VN Ren'Py Our Red String [Ch.13.3.6] [Eva Kiss]

[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]

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[Deleted member 7180813]

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.

 

[OWSam000]

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.

I didn't find any difference you mentioned in the 13.2 beta. Weird.

 

[GokutheG]

I think the reason so many of the other guy LIs susck is because Eva was intentionally trying to guide the player towards the Lena/Ian pairing.

 

[notstaged]

It's true that the game... reminds me of Mass Effect

Can we have the Illusive Man? No, we have the Illusive Man at home. The Illusive Man at home: "Lena, in order to ensure survival of humanity and control over our destiny you just have to take all my money and keep rubbing your shit in front of the mirror while I make evil faces in the background."

Also, even if we already have our token black friend who we can sent down the ventilation shaft to die, we have other options:

It might seem that way right now, but once you go through the Omega 4 Relay he may be the only party member at your disposal who's willing and capable to stick a finger into your archenemy thermal vent, tipping the scales of the battle in your favor.

I feel like Lena's potential LI's are all awful. I mean, think about it, is there a single "boyfriend material" in her route other than Ian?

Ian wouldn't be able to compete if there was a conventionally normal male who is not a douche in Lena's backyard, let's be honest here. Say, Lena met a musician at the local record store, who said "Hello" to her like a normal person, and didn't try to leverage her job situation into obtaining sexual favors (Robert), or wasn't a confused gay DJ looking to cheat on his introverted GF (Mike), or a psychopath (Axel). They even have something in common, Lena also likes plucking her guitar and rhyming piss with abyss or whatever and dreams of making a buck out of it. Maybe he's also not interning at 26 and doesn't have a "heartbroken" written on his face. In case if he heightmogs him, Ian's on suicide watch.

 

[notstaged]

I was dating Robert before the male MC even considered asking me out.
How the fuck does that happen?

I'm just guessing here, but it is likely you, acting on your own free will, interacted with a game's UI and clicked on a couple of frames and game reacted accordingly. Unless there was another person in the room, who held you at gunpoint, making you date Robert. The last one seems more realistic but some people might disagree.

 

[Hungover00]

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?

As a man, I prefer lesbian stories if it is a FMC. Their potential partners are 99% more likely to be interesting than the walking cock that acts as a fetish that all the male characters turn out to be. Part of why BBC always turns me off a bit, it's the mirror of big tits, or a shallow look at bimbos. It's lazy, basically relying on the viewer to do all the work by having the kink in the first place. Same with the ugly bastard kink. There's no depth beyond 'ugly guy fucks pretty lady.' It's boring, if one cares at all about the story.

I won't get into your like for Axel, but interesting and together don't outweigh the cheating, stalker, abuser baggage he brings with it.

I don't know if it's about not letting the FMC have depth or male romances, it seems to me they are just given whatever slapdash character the writer barely has the energy to shit out, and they call it a day. See: Robert. (haven't seen the reportedly new edits) And just on the tangent of Robert/Lena vs. Ian/Lena that seems more to do with timing in the story. Robert and Lena had been working together for a long time and at the beginning of the game he makes his first move. While Ian didn't remember his first meeting with Lena, and after that it was in a customer/server dynamic, where it's an asshole move to make a move. Once the story gave them a bit more time to breathe it moved fairly quickly after that.

TLDR: We deserve better male love interests.

 

[Hungover00]

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.

Dave the artist? Yeah, he really was the only non-shitty LI. The boyfriend of your colleague at the bookstore seemed fine too, as human beings go.

 

[Nifferman]

Can we have the Illusive Man? No, we have the Illusive Man at home. The Illusive Man at home: "Lena, in order to ensure survival of humanity and control over our destiny you just have to take all my money and keep rubbing your shit in front of the mirror while I make evil faces in the background."

Also, even if we already have our token black friend who we can sent down the ventilation shaft to die, we have other options:






Ian wouldn't be able to compete if there was a conventionally normal male who is not a douche in Lena's backyard, let's be honest here. Say, Lena met a musician at the local record store, who said "Hello" to her like a normal person, and didn't try to leverage her job situation into obtaining sexual favors (Robert), or wasn't a confused gay DJ looking to cheat on his introverted GF (Mike), or a psychopath (Axel). They even have something in common, Lena also likes plucking her guitar and rhyming piss with abyss or whatever and dreams of making a buck out of it. Maybe he's also not interning at 26 and doesn't have a "heartbroken" written on his face. In case if he heightmogs him, Ian's on suicide watch.

Why men here care more about dick size and height more than the women here?? And it seems like u guys are forgetting one thing cuz u guys are too shallow, that Ian is/was Emma's band mate. And if u just read the text instead of just looking at the pictures like a toddler u would know that Ian is actually "multi-talented", so no an "normal"average guy won't beat Ian even if he is a few inches taller.

 

[manscout]

My personal view is that for some reason EvaKiss just wanted to write fetishy "guilt-ridden" content for Lena. Her male LIs outside of Ian are an exploration of a different "dark" facets of her character. Robert is her wanting to just use other people for sex without caring about them, Mike is her vengefully wanting to feel like a woman other men would cheat on their SOs for, Axel and Seymour are her just wanting to give up and accept being given a subservient and abused role.

Ian's LIs feel so much better because their relationships are written like relationships, if you pursue them then the writing shows why their characters are desirable, why Ian wants to be in a relationship with them and engage with them as people. Lena's relationships with her male LIs on the other hand are written purely as a way of furthering some angle of the "corruption" of Lena's character, the writing is purely about how being with these men makes Lena feel about herself (usually conflicted feelings), rarely any personal details about their characters and about their lives is given any focus, much less is it ever used to develop a positive thing about them.

Idk why EK went with that direction for the general design of Lena's story, like some people said maybe it was to push people towards the "canon" IanxLena stuff, but I kinda get the feeling this is just a type of fetish narrative EK just likes to write for her female characters because she thinks it is more erotic than different flavors of more healthy and functional relationships.

 

[notstaged]

Why men here care more about height

I'm throwing a bone to the garden gnome obsessed Norwegian.

And if u just read the text instead of just looking at the pictures like a toddler u would know that Ian is actually "multi-talented"

My bad, Ian is a multi-talented 26 year old literature magazine intern. We're gonna put it on his resume. But does he front a regionally successful Deftones cover band like the guy I just made up in my head? I don't think so.

more than the women here

There's women here? This is unsettling.

 

[Hungover00]

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.

Wen is absolutely someone I would recommend to a friend as a decent prospect to date. You're on to something there.

 

[Cinaed]

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.

Ivy and Jeremy are not set up or designed as "bad" characters though. They have a different lifestyle and way of doing things, and you're either fine with that or you aren't. Which makes for a MUCH more realistic story than GGGB.

 

[Hungover00]

My personal view is that for some reason EvaKiss just wanted to write fetishy "guilt-ridden" content for Lena. Her male LIs outside of Ian are an exploration of a different "dark" facets of her character. Robert is her wanting to just use other people for sex without caring about them, Mike is her vengefully wanting to feel like a woman other men would cheat on their SOs for, Axel and Seymour are her just wanting to give up and accept being given a subservient and abused role.

Ian's LIs feel so much better because their relationships are written like relationships, if you pursue them then the writing shows why their characters are desirable, why Ian wants to be in a relationship with them and engage with them as people. Lena's relationships with her male LIs on the other hand are written purely as a way of furthering some angle of the "corruption" of Lena's character, the writing is purely about how being with these men makes Lena feel about herself (usually conflicted feelings), rarely any personal details about their characters and about their lives is given any focus, much less is it ever used to develop a positive thing about them.

Idk why EK went with that direction for the general design of Lena's story, like some people said maybe it was to push people towards the "canon" IanxLena stuff, but I kinda get the feeling this is just a type of fetish narrative EK just likes to write for her female characters because she thinks it is more erotic than different flavors of more healthy and functional relationships.

Well said.

I've never felt like I was the main intended audience for EK, as that seems to be the cloud of cheating fetish content you succinctly described, but a lot of the other content is good enough to ignore all those paths until I've played my preferred paths.

I feel like EK wrote the Ian/Lena romance well, and had that as the platonic core of the story. But their real interest was in how many different ways it could go wrong, or be twisted and poisoned by the actions, choices, and internal weaknesses of the two MCs. And that's the juice and squeeze EK is really here for. Which leads to all the fetish cheating and betrayals and cuck content. But by pursuing both aspects it makes balancing the whole difficult.

That said, it's still one of the best games on the site, and GGGB was also a seminal game in the history of AVNs. (Even if we didn't really need the 'fuck your own mom and Anderson Cooper in extreme fetish club' plotline.)

 

[lorddarkam]

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.

the problem is the 2 friends are losers, then there are 2 assholes who will fuck any girl you dont pick up