Hnnngggg my heart! Why you do this to me @RenaB 
Eileen is so sweet I just wanna hug her and never let go! Now it’s hard to decide who to be my waifu! 
2 Likes
Eileen is so sweet, v has his/her/their own charm, and Jacob so bright. Oh good job @RenaB now I going to be harder to choose who is my most favorite 
1 Like
Jacob is supposedly within the MC’s age range but he feels so much younger than them?
Idk but it feels like the MC is a craddle snatcher even though that’s not the case (only real reason why I am so hesistant to take them on as an RO)
(Probably just me though)
Anyway. Jacob does feel very sunny…like sunny enough to feel like there is a tragic/angsty enough backstory that unlocks at intimacy 5 :))
Definitely something is up (idk if he is Red Light but definitely has an alter ego)
6 Likes
Dang, you’ve really flushed this out- so color me impressed! (… Even if impressed is not a color)
I’ll be interested to see how you alternate MC and Nickelport develop as this primary story goes along. Especially the points at which it diverges or becomes very similar.
Your MC could get him a fancy grey suit. To ease him into the change.
Of course, of course. It must done for the good of society, right?
That would… be dangerous.
There’s a lot of drama coming in the first case alone. You want all of it at once? The MC would just break, if for no other reason than the sheer chaos that would consume.
You’ll really like this one character who I’ve been avoiding all mention of because of their importance to the plot but I have a feeling if you like angst you’ll love them because they’re a big driving force for a lot of the drama.
Choo choo
If I remember correctly, you’ve mentioned before that your MC’s divorcee was Raf, right?
… You’ll have some fun there.
Exactly! 
Multiple playthroughs, my friend, multiple playthroughs.
Eileen is the sweetest of sweets. Her friendship is the sweetest of sweets. Her romance is the sweetest of sweets- heck, even a big point of tension in her romance has to do with how much she just wants to help everyone!
She might make it difficult, however, for anyone who wants to play an evil MC and ruin everybody’s lives completely. (… Which, you probably could, if all goes according to plan.) Because ruining her life will be… painful.
I like how V has their ‘own charm’ just because it’s very true- the charm they have is certainly… unique to them.
I’m happy you liked them all!
It’s a difficult decision, but remember!
Multiple. Playthroughs.
I can see where he might come off as feeling much younger than the MC. (In my mind he’s only ever about three years at most younger than them but it fluctuates depending on the MCs age)
Jacob is childish in a way, and, as you said, very sunny. I think, and like to play with, the contrast between him and the MC can make him look even younger. Obviously, an MC who acts more jaded or sour will make Jacob seem naive by comparison, but I think that that the appearance of a larger gap is diminished by an MC who’s also more energetic or optimistic.
But… he’s also very mature, just… in his own way. He’s definitely had a lot of life experience having been a cop in Nickelport (maybe even as much if not more than the MC, since Nickelport police are almost always in the midst of some kinda crossfire of a villain/hero battle). So he’s not really… naive, at all. He’s just chosen not to let what he’s seen and experienced get him down (even if he can go the extreme to accomplish that as well- which you get a brief glimpse of when he’s laughing at the fact that he got shot in the arm while his buddy almost died).
In short- Jacob’s childishness comes from a place of resiliency. He knows that some take him less seriously because of it but, hey, if it keeps him happy and sane then why would he stop?
So… yeah, he does feel a lot younger than the MC- but that’s mostly because he purposefully acts younger and happier as a method of seeing the brighter side of things. Jacob’s sunny because he’s always searching for the sun, even in the darkest of situations.
I hope that assuages at least some of your worries? 
Mmmm, I can’t say anything. Spoilers.
6 Likes
I’m grateful for that to exist
Jacob certainly are inspirational individual
1 Like
They’re a gift.
He’s a sweetheart who’s refused to back down even in the moments where he probably should’ve.
Either way, he’s definitely got his own kind of strength in his optimism.
Fun fact: He also almost never sits down.
2 Likes
It’s certainly are 
…Jacob is my type, the problem is: my mc is straight 
. Oh well, maybe just maybe I going to try (or just see the code)
it is bad that I thought that just make him more cuter?
1 Like
Oh wow. I wouldn’t have thought of him as 3 years younger O: before you wrote that short I always thought of him as roughly a decade younger (like MC is in their early thirties in my headcanon, if my memory is right vs Jacob in who was somewhere in the early to mid twenties)
Though even with that as an age difference, the lowkey anxiety worry side of me was like what if he’s some sort of prodigy and is actually a teen (which might explain the immaturity in comparison)
So this is a welcome surprise :))
Well. As you mentioned, Nickleport is not exactly a safe place to live in :)) so kudos for Jacob for trying to be a light in a dark place
2 Likes
You’ll probably like Eileen then- I’d say she’s the closest to Jacob, personality-wise, though she isn’t quite as energetic (I honestly doubt anyone is) and definitely hasn’t had the same life experiences which means her optimism comes more from just her general personality than as a kind of determination. She’s also a fair bit more naive then he is (just due to general lack of life experience)… which is ironic, as she acts less childish.
But, hey, who knows? Like I said: multiple playthroughs, multiple MCs, you can do pretty much anything with those kinda things at your disposal! 
Absolutely not!
I do tend to think of Jacob in his ealy-mid twenties, but whenever I test it myself the test-MCs I use are almost all in their mid-late twenties- the oldest one I test with is 29-almost-30, so that might effect it some.
I do leave the ages of the characters somewhat vague to allow the player to develop their own sorta picture of them, and also so that it never infringes on their image of the MC… But he’s definitely not a teen, so I can assure you there. Jacob is 100% an adult.
You’ll see his more mature side as you get to know him.
He does his best! (Which is why he quit originally, because he thought he could do even more if, instead of just catching the bad guys, he made sure they weren’t just released afterwards. The Nickelport justice system isn’t… very clean, and he’s trying to fix that! )
3 Likes
Please. I’m also highkey curious as to how mature and Jacob mix :))
Very spoilery ask ahead: does the MC stay as a tabloid reporter or can we get the big journalist break?
1 Like
Ah, but that includes the deadly spoiler- so I’m afraid you’ll have to wait and see Jacob’s more serious side later on.
Do you mean during the game or in a sorta epilogue-style?
During the game, the MC will be a Rust reporter throughout… with maybe some minor bumps in the road if things go awry for them. (You, uh, might be able to get fired sometime in there.) That doesn’t mean that the MC’s alias can’t become a household name… but due to the nature of the MC’s job they aren’t really allowed by Triple N to do anything bigger under their actual name.
At the end of the game- the MC doesn’t have to remain a Rust reporter (or a reporter at all for that matter), so if the MC wants then they could move onto bigger, better stories and get something of a ‘big break’.
4 Likes
You know, I’ve just realised something: the whole reason we have the opportunity to romance Ricky is because we caught him cheating on his wife…will we ever know why he cheated? (I don’t think the motivation would absolve him of cheating but it might lessen the gravity of the action.) And would it be a serious concern for the MC if they were ever to begin a relationship with Ricky – i.e. how could the MC trust Ricky after seeing him cheat? (And, on another note, is Ricky his actual name or a nickname?)
6 Likes
Kinda funny, isn’t it?
(Well, not ‘haha’ funny but…)
Yes… kinda? A lot of it has to do with the nature of Ricky’s marriage, which was… weird, to say the least. It wasn’t quite a ‘loveless’ marriage, per say, but it was definitely more political than emotional.
It can definitely be a point of tension for an MC pursuing him as an RO. There’ll probably be some trust issues there, and the MC will get to talk with Ricky’s ex-wife during the course of the game which will hopefully shed some more light on the whole situation.
Technically a nickname but Ricky absolutely despises his full name, so he never goes by it.
He’s been thinking about legally changing it. He just doesn’t have the time.
6 Likes
Wow, haha, you’ve got everything covered, don’t you?
Does that mean his full name is Richard or is it something else? If it’s not Richard, I really want it to be something desperately obnoxious, just so my MC can have something else to blackmail Ricky with.
2 Likes
Can we romance her???
1 Like
Haha, I mean, I guess so. Plotting future things is one of my favorite parts of writing (second to, y’know, actually writing that which I’ve plotted out.) And I adore character backstories. (Plus I just adore these characters in general.) So when it comes to these characters I can tell you a lot of what’s going to happen.
He’s named after his grandfather. Cedric Dempsey.
… He’s not a fan of the name.
The MC can definitely tease him about it.
Romance? No, not fully. I like to keep the main ROs tied in tightly with the full plot.
But can you flirt with her? Yes, absolutely. Whether because your MC finds her actually attractive or just to rub it in Ricky’s face then sure.
3 Likes
Ohoho. Imagine them dating and the telling him they actually like Cedric as a name :))
This I absolutely would want to see. Trust issues and learning to rely on each other is my jam and generally super A+
What kind of lady is the ex wife? And is there a name for her?
2 Likes
5 Likes
I wonder, if he was a beat cop while my main mc was still a police detective if they ever met on the job back then?
If you’re still planning to give the mc’s such specific backgrounds, will Jacob remember or bring it up that the mc used to be on the force too? 
Yeah thanks to Jacob, since I now picture him as 28, assuming he joined the police academy right at 18 and was on the job for a couple of years of after that would work out.
Still that does cause me to revise the age of my mc and some of the other characters upwards a bit. So I’m now thinking 32 or so for the mc, 34-35 for Ricky and have Vince roughly the same age as the mc, with Finley still around a decade older then the mc, cause it is hard for me to picture “da chief” as being closer than that in age to the mc.
Well again assuming my mc used to be a police detective they have that in common, of course my mc fights more from the shadows and in the “court of public opinion” these days.
Hmmm…starting a blog or vlog might help with that, though unless the pivot to a more “resectable” public profile becomes necessary over the course of our relationship with Ricky my mc doesn’t really like raising his public profile too much, at the moment at least.
Awww…poor boy.
Well I think any relationship with my mc would definitely be more emotional, since my mc would be doing it in spite of knowing that raising his public profile at this time might not be in his best interests, or would at least complicate things.
Yeah, definitely the foremost one being that Ricky doesn’t trust the mc very much right now either.
1 Like
How long did the mc’s marriage last?
3 Likes