I'm Sorry, But I Think We Should See Other People - ROs You Hate

General
2953

I would argue that Book 1 A reads like it was set up to be a rivalmance, and it carries a lot of the hallmarks of rivalmances that I would expect in other stories: both have a claim over who should lead the case (even though MC’s claim was based on a house of cards) and they butt heads over it. You have options to express frustration and disgust with A, and they snipe you right back. It feels like a rivalry, or a set-up for one. Of course in hindsight their dynamic completely shifted after B1 and they’re barely treated as equals by the narrative now, but I bet a lot of people picked the A route in B1 expecting a rivalmance.

:eyes: spare the link?

14 Likes
2954

I’m on the same page with not liking slow burns, too many times I see it done, the word slow is replaced with glacial and there’s more time spent on stretching out the drama instead of what’s supposed to happen, mainly the MC and the RO warming up to each other through actual… Y’know, interaction. Literally the only time I’ve seen a slow burn done really well is when the perspective is flipped, The MC taking the place of the pursued instead of the pursuer, and the romance keeps moving forward instead of there being constant backtracking and second-guessing. As you play, the game has to be showing that there is progress in the romance, that both characters are warming up to each other, and, well, A is the opposite of all of that

15 Likes
2955

Same, when I have the option to make my MC be the one doing the slow burn, it’s actually really sweet and genuine, because I directly control how long it takes for the romance to bloom so it doesn’t end up being an entire century of waffling, hemming and hawing.

15 Likes
2956

Please don’t insult stoicism by calling A’s whatever their personality is stoicism. There is absolutely no reason in their head to govern their actions.

19 Likes
2957

Okay let me rephrase that: “A’s barely adult acting, Highschool teenager behaviour.”

Cause that’s what it feels like sometimes. A teenager that thinks that being stoic also comes with being a prick by nature.

18 Likes
2958

To all the people who couldn’t understand someone wanting to romance Stan (Arcadie: First Born), there was a cult to Billy Loomis (killer from ‘Scream’, played by Skeet Ulrich) long before that, and Billy STILL ensnares the ladies. I can even remember teen horror books being written a short time after trying to capitalize on his popularity that sold like crazy.
Some girls (and guys) like bad boys, some like REALLY bad boys. And they love the notion that they could change them, or join them, I guess. lol

(Also, I romanced Will. Never romanced Cyril fully, he just never held any appeal for me.)

5 Likes
2959

pfff thats nothing. Try the real life cult over real life serial Killers. :roll_eyes:

6 Likes
2960

There are days where I remember that Charles Manson had a girlfriend, and that’s wild to me.

4 Likes
2961

Not just him (Remember Ted bundy? and karla?). Imagine the guy who wanted him out because he was in jail for crimes he didn’t commit and he was innocent! A travesty!

Or the lady who kept buying the art of the Serial killer? (Forgot his name).

3 Likes
2962

Arcadie’s a strange one for me. The RO I absolutely love is Nathaniel but he’s only a minor one so…out of the ones we can actually romance, I go for Stan by default because it makes for the most interesting story (imo) and I’m not into the others at all :confused:

4 Likes
2963

Pretty sure he had a wife while in jail.

1 Like
2964

I think we’re thinking of the same person and I just had it set one relationship level too far back.

1 Like
2965

Charles Manson actually had three romantic relationships specifically during his prison sentences, that we know of. He married his first wife before his first prison stint and divorced during.

He met his future second wife between prison stints, and her testimony actually got his sentence suspended. They married, he did some crime, got arrested again and they divorced during his second stint in prison. Fun Fact: he met actor Danny Trejo during this stint.

In the 2010s, he was romantically involved with a 25-year-old woman. They broke up because he learned that she allegedly just wanted to marry him so that she could have legal rights over his corpse and display it in a glass coffin for profit.

But none of that has to do with ROs we hate, so to keep this on track: What would you guys say is the trait in an RO you hate the most? For me, it’s probably when an RO is too nice–like dude, I’m an asshole. Respect yourself more and stop being nice to me when I tell you that you look like a carp.

11 Likes
2966

For me it’s any of the various (and odious) “this is your best friend since childhood, and s/he’s loved you for years and never spoken of it” variations. I already hate being saddled with a “best friend” I have no choice over and with a personality I can’t choose* before playing, being forced to view them being lovesick over my PC too just makes me want to set things (most notably, them) on fire.

*The personalities written for these characters are never the kind of people I would actually befriend. They are people I would either avoid or throw off a cliff.

19 Likes
2967

Same. And another one is when the RO is a sanctimonious jerk who thinks they have the moral high ground and everyone who thinks/does things differently from them is at best a misguided fool and at worst evil while they (the RO) are obviously a ‘good person’. The same applies irl now that I think about it.

11 Likes
2968

For me, I dislike the asshole-y, too snarky, too sullen -kinda ROs. Even if that behavior turns out to be an act or understandable response to something, it is most likely that I have lost my interest and it is an buh-bye from me!

17 Likes
2969

Submission and exploitable vulnerability are such essential parts of romance, and even love itself, that you can’t throw a stone without hitting problematic things, things that can be done very badly and should be done better, as well as quite a few things that aren’t worth doing at all. Not even because bad stories are necessarily going to harm people; what good reason could anyone have for reading them? HoB would be as untouchable as Gone with the Wind if it romanticised historical Afro-American slavery; it is frequently quite unromantic about fantasy!Roman slavery. It isn’t a story everyone is going to enjoy, though, for reasons that are naturally worth understanding.

4 Likes
2970

So there was that aggressive RO in a now-dead WIP about smalltown horrors.
There was also an NPC who adored MC, but they did a somewhat stupid thing, to which I reacted with “…”, since my character wasn’t meant for reassuring smiles and the narrative mentioned him being very tired. And it made the NPC sad.
And the RO, after getting acquainted with them both, learned that the NPC was sad because of MC and told him (and they’d do it for a female/nb MC too)
“You do that again and I break your leg”
And we were in the police station at that moment
We were police detectives meant to uphold the law
The RO in question was my new partner
And MC just automatically nodded to show he understood them and that was that
EXCUSE ME WHAT THE FU-

By all that I meant to say that I hate ROs who are written to be unreasonably threatening, especially at MC’s expense. And this thing earlier was probably the worst “a RO that would actually kill you” moment for me. I don’t need to be the coolest guy in town (or do I), I’m fine with the likes of Argent or Neia, when there is a plot reason to feel intimidated. But if there’s some seemingly ordinary rando (or, worse, a supposed ally), whose mere glance is enough for MC to freeze or who resorts to threats of violence/violence itself while MC has no opportunity to stand up to them, it’s a huge turn-off. I don’t care how threatening they are, I’d rather play an MC with no self-preservation instinct.

(sorry for my outburst - I replayed the beginning of that WIP to describe it and now seething with rage again)

Damn xD
It’s “Sinners and Saints” on itch, but I must reiterate that the WIP is dead, so it’ll really bring you only suffering))
To be completely fair, overall it was enjoyable iirc, especially if you play as a nicer person I guess (though I wasn’t playing a jerk either).
(if u’r a masochist and into cRPGs you can play Rogue Trader =D)

27 Likes
2971

Which WIP? I’m a masochist tell me-

1 Like
2972

Well, for starters:

I’m also not a fan of ROs who are obnoxiously pushy (Arden Devereaux) or domineering (Ava du Mortaine (might’ve misspelled that)) with the MC.

Snarky, sarcastic jokester ROs tend to think they’re far more hilarious than they actually are (Rylen Villenueva, Farah, one of the custom personalities you can set for the royal in Odessa Dating Games). I should note here that I don’t hate sarcastic or jokester characters, but that comes with the obvious caveat that they have to be done well. Sarcasm for sarcasm’s sake and “zany” humor which seems to not know what “zany” means doesn’t cut it for me.

I have never cared, and likely will never care, for villain ROs (Manerkol, Mornie (even though she kinda sorta doesn’t count), Saffron De Lisle, that evil queen with the machine army from that one CoG story I keep forgetting the name of).

On a related note to me repeatedly not knowing the evil queen’s name:

At least I can remember the other names in this list. I hated them, but cared enough to hate them.

Enemies/Rivals-to-Lovers is easily one of my least favorite tropes in existence, particularly in the case of the rival, if said rival is written to be a thoroughly exhausting person to be around (Blane Rekner, Sebastian Lopez de la Rua. Rare exception goes to Alex Hayward of Vampire’s Kiss, who I was an enemy of completely by accident, and also developed a romance with completely by accident).

If an RO is written to be antagonistic to the Nth degree, and for whatever reason, the narration swears up and down that I’m supposed to be madly head over heels for them (Seven Lawless), odds are good that I will shut down their romance path immediately, first chance I get; or, if outright blocking an RO isn’t an option in that story, I’ll go out of my way to be as disinterested in them as possible out of spite.

Arrogant ROs who think they’re the greatest thing on two legs occupy zero percent of my attention (Antonia Barlow).

New to the list of personalities I hate, courtesy of Merry Crisis, are spineless asshole ROs (Lin Qiu, your high school sweetheart-turned-ex whose overbearing snob of a mother pushes her into dumping you, then Qiu tries to lay the blame for the relationship falling apart at your feet, then has the gall, eight years later, to assume that you’ll just take her back after complete and utter radio silence following your graduation).

I could probably go on, but I think I’ll stop for now. I’ve painted a relatively clear picture of where I stand, I think.

(Oh yeah, special mention goes to ROs who are touted as belonging to a certain personality type, but turn out to not even slightly represent that personality - like a “stoic” RO who turns out to be an enormously whiny bitch, for example.)

26 Likes