VN Ren'Py Our Red String [Ch.13.3.4] [Eva Kiss]

[Samuel Hidayat]

I feel like Axel is being honest isn't something to take for granted. Maybe he is being honest, maybe he is not. He has shown himself to be dishonest in the past.

Half truths breed the best lies, after all.

 

[johnyakuza1]

I feel bad for the people who bought this on itch.io... they haven't gotten an update in over a year LMAO

Eva just forgot they exist haha

 

[Blurpee69]

Could we maybe not do this?

There were seven posts of just single letters before they got removed. I was not complaining about any of the ongoing conversations.

 

[dontcarewhateverno]

Err, i feel you're making up some sort of headcannon that isn't quite there in the game? Axel is pertty explicit about the Wildcat thing in his texts:

            x "{i}Anyway, I just wanted to update you on the modeling agency situation.{/i}"
            x "{i}I presented them your portfolio and they liked it, but they were only interested in hiring a new model for the summer campaign and they gave that spot to another candidate.{/i}"
(...)
            l "{i}Just one more thing... Out of curiosity, who was the girl that was picked by the agency? Was it Ivy?{/i}"
            x "{i}No, it's the other girl I've been working with. Cindy.{/i}"
            l "{i}I see... Ivy won't be happy about it.{/i}"
            x "{i}I tried to get her in, but her style isn't quite what Wildcats is after. They're looking for something more... sophisticated.{/i}"

Wildcats was interested in hiring new model and that requirement ruled Lena out. Not having her portfolio presented late, or anything. So we can conclude from this that Lena does have some modeling presence that goes beyond "instagram girl very few people know of" and Ivy likely even more so, given she's working more actively on her modeling career.

The "sophisticated"/"sensual, artistic" thing is probably right, although i suspect it boils down more to Cindy not (yet) being used/comfortable with being openly sexual with her posing. Though it, again, strengthens the idea that Ivy and Lena have some modeling presence that's known to more than few people, and in this case that worked against Ivy -- if they were unknowns then having more bold shots in the portfolio would matter little; modeling is largely about presenting required persona after all.

only interested in hiring "a new model for the summer campaign "and they gave that spot to another candidate can just as easily refer to any or all of them. "New model" for wildcats, someone they haven't worked with before. Like referring to someone as a "new employee" usually doesn't denote whether that person has previous job experience or not. And even if it did, the text you showed doesn't indicate they consider Lena or Ivy seasoned models, or that it was the reason Lena wasn't chosen. Open to interpretation, but it reads as if they only had one model slot to fill, for the summer campaign, and weren't looking for new models for any other campaigns at this time. They just happened to think Cindy was more right for it than Lena, despite liking her portfolio.

 

[ArcherHades46]

I am very upset about such a long update, but let's at least have hope of getting what we want, at least THIS MONTH!

 

[manscout]

Okay, I hear where you're coming from. Obviously the actual criminals are guilty while others can share responsibility but not the blame, it's not even a discussion. I guess our difference lies in who we see as the criminal in this analogy. You think it's the person doing the corruption, but I see the person being corrupted as a future criminal on their villain arc (IF they end up doing bad / irresponsible things according to their own starting morality). And because the person is on their villain arc I just don't see much point in finding the person guilty for making them a criminal (aka "We live in a society"), criminals aren't always pressured or coerced to do the crime, they choose to act based on external influence and their internal justification but they can only blame themselves for making that choice to go through with the crime.

One last thing (it's too engaging ). If you think of a person doing the corrupting as a criminal it paints the person getting corrupted as an innocent victim which robs them of agency. They're a human being with their own agency and they're making a choice when they do bad or irresponsible things. Lena can't blame Seymour for making her cheat on Ian (the moral action here is either to break up with Ian or just be honest with him and explain her problem if he promises to keep it a secret) or blame Jeremy's dick for making her treat Louise like trash and gaslight her into becoming a cuckquean. Just like Jeremy can't blame Lena for making him a bad friend to Ian or poor boyfriend to Louise if he can't man up to reject her and do the right thing. Just like Ian can't blame Cindy for being sexy or Wade for being a bad boyfriend or Axel for making his moves on her if he ends up banging Cindy and betraying Wade. Well, they can but it just wouldn't be mature or convincing.

Hence we go back to why my definition of corruption (as an active conduct) cares about method and intent.

Method because manipulation, coercion, and any other forms of fraud or duress already rob a person of their agency, maybe not completely so and you can still imagine all situations to have a "correct moral solution" to them (specially with the power of hindsight), but at some point you will be just "demanding perfection" and blaming the victim, as well as adopting the callous doctrine that every failure is a choice. It can be hard to draw an exact line of where there is in fact mutual blame from the passive part of an interaction.

Intent because no one should be blamed for the influence they exert just by being. That would be an undue obstacle to their own right to self-realization (which is the whole problem with corruption in the first place). What I mean by this is, with the way Ivy dresses, conducts herself, and expresses her opinions, she is still capable of making an impression and it should be possible for that impression alone to influence another person into emulating her lifestyle, even if it meant a radical change to their own. I wouldn't call that "corruption", in the same way I don't consider Lena's interactions with Holly to be corruptive. The problem is that Ivy doesn't change Holly just by being an example, she doesn't really respect Holly as a peer and demeans her lifestyle, while embellishing and being completely acritical of her own. She's pushy and wants to change Holly regardless of what Holly's own thoughts and feelings are because she already dismissed them as being "naive".

I like that you brought the BBC storyline up because, obviously only up until the cuckqueen part of it, Jeremy really wasn't responsible for any kind of corruption even while carrying out behaviors that many would consider immoral. Jeremy did nothing to Lena, she spied on Jeremy and Louise and developed her obsessive fetish all on her own. He was lying to and manipulating Louise to try to sleep around, but until the cuckqueen part he wasn't really trying to change her in any way (it is possible that he pressured her into agreeing to things like filming her, but I don't think that's ever established so just as likely that Louise agreed to it because she was not opposed). After the cuckqueen plot though Jeremy is definitely Lena's partner in crime when it comes to corrupting Louise, they both know how attached and emotionally fragile she is and they take advantage of it to get her to "agree" to things that go against her established values.

Now about Lena corrupting Jeremy I would say that's a bit more of a grey area, I would agree that merely hitting on someone or trying to seduce them does not count as any kind of manipulation as long as you stop at the "no", or at any other expression that the engagement in sexual developments is uncomfortable to the person being seduced. On the other hand Ivy tells Lena how easy it is to manipulate Jeremy and orchestrates the events of that evening with the express purpose of getting Lena and Jeremy intimate and Lena chooses to take full advantage of that. I would say that in both cases Jeremy is still mostly responsible for his moral failings because very little was done to rob him of his agency, but Lena was only "corrupting" him in the scenario where he at least tries to say no (high Ian_Jeremy relationship and Ian has feelings for Lena) because Lena pushes through his attempts to hold to his values of not cucking his bro, even if they were rather feeble attempts.

 

[BloodyMares]

I like that you brought the BBC storyline up because, obviously only up until the cuckqueen part of it, Jeremy really wasn't responsible for any kind of corruption even while carrying out behaviors that many would consider immoral. Jeremy did nothing to Lena, she spied on Jeremy and Louise and developed her obsessive fetish all on her own. He was lying to and manipulating Louise to try to sleep around, but until the cuckqueen part he wasn't really trying to change her in any way (it is possible that he pressured her into agreeing to things like filming her, but I don't think that's ever established so just as likely that Louise agreed to it because she was not opposed). After the cuckqueen plot though Jeremy is definitely Lena's partner in crime when it comes to corrupting Louise, they both know how attached and emotionally fragile she is and they take advantage of it to get her to "agree" to things that go against her established values.

Now about Lena corrupting Jeremy I would say that's a bit more of a grey area, I would agree that merely hitting on someone or trying to seduce them does not count as any kind of manipulation as long as you stop at the "no", or at any other expression that the engagement in sexual developments is uncomfortable to the person being seduced. On the other hand Ivy tells Lena how easy it is to manipulate Jeremy and orchestrates the events of that evening with the express purpose of getting Lena and Jeremy intimate and Lena chooses to take full advantage of that. I would say that in both cases Jeremy is still mostly responsible for his moral failings because very little was done to rob him of his agency, but Lena was only "corrupting" him in the scenario where he at least tries to say no (high Ian_Jeremy relationship and Ian has feelings for Lena) because Lena pushes through his attempts to hold to his values of not cucking his bro, even if they were rather feeble attempts.

That touches on whether Jeremy is innocent victim or a criminal (the one being corrupted or doing corruption) and whether Lena is corrupting Jeremy or not by disrespecting his initial rejection and half-hearted reluctance. All valid and good reasoning. What about the corruption of Lena in this scenario? You said it yourself that the person can't be blamed for corrupting by simply existing, so Jeremy can't be at fault for Lena developing the BBC fetish. So, how would you classify this fetish development if not corruption? That fetish is directly tied to Lena being irresponsible and doing things she would blame Ivy for (like seducing Jeremy or being mean to Louise) or, like she blamed Ian for kissing Holly and compromising their friendship. On Jeremy's path not only is she willing to sleep around with Jeremy behind Louise's back, she also doesn't care that he's a friend of Ian and it might ruin their friendship as well if they ever were caught or Jeremy slipped when he was too relaxed, etc.

This is the clear sign of Lena's moral corruption with nobody else to blame it on but her own lust that made her either spy on Louise and Jeremy (a morally questionable thing to do) and then hacking Louise's phone (deliberate disregard of her privacy as the previous peek could be argued as accidental). There's no method that would fit your criteria (just curiosity and arousal), and there's no intent (at least the first time when Lena found herself spying on Louise and Jeremy). I guess it could be argued when she hacked Louise's phone or when she agreed to jack him off during Ivy's party that she had the intent to satisfy her curiosity even if she felt partially guilty about it. So, self-corruption then?

 

[ffive]

Why would they want a new model for the summer campaign in particular but be okay hiring a more prominent model for other campaigns?

I mean... why not? Not all campaigns are the same, so i feel it's perfectly reasonable for Wildcats to want a new face for one campaign, but someone more established for another. It'd depend on what sort of image respective clients they're working with want for their products.

Or Wildcats simply run the background checks on any models that want to work for them, and they just didn't like what they saw on Ivy's Peoplegram.

That's certainly a possibility, although in such case there might be some branching down the road depending on how far Lena takes her own online presence, i'd guess?

 

[BloodyMares]

That's certainly a possibility, although in such case there might be some branching down the road depending on how far Lena takes her own online presence, i'd guess?

Assuming Axel is a reliable narrator in this and doesn't come up with bullshit excuses, it would be consistent with all this "sophisticated" comment. If Lena gets hired and she's slutting-it-up online and they don't complain about public image, then it would at least be weird why Ivy was rejected.

My meta-guess is that Ivy won't be able to join Wildcats so instead she'll have to work with Billy, and I think it's a safe assumption that Billy's production would probably be more pornographic than erotic, or at least softcore, which Ivy would be happy to dive into and beg Lena to join her.

And whether Lena will be able to join Wildcats will probably depend on her connection to either Seymour or Axel. Seymour can easily open this door for her if she's a good girl, and Axel probably knows that this is his only card to keep meeting with Lena, and I doubt he'd freely give it up and recommend her to them without asking for anything in return, because as soon as she's with Wildcats, she has no reason to meet him outside of work. So I expect the repeat of the Robert situation where Lena's entry to Wildcats would probably depend on whether she resumed her intimate relationship with Axel or not. But who knows, maybe her work with Kent and other photographers outside of Seymour's reach could make her more noticeable and she'll be able to enter the "hard way". Only Eva really knows. But if entering Wildcats would require Lena selling her soul either to Seymour or Axel, and if Billy's agency indeed turn out to be porn, then ironically Stalkfap becomes the safest and least corrupt way for her to make money off modeling even if it's homemade porn.

 

[manscout]

That touches on whether Jeremy is innocent victim or a criminal (the one being corrupted or doing corruption) and whether Lena is corrupting Jeremy or not by disrespecting his initial rejection and half-hearted reluctance. All valid and good reasoning. What about the corruption of Lena in this scenario? You said it yourself that the person can't be blamed for corrupting by simply existing, so Jeremy can't be at fault for Lena developing the BBC fetish. So, how would you classify this fetish development if not corruption? That fetish is directly tied to Lena being irresponsible and doing things she would blame Ivy for (like seducing Jeremy or being mean to Louise) or, like she blamed Ian for kissing Holly and compromising their friendship. On Jeremy's path not only is she willing to sleep around with Jeremy behind Louise's back, she also doesn't care that he's a friend of Ian and it might ruin their friendship as well if they ever were caught or Jeremy slipped when he was too relaxed, etc.

This is the clear sign of Lena's moral corruption with nobody else to blame it on but her own lust that made her either spy on Louise and Jeremy (a morally questionable thing to do) and then hacking Louise's phone (deliberate disregard of her privacy as the previous peek could be argued as accidental). There's no method that would fit your criteria (just curiosity and arousal), and there's no intent (at least the first time when Lena found herself spying on Louise and Jeremy). I guess it could be argued when she hacked Louise's phone or when she agreed to jack him off during Ivy's party that she had the intent to satisfy her curiosity even if she felt partially guilty about it. So, self-corruption then?

I mean my personal opinion is that the way Lena's BBC addiction develops is a bit hamfisted on her character by the writing (I think the moral corruption she can undergo in the routes of Robert, Mike, and Axel all make more sense given her established values, personality, and experiences), but without appealing to that I'd agree with you calling it "self-corruption", or maybe even no corruption at all, not all immoral behavior needs to spawn from external and corruptive influences, I'm not Rousseau.

If you want to seek a deeper justification, I think the only way to rationalize it is that Lena already had a moral-shatering obsession with BBC buried deep into her psyche, either originated in a meta sense by the player imbuing it into her character when tailoring her with their choices (when first spying on Louise and Jeremy, the player chooses if Lena focuses on either Louise or Jeremy's cock), or originated from a diffuse cultural phenomenon. Neither scenario excuses Lena's character from being entirely responsible for her own corruption.

In the first case it is just a videogame thing, choices by the players are not always about creating different events that influence the pre-established character in different ways, sometimes they change the subject of the very character itself. The choice of having Lena focus her attention or not on Jeremy's cock feels like the later to me, it is not "Lena started developing a BBC fetish because she happened to stare at Jeremy's cock while peeping on him and Louise" but rather "Lena stared at Jeremy's cock while peeping on him and Louise because that's what she already wanted to see from the start, even if subconsciously".

The second case is a bit more tricky, allow me to build up to it.

Spoiler: bit long and digressive so spoilering it

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[Gicoo]

I forgot: Is Lena's potential fetish specifically big black cock or just big cock? In the latter case, her fetish for it can be explained by her past relationship with Axel.

 

[Reaurt]

I mean my personal opinion is that the way Lena's BBC addiction develops is a bit hamfisted on her character by the writing (I think the moral corruption she can undergo in the routes of Robert, Mike, and Axel all make more sense given her established values, personality, and experiences), but without appealing to that I'd agree with you calling it "self-corruption", or maybe even no corruption at all, not all immoral behavior needs to spawn from external and corruptive influences, I'm not Rousseau.

If you want to seek a deeper justification, I think the only way to rationalize it is that Lena already had a moral-shatering obsession with BBC buried deep into her psyche, either originated in a meta sense by the player imbuing it into her character when tailoring her with their choices (when first spying on Louise and Jeremy, the player chooses if Lena focuses on either Louise or Jeremy's cock), or originated from a diffuse cultural phenomenon. Neither scenario excuses Lena's character from being entirely responsible for her own corruption.

In the first case it is just a videogame thing, choices by the players are not always about creating different events that influence the pre-established character in different ways, sometimes they change the subject of the very character itself. The choice of having Lena focus her attention or not on Jeremy's cock feels like the later to me, it is not "Lena started developing a BBC fetish because she happened to stare at Jeremy's cock while peeping on him and Louise" but rather "Lena stared at Jeremy's cock while peeping on him and Louise because that's what she already wanted to see from the start, even if subconsciously".

The second case is a bit more tricky, allow me to build up to it.

Spoiler: bit long and digressive so spoilering it

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Just as an aside, I like to headcanon that that version of Lena has more of a big dick fetish than a BBC fetish, which keeps the racial component out of it and is also more consistent with her character and past, as Lena has previously experienced a relatively outsized penis (i.e., Axel).

 

[dontcarewhateverno]

I mean my personal opinion is that the way Lena's BBC addiction develops is a bit hamfisted on her character by the writing (I think the moral corruption she can undergo in the routes of Robert, Mike, and Axel all make more sense given her established values, personality, and experiences), but without appealing to that I'd agree with you calling it "self-corruption", or maybe even no corruption at all, not all immoral behavior needs to spawn from external and corruptive influences, I'm not Rousseau.

If you want to seek a deeper justification, I think the only way to rationalize it is that Lena already had a moral-shatering obsession with BBC buried deep into her psyche, either originated in a meta sense by the player imbuing it into her character when tailoring her with their choices (when first spying on Louise and Jeremy, the player chooses if Lena focuses on either Louise or Jeremy's cock), or originated from a diffuse cultural phenomenon. Neither scenario excuses Lena's character from being entirely responsible for her own corruption.

In the first case it is just a videogame thing, choices by the players are not always about creating different events that influence the pre-established character in different ways, sometimes they change the subject of the very character itself. The choice of having Lena focus her attention or not on Jeremy's cock feels like the later to me, it is not "Lena started developing a BBC fetish because she happened to stare at Jeremy's cock while peeping on him and Louise" but rather "Lena stared at Jeremy's cock while peeping on him and Louise because that's what she already wanted to see from the start, even if subconsciously".

The second case is a bit more tricky, allow me to build up to it.

Spoiler: bit long and digressive so spoilering it

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A message Steven Pinker just sent me: "After a good stroke or two to ORS (I prefer baby oil), I too began to ponder the societal devices that led to Lena's near Pavlovian salivations at the mere thought of a large black cock. After reading manscout's insightful comments here, I would agree that [Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum] .
But regardless, I had quite a good fap. "

-S. Pinker. Harvard University.

 

[manscout]

I forgot: Is Lena's potential fetish specifically big black cock or just big cock? In the latter case, her fetish for it can be explained by her past relationship with Axel.

Just as an aside, I like to headcanon that that version of Lena has more of a big dick fetish than a BBC fetish, which keeps the racial component out of it and is also more consistent with her character and past, as Lena has previously experienced a relatively outsized penis before (i.e., Axel).

Lena has a general fetish for bigger cocks with few explicit mentions to race (at least so far), but the writing in Jeremy's scenes is entirely centered on just his cock. The stuff with Axel on the other hand does mention how impressed she is with his size, but it is not the singular focus of her desire.

This can be partially explained by the fact Jeremy has a bigger dick than Axel, or also the fact that Axel has other traits about him that Lena admires while with Jeremy it is pretty much just his cock. But, at least in my personal opinion, the difference between Lena's level of "penis worship" with Jeremy and her level of "penis worship" in general is just too high for it to feel like a completely natural extension of her character, rather than a more focused attempt by the writing at implementing the BBC fetish into the story.

 

[dontcarewhateverno]

Lena has a general fetish for bigger cocks with few explicit mentions to race (at least so far), but the writing in Jeremy's scenes is entirely centered on just his cock. The stuff with Axel on the other hand does mention how impressed she is with his size, but it is not the singular focus of her desire.

This can be partially explained by the fact Jeremy has a bigger dick than Axel, or also the fact that Axel has other traits about him that Lena admires while with Jeremy it is pretty much just his cock. But, at least in my personal opinion, the difference between Lena's level of "penis worship" with Jeremy and her level of "penis worship" in general is just too high for it to feel like a completely natural extension of her character, rather than a more focused attempt by the writing at implementing the BBC fetish into the story.

I forgot: Is Lena's potential fetish specifically big black cock or just big cock? In the latter case, her fetish for it can be explained by her past relationship with Axel.

Before the revamp, there was quite a girthier stretch of content with Lena referring specifically to Big Black Cock and plenty of graphics and tags in the current code that still reference it, though the naming is more vestigial now.

It was clearly intended originally to be one of Lena's biggest fetish options like Ash had in GGGB, before Eva cold-showered it and watered it down more to big cocks in general, with a slight rightward hook towards interracial content. Probably due to one of three things, all moot points in your discussion: Official reason: "Making it less like GGGB". Potential monetary reason: Fear that such a thick focus might turn away more fans than it gains, especially with a Steam release. My personal suspicion: Eva doesn't want to be known as "oh... that female dev that makes all those big black cock games?"

 

[Pinsel]

lol, so many text about wildcat and things, i am missing all of this. I just go for Ian and Cindy, no matter what. The rest who cares

 

[fatpussy123]

In my Lena / Jeremy playthrough, Lena Ivy and Holly hangout after the shopping scene. Lena says she has a thing for BBC l, Ivy asks does the race matter. Lena says "it doesn't but you know...". This might be different if she also fantasizes about Axel at this point.

 

[Reaurt]

girthier stretch of content

I hope this pun was intended.

 

[dontcarewhateverno]

I hope this pun was intended.

Why, of course, good lad. You should expect nothing less.

 

[ffive]

I forgot: Is Lena's potential fetish specifically big black cock or just big cock? In the latter case, her fetish for it can be explained by her past relationship with Axel.

There's two separate fetish variables for Lena: one is specifically for BBC and one for big cocks in general. Reminiscing and/or having sex with Axel can increase the latter.