurt in a confrontation by the person I really love. And I thought to not to speak with them anymore (it lasted over a month), despite this behavior drove this person insane and made hurt them even more. Only later on I realized the way I handled the situation definitely was wrong and very childish of me.

That's definitely a possibility and I have done something similar when I was young (as in 15-ish years old) and very dumb, though that was only to an acquaintance and not a family member, but again it just points out my point perfectly as to why Ashe shouldn't be involved with Rachel, and why Rachel is a pretty shitty person.
She has a LOT of growing up to do and I don't think the game is long enough for her character development to catch up to a point where I'd say "yeah, they could be together" whether in a familial sense or romantic.

 

[pitao]

We don't have any guarantee that she won't do the same down the line, and we even have evidence to her not maturing after her mistake by the way she chose to ignore Ashe when Ashe tried to confront her over what happened. It's just all around continuously shitty decisions that makes me feel that she's a shitty person, not just the incident itself.

We will see in how it goes from now, I'm not one to keep grudges (guess Ashe isn't also) or constantly point fingers and usually like to give second chances unless is just something absolutely terrible, what isn't the case. This is just "life happening" and not always dealing with it in the best manner.

That's only my interpretation, because I find this similar to my experience: I too acted this way when my ego got hurt in a confrontation by the person I really love. And I thought to not to speak with them anymore (it lasted over a month), despite this behavior drove this person insane and made hurt them even more. Only later on I realized the way I handled the situation definitely was wrong and very childish of me.

Exactly the same, I easily can get in Rachel shoes. Different situations but badly dealt by my part, I don't regret it since was nothing that terrible that I couldn't try to fix it with time and in the end that self reflect journey made me grow as a person. Hoping it will be the same for Rachel, it is in MorriganRae hands hahaha.

Edit: Had to edit this and add my other post since I was double posting and I really dislike doing that hehe.

 

[Ciaran8023]

We will see in how it goes from now, I'm not one to keep grudges (guess Ashe isn't also) or constantly point fingers and usually like to give second chances unless is just something absolutely terrible, what isn't the case. This is just "life happening" and not always dealing with it in the best manner.

I think Ashe is partly extremely tired of being ignored when Rachel is literally right infront of her, and partly that she wants to resolve it somewhat to make sure that their mom doesn't get caught in the middle. Ashe is definitely close to her mom now and I'm willing to hazard a guess that she grew closer with the absence of Rachel, so now she feels somewhat responsible to try to resolve things for her mom's sake.
My reasoning behind that is that it's easier for people with anxiety to force themselves to do something if it's on the behalf of someone they care about.

But also, I'd say that this was a case of "life happening" and dealing with it in the worst manner, which is as you said something that happens, but she just continually chose that 'worst manner'.
To each their own, personally I don't think I'd be able to come to terms with Rachel being around Ashe as anything but an acquaintance at best given that we haven't seen any evidence of Rachel maturing since the incident.

 

[Dessolos]

Either way I don't think what Rachael did is unredeemable

 

[Stan5851]

Ciaran8023

Eh, I have a good couple of posts as to why Rachel is arguably one of the worst people around Ashe. I'll do a brief summary of why I believe she isn't someone who Ashe should be around.

It's established that Rachel was basically Ashe's emotional rock when growing up, and did what she could to support Ashe since she knew Ashe was a neurotic bundle of anxiety.
Cue "the incident" when Rachel misunderstood what had happened between them and, in complete contrast to what she had done her entire life previously, she blew up on Ashe entirely. She knew what Ashe was like, she knew what to do and what not to do with Ashe and she decided to do the absolute worst thing to someone struggling with self-image and anxiety, while being one of her only two friends and sources of support (given that Ashe is unlikely to talk to her mom in the same way she talked to Rachel, given that her and Rachel seemed to be much closer, and the other being Fiona but unsure of the timeline of when Fiona came into the pic).
Rachel comes back, Ashe wants to talk to her. Rachel outright ignores her and acts like nothing is wrong to the point of Ashe blowing up entirely, which is again something that is the complete opposite of what one should do towards someone with anxiety issues, and especially family.

There are a few more smaller details that paints her in an even worse light, like the fact that Ashe and Bella constantly having beef when they were young but Rachel apparently never stepping in to resolve it, aswell as hints that Rachel seemingly only got together with Fiona because Ashe was there as a sort of awkward third wheel, but I digress.

It's stuff that will likely be overlooked by a lot of people if they haven't dealt with individuals who have self-image issues and anxiety issues, but it's something I personally can't reconcile with and I dislike how "handwaved" the conversation between them was as it felt more like Rachel only apologized because Ashe blew up and she knew she couldn't get away with ignoring it anymore, not because she actually wanted to apologize.

No offense, but your arguments don't convince me. You are too prejudiced against Rachel and don't believe in her remorse and sincerity. I'm still betting that the dev will prove everyone who doubted Rachel wrong and that the trust and sisterly love between them will grow into something more. I may be wrong too, but time will tell. Have a nice day.

 

[Dessolos]

Ciaran8023

No offense, but your arguments don't convince me. You are too prejudiced against Rachel and don't believe in her remorse and sincerity. I'm still betting that the dev will prove everyone who doubted Rachel wrong and that the trust and sisterly love between them will grow into something more. I may be wrong too, but time will tell. Have a nice day.

I hope so cause if one thing is clear to me Ashe doesn't trust Rachel that or it's an oversight by the dev. But Ashe never seems to tell Rachael about the blackmailer or ask for help until after the fact. Which kind of annoys me since Rachael has offered to help and asked to be told when he calls right away twice.

 

[Ciaran8023]

Ciaran8023

No offense, but your arguments don't convince me. You are too prejudiced against Rachel and don't believe in her remorse and sincerity. I'm still betting that the dev will prove everyone who doubted Rachel wrong and that the trust and sisterly love between them will grow into something more. I may be wrong too, but time will tell. Have a nice day.

Well that's one way to.. not really entertain discussion nor give any reasonable counter arguments to the multiple points I made towards why Rachel is just a poor candidate for an LI or even a friend at this point.

You do you I guess.

 

[memeLordo]

and why Rachel is a pretty shitty person.

Either way I don't think what Rachael did is unredeemable

"The length we go for the people we love."​

As I was reading these comments, in my mind appeared a scene from Albert Camus’ The Stranger with a dog owner, Salamano, a somewhat controversial person, who loved his bald-patted dog.

On a first glance we presented, how Salamano treated his pet unnecessary awful, yelling and swearing on him al he wanted. As we say total unredeemable asshole.

Part 1, Chapter III

“Twice a day, at eleven and six, the old fellow takes his dog for a walk, and for
eight years that walk has never varied. You can see them in the rue de Lyon, the dog
pulling his master along as hard as he can, till finally the old chap misses a step and
nearly falls. Then he beats his dog and calls it names. The dog cowers and lags
behind, and it’s his master’s turn to drag him along. Presently the dog forgets, starts
tugging at the leash again, gets another hiding and more abuse. Then they halt on the
pavement, the pair of them, and glare at each other; the dog with terror and the man
with hatred in his eyes. Every time they’re out, this happens. When the dog wants to
stop at a lamppost, the old boy won’t let him, and drags him on, and the wretched
spaniel leaves behind him a trail of little drops. But, if he does it in the room, it
means another hiding.
It’s been going on like this for eight years, and Céleste always says it’s a “crying
shame,” and something should be done about it; but really one can’t be sure. When I
met him in the hall, Salamano was bawling at his dog, calling him a bastard, a lousy
mongrel, and so forth, and the dog was whining.”

(Exact page varies by edition—but around page 19 in

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.)

However, as we progress the chapter, it appears that deeply within he somehow grew keen to his old friend, as if he became his only reason for his existence.

Same chapter

“The hall was dark and, when I was starting up the stairs, I almost bumped into old
Salamano, who lived on the same floor as I. As usual, he had his dog with him. For
eight years the two had been inseparable. Salamano’s spaniel is an ugly brute,
afflicted with some skin disease—mange, I suspect; anyhow, it has lost all its hair
and its body is covered with brown scabs. Perhaps through living in one small room,
cooped up with his dog, Salamano has come to resemble it.”

And as a catharsis, in the next chapter he loses the one friend he loved

Part 1, Chapter IV

“When we were nearly home I saw old Salamano on the doorstep; he seemed very
excited. I noticed that his dog wasn’t with him. He was turning like a teetotum,
looking in all directions, and sometimes peering into the darkness of the hall with his
little bloodshot eyes. Then he’d mutter something to himself and start gazing up and
down the street again.
Raymond asked him what was wrong, but he didn’t answer at once. Then I heard
him grunt, “The bastard! The filthy cur!” When I asked him where his dog was, he
scowled at me and snapped out, “Gone!” A moment later, all of a sudden, he
launched out into it.
...
Raymond assured him the dog would find its way home, and told him stories of
dogs that had traveled miles and miles to get back to their masters. But this seemed
to make the old fellow even more worried than before.
“Don’t you understand, they’ll do away with him; the police, I mean. It’s not
likely anyone will take him in and look after him; with all those scabs he puts
everybody off.”
...
A minute or two later I heard Salamano’s footsteps and a
knock on my door.
When I opened it, he halted for a moment in the doorway.
“Excuse me ... I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
I asked him in, but he shook his head. He was staring at his toe caps, and the
gnarled old hands were trembling. Without meeting my eyes, he started talking.
“They won’t really take him from me, will they, Monsieur Meursault? Surely they
wouldn’t do a thing like that. If they do—I don’t know what will become of me.”
I told him that, so far as I knew, they kept stray dogs in the pound for three days,
waiting for their owners to call for them. After that they disposed of the dogs as they
thought fit.
He stared at me in silence for a moment, then said, “Good evening.” After that I
heard him pacing up and down his room for quite a while. Then his bed creaked.
Through the wall there came to me a little wheezing sound, and I guessed that he was
weeping. For some reason, I don’t know what, I began thinking of Mother. But I had
to get up early next day; so, as I wasn’t feeling hungry, I did without supper, and
went straight to bed."

That shows Salamano only loved his dog, but he didn't know how. How to express his affection, without causing any harm.

 

[Ciaran8023]

Spoiler

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Intention and results are two entirely different things.
They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It doesn't matter how much you love someone, or respect someone, what matters are the choices you make in regards to them and how you decide to treat them.

 

[memeLordo]

Rachel, on the other hand, didn't abuse her sister, however she preferred to cause harm only to protect and teach Ash about dangers of incest, as it blurs the bounties between sibling's love and love romantic, which could evolve into lust rapidly.
"Otonano Omochiya" (a dounjinshi hentai manga which broke me for a couple of days), which is a perfect example of an incest spiraling out of control and where it could lead to.

Maybe the bond of tough love is still not known fully, but sometimes even if a person seems that he hates you on the outside, but deep down he simply don't know how to express love...