Yeah the “Love triangle” Isn’t even really a love triangle, nor is it a V-poly (which I generally don’t like)… The “love triangle” in Wayhaven is two people interested in the Detective and constantly yearning for them and vise versa. However, you cannot shut either of them down clearly and you also eventually have to choose which one you will be with because… You know… Frick you if you wanted to be poly.
Like, you can begin dating but you will still constantly be ‘conflicted’ and feel your character constantly being pulled any which way.
I am still annoyed that A is a better romance in the love triangle route than they are when they are romanced on their own but that is another thing.
(I myself only really like poly when it feels like it’s actually building relationships between the characters along with you romancing them, just spuriously slicing romance scenes with solo routes along with jealousy or envy feels… bad. In the normal romance route for A they are the ass but in the love triangle route you are the ass because you can’t just choose. You have to toy with both of their emotions while you constantly shift your whimsy because of “how much you care” about both of them.)
Anyway that tangent probbbbably belongs in another thread but no matter. Relating to this one, honestly I have mentioned in passing before but man am I a sucker for Manerkol. I know he is evil, and he literally turns you into a ‘pampered doll’ of sorts if you run back to him. Still, I find something about him being ‘torn and distraught’ over your ‘betrayal’ compelling. I want to see how that all ends up.
My husband had a MC to do that (he has two LT MC’s, and one was for A and the other for N), but she’s decided that N is a yandere and it frightens her. It’s kind of hilarious.
Oddly, that made me enjoy that MC of his. The one that went after Ava from the get-go is a sociopath, lol. But it’s fun watching him torment her.
1- Junko from SOH .
I just like how much she is obsessed with the MC .
2- Maria From Relics .
I really hated her at book 1 but when we actually got to know her more in book 2 I just had to go do her route and I loved it .
3- Morgan from TWC .
Aside from being a jerk at the beginning , what I like the most about M is her honesty both in romance and friendship routes , she doesn’t sugarcoat things and is a very direct person .
4- Ava from TWC .
… Why do I love her angst so much ?
I guess I’ll throw my hat in the ring. There’s so much going around about how A sucks because they play too much into tropes and acts like a child at some parts in TWC, unable to truly get involved emotionally. I also assume that many of these tropes are around YA novels and whatnot, stuff that everyone here has probably read countless times.
I have not read any of these things, therefore I am not angsting about A’s angst.
This is pretty much my first exposure to all of these tropes, TWC is the first romanced-focused piece of literature I’ve ever willingly read and I ate up most of what it gave. So I guess I understand on a logical level that A is a terrible romance for some people, but I don’t feel it. I hope that makes some sense…
I’m not sure I’ve completely had this experience with any COG characters yet. Black Magic would probably be the closest, but even then, I’m fairly ambivalent. I think she’s somewhat interesting, although frustratingly underdeveloped in places, but can concede that the reasons other people hate her are valid.
Since video games with branching paths seem to be fair game for discussion, my real answer to this question would be Ashley Williams from Mass Effect. She’s a very well realized character, and I appreciate that she stands out from a lot of the other romances in that series by more or less being comfortable in her own skin from the outset instead of Shepard to help her solve some kind of identity crisis first. It’s a shame to me that a sizable portion if not an outright majority of the fan community has taken a comment or two out context and turned her into a poster character for virulent racism.
To me its not about “fixing them” i love villains, Manerkol is pure evil and i can’t help but wanting to romance them. Good MC and evil lover is a trope i fall hard for, you should see my manwha collection
Guess I have one to post here now Dr. Mortum from Fallen Hero. It probably help that I ended up stuck in the puppet in my main run and that I’m a bit forgiving of all the ro’s given the shit that Step does
Manerkol’s not evil though. He’s driven, pragmatic and does what needs to be done in order to make the world a better (or so he believes, at least) place - if that means hurting and killing people to achieve that, he has no problem with it but he doesn’t take any sadistic pleasure in it either. Omelette, broken eggs and all that…
Well, if what I described is evil, then every character in that story is evil…they’re all killers and they all think they’re doing what needs to be done to achieve what they want.
They all want to make the world a better place, they just disagree on what that entails (you can read it straight from the horse’s mouth - as it were - if you visit the author’s Tumblr). Of course, you’re entitled to your personal judgement on whose goal is better but my point still stands… I’m afraid we’re veering off of the original topic of the thread though and to be honest, I’m not particularly keen to start a philosophical debate on moral relativism/objectivism here anyway. Have a good day
Well, I’m an admin on a political Discord sever that has over 4,000 members so I’ve learned very quickly to tell which debates will be productive and which ones should end sooner rather than later ^^
