VN Ren'Py Pale Carnations [Ch. 4 Up 4 Public] [Mutt & Jeff]

[CAznable]

Yes, sorry if i came across as all-knowing. This wasn't my intention. I can't read Augusts' mind, that's true.

Which may be a bit exaggerated, but he is infact very unapologetic about it. So far he isn't drowning in regret about his profession and his past, and his age also hasn't softened his approach in conducting said business.

Yes, and there are a lot of taxing and ugly jobs out there and someone is getting them done. Which seems to be his mindset regarding his work. He hasn't offered Hana an alternative, like for instance a college education at a music oriented university or helped her setting up a workshop for bikes or found her another job anywhere else or asked her what she likes to do in her future.

And doubles down on it by elevating her to a co-owner instead of keeping her as a barkeeper on the sidelines, with the prospect of handing down his share (not his money!) to her, which chains her to this place even more.
I tend to judge people by their actions and not their words...

Well, he is doing a shitty job then. There are hundreds of thousands of estranged family members who reconnect not by blackmailing their daughters by leveraging the health and well-being of their mothers against them. Instead they choose to reconnect by spending quality time with them and try to learn about their likes and supporting them in pursuing their dreams or help out in a tough situation without an ulterior motive. Which is undisputedly a rocky road to travel, and may also have setbacks. Attending her concert was probably the only thing which resembled a normal approach to reconnect with her.
There is no need to keep her around his work for this.

This. There is still a lot to uncover, and i am looking very much forward to that, just like you.

I have ideas as to why August does what he does, such as having such low faith in people that he couldn’t imagine that his daughter would even consort with him unless he had a leg up; or since he wasn’t involved in her childhood, he feels he must guide her instead of just giving to her, but don’t have anything to substantiate it. As I said, he is very enigmatic lol. No doubt August is messed up in many ways, as I think most of the cast is in some way.

 

[selberdreher]

I think he knows that he has Hana´s acceptance of the "family business" already. Hana was never a prude (e.g. playing concerts topless at times) and she has no problem with sex work as a profession at all.

There are different levels of acceptance.

For instance, if i may bring my own view on sexwork into this discussion, i consider myself relatively open minded regarding this issue. I believe outlawing prostitution is wrong and any adult should be able to work in it, if they choose to do so of their own accord.
I was genuinely shocked as i witnessed for the first time street-hookers in spain on a rainy day as they waited for customers on a rural road, only to conduct their business in a car on some nearby, half-hidden parking places. I feared for their safety and pitied those scantily clothed ladies a lot, as they were freezing their bums off, and i believe brothels are or can be a much more comfortable and safer space to work than that.
So, yes, i accept there is sexwork and i want it to be safe, clean and by free choice.

Do i want to work as a pimp? Overseeing and managing those girls, and provide for their security?
I'd rather not. At least it's not my first choice by a long shot.

Do i want my daughter to work as a prostitute (or in porn)?
Hell no. Call me a hypocrite, but i would go to extreme lengths to prevent that. And i would feel like a failure as a father if it would happen nonetheless (which is quite likely, as daughters tend not to care too much of their fathers' opinions on how to live their lives, after they hit a certain age).
So where is my acceptance now?

Just because there is a certain degree of acceptance by Hana for this in general, doesn't mean she is cool with her fathers work or wants to do it (as a pimp or otherwise) herself. And as you have stated, the current situation at the club is unacceptable for her.
So either the club has to change to meet her current values, or she has to change her values and adapt to the club.

However, i believe we, as players, get significant influence on how this will play out, so there is definitely hope.

 

[selberdreher]

(...)
As the prologue says, a person's character is not to be taken stock of before being put to test, which is especially true at Hana's age. (...)
For instance, while Hana's rebellious manner was compromised during that Otto incident, what hits me actually was how she threw her manner away within an instant to save an unkown mob from a not-entirely-undeserved predicament, I felt that this tells me more of how she is, rather than whom she's becoming.
So instead of corruption, that's actually wholesome in my book (...)

A persons character (or personality, which isn't exactly the same) is an amalgamation out of a very diverse array of traits: there are some commonly examined by psychological tests like introversion vs extroversion (Hana would probably score quite high on the latter), but it encompasses also a persons attitudes, interests, value orientations, self-concepts and how they are expressed.

My emphasis in my last few posts was on the possible change of a persons personality, and less on corruption since this is only a subset of change. Change can happen for the better and worse. It's just in PCs environment the latter is more likely.

I see in your example the expression of Hanas compassion even with an asshole gangster, but if this leads her to suppress her cocky attitude this is also influencing her personality and character. If she decides it's sometimes better to just shut up, this will leave a gaugeable impact for instance on said introversion/extroversion scale and thus altering her personality.

I tried to phrase my thoughts neutral, if i failed that's my fault.
The Hana in my example undergoes three possible changes (compassion gets lower, rebellion gets lower, independence gets lower), she isn't necessarily corrupted she is just different to the current one we know.
I am pretty sure a highly compassionate, slightly rebellious (but not too much, just to keep it spicy) and quite dependent (on the MC) Hana would be seen as a rather desirable and 'wholesome' character by many of the players. Yet again this one would be also different from the current one.

 

[browse_man]

Yes, normally and in general that's true.

However

now this does sadly happen. Put someone under extreme mental and psychological stress, make them fear for their lives or their loved ones, or let them experience some other kind of trauma (like accidents or disasters) and we have plenty of cases in which someone changed their personality completely. Recent examples include soldiers returning from the front, who are barely recognized by their partners. With these conditions met, changes are possible very fast.

Relatively fast changes - which are perhaps more likely to happen in the scope of PC - can be achieved by

• gaslighting: presenting a false narrative, thereby leading a person to doubt their perceptions and become misled, disoriented or distressed. Can also set the stage for the aforementioned causes.
• Drug abuse: with Abels serum as the prime example, but not exclusively since there are other drugs also available at the club.
• Exposure to unusual or disagreeable behaviour, tends to bend a persons own perception towards the behaviour. Experiments have shown, that a lot of people have a hard time to dissent with a common shared opinion inside a closed group.
  You must be registered to see the links
  and the
  You must be registered to see the links
  should suffice as example.
• 'Brainwashing' as practiced in cults and other groups with special interests which are closed off to the general public and therefore can keep their members isolated inside their space of influence. Several conditions are met by the carnation club, and we can single out the technique of '
  You must be registered to see the links
  ' practiced by Kathleen.
• Sexwork: the methods commonly used by pimps to control their victims "closely resemble the brainwashing techniques of terrorists and paranoid cults."
  You must be registered to see the links
  . One ingame example would be Lucy, who is loosing her self-image as a heterosexual, caring mother and married woman really fast at the moment. I could also post some real-life examples who lost their shit incredible fast throughout their 'career'.
• The Taste of Power: the opportunity to exert real power inside the club. I don't think i'll need to cite real-life examples, and we already see the corrupting influence ingame on Edwin. "
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  "
• any combination or combination of parts of the above, there is no need to concentrate on a single technique. It's also very likely that my list is not exhaustive. These were just the ones i came up with.

So as we can see there is a wide array of possibilities available to change Hanas views, perception, self-image and values, which are of course part of her personality. While her initial disposition towards the club may power up her resilience, she is not invulnerable to those factors, should they be implemented by the club and/or our choices.

I am confident in TD1900s capability to write a consistent and believeable downfall of Hana, if they decide to go down this road.

Damn, I’m the guy that first brought up the idea of Hana’s downfall (the person to whom you replied to replied to) and I gotta say thanks for giving me hope that this could feasibly happen! Corrupting Hana sounds really fun in a fucked up kinda way.

 

[ename144]

Hi selberdreher , Grüße!
Like always you make some very interesting points in your post and it can be one possible scenario of corrupting Han, but I think you look at it from the "worst case" point of view.
Hana has quite strong protection through August, which becomes rather clear if you play the Hana path. While August tells us in a conversation that he is not a good person (he has at least quite some selfreflexion others lack), it is obvious that he loves Hana. At the beginning, when August returned into Hana´s life, I too am convinced that it was mainly August trying to preserve/create a legacy, getting to know Hana was more of a "side quest" for him.

But that has visibly changed. He loves his daughter now, August visits her concerts in secret (something he would hardly do if just his legacy was in his mind), he let many of Hana´s "rebellions" slide and you gain points with August if you rip the slimy school director a new one when he insults Hana on the first weekend. August becomes additionally quite philosophical about if he is doing the right thing getting Hana involved with the business.
It is also telling that Kath and Warren when discussing Hana agree more or less that only by circumventing August they can corrupt her.

As for Kath having to become part of the show with Veronica is less of the owners of PC are unprotected, but it was clearly the first time something like that happened and it only happened because of the uncarefully phrased "rules" of the first exhibition. That Kath agreed is more to the point that a business like that obeys much more on a reliability of the stated rules than normal businesses.

August is a tough nut to crack and I don't think we should get too far ahead of the evidence when discussing his love for Hana. He feels something for her, but there are many kinds of love. August wants a better relationship with Hana, but it's not clear why he wants that, nor is it clear what he would or would not be willing to do to earn that acceptance.

On the why side, his motivation makes a huge difference - even if we assume he isn't malicious. Going to see Hana's concert in secret, for example, plays very differently if you think he wants to learn her tastes to better convince her to see reason (from his point of view) versus if you think he wants to see her while she's happy without embarrassing/offending her. Likewise reflecting if he was right to involve Hana in the Club could be a fear that he's leading her down his own path to damnation, or it could be a concern that she isn't up to task of being a criminal boss. Either way he cares for her, but in some cases that care is as much about him as it is about Hana herself. My gut reaction is that August is being at least partially selfless in his love for Hana, but that may just be wishful thinking.

Similarly, we don't really have a good read on how much August would sacrifice to change Hana's opinion of him. We know he's willing to use Hana's dying mother as leverage and that he'll happily throw money at the problem, but neither of those really cost him much. What if it became clear that shutting down the Carnation Club and living a meager life as an honest man would cause Hana to change her views on him: would he do it? Does he want his daughter to accept him as he is, or would he change his ways if that would make him someone she can admire? Until such a situation comes up all we can do is speculate.

Personally, I don't think August would alter his core tenets for Hana because I think he wants a certain level of validation from her; even if she doesn't approve of his actions, he wants her to accept his reasons for taking them. Of course, one of his core tenets seems to be pragmatism, so I do think he'd be willing to alter any of his lesser tenets if that would do the trick, and he doesn't necessarily have to keep making the same decisions going forward.

Well, he is doing a shitty job then. There are hundreds of thousands of estranged family members who reconnect not by blackmailing their daughters by leveraging the health and well-being of their mothers against them. Instead they choose to reconnect by spending quality time with them and try to learn about their likes and supporting them in pursuing their dreams or help out in a tough situation without an ulterior motive. Which is undisputedly a rocky road to travel, and may also have setbacks. Attending her concert was probably the only thing which resembled a normal approach to reconnect with her.
There is no need to keep her around his work for this.

That would require that Hana agree to spend *any* time with August, and she flat out refused that when he first offered.


August used Hana's mom as leverage so he could get his foot in the door, so to speak. He probably figured it was the only way he'd have a shot at changing her mind, and since Hana already hated him there was nowhere to go but up. Obviously he could have simply continued to help her mom without strings and hope that would eventually bring Hana around, but for whatever reason he was unwilling to take that chance.

Again, I think it all comes back to why August wants to spend time with Hana.

 

[selberdreher]

That would require that Hana agree to spend *any* time with August, and she flat out refused that when he first offered.

Yes, that's why i said

Which is undisputedly a rocky road to travel, and may also have setbacks.

Establishing contact again after someone is estranged to that level is hard.

It would likely require more than one phonecall, because the first couple of attempts are often met with refusal. Much like with abused animals it probably needs a lot of persistent mini-steps to build up trust again and to achieve the willingness to hear him out or probably even better to listen to what she has to say. Which could very well in the beginning be nothing more than accusations and insults from her. After those died down a bit they could start real talking, and from there they could have taken the other steps.
August wasn't really willing (or able?) to take this long and rocky road, instead he subdued her to his will, like probably most other women in his life.

Spoiler: Tangent on how i would have tackled the task

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I like your first four paragraphs in your answer to Turret, there isn't much i could add to your thoughts there.

 

[Turret]

August is a tough nut to crack and I don't think we should get too far ahead of the evidence when discussing his love for Hana. He feels something for her, but there are many kinds of love. August wants a better relationship with Hana, but it's not clear why he wants that, nor is it clear what he would or would not be willing to do to earn that acceptance.

On the why side, his motivation makes a huge difference - even if we assume he isn't malicious. Going to see Hana's concert in secret, for example, plays very differently if you think he wants to learn her tastes to better convince her to see reason (from his point of view) versus if you think he wants to see her while she's happy without embarrassing/offending her. Likewise reflecting if he was right to involve Hana in the Club could be a fear that he's leading her down his own path to damnation, or it could be a concern that she isn't up to task of being a criminal boss. Either way he cares for her, but in some cases that care is as much about him as it is about Hana herself. My gut reaction is that August is being at least partially selfless in his love for Hana, but that may just be wishful thinking.

Similarly, we don't really have a good read on how much August would sacrifice to change Hana's opinion of him. We know he's willing to use Hana's dying mother as leverage and that he'll happily throw money at the problem, but neither of those really cost him much. What if it became clear that shutting down the Carnation Club and living a meager life as an honest man would cause Hana to change her views on him: would he do it? Does he want his daughter to accept him as he is, or would he change his ways if that would make him someone she can admire? Until such a situation comes up all we can do is speculate.

Personally, I don't think August would alter his core tenets for Hana because I think he wants a certain level of validation from her; even if she doesn't approve of his actions, he wants her to accept his reasons for taking them. Of course, one of his core tenets seems to be pragmatism, so I do think he'd be willing to alter any of his lesser tenets if that would do the trick, and he doesn't necessarily have to keep making the same decisions going forward.



That would require that Hana agree to spend *any* time with August, and she flat out refused that when he first offered.
View attachment 2096314 View attachment 2096315 View attachment 2096316

August used Hana's mom as leverage so he could get his foot in the door, so to speak. He probably figured it was the only way he'd have a shot at changing her mind, and since Hana already hated him there was nowhere to go but up. Obviously he could have simply continued to help her mom without strings and hope that would eventually bring Hana around, but for whatever reason he was unwilling to take that chance.

Again, I think it all comes back to why August wants to spend time with Hana.

Yes, that's why i said

Establishing contact again after someone is estranged to that level is hard.

It would likely require more than one phonecall, because the first couple of attempts are often met with refusal. Much like with abused animals it probably needs a lot of persistent mini-steps to build up trust again and to achieve the willingness to hear him out or probably even better to listen to what she has to say. Which could very well in the beginning be nothing more than accusations and insults from her. After those died down a bit they could start real talking, and from there they could have taken the other steps.
August wasn't really willing (or able?) to take this long and rocky road, instead he subdued her to his will, like probably most other women in his life.

Spoiler: Tangent on how i would have tackled the task

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I like your first four paragraphs in your answer to Turret, there isn't much i could add to your thoughts there.

Hey again, you Two!

I am rather sure that this "moral fencesitting" by the main and the main side characters is to enable logical paths for all characters to later go down the "good", "neutral" and "bad" roads (with whatever how high or low corruption). This is a) rather realistic (no one is just completely good or bad) and b) it covers all permutations without getting the "Huh, WTF?" feeling.

As for August, since he was our focus these last posts, I think he really loves Hana now. One big hint into this direction is on the first weekend, when the slimy school director tries to hit on Hana and insults her. If we go "roooaaarrrrr" towards him, we loose serious trust with Kath, but we gain RP with August. We have several examples that August is all for a frictionless workflow in the Club. If Edwin goes gung-ho on the school director, that is a serious disruption and we loose points with Kath, but in this case, we win with August, since it was about defending Hana´s honour.
That is not to say that August has arrived at the fully selfless love point (as you mentioned, August does not offer Hana music schooling or her own bike workshop, at least currently, that might be one end scenario), but he is on the way towards it.

 

[DirtyMario]

[...] and I gotta say thanks for giving me hope that this could feasibly happen! Corrupting Hana sounds really fun in a fucked up kinda way.

No.
This line of thinking is very bad, and you should feel bad.

 

[starkj]

Leave Hana alone god dammit!

 

[KKpotato]

No, I wanna corrupt her... what can I do... it's my nature.

 

[baka]

yeah. I want to corrupt the two sweethearts Mina & Hana. no vanilla here, need to be used as my personal sluts and enjoyment.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

No, I wanna corrupt her... what can I do... it's my nature.

Fall to the Dark Side young Potato has.

 

[Ozygator]

No, I wanna corrupt her... what can I do... it's my nature.

Shoo shoo, you have a game to work on!

 

[selberdreher]

As you all know, this is largely a Hana update. The update also features character development for Ian, and depending on how you ended the last update, content for either Mina, Veronica, Kathleen, or Victoria. I'm proud of the update from top to bottom, but if you have no interest in seeing Hana content, it might not be worth your bandwidth to download. Cutting out the Hana stuff will make it very short.

ename144s animation count
So, my fellow pervs, have you already pondered about how Ch4Upd1 has as much animations as Ch3Upd3, an update which, iirc, covered the period from Felis husbands interview till the Friday night before the second exhibition? Including Felis scene in her husbands office as well as Minas bedroom scene?

For a update which is officially called "The Hana Update"??

Does this mean my favourite platonic friend gets double the animations as both of my favourite blonde fuck pets???

Do i smell some unwarranted favouritism towards a certain tatooed blackhaired girl by a certain developers duo????

Who of you bribed them into this blatant disregard of everything which is fair and just???

How do you feel about this outrageous injustice?????

Since this is the internet, i feel compelled to clarify the obvious: this post is meant as a joke.
Enjoy the Hana update my fellow pervs, i only hope myEdwin gets some action with her in the next update too.

 

[CAznable]

ename144s animation count
So, my fellow pervs, have you already pondered about how Ch4Upd1 has as much animations as Ch3Upd3, an update which, iirc, covered the period from Felis husbands interview till the Friday night before the second exhibition? Including Felis scene in her husbands office as well as Minas bedroom scene?

For a update which is officially called "The Hana Update"??

Does this mean my favourite platonic friend gets double the animations as both of my favourite blonde fuck pets???

Do i smell some unwarranted favouritism towards a certain tatooed blackhaired girl by a certain developers duo????

Who of you bribed them into this blatant disregard of everything which is fair and just???

How do you feel about this outrageous injustice?????

Since this is the internet, i feel compelled to clarify the obvious: this post is meant as a joke.
Enjoy the Hana update my fellow pervs, i only hope myEdwin gets some action with her in the next update too.

The funny thing is, before this update, Hana has the lowest amount of sexy content. If anything, this update is more than fair. When it’s finished though, she will then have the most sexual content. So the Boys really can’t win in this situation.

 

[Lunix00]

I love this game, somehow I have been able to play making the decisions according to what I really thought of the characters. I like that all the scenes can be avoided by the mc's decision and not by avoiding them, except a reward in which you have no choice. Mina and Hanna are the best.

 

[EmilIrving]

Granted, I will do most playthroughs corrupting Hana, but... My first/"canon" playthrough, I will try NOT to do that. Mostly cause I am invested in her relationship with a "sweet" MC.

 

[ename144]

ename144s animation count
So, my fellow pervs, have you already pondered about how Ch4Upd1 has as much animations as Ch3Upd3, an update which, iirc, covered the period from Felis husbands interview till the Friday night before the second exhibition? Including Felis scene in her husbands office as well as Minas bedroom scene?

For a update which is officially called "The Hana Update"??

Does this mean my favourite platonic friend gets double the animations as both of my favourite blonde fuck pets???

Do i smell some unwarranted favouritism towards a certain tatooed blackhaired girl by a certain developers duo????

Who of you bribed them into this blatant disregard of everything which is fair and just???

How do you feel about this outrageous injustice?????

Since this is the internet, i feel compelled to clarify the obvious: this post is meant as a joke.
Enjoy the Hana update my fellow pervs, i only hope myEdwin gets some action with her in the next update too.

I fear you've misread the charts. The "Hana Update" has exceeded the animation count of Ch3Up1; that one was also a relatively short update focused on the aftermath of the preceding exhibition, so it seemed like a good secondary benchmark.

IIRC, the only animations in Ch3Up1 involved... Hana: the flashback with Zara Tessman and Hana's sleepover. So I'd say Ch4Up1 exceeding it seems reasonable if we assume things will go a little farther this time.

But I'm sure we can find something else to cry favoritism about if we keep looking!

 

[selberdreher]

I fear you've misread the charts. The "Hana Update" has exceeded the animation count of Ch3Up1; that one was also a relatively short update focused on the aftermath of the preceding exhibition, so it seemed like a good secondary benchmark.

IIRC, the only animations in Ch3Up1 involved... Hana: the flashback with Zara Tessman and Hana's sleepover. So I'd say Ch4Up1 exceeding it seems reasonable if we assume things will go a little farther this time.

But I'm sure we can find something else to cry favoritism about if we keep looking!

For whatever reason back then your picture wouldn't upload, so i linked back at your post.
trying again...

ah, there it is.

So, unless you didn't accidently mislabeled your graphs this one reads something like 61 animations in ch4up1 vs 60 in ch3up3?

hmmm? did you fool me ename144? or have you joined the Hana supremacy conspiracy? trying to deceive me into ignoring the obvious? */daggerstare

 

[Hector Wimbleton]

To the debate whether to corrupt Hana or not: