Second Love Interests

**Second Love Interests** is a feature and tradition of a character (mostly male) serving as the secondary love interest in a story route that mostly features one love interest as its focus point. The second love interests are mostly common in the Carter Corp and Mystery Spell universes, but mostly Carter Corp as the second love interests there have more prominent roles.

Blue Swan and Fallen Road do not follow this tradition of second love interests as they either focus on one love interest or all of them equally. Fallen Road says that both Zac Hudson and Caliel are both main love interests and you can choose who you end up with, but the story mostly only features Zac, and treats Caliel as the second love interest that you can't truly end up with. In Blue Swan, it's slightly more fair but William Sheffield gets most of the screen time, but Jarod Harding however, is treated like the main love interest with the other 2 being treated like the minor ones, with Mike Stover not getting that much screen time compared to the other 2. Unlike Fallen Road though, all three 3 of them get their own endings where they can end up with the player so there truly is no second love interest or bad ending.

Jarod Harding's story route mostly focuses on Jarod and there was thought that there was no second love interest for a while, but the 2nd love interest is Adrian Walker and the bad ending centers around him.

It's unknown if full Secret Palace story routes will follow the tradition of having a second love interest. There is often debate if James Oswald-Descieux's story route has a second love interest or not in either Raj Hirapati or Julian Devolt, or if there's no second love interest at all. But there is no second love interest in Cameron Cooper's story route due to it being a Mini-Series.

Sunrise Valley didn't seem to follow the tradition since Caleb Rosewood was the only love interest in his route. But Sunrise Valley only has 1 story so far, so it is possible that they will feature a second love interest in the future.

The second love interests often have feelings for the main characters and want to be with them, but the player either doesn't feel the same way, or when she does, she won't end up with them unless it's in the bad ending. Only a few second love interests can actually end up with the player, as a majority of them either stay friends with her by the end and are only there to comfort her when she breaks up with her love interest in the bad ending, or they cut all ties with her out of heart break.

Second love interests usually don't get along with the main love interest (with a few exceptions), this is mostly due to jealously and if they are friends before the events of the story, then the two will probably fight a lot. Second love interests are either received positively or poorly by fans, and it's usually rare that they get mixed reactions but it can happen with one notable example. They are often there to either cause drama or provide a fresh perspective and be there for the player when things turn south with her main love interest, this is an easy tactic to get the viewers to like the second love interest and root for him, especially if Is it Love? plans on giving them their own story route one day.

In Mystery Spell, some second love interests have replaced the original second love interest in the middle of a story route, the first one who did this was Conrad Bartholy (it could be because Sebastian already had his own story route when Drogo Bartholy's season 2 was being released). Sohan Héka then replaced Esteban Dias in season 2 of Sebastian's route (this is the only case which is unknown why there was a love interest replacement) and then Haku Kobayashi replaced Sarah Osborne in Peter Bartholy's season 2. Parker Sparke in Carter Corp then carried on this new tradition in season 3 of Ryan's route by replacing Jake Stewart (who was in a committed relationship with Jenny Blake). Most of the replacements in Mystery Spell take on bigger roles in the story than the original second love interest (the biggest example being Conrad), and some of the second love interests in Mystery Spell were much more tamed compared to the ones in Carter Corp, and weren't too upfront with their feelings to the players if they had them.

In the Mini-Series, due to those story routes only being 5 chapters and not 11, second love interests aren't really a thing there due to time constraints and not having enough chapters to prominently feature one or their relationship with the player, as they're much more focused on the main love interest and plot, and having little to no time filler. Asmodea, Niño di Luca and Rafael are so far the only real second love interests seen in a mini-series so far.

The only second love interests that can "truly end up with the players" in the bad endings are Matt Ortega in Gabriel Simons' season 2, Ashton Darrow, Sohan Héka, Asmodea and possibly Haku Kobayashi depending on how you interrupt the bad ending. Ludwig Eberwald is debatable because his ending did not actually happen since it was only a dream.

## Second Love Interests

* Matt Ortega
* Daryl Ortega
* Jake Stewart
* Sebastian Jones
* Adam Peterson
* Owen Hobbad
* Sarah Osborne
* Ludwig Eberwald
* Esteban Dias
* Joe Kicks
* Conrad Bartholy
* Sohan Héka
* Haku Kobayashi
* Raj Hirapati (possibly)
* Julian Devolt (possibly)
* Parker Sparke
* Asmodea
* Adrian Walker
* Niño di Luca
* Rafael

## Trivia

* Matt Ortega was the very first second love interest and the first second love interest to receive his own story route and a season 2.
* Sarah Osborne was the first female second love interest.
* Gabriel Simons, Ryan Carter, Colin Spencer and Mark Leviels are the only Carter Corp love interests that never started off as second love interests.
* Ashton Darrow and Esteban Dias are the only second love interests that never fight with the main love interest or are mean to them and vice versa.
* Conrad Bartholy was the first second love interest to replace another second love interest during the duration of a story route.
	+ Parker Sparke was the first Carter Corp second love interest to replace the original second love interest mid story route but 4th overall.
* Sebastian Jones is the only second love interest in Mystery Spell to receive his own full story route with 11 chapters.
	+ Conrad is the first second love interest to receive his own mini-series.
* Asmodea is technically the first mini-series second love interest and is also the first mini-series female love interest.
* Liang Shaw and Nao Arasaka can be considered as the unofficial second love interests in Mark Leviels and Conrad Bartholy's story routes, considering those routes didn't have second love interests.