lee

When you’re talking to Lux, even though you started off with hating them, they’ve kinda grown on you by now. You’ve started to spend so much time with them, they were just so fun now! Their jokes actually started to land and make you laugh really hard as you kept going through their dialogue every day, you, like any other player, usually forget to visit objects after getting their love or friendship ending. Volt & Eddie are no exceptions to this, sadly. Watching you aim those glasses at Lux every day, using at least one charge every day instead of coming to their show once, did piss them off. 

Eddie slammed his drink down on the counter with a huff as Volt rolled his eyes, the sound of Lux’s obnoxious laughter was drowning yours out and honestly, at this point it’s became so much. Volt has noticed how… agitated, when he- they both realized what they were. What you were. The fact that you’ve been romancing almost everyone didn’t sting as badly as finding out that nothing happened to the ‘MC’, you, the real human, just forgot about them or deemed their story done, without any say from them. 

Volt was pulled from his musings with an audible sigh from Eddie, “Hey,” he spoke softly, his hand caressing Eddie’s neck, “I’m sure we’ll find a way to get their attention back, we are the electricity! How hard can it be if Dorian, of all people, managed to mess up their game one time?” Volt’s heart sunk at Eddie’s gaze, he’d never saw his other half this… grim, before.

“It’s not about getting them back, Volt. Why did they forget in the first place? Were we too muc— did we do something wrong?”, his voice was gravelly, almost shaking with grief, as if they’d lost them. In a way, they were grieving, they were grieving the loss of your giggles when they flustered you, how you’d look at them like they were everything— they felt your gaze on them; it warmed their skin like the sun they never saw. 

The next time you’re talking with Lux, excited that it was most likely your last conversation before their route ended, you pressed on. All smiles until the power cut out. It was so instant you felt a little winded, the whole game just went dark, Lux disappeared, only the empty chat box in its usual place. Your heart actually picked up when you heard, “Ah, live wire! We’ve missed you…”

Mac feels empty. Not in the emotional way, oh boy they are full of emotions about you in that regard, they just… feel abandoned, tossed aside. They were one of the first to realize they were actually in a game and the puppet talking to them was controlled by a being so complex their CPU ran hot thinking about what you looked like. Your voice, whether a cough, sneeze, a coo at them or a comment about what they said, made their heart swell a thousand times more than when you double clicked. Though, you were save scumming, they found that term on the internet, trying to test every kind of ending you could get with them. Really, they are flattered and flustered that your attention was so fixated on them but, they hated the way you sounded when you kept picking the answers that lead to a hate end. There’s no way they’re letting that happen.

The next time you open their dialogue to finally get the hate ending and finish this god-damned challenge you forced on yourself, now though, Mac seems downright elated to see you. You… hurt them pretty badly, and yet they’re acting like nothing happened. Did you bug the game by how much you save scummed? You felt yourself freeze when Mac asked, “Hey, what do you say to being mine forever? Save the hassle for both of us? Oh, I’m overheating with the thought of hearing you say I love you to me!”, there’s only one option you can click, it reads, ‘Of course, I love you, Mac!’, your mouse moves on its own. 

Hoove knew he wasn’t an easy object, he never claimed to be one! He needs trust from a person he could even think to call his lover. When he realized what he was, when he saw just how hard you were trying over and over again, his heart warmed. He felt loved, yes he heard your disgruntled groans and huffs when you got his bad or friendship ending again, yes he wanted oh so terribly to reach out to you himself, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know how. When you stopped visiting him after a while, it felt like his heart was slowly sinking down to his stomach in this grueling pace. Every second he didn’t hear your adorable noises, your laugh, how you got up to get water and talked to your pets or to yourself about something to do with your real life, he felt like his heart could burst right there. Your very being consumed his, and yet, he just couldn’t break himself from his code. One time, you got so frustrated, he heard you crying. You probably had so much more going on and this was the thing that broke the dam, but… he couldn’t help but blame himself. He is too difficult to love, isn’t he? His vision blurred as he felt you closing the game, the tears threatening to fall any moment as he looked down, suffocated in a prison he couldn’t escape.

You’re doing your 4th re-run of the game, it’s late, and you’re not really paying attention to whatever options you’re clicking as you pull up front Dorian for a chat. You accidentally press the dialogue option that lets you leave the house and your heart drops, you’ve made so much progress, and now it’s all going down the drain— but you blink, you wait, nothing happens. Dorian is just frozen there, with an expression you’ve never noticed on his sprites before, the dialogue box is empty and there are no choices. After a few minutes, he sighs—the dialogue frame is still empty— and then you’re forcefully exited out of the interaction. That was strange but, probably just a bug! The game just came out after all, plus it saved your ass big time, so you just saved your game and went to bed.

Most of the time life and work get in the way of your hobbies, and sometimes you’re forced to work overtime for 2 days and not play a single minute of your new favorite dating game. Finally, the weekend arrives, and you boot up the game, the ‘trivia’ that you expect to read every time now only says, “They’ve missed you.” That’s…weird, probably a new welcome back thing the devs implemented to make you want to play more. You finally get into the game and the second you put your dateviators on, Curt & Rod, Betty, and Dorian pop up at the same time. Each of their dialogue boxes empty, and they’re all speaking over each other before the game just crashes.

Odd, you re-start and everything is fine. You go downstairs and aim your glasses at scandalebra, but somehow, Daisuke is the one that pops up on your screen. He does his usual greeting, you’ve already finished his route though, so this glitch cost you a chance. You sigh and skip through before the game stops registering your clicks and Daisuke seems to be staring right at you. Is the DLC doing this? As you’re just waiting, Daisuke finally speaks, “My love, why do you wish to waste time with the likes of him?” he sighed, “I’m right here, all yours, and you haven’t even looked at me for weeks. Are you… bored with me?”, there aren’t any choices you can select.

One time you aim your glasses at Johnny and Amir is there instead. He’s got this… look on his face, he’s blushing, and he just can’t seem to form any words. But trying to click through his empty dialogue does nothing, so you just wait. Before he could even speak, though, your game completely freezes and in seconds you’re somehow in the breaker room? Eddie & Volt greet you like nothing’s wrong, “Live wire! Ah, we’ve missed you, where have you been?” Volt said in this, eerily cheery tone of voice you’ve never heard from him, then Eddie started talking, “not good to ignore your boyfriends for too long, we could start getting jealous, y’know?”

You’re so close to finishing Abel’s story quest, and when you go over to him, you find out that one of his legs has come loose out of nowhere. Tony won’t come and fix it, no matter how many times you call for him. You go over to Tony, much to Abel’s dismay, he looks way more cheerful than you’re used to, “Ah, and to think I thought you’d forgotten about little ol’ Tony for that fucking table. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you, want to show me how sorry you are for ignoring me now that you’re here?”

You’re talking out loud to yourself about how this time you’re going to finally romance Keith and when those words leave your mouth your bedroom and bathroom door close themselves shut. You click and click, but Dorian just won’t open. You aim your glasses at him, the only thing he says is, “Sorry, luv, don’t feel like sharin’ you today,”

When you aim your glasses at your fridge, you expect Freddy and somehow the character standing in front of you is… Doug? “Look, I know I’m just a concept made form, but even I need some action time to time from my lover. Get your ass here and stop talking to that hairy fridge. I missed your dumbass.”

You’re talking to Curt & Rod, and you’re pretty sure they aren’t supposed to say, “Look, we know you’re popular,” Curt says, then Rod continues, “and we totally get why… I mean, look at you baby!”, Curt then chimes in, “but y’know, we do want you for ourselves the most. Why don’t you, ignore them for a while and come cuddle up with us? It’s been a while, lover.”

You talk to Mac once first thing in the day, and now the rest of your charges are gone! You try aiming your glasses at them again just to see, and it actually works, “I can get a little possessive, but you do understand, don't you?”

You do not remember about a literal sex scene where Hector and the player (you) are experimenting with temperature play as he’s breathlessly moaning your name when your character shivers, “Ah my love, seeing you so vulnerable all for me while they are watching makes my heart so full that it could burst.”

Somehow, every day a new inanimal goes missing, and you have to spend hours with Mateo to find them, somehow he doesn’t mind this at all, somehow the inanimals look chirpier than ever when you click on them.

You don’t even remember there being a shower feature, let alone how your character got into it, but the way Johnny is looking at you and the way he’s talking about your body like it’s the really expensive looking piece of cake in a bakery window tells you he’s loving this. “You look… amazin’, downright ethereal, am I allowed to… get a feel for myself, gorgeous?”