VN Ren'Py Our Red String [Ch. 13.1 Full] [Eva Kiss]

[John Doe Jr.]

My comments were all deleted? It was directly about the cuck path so it wasn't offtopic. If it was due to mentioning the game that shall not be named (which also related to a point I was making) I could've easily just edited it out. Then my other comment was only asking about threesomes/foursomes if you're playing a corrupted version of Holly and Lena

 

[johnyakuza1]

April.

Oh that would be great honestly.. just looking for a excuse to play the game again

 

[BloodyMares]

I don't think it would be tangible.
Axel/Cindy/Mike/Jeremy would be amazing.
What would you want to see?

I think Lena x Ian+Mike/Mark+Jeremy could have some possibility on a casual dating route or open relationship with a chad-like Ian who is not scared easily by sharing. I don't think Axel would participate in any sausage fest, he's too possessive for that (unless Seymour/Agnes ordered him to I guess, they're the only ones that can tame him).

I don't know much about the Cuck path, but so far Ian hasn't found out about Lena's cheating—just assumptions. The humiliation scene where Lena dominates Ian and teases him about fucking another men is just dirty talk for Ian since—once again—he doesn't have any concrete evidence of Lena cheating. Let's say Ian finds out about Lena fucking Jeremy, I believe he'll break it off immediately as well. Also, I'm pretty sure his Cuck path has been developed since him jacking off to Lena's Stalkfap. Feel free correct me here.

I see you were corrected but I'd like to provide some extra details. The conditions to trigger the cuck path are:
1) Lena is not in the mood in Ch 10 (and she's not in the mood if she signed the contract for Seymour and hates him, or if Axel fucked her);
2) She kept blueballing Ian and never had sex with him. After a certain point it's implied that she's doing it just to mess with Ian (she has at least 2 opportunities to bang him that aren't locked behind stats) and if Ian accepts this deal, he resorts himself to a sexless relationship and a submissive role. Who knew that the last opportunity to avoid being a cuck in that humiliating path is to demand sex from Lena and have a fight because of it. But it kinda makes sense considering you make Lena deny Ian sex purposefully (unless you let someone else play Lena's part for you, then you'd have to ask them why they're picking such options).

Stalkfap is its own separate thing, and is just a reason for Ian and Lena to have a dramatic disagreement (if Ian slutshames Lena). Regardless if you pick "It makes me feel insecure" or "I think it's hot", it simply prevents the fight and allows Ian to play a more active role in Lena's stalkfap content. If you picked the cuck path for Ian, then Lena can use Stalkfap to additionally tease Ian.

Can you play Lena as a cuckquean? No. Can you play Lena as a person who fucks everyone in the city and get away with it scottfree without locking any paths? pretty much.

That's only true if you only count the guys as legitimate romance options for Lena and don't consider girls as serious options. Lena might not be a true cuckquean yet, but she can have a crush on Holly and watch as Ivy uses her for pleasure. If it's not the cuckquean path, then it's sort of a mild NTR because Holly can do it even if you try to object to that.

And about getting away without locking any paths. If you date Ian, Lena automatically breaks up with Robert in Ch 9. If you fuck Mike, then Robert becomes sort of irrelevant because Mike's scenes always get prioritised before Robert. If you want Louise path, you're locked out of Jeremy path (can only masturbate thinking about his cock). If you fuck Jeremy, you're locked out of serious relationship with Ian.

Sure, it's more forgiving than Ian's options, but it has to do mainly with the fact that most of Ian's options actually know each other due to being in a single friend group. The only unfortunate exception that is more artificially constricting is that Ian has to choose between Holly and Cindy, and can't make it up to Holly if he skips on their trip for Wade's birthday. Although it makes sense that Cindy loses her interest in Ian if he ditched her club idea for Holly because she's easily disappointed when things don't go her way and it takes serious effort to reignite her passion. Holly on the other hand seems like she should be more understanding and not get mad over Ian's priorities to his friends.

 

[BloodyMares]

that sucks i really dont like this relationship restrictions whoever does this eva or her mods that help her its so annoying I just want to play my cheracters they way I want cant be that difficult if I wanna cheat with ian I want to be able too , If I want to play a ian that cant get over his ex I want to play this way , if I want to play a ian that get cucked by axel with cindy,holly, or alison in a relationship I want to be able to play loser ian ,chad ian, normal ian and so on.... but I cant if everything is restricted because of crybabys in the internet.

Umm, this thing is called "plot holes" which results from Eva writing the scene and not quite being able to account for all possible routes that weren't meant to be possible. In GGGB, there are tons of those because nobody helped her track and fix plot holes. If Ashley is dating Eva and decided to bring her to the BBC gangbang boat party, then suddenly the game takes BBC slut Eva variable as the top priority and forgets to check that Ashley and Eva are actually supposed to be in an open relationship. They don't break up, Eva doesn't say "I want to keep exploring this new side of me, hope you don't mind Ash", the whole branch just stops. Is it fair to the players who wanted to continue the open relationship with Eva after that event? I don't think so. Was it locked on purpose? Absolutely not. Should it have been addressed? I think so, yes.

Likewise, currently there is a Late Louise path that is triggered by Ivy blowing Jeremy and Louise seeking comfort in the alternate branch where Lena didn't tell Louise on Jeremy. In this branch, it's possible to both date Mike and fuck Louise on the side (it wasn't possible before). And yet, after Chapter 9, Eva completely forgot that she introduced this route, so her interactions with Louise were all over the place, sometimes she acted like Lena blew Jeremy, sometimes she acted like an overly attached girlfriend (despite them having just a couple of flings). It's impossible to trigger the dominant path with her in that branch. Wouldn't you say that it's restricting and gets in the way of role-playing?

Let's imagine if Eva didn't lock the threesome with Louise and Jeremy and you could have it even in relationship with Ian. Because it's not an intended outcome, it would never create any drama with Ian (because Eva would assume that it wasn't a possible outcome). So you'd have your threesome, but Lena wouldn't be able to tease Ian with the fact that she banged Jeremy. She wouldn't be able to have a foursome with Ian, Louise, and Jeremy. Would this playthrough really be satisfying for you if that delicious drama you seek never follows? You wouldn't be able to have what you want, because what you want happened because of a bug.

So, Eva doesn't lock certain routes because of crybabies. She fixes her own plot holes, because she becomes aware of the context that she wasn't thinking about while writing the scene. As you can see, it's already hard to maintain consistency between all paths, even with Lara and me helping whenever we can. It would be impossible to do so if we just kept Eva in the dark about inconsistencies that harm the storylines. Some storylines are just not meant to be. You can blame Eva for restricting your freedom, sure, but it's not really constructive. Unless you volunteer to become a Loremaster and track all possible branches for Eva. Every Loremaster I tried to recruit gave up eventually (except for one or two), because it's A LOT of work. Some path combinations have to be limited for the sake of the sacred timeline consistent narrative flow and acceptable development time. You don't want for each chapter to take 2 years to develop, right?

 

[DeemLeem12]

ffive already gave the answer.

In my runs I always go for a single girl (holly,cindy,alison,gillian...) and you always have options to play more insecure or more like a wimp at least in my experince which the choices I made and the writting I saw.

Does is influence the text or events? Can I pursue but fail to have sex and pursue Cindy as well?

 

[Joshy92]

Am i the only one hoping for a cuck route between Lena & Ian (Not just the standard cuck stuff you see on most games but more a loving one) like he holds her hand and looks in her eyes while she is banging some dude or things like that.

 

[BloodyMares]

I think their complaint is that even if you don't play Ian this way entering the "cuck path" is something of an instant deal: you select the option and no matter how your Ian acted previously they're a cuck.

That said, personally i think this is okay -- the "cuck path" is an option, and having it accessible in this manner also allows the player to have Ian who acts tough on surface but with deep insecurity underneath that takes little to come to light. Introducing some extra requirements or limitations would remove such possibility.

Not exactly. A "cuck" is a blanket term which is not clear what it implies when the players go for it. Because for me "cuck" means cuckold, a person who knows, accepts, and even encourages the sexual adventures of his girlfriend or wife. So, Ian who simply takes pleasure from Lena's sexual escapades outside of their relationship. It might not mean because Ian wants to be reduced to a useless wimp that never has sex with Lena or to even enjoy humiliating remarks like "other guys fuck me better", etc (or at least not headrush into it right in their next scene together without any sort of buildup and discussion of boundaries).

Personally I picked that option because in my headcanon Ian partially feels guilty for why his relationship with Gillian didn't work out, so with Lena he wants to be more open and supportive of her clearly insatiable sex drive, he doesn't want to be boring like Wade or jealous and controlling like Axel because those were clearly dysfunctional relationships. He wants to give Lena pleasure, even if for some weird reason the idea of imagining her with other guys turns him on. If you make Ian watch porn in the very first chapter, he goes for the MFM threesome with a redhead girl that reminds him of his past flame... So there is potential for Ian to be aroused by at least a possibility of sharing his love interest with another guy (or at least in fantasy), or seeing his love interest have sex with other guys. He could already be a voyeur with with Alison by enjoying the pics and vids that Jeremy sends him. Note that Jeremy doesn't humiliate Ian for his voyeuristic kink, he simply gives his bro what he wants and respects his boundaries (he stops sending them if Ian is not into it). So, maybe Ian is just a voyeur and the idea of Lena being with other guys turns him on. It can be triggered by insecurity, sure, but it doesn't mean he enjoys feeling insecure or is ready for Lena to abuse his arousal without any regards for his emotional state.

To emphasize, if it was clear from the start that the cuck path implied "wimpy, submissive, sexless Ian", then I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was clearly telegraphed to the player (well, I would be personally bummed out because it would be a repeat of Ash x Cuck Eric from GGGB). But even if that was intentional to be that way, "ian_chad" and "ian_lena_dom" variables kinda make it hard to buy that a sexually confident and dominant Ian is suddenly okay with his "cuck" role and accepts Lena's humiliation without retaliating and fucking the living shit out of her so she remembers that she belongs to him (like she told him several times when Ian fucked her hard). This switching of their dominant / submissive roles would be very hot and add a very interesting layer to their dynamic. It makes more sense for Ian to be a self-respecting voyeur on the cuck path if he's a Chad or simply confident in himself than to suddenly go all meek and accept the ultimate humiliation of being nothing more but a worthless cuck. Imagine if a confident cuck Ian could share Lena with Jeremy just like he can casually share Emma, and tell him that even she's his girlfriend, he wouldn't break their bro code if he wanted to fuck Lena whenever he wanted. I don't see it being possible in a simple open relationship path without a "cuck" flag being active.

My problem isn't so much with the lack of option to back out as Ian, but with how Lena starts automatically treating Ian. She's the protagonist, but her agency is stripped away for the sake of Ian's one single choice. Even if she was all love-struck about Ian before and was always faithful (we're not victim-blaming Lena who fell to Seymour's blackmail), it takes one dialogue choice in Ian's POV and she's suddenly a mean bitch to him for no given reason, like that choice single-handedly rewrites her character. Now, if the player could choose, as Lena, how to react to Ian's newfound kink, and either be more dominant and cruel, or stay more loving, playing into his fantasy but never breaking his trust, then it would be more fair. Imagine if when Ian confessed his love for Lena to Jeremy, the game automatically assumed that Lena reciprocates (because it's a player choice to initiate something between them). But we had an opportunity for Lena to have agency of her own, and not reciprocate his feelings, and it unlocked a very interesting opportunity. Same when discussing Ian's threesome fantasy, Lena can agree to explore, or shut it down (even if she shares his fantasy). I'm just saying that a cuck path could very benefit from better writing that accounts eitiher player choice to decide how Lena starts treating Ian, or to make the shift less abrupt and have several stages, where the more teasing Ian tolerates, the less respect Lena has for him.

 

[JohnnyKiss]

I think Lena x Ian+Mike/Mark+Jeremy could have some possibility on a casual dating route or open relationship with a chad-like Ian who is not scared easily by sharing. I don't think Axel would participate in any sausage fest, he's too possessive for that (unless Seymour/Agnes ordered him to I guess, they're the only ones that can tame him).

I see you were corrected but I'd like to provide some extra details. The conditions to trigger the cuck path are:
1) Lena is not in the mood in Ch 10 (and she's not in the mood if she signed the contract for Seymour and hates him, or if Axel fucked her);
2) She kept blueballing Ian and never had sex with him. After a certain point it's implied that she's doing it just to mess with Ian (she has at least 2 opportunities to bang him that aren't locked behind stats) and if Ian accepts this deal, he resorts himself to a sexless relationship and a submissive role. Who knew that the last opportunity to avoid being a cuck in that humiliating path is to demand sex from Lena and have a fight because of it. But it kinda makes sense considering you make Lena deny Ian sex purposefully (unless you let someone else play Lena's part for you, then you'd have to ask them why they're picking such options).

Stalkfap is its own separate thing, and is just a reason for Ian and Lena to have a dramatic disagreement (if Ian slutshames Lena). Regardless if you pick "It makes me feel insecure" or "I think it's hot", it simply prevents the fight and allows Ian to play a more active role in Lena's stalkfap content. If you picked the cuck path for Ian, then Lena can use Stalkfap to additionally tease Ian.

That's only true if you only count the guys as legitimate romance options for Lena and don't consider girls as serious options. Lena might not be a true cuckquean yet, but she can have a crush on Holly and watch as Ivy uses her for pleasure. If it's not the cuckquean path, then it's sort of a mild NTR because Holly can do it even if you try to object to that.

And about getting away without locking any paths. If you date Ian, Lena automatically breaks up with Robert in Ch 9. If you fuck Mike, then Robert becomes sort of irrelevant because Mike's scenes always get prioritised before Robert. If you want Louise path, you're locked out of Jeremy path (can only masturbate thinking about his cock). If you fuck Jeremy, you're locked out of serious relationship with Ian.

Sure, it's more forgiving than Ian's options, but it has to do mainly with the fact that most of Ian's options actually know each other due to being in a single friend group. The only unfortunate exception that is more artificially constricting is that Ian has to choose between Holly and Cindy, and can't make it up to Holly if he skips on their trip for Wade's birthday. Although it makes sense that Cindy loses her interest in Ian if he ditched her club idea for Holly because she's easily disappointed when things don't go her way and it takes serious effort to reignite her passion. Holly on the other hand seems like she should be more understanding and not get mad over Ian's priorities to his friends.

Another user suggested a serious relationship between Lena and Jeremy and now I cannot stop thinking about that possibility. That would be such a wild plot-twist that I cannot help but find it interesting.

Jeremy is such a slut that turning him into a loyal boyfriend would be a surprise.

 

[Nifferman]

Another user suggested a serious relationship between Lena and Jeremy and now I cannot stop thinking about that possibility. That would be such a wild plot-twist that I cannot help but find it interesting.

Jeremy is such a slut that turning him into a loyal boyfriend would be a surprise.

That story line could happened ,like wat eve did with jack and ashley in gggb

 

[JohnnyKiss]

That story line could happened ,like wat eve did with jack and ashley in gggb

Yeah, exactly. I was thinking Eva might go for Axel for that storyline but honestly, I'd much rather if it was Jeremy. Axel is more of a psycho.

 

[ffive]

Yeah, exactly. I was thinking Eva might go for Axel for that storyline but honestly, I'd much rather if it was Jeremy. Axel is more of a psycho.

Having this sort of story with Jeremy would be additionally nice because black characters are typically utter horndogs in porn games. So it'd be a twist on both personal and generic level.

 

[BloodyMares]

Another user suggested a serious relationship between Lena and Jeremy and now I cannot stop thinking about that possibility. That would be such a wild plot-twist that I cannot help but find it interesting.

Jeremy is such a slut that turning him into a loyal boyfriend would be a surprise.

Agreed that it would be interesting, but so far Lena has been treating Jeremy as a walking BBC fetish, not really caring about his privacy (when he was sleeping in Louise's room) or making him keep secrets from his best friend. I guess it could be an interesting character development for Lena if she could actually see the person behind that dick and if she developed feelings for him, he could learn to see the person behind the sexy model and open up to her as well. That said, it all depends on what Eva has planned for his character. I'm not interested in distracting her with lots of different ideas, she's already struggling with connecting all the strings into a single coherent web. The only exceptions is somewhat problematic storylines that clearly railroad the characters in a particular direction that goes against certain playstyles or established character development.

 

[mommysboiii]

Umm, this thing is called "plot holes" which results from Eva writing the scene and not quite being able to account for all possible routes that weren't meant to be possible. In GGGB, there are tons of those because nobody helped her track and fix plot holes. If Ashley is dating Eva and decided to bring her to the BBC gangbang boat party, then suddenly the game takes BBC slut Eva variable as the top priority and forgets to check that Ashley and Eva are actually supposed to be in an open relationship. They don't break up, Eva doesn't say "I want to keep exploring this new side of me, hope you don't mind Ash", the whole branch just stops. Is it fair to the players who wanted to continue the open relationship with Eva after that event? I don't think so. Was it locked on purpose? Absolutely not. Should it have been addressed? I think so, yes.

Likewise, currently there is a Late Louise path that is triggered by Ivy blowing Jeremy and Louise seeking comfort in the alternate branch where Lena didn't tell Louise on Jeremy. In this branch, it's possible to both date Mike and fuck Louise on the side (it wasn't possible before). And yet, after Chapter 9, Eva completely forgot that she introduced this route, so her interactions with Louise were all over the place, sometimes she acted like Lena blew Jeremy, sometimes she acted like an overly attached girlfriend (despite them having just a couple of flings). It's impossible to trigger the dominant path with her in that branch. Wouldn't you say that it's restricting and gets in the way of role-playing?

Let's imagine if Eva didn't lock the threesome with Louise and Jeremy and you could have it even in relationship with Ian. Because it's not an intended outcome, it would never create any drama with Ian (because Eva would assume that it wasn't a possible outcome). So you'd have your threesome, but Lena wouldn't be able to tease Ian with the fact that she banged Jeremy. She wouldn't be able to have a foursome with Ian, Louise, and Jeremy. Would this playthrough really be satisfying for you if that delicious drama you seek never follows? You wouldn't be able to have what you want, because what you want happened because of a bug.

So, Eva doesn't lock certain routes because of crybabies. She fixes her own plot holes, because she becomes aware of the context that she wasn't thinking about while writing the scene. As you can see, it's already hard to maintain consistency between all paths, even with Lara and me helping whenever we can. It would be impossible to do so if we just kept Eva in the dark about inconsistencies that harm the storylines. Some storylines are just not meant to be. You can blame Eva for restricting your freedom, sure, but it's not really constructive. Unless you volunteer to become a Loremaster and track all possible branches for Eva. Every Loremaster I tried to recruit gave up eventually (except for one or two), because it's A LOT of work. Some path combinations have to be limited for the sake of the sacred timeline consistent narrative flow and acceptable development time. You don't want for each chapter to take 2 years to develop, right?

my only problem that I have with this approche is isnt that kind of boring in the future of this game (content wise ,drama, corruption and so on which I assume will be more in future realses)???? I mean if I play a more mean and open minded/slutty lena and than all the sudden this lena cant cheat which dosent makes sens if I play this kind of lena or acts like a hypercrit if holly is corrupted and cheats on ian but than this lena gets all high and mighty this would make lena look like a hypocrit and very weird especially in later chapters in the future where she is probably more corrupted which would make her look like even more like a hypocrit.

or if I play ian like a wimp in a relationship with alison and than udnerpefrom do everything and use every chance to get her lustful and thirsty that she than all the sudden is like ohh but I am in a relationship with ian I am all of sudden uncorrupted and cant cheat .

same with holly if you do everything in your power to get her more corrupted but than this (super corrupted holly in the future) is like I am in a relationship with ian I cant do that?????

I have the feeling that it will be very limited IN THE FUTURE of this game if this game is still mainly a corruption game

 

[Samuel Hidayat]

Another user suggested a serious relationship between Lena and Jeremy and now I cannot stop thinking about that possibility. That would be such a wild plot-twist that I cannot help but find it interesting.

Jeremy is such a slut that turning him into a loyal boyfriend would be a surprise.

The thing with Jack is that he's a womanizer with a mysterious past—a hint that maybe he's more than meets the eye. It was foreshadowed pretty early in the game (the Truth or Dare with Iris iirc). I don't see EvaKiss setting up anything like that for Jeremy. Maybe he'll get one later, but it's probably a bit too late.

It also helps that Jack is a smooth operator with enviable confidence, unlike Jeremy with an exaggerated swagger of a horny, single-minded black man.

 

[JohnnyKiss]

The thing with Jack is that he's a womanizer with a mysterious past—a hint that maybe he's more than meets the eye. It was foreshadowed pretty early in the game (the Truth or Dare with Iris iirc). I don't see EvaKiss setting up anything like that for Jeremy. Maybe he'll get one later, but it's probably a bit too late.

It also helps that Jack is a smooth operator with enviable confidence, unlike Jeremy with an exaggerated swagger of a horny, single-minded black man.

You can literally turn nerd Holly into Ivy 2.0. I don't the reverse for Jeremy would be that weird. I think you guys are just thinking too small.

 

[BloodyMares]

my only problem that I have with this approche is isnt that kind of boring in the future of this game (content wise ,drama, corruption and so on which I assume will be more in future realses)???? I mean if I play a more mean and open minded/slutty lena and than all the sudden this lena cant cheat which dosent makes sens if I play this kind of lena or acts like a hypercrit if holly is corrupted and cheats on ian but than this lena gets all high and mighty this would make lena look like a hypocrit and very weird especially in later chapters in the future where she is probably more corrupted which would make her look like even more like a hypocrit.

or if I play ian like a wimp in a relationship with alison and than udnerpefrom do everything and use every chance to get her lustful and thirsty that she than all the sudden is like ohh but I am in a relationship with ian I am all of sudden uncorrupted and cant cheat .

same with holly if you do everything in your power to get her more corrupted but than this (super corrupted holly in the future) is like I am in a relationship with ian I cant do that?????

I have the feeling that it will be very limited IN THE FUTURE of this game if this game is still mainly a corruption game

It seems you didn't really read my post. What's the point in having these opportunities if they are bugs? Meaning they won't give you a dedicated route. You'll never see the result of that corruption because in some scenes Holly could act like Ivy's apprentice willing to explore, but with Ian or Lena while talking about Ian she would act prim and proper (because Eva doesn't realize that she lost the track of the branches). It would still restrict your playthrough because sometimes Eva would remember to put restrictions in place but other times she wouldn't, resulting in a broken, disjointed narrative that feels like a multiverse collapsed in on itself, and the characters not realizing which timeline they belong to. Corruption is only worthwhile if you're actually purposefully trigger the buildup to it. If you can select slutty options at any time, on any playthrough, it wouldn't be satisfying.


And once again, Eva is not a robot, she has to limit the amount of possible branches, otherwise the game will never be finished. And it's Eva's choice how to do that. With Ed she decided to cut his path short and perhaps revisit him in a DLC. Some events she might not think as worth exploring at all, much to our disappointment. But these are necessary sacrifices because Eva Kiss is not an AAA studio with countless employees and a full set of writers.

 

[ffive]

The thing with Jack is that he's a womanizer with a mysterious past—a hint that maybe he's more than meets the eye. It was foreshadowed pretty early in the game (the Truth or Dare with Iris iirc). I don't see EvaKiss setting up anything like that for Jeremy. Maybe he'll get one later, but it's probably a bit too late.

It doesn't have to be anything like straight copy of previous game. E.g. in ORS we have Lena start her affair with Mike as nothing but lust-fueled hookups, but she can optionally develop a _love variable for him, and desire him to become her actual boyfriend.

Jeremy wants to be a player but there's hints he isn't all that good at it, and he displays some decency when he (unsuccessfully) potentially tries to object to Lena's advances. It might not be out of place for him to simply fall for her eventually.

 

[ffive]

You can literally turn nerd Holly into Ivy 2.0. I don't the reverse for Jeremy would be that weird. I think you guys are just thinking too small.

I still want Holly turning Ivy in Good Jess 2.0 btw

They'll hold hands and write smutty fantasy romances togeter.

 

[dontcarewhateverno]

Not exactly. A "cuck" is a blanket term which is not clear what it implies when the players go for it. Because for me "cuck" means cuckold, a person who knows, accepts, and even encourages the sexual adventures of his girlfriend or wife. So, Ian who simply takes pleasure from Lena's sexual escapades outside of their relationship. It might not mean because Ian wants to be reduced to a useless wimp that never has sex with Lena or to even enjoy humiliating remarks like "other guys fuck me better", etc (or at least not headrush into it right in their next scene together without any sort of buildup and discussion of boundaries).

Personally I picked that option because in my headcanon Ian partially feels guilty for why his relationship with Gillian didn't work out, so with Lena he wants to be more open and supportive of her clearly insatiable sex drive, he doesn't want to be boring like Wade or jealous and controlling like Axel because those were clearly dysfunctional relationships. He wants to give Lena pleasure, even if for some weird reason the idea of imagining her with other guys turns him on. If you make Ian watch porn in the very first chapter, he goes for the MFM threesome with a redhead girl that reminds him of his past flame... So there is potential for Ian to be aroused by at least a possibility of sharing his love interest with another guy (or at least in fantasy), or seeing his love interest have sex with other guys. He could already be a voyeur with with Alison by enjoying the pics and vids that Jeremy sends him. Note that Jeremy doesn't humiliate Ian for his voyeuristic kink, he simply gives his bro what he wants and respects his boundaries (he stops sending them if Ian is not into it). So, maybe Ian is just a voyeur and the idea of Lena being with other guys turns him on. It can be triggered by insecurity, sure, but it doesn't mean he enjoys feeling insecure or is ready for Lena to abuse his arousal without any regards for his emotional state.

To emphasize, if it was clear from the start that the cuck path implied "wimpy, submissive, sexless Ian", then I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was clearly telegraphed to the player (well, I would be personally bummed out because it would be a repeat of Ash x Cuck Eric from GGGB). But even if that was intentional to be that way, "ian_chad" and "ian_lena_dom" variables kinda make it hard to buy that a sexually confident and dominant Ian is suddenly okay with his "cuck" role and accepts Lena's humiliation without retaliating and fucking the living shit out of her so she remembers that she belongs to him (like she told him several times when Ian fucked her hard). This switching of their dominant / submissive roles would be very hot and add a very interesting layer to their dynamic. It makes more sense for Ian to be a self-respecting voyeur on the cuck path if he's a Chad or simply confident in himself than to suddenly go all meek and accept the ultimate humiliation of being nothing more but a worthless cuck. Imagine if a confident cuck Ian could share Lena with Jeremy just like he can casually share Emma, and tell him that even she's his girlfriend, he wouldn't break their bro code if he wanted to fuck Lena whenever he wanted. I don't see it being possible in a simple open relationship path without a "cuck" flag being active.

My problem isn't so much with the lack of option to back out as Ian, but with how Lena starts automatically treating Ian. She's the protagonist, but her agency is stripped away for the sake of Ian's one single choice. Even if she was all love-struck about Ian before and was always faithful (we're not victim-blaming Lena who fell to Seymour's blackmail), it takes one dialogue choice in Ian's POV and she's suddenly a mean bitch to him for no given reason, like that choice single-handedly rewrites her character. Now, if the player could choose, as Lena, how to react to Ian's newfound kink, and either be more dominant and cruel, or stay more loving, playing into his fantasy but never breaking his trust, then it would be more fair. Imagine if when Ian confessed his love for Lena to Jeremy, the game automatically assumed that Lena reciprocates (because it's a player choice to initiate something between them). But we had an opportunity for Lena to have agency of her own, and not reciprocate his feelings, and it unlocked a very interesting opportunity. Same when discussing Ian's threesome fantasy, Lena can agree to explore, or shut it down (even if she shares his fantasy). I'm just saying that a cuck path could very benefit from better writing that accounts eitiher player choice to decide how Lena starts treating Ian, or to make the shift less abrupt and have several stages, where the more teasing Ian tolerates, the less respect Lena has for him.

TBF, starting from Chapter 10, it's both one Ian and one Lena choice to lock in Lena's behavior in Ch 11 prologue in a scenario where they've otherwise had a healthy monogamous (or at least no extra dick) sexual and emotional relationship up to that point, provided, as you've said, she's succumbed to Seymour's threats, which the majority of players will likely choose. 1. Ian shows insecurity in the first sex scene. 2. Lena decides to tease him at the end of the chapter (after all, with him liking her Stalkerfap, she may think it turns him on).

Basically agree 100% though. The problem is the lack of agency on Lena's part at the beginning of Ch 11 prologue in that scenario. One point of insecurity + one light tease shouldn't = "Sorry, chump. No pussy for you anymore. Commence bitchboy status." It works for a gold-star sub Ian or a Lena who's been gobbling every cock she can throughout the playthrough, but is extremely disjointed in this scenario. Ideally, there would be at the very least an additional choice for Lena in the prologue sex scene & preferably at least one choice from Ian and/or Lena in Chapter 11 proper, before either locking in such an extreme scenario or going for a more loving (if open) relationship route.

 

[ffive]

Ideally, there would be at the very least an additional choice for Lena in the prologue sex scene & preferably at least one choice from Ian and/or Lena in Chapter 11 proper before either locking in such an extreme scenario or going for a more loving (if open) relationship route.

Going by earlier Status Report there were apparently some tweaks to cuck path in the final version of Chapter 11 prologue:

(...) I've also added new music, as well as solved some minor bugs and tweaked a bit the requirements for Ian's cuck path in the prologue following some of your comments. (...)

Unfortunately this final version of the prologue wasn't uploaded in this thread, so the exact nature of said tweaks is known only to patreons.