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I did absolutely nothing this weekend, aside from cleaning, and playing more of that dating game. So.



So, over the course of the weekend, I've managed to get through both Robert and Damien's routes. They weren't the ones I was originally planning to go with first, but I saw some fanart that made me curious about them (and also the possibility of shipping them with each other, hah) sooo, there we are.

One of the options that jumped out at me when setting up the social media profile:

"What is your ideal date?"
>Trying to geocache but getting hopelessly lost

...That literally IS my ideal date! As long as by "lost" one means urban geocaching where it's like "I have no idea what street we're on, nor where the cache might be, nor how, precisely, to get back to where we parked", rather than forest geocaching where the situation is "we're up to our knees in muskeg and rosebushes and I'm clueless about where the nearest road is and also we might get eaten by a bear". Once again I feel called-out by this silly dating game. xD

Anyway.

"Dad, I'm so happy for your continued development as a human being."
I can't remember whose route that line shows up on, but my daugher is a snarky little shit and I love her. :D

Robert is a hot mess. Part of what drew me to him is the fact that the player character kind of swoons over him before you even start going on dates with anybody; internally gushing about how ~cool~ he is and so on. It's hilarious. And it keeps popping up when you interact with him more, going on about how ~ruggedly handsome~ he is and such. xD Okay, Player Character, I get it, you think he's hot. (Though I must admit, he's very attractive when he smiles...)

...And well, I suppose he IS charming, in his own way. The first date with him is kind of a disaster (and oh my god, were such a situation to actually arise, I would never go on a second date with such a person). But the second one is really cute? And cozy? Just the two of you, and the stars, and that great view~ And after the encounter with maybe-not-really the Dover Ghost, it left me wanting to write a bunch of scenarios where Robert and the PC go ghost hunting together. (Though ngl when they saw that shadow that looked like it was dragging something, it got me thinking of scenarios where OH NO, THERE WAS A MURDER AND SOMEBODY WAS HIDING A BODY and they get all caught up in it somehow, heh.)

I will confess, one of the things that I like best about Robert's route is not just the relationship, but the fact that it offers a possibility, story-wise, to inject some supernatural into the story. In other words: fic scenarios where Robert and somebody (who?) go hunting for cryptids and then find one. Yes.

Robert's good end is really sweet, though. Sure, it doesn't end with a ~relationship~, but it does end with the possibility of something happening after Robert cleans up his act and gets himself together and stops drinking so much and so on, and he seems well on his way to doing that. It's just really... nice. I like that.

Sidenote: music-wise, Robert likes Santana. And this just brought me flashbacks to 9th grade when some of my friends made fun of me for listening to Santana because "It's dad music". Excuse YOU, said I, except apparently it's true and I have been listening to "dad music" since I was 14. WELL, OKAY.

Anyway. On to Damien.

Going in, I knew three things about him: he's goth, he's trans, and he reads Naruto fanfiction.

"Okay," I said, "Sounds like my kind of guy." Any dude who reads fanfic is A-Okay in my book. (I wonder if he writes it, too? Canon doesn't seem to say, but WHAT IF.)

I was not prepared for how swoon-worthy this guy is. Hot damn.

He's just so very dashing and charming and elegant and fancy, and there were a couple of times when I felt myself getting oddly flustered because he just comes out with these lovely lines and I just. ?! WELL. OKAY. Also -

"Hearing someone talk about the things they're passionate about is intriguing, and quite honestly, rather attractive." .... AND WITH THAT, I'M IN LOVE WITH DAMIEN. I mean, I was already, but. That was the nail in the coffin. (Hah.)

...Also: there's a Cask of Amontillado reference in Damien's route. And playing through that part, it was SO hard not to laugh my ass off. I adore Damien, but I wasn't expecting to adore his son Lucien too. THAT KID IS A LITTLE SHIT. Anyone who actually tries to trick someone into getting bricked up in a basement, and almost gets away with it, deserves mad respect yo.

And those two, their father-son relationship is just so nice. They're like a two-person Addams family: total weirdos who care about each other so fucking much. It's sweet. I want five thousand fanworks of them being loving and supportive toward each other. Also, fanworks with them doing their makeup together. I need that in my life. :D

I have so many Feelings about the scene when we see Damien in his civilian clothes and he reveals that he was reluctant to explain about the more mundane parts of his life because he was worried the Player Character wouldn't find him interesting any more. The bits where he's like "I'm an IT specialist and I own five pairs of tennis shoes and I listen to Bruce Springsteen and enjoy looking at storage solutions and I volunteer at an animal shelter. I'm boring." MY HEART. NOOO DAMIEN, You aren't boring at all; you're passionate and charming and it's cute that you love animals so much. Also, your glasses are adorable. You can be a goth prince AND a total nerd. It's okay. I love to have a man who can do both.

And his ending is so cute... I love that he has super-soft hair. I love that the reason he has super-soft hair is because he washes it with dog shampoo. I love that everything about his ending is so fluffy and sweet. (And it gave me such a craving for hair play. Like, damn.)

I came across a discussion where someone mentioned that while Damien is charming, he seems a bit emotionally fragile. Not quite high maintenance necessarily, but more than some people would want to deal with. And I think I agree with this assessment. But I also feel that it's the kind of fragility that is manageable; he just needs somebody to pour some affection on him and help him understand that all parts of him are lovable, that's all. He isn't like Robert, for example.

And that brings me to Damien/Robert. After the cute scene during the graveyard date, when Damien & PC run into Robert, and Damien spends a lot of the conversation pouring affection onto Robert's dog... yeah, I can see where people are coming from with it. However, the fact remains that Robert is a Hot Mess, and I feel like Robert in his natural state would totally break Damien's heart, probably by accident, and that would be terrible. (NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO MAKE DAMIEN SAD, OKAY.)

...But a Robert who turns his life around after getting some perspective, either through the help of the player character, like in Robert's route, or through Damien's help - OR BOTH, both is good - in such a situation, I could see Damien/Robert working. It also offers the opportunity for "Are you SURE you aren't a vampire?" situations, which would be funny. Not to mention the idea of Robert taking Damien out cryptid hunting... Damien sure does love his evening walks, but he'd probably be (adorably) terrified about searching for supernatural beings, considering he's a total weenie who can't handle horror movies.

SO. Yes. Those are my buckets-of-feelings so far. TL;DR: Damien Bloodmarch has stolen my heart. I still have a lot of the game to get through at this point, though. I wonder what the rest will be like....