This is also one of the reasons why M has become the least attractive LI for me. Usually, the enemy-to-lover trope is appealing in cases where there are plot elements that make you want to pursue this path. Of course, the game is only in chapter 1 so I can’t say much yet, but currently I’m not very interested in M. I’m already too tired of R.
The point I agree with you on is that instead of setting M as an ex-lover, I set them as an old friend of the same gender as me. I feel more comfortable with this choice. I want to see how two old friends who were also former rivals resolve their misunderstandings and develop their friendship rather than going down the path of pursuing them romantically.
I agree about R. I am so exhausted by them, like every scene where they crop up even as a passing thought I roll my eyes and I understand the MC is going through a breakup but ugh it’s a little irritating to me
That’s probably the biggest flaw with this game, I pick multiple choices that Allstate that I just want to move on yet the MC keeps thinking about them every 20 seconds
To be fair it’s pretty normal. Just wanting to move on absolutely doesn’t mean one is going to be able to actually, immediately move on and simply forget about a person who was their focus for the last three years.
I’m guessing the hostilty from M is in the ex path(?) cause as a friend in both the bartender and teacher route, they’ve just been snarky and kinda nice in their own way, considering that they let you decided whether or not to tell people about your past. So far M really is my fav rn.
I still can’t really connect with the Mc about R though, like the way it’s written makes me think that either we didn’t do anything the past 3yrs(no work, no school, no nothing) and we’ve just been relying on R a lot. Cause we had something to brag about like: they’re a lawyer, graduated hardvard, is charming, are attractive, etc. Meanwhile, we just got a job, don’t have much money, I guess we’re kinda attracrive if we caught their attention and can claim to be a serial dater and graduated from a no name college. I just think that I would atleast try to close this gap between us somehow.
A’s attractiveness is undeniable. Visiting their workplace and hearing them sing, oh my, they looked so lonely and yet so alluring. Two people unlucky in love meet and start to bond
This is one of the reason I can’t take the breakup seriously it’s just a piece of information to me and as a reader R is a complete stranger. It’s like everyone around MC knows R in some way or the other and we as readers have to learn about them through this. Maybe it’s a different outlook the author is going for. I liked how it was done in Merry Crisis on Qiu’s route if you choose them to be your ex and through flashbacks the bond between them and MC was shown. It helped with connecting and empathising with MC about their breakup.
I don’t think flashbacks would be really a solution here, given the player already knows the premise of the story is how MC and Rainn break up right at the start. You’d effectively be forcing them to sit through scenes some people have already made their mind not to care about, because they already know the relationship is doomed and they want to jump in the date game of romancing other people and hating on the ex.
Just a quick thought because I really dig this…it seems that ppl are trying to force it to be something when the feeling I get is its my story and I can make it how I want…personally my mc is a wide eyed naive small town girl destroyed by the breakup but I believe you can play/read it as you want…keep up the great author
Honestly, MC should never have planned to move to a new city with such little support and a flaky long-distance partner.
Is it their fault Rainn is a no backbone douchebag for dragging them along with obvious intentions to not be with them anymore? Absolutely not. But there’s no way in hell that I would cross the world, the country (or even the bloody road) to be with a lover if I’m getting red flags waved in my face likes it’s a Chinese New Year festival. The rose-tinted glasses were as thick as MC’s ability to read social cues.
In my opinion, MC is a clown. Rainn is the worst gaslighter in the world. And I’m so ready for the fallout that’s coming their way when I romance Rainn’s best friend who is apparently the secret RO, and lead Rainn along too to destroy their relationship and probably ours. Idgaf. Y’all made the MC this way
My MC may be dumb as hell. But they’re mine. And I’m a ride-or-die for that dummy.
Not necessarily dumb, but mc was probably much more in love with Rainn than what was mutual. If/when the anchor route is back in then despite being a bright and attractive young journalist I will play my mc as indeed being bad at reading romantic cues as it pertains to themselves. Which is why the friends with benefits relationship Levi offers will be so appealing and they will both be clueless kids when it starts to move beyond that but at least it will be mutual then.
At the beginning mc was probably so lovestruck that they had constructed an unrealistic fairytale future with Rainn in their heads and Rainn sending mixed signals, stringing mc along and not having the backbone or perhaps the desire to firmly end the then long-distance relationship didn’t help matters.
I think it may be a bit of both. We get this in the demo:
And then Rainn finally popped the question.
Do you want to move in with me?
So rose-tinted glasses or not, MC had an indication that this was mutual initially. Rainn never made it clear to them after that point (it sounds like) that they wanted to back out of it. And this may go back to R not being able to communicate appropriately interpersonally. R may have thought they were just asking a question, while MC thought they were being asked to move to New York. But MC has been planning the move, openly, during their calls and texts with R for months, and never been given any indication that they needed to be moving into their own place.
It’s hard to determine the timeline, but i get impression that Rainn was on board with MC’s move for quite a while after they popped the question. Then they’ve got overwhelmed with the work and genuinely was too stressed/didn’t have much time to participate in preparations, leading to MC doing all the work on her own. And then, relatively recently, they had that “last talk” which Rainn believed communicated that they’d want to “take the break” i.e. end things. MC obv. didn’t get that, and in the relatively short time between that last talk and MC’s arrival it got never cleared up. And well, here we are.
Yeah, and something like that can’t just be dropped mid-stream, which R should realise. So not only is R a terrible communicator, they’ve little common sense when it comes to certain aspects of everyday life.
In the Rainn route I don’t think the mc should be the one who actively flirts to woe them back. It should be Rainn who actively flirting to woe the mc since they were the one who initiated the break up. Imagine the mc after getting treated like that in the bar begging for Rainn to go back to them. How pathetic would that be.
( especially in case of M)