Difference is Cindy actually shows romantic interest in Ian. Mike it's entirely one-sided. Lena never even goes on a date with Mike and expect him to reciprocate her feelings. Cindy actually shows romantic interest in Ian, goes on a dates with him, and expects him not to sleep around.
The sexting not happening is indicative of how both parties are reevaluating how to proceed on their relationship. Cindy wants to appeal to Ian and make him happy, seen by her initiating the texts and sending a nude. Ian expects Cindy to commit to him and doesn't want to indulge Cindy until their relationship is on a stronger foundation, observe how he doesn't initiate the actual sexting like he does when he thinks everything is sunshine and rainbows on the other Cindy paths. Cindy because she is clearly thinking more about Ian and their relationship does not post the ass pic she posts in other paths.
Reason why I said something like Mike/Ivy situation and not exactly and why Cindy having romantic interest in Ian would even matter here? As if people in love or serious relationships never cheat? She was in long term relationship with Wade yet it didn't stop her from cheating on him with Ian his best friend, so why would it stop her doing same to Ian with Axel?
What do you mean Cindy goes on dates with Ian?, the closest thing to a date would be the museum and that's before they enter into a romantic/sexual relationship. All the other scenes happen at their homes if I'm not misremembering. Also, Cindy doesn't show a clear romantic interest in Ian, that's the issue in that path, she's not being straight with him and thus the "You're playing with me" arguement. Although is true that she's more posessive of Ian than Mike of Lena.
l "If she was that important to you, you wouldn't be here tonight, don't you think?"
$ fmike = "sad"
mk "It's not like that..."
l "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, it's just..."
"I was frustrated, but didn't want to admit it to him."
"Mike looked at me in silence for a second before sighing and sitting on the bed next to me."
$ fmike = "n"
mk "You probably think I do this all the time, but I don't. Not since I am with her..."
mk "You're the only other girl I've slept with since I started dating her."
"I wasn't sure how that made me feel."
l "She must be pretty special."
mk "She is. But so are you."
mk "I mean... It's not like we've had that much time to get to know each other, but it's easy to see..."
mk "There aren't many girls like you, Lena. You're off the charts in so many ways."
$ flena = "smile"
"Now, that was something I liked hearing."
l "You really think so?"
mk "I wouldn't be here otherwise, wouldn't I? You're the hottest girl I've ever met. You're not only hot, but you're also beautiful, and you have charm, too much, even."
mk "And well, being noticed by a girl like you... I just couldn't say no to you, even if I wanted to."
l "I'm glad you didn't... At first, I was afraid you'd ignore me, but I'm happy a guy like you noticed me, too."
$ fmike = "smile"
mk "There was no way I couldn't notice you, you know that. When I saw you with Louise, I thought she could be Jeremy's girlfriend, so I used her as an excuse to talk to you."
l "Oh, so that's the real reason you said hi?"
$ fmike = "happy"
mk "Yeah, well... You won't blame me now, will you?"
$ flena = "happy"
l "Not at all."
$ fmike = "smile"
mk "So there you have it. If I had met you a year ago, well... Things might've been different, who knows."Yes, but ass pic happens if Ian and Cindy are in a loving relationship and Ian chooses to trust her instead of calling her out. That's what makes things unclear about the meaning of the ass pic being the same in that case as in Ian just fucking Cindy casually. And also it's not impossible she would tell Axel not to post the pic but it happens all the same without being made public when it's not published.
This isn't real life. It's a narrative. And in stories character motivations presented to the reader need to be coherently followed up on. It could be realistic for a character to be walking down the street and get hit by a car, ending that character and their route. It happens in real life right? But that would be unsatisfying to the reader.
I was using the term date loosely. I meant Ian and Cindy before ever having sex go to the museum together, go to the club and dance together, spend time talking about their issues, Cindy asks Ian to accompany her to her modelling, they actually have a built up chemistry.
Reason why I brought up similarity between Ian/Cindy/Axel and /LenaMike/Ivy. Mike and Lena's relation might not be exact same but he's still a love interest for Lena with a proper romance route too and Lena isn't a NPC, she's a MC. so if Mike can fuck Ivy regardless of our choices in that route, why do you think Ian is going to be any special?
Lena and Cindy already had an argument at the party, whereas the first tried to warn about the dangers of getting involved with Axel, and they now share a relation with him. I can picture several options for a lesbian path becoming available from this setup, or at the very least a 3some. You can think of Axel disposing Cindy away, deceiving her with a promise of a top model career and then she goes to Lena and realizes she's been right all long, and they become close friends. Just a quick idea of how it can be managed by EK.
Unfortunately the game doesn't store whether Lena has warned Cindy or been a complete bitch to her (in fact, warning Cindy causes a generic drop in their relationship level) so no, such scenario isn't going to exist outside of fanfiction.
I've thought about this and wouldn't be surprised if how high the Lena/Cindy value is what determines this. It starts at 3 which is the highest it can reach. If you're cordial with her and warn her the value just drops to 2. So I can see Eva using this to try and not spoil something with a named variable.
Why do I think Cindy won't cheat on Ian like Mike did?
Unfortunately it can't really work this way, because there's more than one option which can drop relationship with Cindy. So the game can't determine if a single drop in relationship level is a result of a warning, or from Lena not warning Cindy but just being casually snippy towards her at some other point.
Just because the variable is not there now. Doesn't mean he won't add in the future or some sort of choice to become friends on lena's side. Eva goes back and constantly adds things like adding mike to the dojo or changing stories of some characters like Stan, etc. So you can't say for sure that just because there is nothing now, doesn't mean there won't be in the future.
But the game could base a Lena/Cindy development on if there had been a drop in agenda, regardless of which point or how many drops there have been. Lena and Cindy have a starting agenda level, so the game can check if that value is still present.
Yes, but since the drop of relationship can be either caused by Lena trying to be helpful or by Lena being an ass (or both) and the game has no way to determine which case it was, it would be difficult to produce relationship development which would make sense for all these potentially very different scenarios.
Sure, but the variable not being there suggests that EK didn't consider that a plot point that would lead to any development between these two characters. Can it theoretically happen? Of course, just like theoretically Robert can have a training montage and become a chad who puts Axel to shame.
Well, one way to use it would be for Cindy to cautiously approach Lena if their relationship hasn't taken a hit. Could start out with a simple genuine interaction and build it from there, so long as Cindy has retained her surface-level impression of Lena.
