It’s been awhile and @Gower would be able to answer it better, but as far as I remember, you can. One of my MCs romances him and has upperhand on him so he doesn’t make all decisions for her.
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I almost always play an Upperhand!MC when I romance Fitzie. 
I think being Abrasive > Soothing helps? Be helpful, but not a doormat. I go along with them to steal the pearl, for example, but at the end of it I tell them that it’s typically the employer that gives orders. Things like that. A good way to rack up Upperhand points might be to prepare & do well on the Cadbury Club interview - the wiki has a nice guide for that bit! I haven’t looked at the code either, though, so someone who has may be able to give clearer instructions :~)
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Yes, exactly what others have said–you can definitely romance Fitzie with upperhand. It will probably be more difficult, and there will be moments where it feels like things are going in the wrong direction. Those feelings may well be warranted.
Regardng the cab scene. The answer is yes, you can, but the whole conversation is a minefield.
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@lynossa @extrarice Thank you for your help! 
Maybe I should try playing a different kind of MC for a change, in order to make the dominant choices come more natural. But it’s good to know that this route is indeed available.
@Gower: Considering how often I played through that cab scene, I have probably set off every possible mine and must have quit right before I would have found that one combination that doesn’t lead to a relationship decrease. Just my luck. 
I usually don’t pay much attention to percentages and stats, and I’d never base my choices upon them, but I got curious if there was a way to prevent that decrease. …Which I only noticed in the first place, because I REALLY wanted to replay that moment and find out what else you could do . 
Oh and +1 for making Starling a RO. Give me that sweet love triangle drama. Or at least a jealous Fitzie (who btw reminds me a lot of Haze in some regards).
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So… how many people are on the “make Starling a RO” train?
Edit: wow, that’s a lot of starling fans (me included)
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All is going well with chapter two, so far! I’m working on it very steadily, and I’m nearly done with the very branchiest parts of it. If I keep going at this rate, I should get done with the main route through the chapter in a few weeks. Then, I have to add ten smaller adventures which are dependent on your sponsor. I don’t expect those to take longer than one writing day each.
I’m still hoping to have chapter two done in mid June, and then plunge right into chapter three, which should be a way, way less complicated chapter to write!
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I’m not sure if I’m on the “romance Starling” train, but I’m 110% on the “make Fitzie wildly jealous” express. Especially if I can continue playing an MC who’s oblivious to any developing feelings on Fitzie’s part (and also generally incompetent, and a disaster magnet). So much fun!
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Progress report:
Chapter Two is done and sent to my editor. We are currently at 582,000 words, with six chapters to go.
I…guess that’ll be the demo, those first two chapters?
This weekend I catch up on some grading, and then working on the code skeleton of Chapter Three, which will have a much small word count than the first two chapters, and bring back in the love interests, who were largely absent from Chapter Two. We’ll also get a good deal of Aunt Matilda and Uncle Chum in it.
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Oooh, a demo. How can I turn down free samples of Tea and Scones?
I’m curious about how Vyv and Gilbert are going to be wrangled into the plot; they have no obvious reason for hanging around Uncle Chum’s place. Introducing them to him and Aunt Matilda will be delightful - meeting the family is the best part of any relationship (if you stretch the definition of ‘best’ a bit. Or maybe a lot.).
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You’re only on chapter 3 and the word count is half a million already? Congratulations! You’re likely to break 2,000,000 words, by the end of Chapter 4!
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Congrats on getting chapter two finished 
Can’t wait to see more of Aunt Matilda in the next game. A wealthy society matron feared by her relatives? She’s what I aspire to be 
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Oooh, what about “matchmaking our two servants together” express? 
I mean, both are opposite to one another and they both would hate each other upon first sight…… which makes them the perfect case of enemies-to-lovers trope or if gower is too on the fence about the ordeal why not the “old, married couple dynamic” for both of them.
If we can’t play matchmaker, would there be a chance for us to at least be dense at Fitzie’s and (possibly) Starling’s advances towards us?
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I admit this is demanding, but holy moly am I on board for an oblivious-MC-trailed-by-all-ROs-at-once route. More likely, though - how about a Crush variable for everyone, not just Fitzie, which makes them act in significantly different ways throughout the story rather than once?
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I thought Tabby could’ve also started with a (childhood) crush on MC if we choose for it to happen, no?
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We can certainly be dense about Fitzie’s… well, not advances, exactly, more like mutterings and interferings. I set up my own little love triangle in the first game by playing an MC who I imagined to have an unrequited crush on Starling - which had made the latter’s betrayal rather painful - while Fitzie, in turn, developed an unrequited crush on the MC.
Everyone developing unrequited crushes would be hilarious. It might drive our dear author insane, though.
Edit:
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This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen
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… I did NaNoWriMo one year. 52,000 words took me basically the entire month, nearly killed me, and the result was… as good as fanfic usually is.
Real writers must have superpowers, I swear. That’s 585,500 actually good words in less than eight months, plus coding (don’t even get me started on coding). HOW.
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Here’s my monthly update! I’ve been waiting until some family responsibilities were done, and now I have about four solid weeks to write, which is great, because I hate feeling stalled.
I’m still working on several chunks of the first half of Chapter Three–I very rarely write a bunch of vignettes simultaneously, but I’m doing so here for some reason. I’m just about finishing up a really complicated conversation with Fitzie (which I hope to finish tomorrow) and assembling the main cast all together in one spot for the scene that explains the premise of the rest of the game. Lots of characters and a lot of moving parts in this bit.
Thankfully, my morale is pretty high, and I’m keeping a good attitude even when things need to be rewritten several times. The hardest thing for me is trying to figure out how to work in writing with professorial duties in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m trying squeeze in writing time in the odds and ends of the day. I like to sit down and write for hours and get in the groove, and listen to my Tea and Scones playlist and just emerge from writing daze much, much later.
I’ll send further dispatches from the field as I write more!
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Congratulations on finding four weeks to write! That’s very exciting!
Might one inquire where one could find this playlist?
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That description pretty much fits all conversations with Fitzie. 
Thanks for keeping us updated; we’re all looking forward to reading what you come up with! I wish I could do the writing-for-hours-at-a-time thing but I’m just too easily distr- squirrel!
… dancing?? 
Lindy Hop? Charleston? Maybe (gasp) a romantic waltz? And so many ways it could all go hilariously wrong…
… okay then. 
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