VN Ren'Py Our Red String [Ch.13.2 Beta] [Eva Kiss]

[AndreDA]

I don't know if it's possible with the game branches, but an Ian/Lena/Holly/Emma would be a divine ending. One where they sidestepped all the potential rich guy manipulations, and showed off a good life not centred on money.

Maybe Perry gets Cherry? Or Wade and him commit to the e-sports? Wade and Cindy seemed doomed, it's just how bad the breakup goes (unless I missed something). Axel is scum. Stan and Louise wouldn't know a healthy relationship if it sat on their faces (so maybe they can have some weird fucked up relationship? Where Louise falls back to fucking Jeremy every so often?) Allison deserves better than Jeremy, but also doesn't seem to have the best way to approach getting into a healthy relationship. Ivy doesn't look like she has any internal growth on the horizon.

Edit: Maybe Wade and Allison? After he bounces out of his slow decline, and she sees through Jeremy being as deep as a puddle. Wade seems like there was a decent guy in there, that got lost along the way.

Well, come to think of it there is a general lack of good relationship options for supporting characters. Perry and Emma is the only pairing that makes sense currently. Big part of the problem is that almost the entire support cast is either massively dysfunctional or downright bad people. In Good Girl Gone Bad there were more supporting characters that started as decent, normal people, and you could keep them that way. Also, in GGGB you could not only corrupt good characters, but also fix bad ones like Jessica. Here 90% of the support cast is not ready for a healthy relationship, and you can only corrupt them (like Holly, Cindy, Minerva) while not being able to fix the bad ones like Ivy, Jeremy or Axel. In GGGB you could engineer a pretty good ending where a bunch of characters end up healthy and happy. So far, I don't see that possibility for this game. I think it was a mistake to make every supporting male character either a loser or a fuckboy. There is no one to pair up the girls with now. Alison is a perfect example, her love path shows that she can be a relationship material with the right guy, but if Ian doesn't go for her then she just ends up as Jeremy's cumrag.

 

[Hungover00]

Well, come to think of it there is a general lack of good relationship options for supporting characters. Perry and Emma is the only pairing that makes sense currently. Big part of the problem is that almost the entire support cast is either massively dysfunctional or downright bad people. In Good Girl Gone Bad there were more supporting characters that started as decent, normal people, and you could keep them that way. Also, in GGGB you could not only corrupt good characters, but also fix bad ones like Jessica. Here 90% of the support cast is not ready for a healthy relationship, and you can only corrupt them (like Holly, Cindy, Minerva) while not being able to fix the bad ones like Ivy, Jeremy or Axel. In GGGB you could engineer a pretty good ending where a bunch of characters end up healthy and happy. So far, I don't see that possibility for this game. I think it was a mistake to make every supporting male character either a loser or a fuckboy. There is no one to pair up the girls with now. Alison is a perfect example, her love path shows that she can be a relationship material with the right guy, but if Ian doesn't go for her then she just ends up as Jeremy's cumrag.

Alison and Ian is a solid B+ relationship (to me). A good amount of compatibility, some natural passion, no major conflicts or worldview disparities (unless you choose/make them). But the spark that Ian and Lena have is missing. And as you point out, non-asshole Ian is the only decent male option in the game. Perry could be, for someone with the right puzzle piece match, and Wade might be again, if he rebuilds himself. Everyone else is deeply flawed in ways that make them bad people, or at least bad people to date.

I do wonder if it's a failing on the writers part, for not being able to create compelling male love interests, or if the bar is so low for what makes an acceptable male romance option that they think these are good enough. Because it doesn't really feel like it's just an issue with this game or EK, but across media types. Romance, from what I understand, is broad enough to have decent and compelling options as well as the fucked up dysfunctional male love interests, but elsewhere it seems like 90% crap vs. 10% a healthy and interesting person you would recommend to a friend to date.

Also, Jeremy is just the worse, but then Axel exists, so not the absolute worst.

 

[Blurpee69]

So, for the record. I think all of chapter 1 has been rewritten. On top of the changes to Ian's half of the story I've already mentioned in a previous post.

Lena no longer has a dialogue option when speaking with her mother on the phone.
Lena's uncle has passed away months prior, and Lena was completely unaware, per the conversation with her mother.
Additionally the conversation between Lena and her mom makes little mention of either mom or dad's health, and no Spike.
Axel now comes into the restaurant, causing Lena to leave early.
If Ian meets with Alison for lunch, we now see that date from Lena's perspective.
If you tell Ed that you need to leave early for a photoshoot, there is no longer a dialogue option when Lena is changing in the storage closet.
Dialogue between Lena and Danny (the photographer) has been extended.
Robert is more caring towards Lena and doesn't come across as nearly as much of a loser middle manager. Easier to mistake thinking a date with him is a good idea.


Ian and Lena don't learn each other's names at all during chapter 1.
Robert's date has been removed and pushed into chapter 2.

Which means a lot of chapter 2 will also have likely been rewritten.

I didn't do a new playthrough for 13.1, so some of this might have happened last update. Some changes I know were added previously, but they're in a new order now too. For example the confrontation between Robert and Axel, that results in Robert's black eye for Ian's half of the chapter. But, for any of you wondering what Eva spends her time on. Well, here it is. Overall I actually appreciate a lot of these changes.

 

[AndreDA]

Alison and Ian is a solid B+ relationship (to me). A good amount of compatibility, some natural passion, no major conflicts or worldview disparities (unless you choose/make them). But the spark that Ian and Lena have is missing. And as you point out, non-asshole Ian is the only decent male option in the game. Perry could be, for someone with the right puzzle piece match, and Wade might be again, if he rebuilds himself. Everyone else is deeply flawed in ways that make them bad people, or at least bad people to date.

I do wonder if it's a failing on the writers part, for not being able to create compelling male love interests, or if the bar is so low for what makes an acceptable male romance option that they think these are good enough. Because it doesn't really feel like it's just an issue with this game or EK, but across media types. Romance, from what I understand, is broad enough to have decent and compelling options as well as the fucked up dysfunctional male love interests, but elsewhere it seems like 90% crap vs. 10% a healthy and interesting person you would recommend to a friend to date.

Also, Jeremy is just the worse, but then Axel exists, so not the absolute worst.

It shouldn't be hard to write good male romance options, it was a choice to make all three of Perry, Wade and Stan into losers, and I don't even know what exactly Robert is supposed to be. Honestly if I was a woman I'd wish Wen was a potential love interest, strong, playful and wise.

And the fact that "the spark that Ian and Lena have" is missing from other romance options is kinda a choice, or a failure in writing, no? Alison starts as a frustrated, overworked and unfulfilled woman, both her and Ian are ambitious and feel they are capable of better things. They're also old friends. That's better set-up for a beggining of a relationship than Ian meeting a hot waitress. Holly could've been the nerdy choice, Alison the normie choice, and Cindy the naughty choice. But a choice was made to make Lena the main LI and the likes of Alison and Cindy only get scraps from the writers table.
Cindy actually starts great, the looong buildup to anything happening between her and Ian, the slow motion car crash that is her relationship with Wade. But I feel like her story has run out of steam.

I mentioned earlier that it reminds me of Mass Effect, where the writers heavily favor Liara. I chose Jack as my LI and got maybe 20% of the content that Liara romancers got. Life is pain.

 

[youraccount69]

OurRedString-CH13.2Beta

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[Silken the Rocket Girl]

The reality is very few writers are interested at all in writing good male companions and romance options because
they believe their male audience will reject them. Which, as a woman, pisses me the fuck off. The idea of making
a decent, confident and potent male is viewed as problematic in some circles and an in others somehow bizarrely
too much competition for the weaker male reader that wants to possess every female in the story or keep other
male characters from their favorite female character. Meanwhile, anyone playing a female MC or Co MC has to
become a fucking lesbian to get any kind of pay off. Looking at men is apparently gay. Two women fucking is okay.
It's still fucking gay. And a massive double standard. Personally I want Lena (I modded my copy so I'm the FMC,
and not Lena) anyway, I want Axel back. Or a path that leads to reconciliation. Out of every male in this story
he is literally the most together and interesting.

But yeah. This failure of writing is why every female character from Lara Croft to Aloy aren't allowed to have
any actual depth or male romances. They might as well be genderless nuns because Lord forbid they should
like or desire a strong male romance. Instead we get Perry's and Wade's and insecure male MCs too worried
about making a first move. I was dating Robert before the male MC even considered asking me out.
How the fuck does that happen?

 

[cowardleech]

Ian's route are better written, while those in Lena's route are two-dimensional stereotypes. Baffling, because supposedly EvaKiss is a woman

I think Ian's LI are better and feel like real people because Eva is a woman and knows how women work. While when writing about men (Lena's LIs) she is relying on stereotypes to create characters rather than cook them herself.

 

[cowardleech]

The reality is very few writers are interested at all in writing good male companions and romance options because
they believe their male audience will reject them.

It's a shame because EK has written at least one good male LI before in GGGB (Dave). When this game was released I was expecting more of that but it's a shame all we get are stereotypes with faces and names slapped on them.