Quite literally, no:1. Your "Her songwriting as serious aspirations are just an option" is wrong, which means I have now managed to catch you offguard for the second time. Before the meeting with Holly and possibly Ian, her passion for sonwriting IS canon, she insists on it talking to Lola.
Python:
i "What about you, Lena? What are you passionate about?"
l "Me? Oh..."
menu:
"Writing songs":
$ lena_passion = "song"
//...
"Enjoying life":
$ lena_passion = "life"
//...
"Modeling":
$ lena_passion = "model"
//...
"Making money":
$ lena_passion = "money"
Python:
default lena_passion = "n"
Note, even if it was a default preset, it wouldn't really mean anything in this context. Present Lena is what the players make her. (and those choices shape her past as well as her present) Thus, the talk how she is always some sort of domesticated nerdy song-writer who would never want cock, this is something you potentially set for her in the game, or you don't. If you don't, this doesn't somehow make it a non-Lena behavior. It's just behavior of that particular Lena. In the same way you shape Ian into a chad or a "nice guy", a cheater or a faithful lover, someone with interest in martial arts or someone who couldn't care less.
Now, you are right that Lena does talk about song-writing as her real interest very early in the game. But given how things change afterwards, i think this is more likely just an early draft that EK has changed her mind on later, and that early dialogue never got adjusted to account for it.
lena_passion as variable only got introduced in Ch.3, which is probably when EK came up with this idea. Lena's background similarly appears as a variable even later, in Ch.12.I understand that you feel the writing for the slut path is over the top, and it's to the point where you'd mention lack of realism, first in general and then limited specifically to Lena's core character. But, well. I think we'll just have to disagree here. While excessive purple prose is not my sort of thing and yes, i might find it silly myself, i also accept this is more of intentional exaggeration. Just like romance path has its own share of exaggerated lovey-dovey monologues... except those are apparently easier to swallow (but no doubt, some find it just as boring as "cock cock cock, rawr")Again, I insist I have no problem with Lena having a lust for cock. My problem is how EK writes this lust for cock. I know I repeat myself but it seems I have to: my problem is not the existence of a slut path, it is the poor writing on this slut path.