OK, from what i can see, if Lena takes Holly home, then afterwards during photo session she has option to Nudge Holly
and then Kiss Holly
. At this point if either Lena or Holly is dating Ian, Lena will stop herself. If neither of them is dating Ian, then she will go for it and it'll lead to sex.
I think it can be viewed as sensible: while in Ch.9 Lena has hesitated on account of Holly's crush, by Ch.10 she had time to get over those hangups -- the ian_lena_dating
flag is set to false in Ch.10 -- and she can literally see Holly clearly wanting her to get intimate. So that's a start of their "love route" and it follows from there. That they no longer agonize over "oh but what about Ian" might be bothering the player who associates themselves with Ian and doesn't like getting sidelined like that, but, eh. It's not the smoothest transition, but there's only so much attention that can be paid to no longer relevant guy in a lesbian relationship.
Alternatively, it's one of these things mentioned in the latest progress update that will get tweaked/fixed. Guess we'll see.
I'm sorry, but this simply makes no sense. After Ch.9 there's no heart options for Lena/Holly which can be disabled by anything but lena_go_holly
being too low, which shouldn't be the case. And to be exact, by "disabled" i meant "displayed as greyed out and not reacting to mouse click".
I'm kind of tired of asking you to provide me with specific line so i won't repeat it, but until you do this is getting us nowhere.
Thing is, not reflecting on Ian would make sense in a path where Ian doesn't get involved with Lena, and it's simply a Lena-Holly path. But based on all other routes and various variations, the fact that such a massive plot seemingly disappeared from the narrative of the game is irregular. If this is really what EK intended, which I don't think is the case, then it would be an outlier to her writing and a flaw. I have already made the same point but it's up to you if you wish to ignore it again. It doesn't make sense that Lena would simply have no thoughts of past events that happened. You broke up with a person you are dating because this person fucked a close friend you know had feelings with your date. And now you're fucking that close friend yourself. From a narrative point of view, it has been shown that Lena (and Ian, both MCs in fact) is reflective on her actions and her experiences, and how it affects her. All paths in the game with all their variations show this fact and you're telling me that this one scenario, this one point, this one thing is exclusive to everything that has been written thus far, especially something that had a big impact on major characters? From a technical point of view, Lena reflecting on her past actions is the way that the game acknowledges the decisions of the player. It is also a way that the game lets the player know how their choices impact the main characters, and how it may affect future events. As I have said before, this is glaringly obvious from the entire game. For example, there is a difference in the various monologues if Lena is dating Ian, and Lena is dating Ian
while fucking Mike. She reflects on this and the difference in text can be seen throughout multiple instances. And you're telling me that this one outlier is intentionally written by the author?
"That they no longer agonize over "oh but what about Ian" might be bothering the player who associates themselves with Ian and doesn't like getting sidelined like that, but, eh."
It's quite odd that you are instead making assumptions on people when they ask about an oddity/outlier from the established material instead of, you know, actually listening to what they are saying which is: there is an irregularity in a path where it doesn't follow the rest of the writing of the game. And if you're wondering, I don't associate with any characters of the game, I see myself as an outsider simply reading a story. That's the reason I prefer a third-person pov instead of first or second when reading. If anything, I'm more invested in Lena's plotline since it's more complex and interesting. In this site, I find people who like to put themselves in the shoes of the MC and wanting to be able to change the MC's name (which is so common, and commonly requested) as being too much into escapism.
"I think it can be viewed as sensible: while in Ch.9 Lena has hesitated on account of Holly's crush, by Ch.10 she had time to get over those hangups -- the
ian_lena_dating
flag is set to false in Ch.10 -- and she can literally see Holly clearly wanting her to get intimate. So that's a start of their "love route" and it follows from there."
That's mental gymnastics. It's not sensible at all. The reason that Lena literally stopped herself from kissing Holly is that she thought of Ian, and how hypocritical she would have been. If Lena simply became distressed over being hypocritical and then accepted and decided to still continue pursuing Holly leading to sex, then there would have been a monologue over this, reflecting on her actions. The fact that there's none leading to sex does not follow the convention of the writing. I highly doubt this is what the author intended. But instead, you made up some suppositions about a person's character on how they could possibly question the oddity of the game when you could have been more objective and focus on their actual points.
"I'm sorry, but this simply makes no sense. After Ch.9 there's no heart options for Lena/Holly which can be disabled by anything but
lena_go_holly
being too low, which shouldn't be the case. And to be exact, by "disabled" i meant 'displayed as greyed out and not reacting to mouse click'. I'm kind of tired of asking you to provide me with specific line so i won't repeat it, but until you do this is getting us nowhere."
If it's simply a case of a counter variable not being high enough, then it would be really odd considering I picked
all possible heart choices for Holly (do I need to spell out which among all is all?). If you actually played out the save file I gave instead of asking which part is which then there would have been no confusion. If having one threesome is enough to dissuade Lena into having a romance with Holly then it's not consistent with her character. Yes, 'disabled' means the text is greyed out and unclickable, which is what 'disabled' means and not 'disappeared'.