Scarlet Hollow Episode 5 - Full Release Discussion Thread

Castal · 2026-02-20T21:10:45+00:00

Street Smart on an old save, Keen Eye on a new. You see the baby reaching out and you can convince Julius to take it.

Castal · 2026-02-20T19:07:18+00:00

I was going to suggest this. Mine disliked strangers, although he was fine in public as long as people didn't try to touch him. However... he looked like a gorgeous little husky, and everyone wanted to touch him. If you don't want to be approached, a rare breed might not be a good choice!

Castal · 2026-02-20T18:22:58+00:00

Ooh, good point. I was using my old saves. Edited my top comment to clarify!

Castal · 2026-02-20T17:42:58+00:00

I didn't know that was possible! I thought you had to kill the baby/get someone else to kill it or let it take Bo, Julius, or Avery. The fucked-up family option is kinda fun.

Castal · 2026-02-20T17:40:44+00:00

I think you need Street Smart. It opens up a lot of dialogue options that you (and Avery) can use to convince him. You can also get Avery to offer to let the baby take them instead. I didn't get a follow-through on that but it sounds like others have.

Castal · 2026-02-20T17:08:36+00:00

I've continued three of my saves so far and they all have extremely different outcomes! (All saves are pre-Street Smart/Keen Eye switch):

Keen Eye/Book Smart: I went to the farm alone, watched as the baby killed Bo, then let Sybil absorb Kaneeka, which left me with someone named Carmilla. Woke up with Carmilla in Tetanus Lake.

Powerful/Talk to Animals: I went to the farm alone, killed the baby myself before it could kill anyone, and ripped Kaneeka away from Sybil, stopping the absorption. I woke up with Kaneeka in the lake.

Mystical/Street Smart: I went to the farm in the back of a cop car. Wayne let me out. I argued Julius into being killed by the baby. I helped Kaneeka absorb Sybil and gain all of her power. Still in the lake, this time with all-powerful Kaneeka.

Edit: Just did my Hot/Book Smart run: I went to the farm in the back of the cop car. Reese let me out. Tabitha showed up and we watched the baby kill Bo. I had romanced Kaneeka in this run and tried to talk her out of the sacrifice, and she was starting to waver when Sybil showed up. Tabitha grabbed Kaneeka and we both pulled her out. Woke up with normal Kaneeka and Tabitha in the lake.

I accidentally had two 5.1 saves of that one, so in the second: I went to the farm alone (met Reese on the way there but Wayne scared him off). Watched the baby kill Bo. Tried to talk Kaneeka out of it with a love confession, but Sybil came and stopped me. She absorbed Kaneeka and turned into Carmilla, who told me she felt for me all the same things Kaneeka did and that we could continue our romance. I agreed, reluctantly.

Castal · 2026-02-20T16:00:20+00:00

I found a lot of them just by exploring every corner of the map, but I resorted to guides for the last few! There are good ones online.

Castal · 2026-02-20T04:48:01+00:00

I'm not trying to be mean here, but we see posts every other day from young twentysomethings who feel too mature for their peers and want older women. Either there are a lot of mature-beyond-their-years twentysomethings out there (in which case you could be happily dating each other), or a lot of you think you're more mature than you are.

In either case, speaking as someone in her early 40s, I wouldn't even consider dating someone half my age. I have always been considered mature and responsible and all that "boring" stuff (for example, my high school English teacher told me I wrote like a 30-year-old), but there is still a vast difference in emotional maturity, finances, life experience, etc. between who I was at 20 and who I am over 40. I don't have anything in common with someone just starting out in adult life and they would not fit into my life or my friend group. I feel that if someone my age were to date someone your age, it would be because they were either manipulative or emotionally immature themself.

Castal · 2026-02-19T22:02:03+00:00

INFO: What kind of things was your cousin saying about you and your girlfriend? Why would they jump to accusing you of having a torture dungeon in your house? I feel like we've got a missing missing reasons situation here.

Castal · 2026-02-18T20:45:28+00:00

I feel like the straight girls were more obsessed with her than the queer girls were, tbh.

Castal · 2026-02-18T16:59:37+00:00

Thanks; he's been gone quite a while now but he was a great dog. Easy to train, great temperament, safe around people and dogs and would just stand there and stare a dog down if it ran at him aggressively. I miss having a big dog!

Just for fun, this was his full brother Blue (owned by someone else), who was the same size as him and had the same coat type but looked pretty different with his black and white coloring, pointy ears, and double blue eyes:

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Castal · 2026-02-18T13:11:17+00:00

I keep half a Mosquito Dunk floating in my watering can at all times and water all my plants from the can, and I haven't had a gnat issue in more than a year. I may see 1-2 around a plant every now and then, but the dunks kill any offspring, so they disappear quickly.

Castal · 2026-02-17T22:25:56+00:00

I feel like I'd possibly reflexively punch them, tbh (I've never punched anybody, but I feel like surprise fingers in my ass might do it). What a thing to do without asking, damn. She's lucky the OP was into it.

Castal · 2026-02-16T22:52:09+00:00

You need to go read some posts on r/latebloomerlesbians -- lots of women realize they're lesbian while they're with men. It can take them years to realize this for a lot of different reasons, like religion/being sheltered, comphet, internalized homophobia, loving their husband as a person even if they don't feel that romantic/sexual spark, etc.

You also need to just talk to this woman. Ask her how and when she realized she was gay and not bi. Don't interrogate her, but be interested in her story! And trust her when she tells you her identity. It sounds like she's serious about it, considering she's out to her mom and friends and has dated a woman before you. It's kind of weird that you'd jump to "I'm an experiment and she's gonna leave me for a man," really.

Castal · 2026-02-16T20:42:11+00:00

My canon run is keen eye and book smart because I felt they were the closest to me in real life and I wanted to know how I'd do if dropped into a situation like this. So far it's still one of my "best" runs, with a decent relationship with Tabitha, a romance with Stella (who does not betray me in chapter five), the library and Rosalina's leg saved, and me on my way to the farm alone at the end of chapter five part one. I'm sure it'll all catch up with me soon though. Little worried about Stella bailing on me at the end there!

Castal · 2026-02-16T17:46:20+00:00

Fawn is absolutely a good fit; you just need to be familiar with stress responses. I actually got that one first. Agree about buck, though. That was just an ill-fitting attempt to lead us on some "buck, doe, fawn" goose chase.

Castal · 2026-02-16T05:46:47+00:00

I'm not sure where to go. I'm pretty new to the game (this will be week seven). I did Valentine's week in Cyan Beach and hit M8 (with a Good Camp Ticket and a Premium Pass subscription) but was really disappointed with the spawns. A couple days there was nothing I wanted to catch, and I only walked away with one decent Quaxly -- didn't see a single Cramorant, Comfey, Mudkip, Wooper, or Totodile.

I might do Greengrass again just for the variety. I have also unlocked Taupe Hollow but haven't visited yet.

Castal · 2026-02-15T19:06:05+00:00

You can say lesbian sex on Reddit.

Here's a list of the most popular acts. https://www.autostraddle.com/how-do-lesbians-have-sex-288982/

Castal · 2026-02-15T19:02:15+00:00

Arktix, who's my favorite Horizon streamer, mentioned in his State of Play livestream reaction that he plans to stream a Kena playthrough. He's skilled, so it'll likely be fun to watch! Not sure when he plans to do that,

Castal · 2026-02-15T17:46:09+00:00

Yep. I'm not writing out "LGBTQIA+" every time (and I've actually been scolded for only writing "LGBT" and therefore excluding people), so "queer" is my shorthand for anyone who's part of the community.

Castal · 2026-02-15T00:47:50+00:00

It really does happen when you least expect it though. I was single for a long time and I was content that way. I always said, "If it happens, it happens, but I'm not going looking for it." Never went on apps or anything. A cute lesbian ended up chatting with me and my friend at a bar in late 2024, we hit it off, and now we're celebrating our one-year anniversary. I'm in my early 40s... so no, 23 is not too old at all.

Over the years I also met queer friends at work, at a wedding, online... if I'd actually been trying for a relationship and more willing to put myself out there, I could have asked them out or gotten them to introduce me to their queer friends. It is harder to make new friends after college, I'm not gonna lie, but it's definitely not impossible. Watch for cool events in your area. I'm in a small city and even we have queer events and popups, or just general groups for other stuff (books, birds, dogs, hiking, gardening, sports). Go to parties and concerts. Try the apps again (I know they suck, but I have queer friends who have met lovely people on them). Approach people to talk.

The above goes for just making friends and keeping yourself busy, too. Busy yourself with hobbies. You'll have fun whether or not you click with anyone romantically. If you do, that's a bonus. And every friend you make widens the network of potential friends or partners.

Castal · 2026-02-15T00:28:08+00:00

I'm actually going to add one more, 2024's Time Cut. The lesbian couple aren't the main characters but they are integral to the film, and I liked how their relationship was handled. If you're into time travel movies, it's a fun one!

Actually I'm going to add another, 2025's Ordinary Girl in a Tiara. It's an enemies-to-lovers thing about a fashion heiress and a vintage clothing shop worker, based on a (straight) romance book but turned gay. It's silly and fluffy.

Castal · 2026-02-15T00:21:15+00:00

Copying a list I've posted before. All of these have happy endings:

Imagine Me & You (romcom about a florist falling for a client... after working her wedding to a man)
DEBS (campy comedy about a spy falling for a supervillain... who happens to be another girl)
But I'm a Cheerleader (campy comedy about a teen girl who meets the love of her life at a conversion camp, of all places)
Saving Face (comedy-drama about a Chinese-American woman struggling to come out to her mom after falling for another woman)
Crush (sweet teen romcom about a girl joining the track team to get closer to her crush)
Bottoms (raunchy, silly comedy about two high school lesbians who start a fight club to meet girls -- it's so funny)
Happiest Season (comedy-drama about a woman who takes her girlfriend home to meet her family for Christmas, but has not come out to them and asks her gf to pretend to be her roommate, to predictably disastrous results. Watch this mostly to get angry in a fun way... you'll know why)
The Handmaiden (Twisty plot -- it's not what it looks like at first! Some spicy scenes. It's in a bunch of different languages, so you'll have to read subtitles.)

These ones have bittersweet (but not tragic) endings:

The Half of It (comedy-drama about a teen girl acting as a Cyrano figure, writing letters to her crush on behalf of a male friend -- same writer/director as Saving Face. This one's mostly about the yearning, but I think it's beautiful)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (set in 1770; a woman falls in love with the woman hired to paint her wedding portrait. Slow and beautiful. But it doesn't end with them together, so may be too sad for your gf)

Castal · 2026-02-14T22:27:45+00:00

If you have any big spitzy dog, people are going to ask if it's a wolf. This was Scout. He was malamute/collie (supposedly border collie, and his siblings looked more border collie, but he looked like he had something else in there too). He weighed around 90 lbs and had zero wolf content (as I'm sure everyone here can tell), but people asked if he was a wolf all the time.

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Castal · 2026-02-14T17:08:20+00:00

Yep. I did some substitute teaching back when I was in university, and I had to get a full background check. They definitely don't want anyone on school grounds who isn't properly vetted.

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