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

4.90 star(s) 498 Votes
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YuNobi1

Member
Aug 9, 2021
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TD1900 said:
Take this as you will, but Kathleen is the heroine of my heart.
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Thank You! Yes she's my #2, but she definitely gets too much hate and not enough love in this forum

Ottoeight said:
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You do realize that's a ruse, right? Kathleen told Rose that the video would be distributed to maximize her humiliation, and then Kat recruits Edwin to shoot the video, who refuses due to the concerns of ruining his reputation. She blurts out (to the effect) that "It's not--" freezes, looks back at Rose, and THEN claims "the male's face will be blurred out." What was she originally going to say? Not the "blurred face" line, otherwise she wouldn't have stopped herself, and why would she look back at Rose before giving a second excuse? Because she was about to say that the video wasn't real, thus Edwin has nothing to worry about, but if she said that, and Rose overheard, OR Edwin told Rose the truth, then Rose would loose her humiliation, and as that was the theme of Week 2, Kat's exhibition would have failed.
 
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Ottoeight

Ottoeight

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Mar 13, 2021
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YuNobi1 said:
You do realize that's a ruse, right? Kathleen told Rose that the video would be distributed to maximize her humiliation, and then Kat recruits Edwin to shoot the video, who refuses due to the concerns of ruining his reputation. She blurts out (to the effect) that "It's not--" freezes, looks back at Rose, and THEN claims "the male's face will be blurred out." What was she originally going to say? Not the "blurred face" line, otherwise she wouldn't have stopped herself, and why would she look back at Rose before giving a second excuse? Because she was about to say that the video wasn't real, thus Edwin has nothing to worry about, but if she said that, and Rose overheard, OR Edwin told Rose the truth, then Rose would loose her humiliation, and as that was the theme of Week 2, Kat's exhibition would have failed.
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I'll watch the scene again. Are you sure they weren't filming? remember that they are photographing and filming the Carnations during the week and they're sending those pics and films to the patrons.

Secondly, did you forget that Edwin watched a flick (it was in the usb drive) where a movie star - Edwin goes to the cinema and watches her movie on 15th June - was gangbanged by the patrons?

Thirdly, did you forget that Abel knows that his mom made porns? who told him?
 
ename144

ename144

Engaged Member
Sep 20, 2018
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Daken9 said:
Eh, don't really see it. Carrot and stick isn't really discreet, it's just carrot and stick. And if you always go for the stick anyway because you like waving it around, then what are you even trying to accomplish. Case in point, the caddle prod. Her main objective there should be getting Edwin to indulge himself, since she obviously cares about it so much (and she can always torment the girls later), yet as she always often does she over-indulges and all it gathers her is varying degress of wtf from any Edwin who is not as big a psycopath as her.

Which is, imo, Kathleen in a nutshell. Yeah, lots of tools in her arsenal, but always going for the hammer because she can. Even her arguably most underhanded plays, the secret drug deal and the exploitation of her sister's charity, she lowkey can't help mess up, the former by twice using that shit on some random kid for no reason at all (other than again, because she can), and the latter by letting everyone and their mothers know what's up, and how to ruin her if they want to.

I guess i could giver her some credit for forcing Edwin into the porn vid, although even that can blow in her face in a couple ways, but all in all i can see why she's pretty much the brothel's madame and that's about her cap.
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First of all, Kathleen uses more than just an unthinking carrot and a stick. Her manipulation of Hana is direct but entirely carrot; the whole point is that Hana is effectively clubbing herself with her own stick. Likewise her decision to leave punishments entirely in the hands of a drugged Veronica in the event of a tie in the punishment game shows a very precise application of the stick then ensures the girls will be busy blaming each other in addition to Kathleen. I count that as successful manipulation. Would she have done even better if she'd successfuly hidden her involvement? I doubt it.

Second, why do you think Kathleen blew her chance to get the MC to indulge himself with the cattle prod? Even if that was her top priority (which is debatable), her approach strikes me as pretty reasonable. Sure, it can fail if we as the player choose to defy her, but that would be true of ANY approach. Kathleen could have gone all out and set up a super-subtle scenario where the MC stumbled upon a chance to abuse an unlikable person without anyone else learning about it- and remember, she only has two weeks left in the competition so the clock is ticking - and I'm still not going to let the MC do it because I don't like that sort of thing. Whereas if I did enjoy tormenting girls in an AVN, Kathleen's approach would have been more than sufficient.

Even if we try to take the player out of it and look strictly at the 'canonical' baseline Edwin, I question the view that a subtle approach would be more effective than an overt one. We *know* the MC is tempted to indulge his sadism. What's holding him back is his vestigial conscience, strengthened by Victoria's admonishment to bottle his anger so he can fit in to society. To break that down Kathleen can't just present the MC with opportunities, she needs to challenge the basic premise. And that's precisely what she did with her birthday present: gave the MC a chance to explore his darker impulses in a safe and technically licit setting. If that wasn't enough to tempt the MC, I'm skeptical a subtler approach would have done better.

Subtlety is a great tool for manipulation, but it's best used when the manipulator needs to isolate themselves from the consequences of their manipulations or prevent their own reputation from influencing the victim. When it comes to tempting the MC, neither of those apply. Embracing the consequences of sadism (and encouraging the MC to do the same) is very much the point, and if the MC balks at that purely to spite Kathleen then he isn't what Kathleen is looking for in the first place.

So yeah, Kathleen's MO is decidedly unsubtle, but a) that doesn't make her ineffective, and b) that doesn't necessarily indicate she's incapable of subtlety in a situation that really demands it.


Ottoeight said:
I'll watch the scene again. Are you sure they weren't filming? remember that they are photographing and filming the Carnations during the week and they're sending those pics and films to the patrons.
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They were definitely filming, the question is whether that tape will ever be seen outside the Club. My guess is no. When you're running an illegal prostitution ring, I don't think you release videos of the event that can easily be traced back to Club employees and/or their known associates.
 
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YuNobi1

Member
Aug 9, 2021
358
362
Ottoeight said:
I'll watch the scene again. Are you sure they weren't filming? remember that they are photographing and filming the Carnations during the week and they're sending those pics and films to the patrons.

Secondly, did you forget that Edwin watched a flick (it was in the usb drive) where a movie star - Edwin goes to the cinema and watches her movie on 15th June - was gangbanged by the patrons?

Thirdly, did you forget that Abel knows that his mom made porns? who told him?
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Oh they definitely filmed it, and it's no doubt accessible to club members, Kathleen's lie was that this would be publicly available to all the porn sites on the internet, just like all of Victoria's old videos are readily available. Previous Carnations competitions have also been recorded, and Edwin had to watch some footage for research on his new duties, but had to be given this video, he couldn't access it before getting his job. There's no difference between Edwin doing the porno acts on-stage or a recording for club members only, as they all already know his face, rather it's the wider internet community, and truly any future potential employers seeing the video and then refusing to hire him, that is the problem. This is also a problem for Rose, but she was supposed to humiliated, while Edwin's life is NOT supposed to be ruined for taking a summer job.

One, Abel has shown that he's good at investigation, and Two, Victoria's videos are publicly available. Victoria naively believes that either her vids are so old that nobody watches them anymore, so Edwin will never see them, or that her son is not the type to surf "those parts of the internet" both of which are untrue. August, Kathleen, and Abel clearly demonstrate that they would thoroughly searched the background of ANYBODY who filled the vacant position, and their associates, whether due to their own backgrounds, or because of the infamous legacy left by Darius. Therefore, given the connections each of them have, the only surprise is how long they each wait to reveal they know about Edwin and his mom.
 
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4.90 star(s) 498 Votes