#except for them

Echo project games track record with female character writing blows, and they mostly don't have the same excuse other fvns have of being mostly porn for gay guys, but that has gotten progressively better with each successive game (mostly)

Echo never handled Jenna's actually bad traits well and that's why fan reaction to her ends up so muddled. Her getting in universe pushback for her reaction to the Leo and micha situation and Flynn's read on her in the prologue are nothing compared to actually awful things she gets away with like the pranks involving Chase's arachnophobia

Brian is the least interesting antagonistic force in the first game, and his bump to main antagonist in arches didn't change this at all (though this is entirely a preference thing, torture porn isn't my preferred brand of horror)

the modern TSR au polycule does not seem built to last at all, and I would see a big split in the future for them if they weren't an indulgent fictional parody we get for dated millennial jokes. Still love em to death but it's carried hard by my own delusions.

Arches is, aside from its epilogue, the weakest of the echo trilogy and that's going to end up being entirely because of how early it was released imo. It would have gone extremely hard as the big finale to the series but instead we've still got two years of TSR updates lol

Cliff starts the story engaging with Samuel in the most exploitative way of all the main love interests, to the point where I think he's more comparable to James than he is the other route options, and I don't even think that's a far fetche'd read seeing as how his route is the one that literally contains the only illustrated James encounter (as of the last build I've read). Him being immediately indulged in his sexual tourism would be a bad outcome in any story other than a romance game

Will is a bad dad, bar none. Being closeted doesn't absolve him of the responsibility he took on and him finding happiness after leaving with a hunky puma guy is nice but he deserves any reckoning coming his way in his own route. Nothing major here, just hoping that God takes all of Andy and Hattie's pain, triples it, and gives it too my favorite fruity detective

Flarl is a boring ship and it's the rare occasion where I feel bad for Carl. After Flynn bounces off of Leo, chase, his delusions of a potentially grown Sydney and any random guy he could have met at The Smoke Room, carl ends up feeling like a lay of last resort

Related to point 7, Carls the worst member of the main friend group. Relatable stoner artist with depression yeah yeah whatever, I just have nothing to latch onto with the nepo baby. Even when Jenna is maybe hummed up? In his route and written as the bitchy harpy stereotype I mostly still agree with her.

Cameron and Devon does not seem like a relationship that would have lasted long without the crucible of echo trauma bonding them. Dev denying cam's mental illness in the prologue is also beyond the pale and I don't see how people moved on from that so quickly

people are extremely selective in which characters actions they excuse with the hum and possession and who they condemn immediately despite signs of reduced autonomy. Characters thoughts and actions not allowed to be their own is a major theme in the first game that I think echo handles pretty interestingly but more often then not the fandom just uses it as a cudgel in dumb character wars

The quality of writing and routes in echo ended up being very dependent on a single key factor I don't necessarily want to name because even I think it might be a little mean to say but you can probably guess it if you know even just a tiny bit of the developmental history of the game. I think this factor also applies to all of the games and the quality of their writing ends up dependent on the presence or lack thereof this particular factor.

but you know me guys

i love unhinged ros who fall hard for mc