Okay I'm still not done with this BUT.
1. Which character was your favorite? Why?
I was pretty sure it was physically impossible for me to thirst for anyone as much as I was thirsting for Theo. And then I met Luca and fml. In my mind Theo was pretty direct - he was the "idk what you're playing at" guy but there was a surprising amount of miscommunication and what felt like rejection in a way...?
(More on that below, but it hit a personal trigger basically.)
This just goes to show how effed up society is that when a man says 'no' it's immediately about you doing something wrong and not because idk, he has boundaries and issues and a rich inner life that isn't led in the wake of his dick.
Did you manage to make all the guys on the main screen regain their colour?
No, but that's because the level of second-hand embarrassment during my first interaction with Tristan was really high. It's kind of sad because my entire life is nerdy boys and I married... basically Tristan irl.
My only issue is that I'd have to go through that scene again and my frail sense of self can't take that. First impressions count and his was... oof.
What's your favorite moment in the game?
Okay so you gotta understand I'm basically playing all the otome jam games ✨for research✨ and I play them with my husband sitting right next to me. And while the boys were great, I think the best part of it was right at the beginning when I was reading out the intro and my husband was sitting next to me just occasionally sniggering because it was funny and just both of us playing the game together.
A lot of things just opened up a dialogue, about games we've played (I found out he played genshin impact for example) about how the server maintenance weird translation messages were so relatable.
In the end, we just were talking about how the more minute details were so realistic. The whole call with HR was a really clever way of going about this, it set the tone of the story, it made us laugh.
As for the boys. I mean, struggling with what you want to do, with chasing dreams you've put on the backburner, talking about boundaries and having rational, mature and empathetic conversations. There were so many moments throughout this where I felt like I'd lived this before in my own relationship - I think that's maybe why Theo's route hit me a bit wrong, because it was less fantasy and more reality if you know what I mean?
Do you want a Mark route?
On the one hand no. On the other hand no as well, really. Like he's a shit person and I want to be as far away from him as humanly possible.
But. There's a part of me that's curious to see what you'd do with him. I'm not an asshole apologist but some of my best friends are reformed assholes and all it took were a few serious conversations about boundaries and a lot of... idk. Empathy. Getting them to feel comfortable in their own skin so they weren't busy posturing all the time.
Like I can see it being a good character arc, but at the same time the "I can fix him" mentality is really dangerous and I'm scared it'll do more harm than good.
So far, you've done a lot of good though, so I trust you know best.
Would you replay the game if it were fully voiced?
Probably not. Or at least that wouldn't be the reason to come back to it. I can see myself coming back to it in the future but not specifically because of the voice acting.
Oh wow, that was a bigass review.
Other than that I just wanted to thank you guys for being incredible on twitter. It's been an honour and a pleasure to jam with you. You've done something wonderful here and there isn't enough room or time to give proper feedback to all the things I loved about it.
OH. I may be wrong and it could happen in a route and I missed it but I want to adopt the kitty tho?!