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

[xgrotesc]

You seem to be pushing the message that it's okay to violate boundaries of a person if you aren't dating them? Is that correct?

No I'm not and if you've read my previous messages, you'd now that by know. None of my argumentation was meant to say what Axel did is acceptable, I merely pointed out the difference between what is normally considered to be in an abusive relationship and what we saw so far. We do not have any indication that Lena was in an abusive relationship. If you want to say that she was in an abusive break up, then by all means I might be more inclined to agree with you.

I also recall Lena mentioning that she had to move and change jobs (?) just to get rid of Axel. Now, raise your hands if you think is this an acceptable behaviour after the breakup

Once again you're trying to put words into my mouth. I do not think this is acceptable behaviour and once again, if you had read my explanations carefully you would have noticed it. Like you I strongly condemn this type of behaviour. That's not to say that I'll immeditely start being judgemental and leave no space in my mind to try to understand if that person has that pattern of behaviour or if it might be something that happened on a certain situation and that's in a way out of character. Sorry, but I don't view of the world as a binary system where there's only black and white or good and evil.

I do not recall Axel's behaviour being the reason Lena had to move and change jobs. I'm under the impression it was something she did in order to break contact with him, not because he was harassing her but simply because she just didn't want to see him. In most relationships, especially ones that end due to cheating, the person who was cheated tries to get away from all forms of contact because it's easier to move on, otherwise there's this constant reminder of the betrayal looming over. I might however be wrong regarding this and after all this debate I feel like I need to soon enough make a new playthrough and pay special attention to that part to make sure I'm not making my assessment under a distorted idea. Do trust me that if after that I come to the conclusion that my arguments are being based under a false pretext, I'll have no problems coming here and admiting I was wrong and that I simply didn't paid enough attention to that part.

So what I think going on is, Axel's only regret is getting caught.

It might be and I assume we'll eventually find out. My only point once again is that I don't feel like I have been provide yet with enough information to reach that conclusion. I felt like you and some people were just making an early judgement of the situation and I merely wanted to point that out. The same way I also tried to make a point that as humans we all make mistakes and we all go through some situations we eventually regret, and some are just sporadic things that we make, that are out of character and happened under a certain context. If they do not however develop to become a pattern I will not hold that over anyone's head forever. If on the other hand they prove to be some kind of behaviour that person constantly falls into, then I have no problems with the labelling.

For some reason it seems some people are trying to distort my point of view of waiting until more evidence is presented to be some kind of acceptance to this kind of behaviour, which is not. I have never in my life been abusive to any of my girlfriends and still maintain excellent relationships with most of them. I have a good number of female friendships and I did have to support some in some abusive situations. I however have also once came accross with a situation, quite a few years ago, of a guy who dated a friend of mine for quite some time and after their break up he started to fall into this kind of behaviour for a certain period, which was completely out of character of him. The situation was eventually solved, he understood he was wrong, apologized and moved on. Although I don't consider him a friend I still have some people I know who are still in regular contact with him and I never heard of him ever again following into that type of behaviour.

Could I be wrong? Sure, he's not a real person and even in real life I make mistakes sometimes. But romantic relationship and particularly abusive onces have always been of interest to me and everything about this guy just screams typical abusive asshole to me.

I could also be wrong and more likely then not it will actually be the case. However, the information provided so far leads me to the conclusion that Axel is a bit of a self-centrict schmuck, but other then that I don't feel like I have enough information to make any judgement of him that goes past that.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

[...]
Dialog is filled with him trying to reconcile with Lena with hopes of getting back together, which you can even encourage and in the end he gives you Lena's journal back which contains some raunchy pictures of Lena/Axel and the funny thing is? Lena doesn't remember putting them into the journal
So what I think going on is, Axel's only regret is getting caught. He seems to be obsessed with Lena and not willign to let her go to the point of constantly harrasing her and getting violent to get back what he wants and what once was his. He's also pretty manipulative and gonna subtly try to lure Lena back with the memories of "the good times" as folks like him often do.
Could I be wrong? Sure, he's not a real person and even in real life I make mistakes sometimes. But romantic relationship and particularly abusive onces have always been of interest to me and everything about this guy just screams typical abusive asshole to me.

I will have to agree with that.

There was no reason to put those sex pictures of him and Lena with her things there other than to manipulate her. Time will tell but he indeed seems like a manipulative asshole. On a hindsight i suppose it makes sense he works with the old rich bastard.

 

[scor099]

No I'm not and if you've read my previous messages, you'd now that by know. None of my argumentation was meant to say what Axel did is acceptable, I merely pointed out the difference between what is normally considered to be in an abusive relationship and what we saw so far. We do not have any indication that Lena was in an abusive relationship. If you want to say that she was in an abusive break up, then by all means I might be more inclined to agree with you.

You know there's a George Carlin standup comedy where he talks about the soft language and words that conceal reality you should watch it. what does abusive break up even mean? a breakup is a breakup and usually hurt both parties and in Lena's situation it still hurts because Axle the man she loved betrayed her trust and even after they broke up he couldn't even leave her alone to grieve in peace. The man is crazy and possessive she had to change jobs and move out and didn't tell her mother so she couldn't tell Axle, when he finally found her he caused a scene that ultimately led to her losing her job, he blocked her way and beat up her coworker and all that happened after the break up so imagine being in relationship with someone like that.

We still haven't seen a flashback of their relationship but from what we've seen so far it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Axle is crazy and emotionally unstable and might resolve to violent if he doesn't get what he want, sure maybe just maybe Axle never hit Lena or abuse her physically but he sure did abuse her emotionally and mentally, he abused her trust and cheated on her and then manipulated her to get her to bed with the same woman her cheated on with so what more do you want? for him to actually hit her so you can call it an abusive relationship?.

 

[ijako3]

I got tired of Male protag. games so i prefer playing as Lena because there aint many games with fem protag that are actually worth playing.
That doesn't mean that i skip Ian content tho.

Corrupting female protag. is just much more fun to me.

 

[xgrotesc]

We still haven't seen a flashback of their relationship but from what we've seen so far it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Axle is crazy and emotionally unstable and might resolve to violent if he doesn't get what he want

Sorry, but that's just a plain assumption on your behalf. You can believe whatever you want, but until proof given it doesn't make it truth. Also, once again you're simply distorting my words tryng to make it look like I only see abuse as violence behaviour, which is not the case. I already covered that part in previous posts, so I won't go there again.

he abused her trust and cheated on her and then manipulated her to get her to bed with the same woman her cheated on with so what more do you want? for him to actually hit her so you can call it an abusive relationship?.

However, I'll give credit where credit is due and this bit you mention is quite a manipulative behaviour and something I wasn't taking into consideration. I won't exactly call that abusive, but extremely manipulative and for someone to be able to pull this kind of shit, it can indeed indicate that person might also be prone to abusive behaviour. See, if you provide me with factual information I'm completely willing to admit I might be wrong. I still need to check the reason Lena had to move to a new house and change her job, but if it is indeed due to Axel's behaviour, I'll say again, I'll have no problem in labelling him as someone with an abusive type of personality.

You know there's a George Carlin standup comedy where he talks about the soft language and words that conceal reality you should watch it. what does abusive break up even mean? a breakup is a breakup and usually hurt both parties

I know George Carlin pretty well, he's actually my favourite stand-up comedian of all time and sorry to say but now you're making a wrongful impression of it's meaning. While most breakups aren't easy, there's also lots of breakups that happen where people don't fight. There's no shortage of breakups that happen due to both people finding out they're both no longer in love, etc. An abusive breakup is something like we just seen, someone who can't accept the fact that their companion is leaving them and therefore resorts to emotional and psychological pressure or to physical intimidation or even violence. Sorry, but unless I completely missed your point, it really seems to me that you're just streamlining something to try to make it fit your perspective. But anyway, since you gave a suggestion in terms of comedy, Ill do the same. Check out the bit from Tim Minchin's show regarding the human necessity of constantly needing to put things under two categories without margin to see what's in between:

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[J1215]

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Who's your favourite MC

After finishing GGGB I knew I wanted to try something a bit different and challenge myself. Ashley was a fun female main character to play with and I know many of you guys loved all the possibilities she offered.

This time around I wanted to write deeper and more complex characters, and not limit myself to a female point of view, which would've made the game feel very similar to GGGB, but add the masculine POV with Ian. This opened up a ton of new possibilities for me, things I would've liked to explore in GGGB but couldn't, and it's allowed me to build really fun character relationships with Alison, Holly, Cindy, Lena herself... Character interactions that I feel you guys are really enjoying!

I love both Ian and Lena and I really enjoy being able to explore the story from the two points of view at the same time, but what about you? You enjoy playing with one character more than with the other? Are you like me and feel they complement each other? Let me know in the poll down below!

I prefer playing as Ian
I prefer playing as Lena
I enjoy playing them both!

I prefer playing as Lena !

 

[Priappus]

I prefer playing as Lena !

Only as Lena!!!!! not with Nick,Sophie, Adam, Donald,Maria,John,Valentina...............

 

[BloodyMares]

That's not to say that I'll immeditely start being judgemental and leave no space in my mind to try to understand if that person has that pattern of behaviour or if it might be something that happened on a certain situation and that's in a way out of character.

I used to fall into the same pitfalls of thinking. The thing is, in order to understand his motives and what triggers his behavior, you don't have to excuse or justify it to yourself or others (which is exactly what you're doing, maybe not consciously) and say that it doesn't make him a bad person. It makes him guilty though. That behavior was abusive, there's no point denying it. And it's a pattern, according to Axel himself ("I lose my head around you"). Which makes him an abusive person. Maybe not towards Lena directly, but indirectly, he can make her life a living hell, by stalking her, attacking her friends or colleagues, constantly bothering her parents. That type of behavior can easily get you in jail. He's not a child. An adult person is capable to choose how to respond when faced with a similar situation and take responsibility when faced with consequences. And all of Axel's responses were shitty, up until the point where Lena softened up and decided to meet with him. And even that immediately made him use that situation in his favor and abuse Lena's trust once again by planting the photos in her notebook. That is not the behavior of someone who made a genuine mistake and is sorry for his actions.

 

[_DarkDesires_]

Yep Axel's like an obsessed cat that can't stop pulling at the thread that is Lena, no matter how much it unravels her (her life, psyche...) and feels no obvious guilt over the damage he does

I used to fall into the same pitfalls of thinking. The thing is, in order to understand his motives and what triggers his behavior, you don't have to excuse or justify it to yourself or others (which is exactly what you're doing, maybe not consciously) and say that it doesn't make him a bad person. It makes him guilty though. That behavior was abusive, there's no point denying it. And it's a pattern, according to Axel himself ("I lose my head around you"). Which makes him an abusive person. Maybe not towards Lena directly, but indirectly, he can make her life a living hell, by stalking her, attacking her friends or colleagues, constantly bothering her parents. That type of behavior can easily get you in jail. He's not a child. An adult person is capable to choose how to respond when faced with a similar situation and take responsibility when faced with consequences. And all of Axel's responses were shitty, up until the point where Lena softened up and decided to meet with him. And even that immediately made him use that situation in his favor and abuse Lena's trust once again by planting the photos in her notebook. That is not the behavior of someone who made a genuine mistake and is sorry for his actions.

 

[xgrotesc]

I used to fall into the same pitfalls of thinking. The thing is, in order to understand his motives and what triggers his behavior, you don't have to excuse or justify it to yourself or others (which is exactly what you're doing, maybe not consciously) and say that it doesn't make him a bad person. It makes him guilty though. That behavior was abusive, there's no point denying it. And it's a pattern, according to Axel himself ("I lose my head around you"). Which makes him an abusive person. Maybe not towards Lena directly, but indirectly, he can make her life a living hell, by stalking her, attacking her friends or colleagues, constantly bothering her parents. That type of behavior can easily get you in jail. He's not a child. An adult person is capable to choose how to respond when faced with a similar situation and take responsibility when faced with consequences. And all of Axel's responses were shitty, up until the point where Lena softened up and decided to meet with him. And even that immediately made him use that situation in his favor and abuse Lena's trust once again by planting the photos in her notebook. That is not the behavior of someone who made a genuine mistake and is sorry for his actions.

Well, I do agree with your reasoning and will say it has a fair point. I don't really find arguments to argue with what you said since the way you broke it down does make sense to me. However, I still think that there's a difference between manipulative behaviour and abusive behaviour. They can be quite similar, but there's still a few differences between both. After going through the first 2 or 3 chapters this afternoon and along with what you just said, I'll say that in my point of view Axel played a manipulative role in the last phase of his relationship with Lena and when they broke up he took it up a notch and started actually being abusive.

Going back to a few people who also got involved into this discussion, I still didn't find any evidence that Lena moved to a new house or switched jobs due to Axel behaviour at that point (which is prior to the beginning of the story). Maybe I missed something due to choices in dialogues, so I'll just ask, do you, or anyone else actually found a statement in game where that idea is actually corroborated? If so, care to share it here?

 

[Redgy]

Well, I do agree with your reasoning and will say it has a fair point. I don't really find arguments to argue with what you said since the way you broke it down does make sense to me. However, I still think that there's a difference between manipulative behaviour and abusive behaviour. They can be quite similar, but there's still a few differences between both. After going through the first 2 or 3 chapters this afternoon and along with what you just said, I'll say that in my point of view Axel played a manipulative role in the last phase of his relationship with Lena and when they broke up he took it up a notch and started actually being abusive.

Going back to a few people who also got involved into this discussion, I still didn't find any evidence that Lena moved to a new house or switched jobs due to Axel behaviour at that point (which is prior to the beginning of the story). Maybe I missed something due to choices in dialogues, so I'll just ask, do you, or anyone else actually found a statement in game where that idea is actually corroborated? If so, care to share it here?

This is the last time I reply to you cuz you starting to get on my nerves tbh. Like one of the guys pointed out you want to be an impartial observer but instead you come out looking like an asshole defending a guy for actions that's clearly shouldn't be defended. No, manipulation and abuse aren't that different and pretty much always go hand in hand, google gaslighting for example. If we were talking about a real person going through something similar I bet you'd still wouldn't be conviced that she suffered from abuse unless someone could prove you that the guy hit her (during relationship, not before or after cuz that's important!) and that just makes me pissed cuz there are lots of people who think that way. Exactly why I didn't wanna start that conversation on a porn forum.
Anyway, here's some screnshoots idk how you managed to miss them but it was a pain to find them, so I hope you appreciate the effort I had to go through.
Wasn't sure about the job and yeah, Axel only mentions that he didn't know that Lena worked at the resturant and he clearly isn't aware that Lena works at the cafe. What I find strange about it is that how could a boyfriend not know where his girlfriend works? So it's obvious that Lena found those jobs after the break up. That raises the question - did she not have some kind of job before that? We do know that she sends money off to her parents every month + gotta live on something. But that's just me putting the pieces together and for a guy like you it's the same as guessing.

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[xgrotesc]

This is the last time I reply to you cuz you starting to get on my nerves tbh. Like one of the guys pointed out you want to be an impartial observer but instead you come out looking like an asshole defending a guy for actions that's clearly shouldn't be defended. No, manipulation and abuse aren't that different and pretty much always go hand in hand, google gaslighting for example. If we were talking about a real person going through something similar I bet you'd still wouldn't be conviced that she suffered from abuse unless someone could prove you that the guy hit her (during relationship, not before or after cuz that's important!) and that just makes me pissed cuz there are lots of people who think that way. Exactly why I didn't wanna start that conversation on a porn forum.
Anyway, here's some screnshoots idk how you managed to miss them but it was a pain to find them, so I hope you appreciate the effort I had to go through.
Wasn't sure about the job and yeah, Axel only mentions that he didn't know that Lena worked at the resturant and he clearly isn't aware that Lena works at the cafe. What I find strange about it is that how could a boyfriend not know where his girlfriend works? So it's obvious that Lena found those jobs after the break up. That raises the question - did she not have some kind of job before that? We do know that she sends money off to her parents every month + gotta live on something. But that's just me putting the pieces together and for a guy like you it's the same as guessing.

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Wow, you just took things to a personal level now. Sorry if I made you upset, that was certainly not the intention. I was actually enjoying the debate. I do think that debating people with different point of views it's a healthy thing in today's society. We all come from different places, have different experiences and therefore many times our point of views aren't aligned and the only way for us to sometimes find some common ground is to discuss them.

You may have not noticed, but I actually respect your opinion and respect you from standing up to it, unfortunately you don't seem to feel the same way in return. Also, once again I think you're putting many of the things I said out of context and that may be because you somehow made it personal. I'll say a few things once again. I do no empathize with Axel's character. I think he's an idiot, who thinks really highly of himself and indeed seems to be extremely selfish. I also do not think that any of his actions are excusable. To give you an example in my main playthrough Lena thrashed the pictures as soon as she saw them and I want Axel as far way from her as possible, simply because that's what I would recommend to anyone in a real life scenario.

You say I defended Axel's actions and I'll once again tell you I didn't. As you said I tried to be an impartial observer and that's the only thing you can actually accuse me of and for that I'll make no apologies. I've always tried to be impartial in all aspects of my life until hard evidence is presented to me. Like all human beings I am sometimes biased towards certain subjects, but to the best of my abilities I always try to maintain my impartiality so I can base my decisions on evidences.

Going to my personal life you're once again making a wrong assumption. I for more then once stated that I believe that emotional and psychological abuse can be as bad as physical one, so no, in my real life I do not need to see physical marks on anyone to believe they're been a victim of abuse. I've actually seen many and helped many people on my social circle to get out of situations of abuse and for the most part there wasn't physical abuse involved. But I do require to be provided with enough information that backs up those accusations. In some of the situations I witnessed that abuse happening and felt like I should've say something to person who was being abused, while in other cases I simply heard their testimony of the situation and reached to the conclusion that what they were going through could be labelled as abuse. If you see throught out the posts I already assumed that after playing again I do believe that during the break up process Axel's behaviour is clearly abusive, but this whole discussion started a quite a few posts ago where it was claimed that he was abusive during their relationship, something I still have no evidence for, because they are two different moments, at least in my perspective.

For you manipulative behaviour is the same as abusive behaviour. I think they're very similar in some ways, but are not quite the same thing. Maybe this is something we'll have to agree to disagree. But if you actually can look a bit past that, you'll actually see that we both believe Axel is scumbag.

For the last part I once again I believe you're making assumpion regarding to your conclusion. If you ask my opinion, I actually also think you are right, but the difference is that you're taking your assumption as something for granted, while I simply think that's most likely the case, but until I have a hard evidence of that matter, I will not claim to say I know the reason. You can put the pieces however you want, but they broke up already a while back (4 months if I'm not mistaken) and in today's society is actually pretty common for people to change jobs frequently. We don't even know for sure if she actually had job previously (although I'd say that's like a 0,1% chance of being the case here) but assuming that she did, I don't know the reasons why she changed job, because it could be for a number of other reasons. She might be getting even less money at her previous job, she could be doing some kind of internship or be on a short contract and meanwhile her contract expired and wasn't renewed, etc. Maybe these are a bit less likely, but you have to admit that these are also possible scenarios and until you know that for sure you can't claim to know what happened, because you don't.

In what concerns the images, I actually appreciate the time you took into looking into this. I've seen those and I already know you'll probably won't agree with me here, but nonetheless I still don't see what you see for a fact. First, we don't even know if Axel and Lena were actually living together at the time. If they were, it actually makes sense that Lena would have to move, because since she broke up with him and was extremely mad at the whole situation, it made absolutely no fucking sense for her to keep living with him in the same house. So, my point here is, I feel like you're saying that she moved because she was running scared of him and I for one don't know if that's the case. It is however for me a possibility, but I will not claim to know this for sure just by putting some pieces together that may actually belong to a completely different puzzle.

Anyway, as this whole conversation seems to have stress you out and rubbed you on the wrong way so I'll also stop the discussion on my end. I do however commend you for being able to keep it civil for the vast majority of the time, when clearly it was a subjet that was making you unconfortable. I however feel that we actually are for the most part just disagreeing on some semanthics and some technicalities, but are actually like minded on the broader picture. I hope you'll eventually be able to see that, but even if not, I'm sorry I was unable to make my point of view seem valid to you and also that you're unable to respect it and accept it. I however will say again that I do respect yours, even if I don't agree with it to the full extent, because you seem to be one to jump quickly into a conclusion, while I'll encourage you to first take a step back and look at the whole picture before coming to the said conclusion. But I gotta say, I do appreciate the sentiment from where it is coming from, since your heart seems to be in the right place. And this is the honest truth, not some elaborate form of sarcasm, in case you were wondering.

 

[dundun]

Thanks for stopping posting these walls of texts , but you tickled my curiosity so here is my revenge.... errr, I mean take on Lena's former whereabouts.
Lena lived with Axel:
"I had been living on my own after breaking up with Axel, but I couldn't really afford it. I needed to find another place."
"And it just so happened that the girl who had been living in this flat before me had just left."

She got the job in the restaurant right after leaving Axel likely to pay for her rent:
"I had been working at this restaurant for around four months now."

l "Not really. I haven't been in the mood since what happened with Axel."
v "But that was like three or four months ago!"
l "Four months and one week."

The job in the diner is very new:
"She had hired me three weeks ago, and this was one of the best jobs I remembered having."


Also, I think Axel will be turning out to be a bad guy. EvaKiss changed Robert because she wanted more 'good' options for Lena. As obviously Ian will be one, with Axel it would now be three and only Seymour as the one bad option.

 

[xgrotesc]

Indeed dundun. I should've gone back to game from the very beginning, instead of a save already halfway through the first chapter, otherwise I wouldn't have missed those two. Thanks for pointing those out.

 

[21ohiokid]

Anybody else notice that the longer we go without an update, the longer the essays people post on this thread get?

 

[ArchieMDM]

Never disappointed with EvaKiss games! I love his visuals which are really beautiful!
can't wait to discover this one!

ps: Anyone know where I can find the "Good girl gone Bad" banner for my signature?
thanks <3

 

[GrimWraith]

I love his visuals which are really beautiful!

*her. Evakiss is a female game developer.

 

[Vorsyn]

Do you think we 'll see more stuff going on with the old guy who owns the cafe?

 

[Cicica]

Do you think we 'll see more stuff going on with the old guy who owns the cafe?

Knowing Eva, we'll see content with every character presented until now. I am waiting for content with the owner's wife

 

[ArchieMDM]

*her. Evakiss is a female game developer.

I know. My search engine automatically translates all pages, so I have to stytatically switch back to English to post a comment. Otherwise it is posted in French...
(And if I post in French, I get a "warning" from the moderators)
It makes gender errors because "His" is the default gender. But I suspect that Eva is a girl's name.
that said, I don't really care about what this person has between her legs. I love her job, that's all.