Oooh… 
. You know what, the character you listed out before makes a lot more sense now. And even if Thunder is not conventionally attractive he still managed to attract Pipsy 
.
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I know this is a random idea but @Gower is it possible if you can show us the possible stats of the ROs in jolly good and Tally Ho? Like the stats we see on our MC in the games ?
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This question fascinates me. Like, what would Haze’s Bold be, and what would Tabby’s Skullduggery be?
That sounds like it would be an amazing thing for me to do for the Patreon that I don’t have.
I have to think about this. I am curious how you would rank the ROs according to the various stats.
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Even if you do not have a Patreon still it would give us good insight on the ROs. Personally, I always noted Rory’s highest skill to be their intelligence and soothing while their dump stat is their Culture and persuade. This is probably because of headcanon more than anything so…
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If intelligence is their highest, their other stats must be going into the negative numbers!
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Poor Rory !
But, in a more serious way I truly think Rory isn’t as dumb as they look. Sure, they do silly things and they might have childish interests but those things are not full proof indicators of a person’s intelligence. Rory as a character while they are ditzy they do have low self esteem. They constantly belittle themselves whenever they do something wrong but whenever someone else do something as simple as doing something properly like, using the correct spoon when eating soup, they’ll praise that person over the moon. Now, the reason why I bring up self-esteem is probably because it’s a main reason why they can be call dumb. When you don’t have confidence in doing something, then it will affect the result or people’s perceptions of you. You’re more likely going to trust someone who’s confident in their abilities over someone who’s constantly pondering their choices. They already have low self-esteem in day-to-day life but imagine having to face really critical people in your daily routine, who are going to tell you in overt detail how bad you are at that thing. This is the case with Rory. They have to deal with their aunts, while some are nice most are like Primrose. Very critical and most likely going to point out loud your mistakes to the whole world. Because of this there’s always a cloud of doubt in their mind whether they can do it and as a result they tend to falter. I guess this is a huge reason why Rory tends to appreciate Persuasive MCs a lot. They never have gotten approval from anyone so whenever they receive encouragement they tend to lap it up.
EDIT: Now watch me eat my words as Gower starts to bash on my head cannons 
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Rory do know their culture, they just tend to attribute Shakespeare quotes to Beowulf. I would argue that their dump stat to be Skullduggery instead. They are bad at disguises and ruses after all.
Maybe they have do have low Persuade too. Then again, it could just be that Aunt Primrose is someone who’s terribly difficult to convince. 
I want to take a crack at the other ROs too, just for funsies.
(Do take note that I see myself as having low Observe and thus I could be very wrong. Also, spoilers under all these summaries.)
Tally Ho
Frankincense - Soothing, low Skullduggery and Persuade, high Culture and Intellect. They are the peacemaker and the most honest character in the cast. They have strong conviction in their causes but are short-sighted and cannot see that it takes a lot more than that to persuade people. They are also well-read but do not know peafowls are from India, though, so I’d also say that their Culture is slightly higher than Intellect.
Valentine - Jack of all trades with higher Persuade/Bold? Maybe it’s an actor thing but I can’t pinpoint how Val’s build will go. Let’s just say that whatever choices they make, they’ll always get the middling outcomes.
Haze - Abrasive, but not exceedingly so. They tend to needle people and make them (the people) wonder if they are being insulted, after all. High Intellect and Skullduggery, as befits a sneak-thief. But honestly, I think that they are at a low point in Tally Ho and it… muddles things.
Jolly Good
Gilberto - Abrasive! High Bold! Good enough Intellect! One cannot survive a day as a MID agent without all of these! He’ll probably challenge you to a sword duel if you disagree. But, seeing how he tend to trust his gut over evidence: low Observe.
Fitzie - High Intellect and Skullduggery, just like their ex-employer. They are rated as the third smartest in the Noble Gases by Paige, after all. Low Observe as well, as they can’t read MC’s cues and can easily mistake them as something else (need I remind you all of fitziecrush?). Doubly so if they see MC as a pushover.
Vyv - Soothing, high Culture and Persuade but low Bold. My favourite Vyv moment in the game is when they managed to convince Officer Buckle that the Gases do have permission to hold the boxing/dining competition in the arena by claiming that Merle is a sea bird. If that’s not an indicator of high Persuade, I don’t know what is. The other three stats are self-explanatory enough, I hope.
Tabby - High Skullduggery and Observe but it’s hidden under a Soothing presence and high stress. I would say she’s nudging towards being Abrasive by the epilogue of Cakes and Ale though.
This makes more sense than my interpretation! I’ll concur to your points.
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As much as I like to poke fun at Rory for their general ridiculousness, I do agree that they can actually be pretty smart! I think in the first chapter the MC can even mention how Rory is “clever enough but lacks confidence, especially in the presence of their aunt” or something to that effect, which definitely fits in line with the point you’re making. Further thoughts plopped inside a summary because I got, uh, wordy.
Rory Rambling
That said, I still don’t know if I’d pick Intellect as their highest stat. I think I’d bet more on Observe, because of how they read people fairly well (like with MC’s non-verbal cues during dinner at Ritornello) and are usually emotionally in-tune to others. But then again… they seem to completely fail to recognise an MC dressed in a Professor Hickory or Light-Fingered Lou disguise, so they’re probably not that observant either, really.
Actually, now that I think about it, Rory might be sort of… mid-range at quite a few stats but not outstanding at any specific one? They’ve got enough Bold to happily participate in odd shenanigans, but not enough to ride a horse without quickly feeling exhausted; enough Culture to know (albeit misquote) lots of literary references, but not enough to aid their troubling sense of fashion; enough Intellect to read through Professor Hickory’s book and understand it, but not enough to recall why a good gamble could ever go wrong.
I do think Skullduggery and Persuade would be their lowest, though. They’re not a very crafty person, and can be ineloquent/verbally clumsy when trying to get their point (or intentions, requests, feelings, etc.) across.
@Greyscales I agree pretty much entirely with what you’ve written for the other ROs, and you summed up anything I might’ve said better than I could have! The single point I’d argue is that Fitzie actually strikes me as pretty observant? Maybe it’s just the way I read it, but them developing a crush following some of the MCs actions didn’t feel like Fitzie was misinterpreting them — rather, they just seem to latch quickly onto even brief hints of affection, despite knowing that to be “the kind of thing that gets them sacked.”
Plus, they have more than a couple of lines about correctly reading the MC’s thoughts/noticing stuff in their expression. They do sometimes seem to play at being unobservant, like when they act purposefully obtuse around an interested MC or pretend not to hear what was said if the answer isn’t the one they want, but on the whole I think they tend to notice things a great deal!
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Don’t worry I’m not observant myself either so let’s be low observe people together 
( that’s sounds much more rude typed out then when I thought about it in my head).
I forgot about that plus, Rory does quote some literature during their conversation with the MC once they realized that the MC and Frankincense were in love with each other.
But, I tend to forget that culture means quotations and genre savvy as I tend to equate that stat with also with eloquence with words since if you don’t have high persuade you can still pass a skill check using high culture.
Now that you mention it that could be the case with Rory. They don’t particularly stand out with anything but they do have enough stats to pass everything. Rory’s worst stat is definitely skullduggery they can be clumsy at times and they’re not particularly eloquent either. But I do notice that Rory is how ever not as low persuade as you think since Rory under non- stressful situation can explain things fairly well especially to the TH! MC when they were explaining why they think Professor Hickory’s book is garbage
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Hiya! I’ve been a fan since Tally Ho and I only now made a forum account so I can get in on the Tea and Scones hype as it’s being written. Heh. I do wonder about Haze’s characterization - my “canon” ending for Tally Ho is Haze having a more honest job and MC encouraging them to see a psychiatrist. The line about MC loving Haze through good and bad days still gives me warm fuzzy feelings. So on one hand I’m excited for more Haze content, but on the other I’m a teensy bit apprehensive about them being a sponsor who seems up to no good :’)
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Hi! I’m so glad you’ve joined the fun! And don’t worry–I’ve got you covered on that Haze ending. I do have to add one question to the “questionaire” that starts Cakes and Ale to make sure that I set a variable for the “reforming Haze” ending of Tally Ho, but I promise I won’t forget, and I’ll work to make sure sure that ending is acknowledged and creates some interesting wrinkles in the plot as it develops throughout the next games.
…but that apprehension is probably well placed. It’s a healthy apprehension. After all, you just did make Haze the sponsor of your club. But I’m sure it will all turn out just fine.
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I personally think that Rory is a fairly smart character, the line where the MC mentions that Rory isn’t a dumb character is evidence (although it can be fairly biased since it’s from the MCs POV)
The reason why I’m betting that Rory is pretty smart comes from my own Jolly Good MC. She’s really smart (her intellect is quite high as it’s 70) but despite having very good stats in intellect she can do very dumb things due to a lack of confidence in herself + being a particularly meek character. (In RL though it’s probably my fault as this is my FIRST time having my MC’s highest stat be Intellect 
).
The Rory essay
Another thing I’d like to argue regarding Rory’s intelligence is probably because in RL it’s pretty hard to gauge a person’s intelligence as it’s not always as straightforward as it is in movies and books. When most people think of smart you tend to think of them as someone who can solve problems almost instantaneously and can spout incomprehensible smart talk using high-level words. But, as much as it’s true we tend to disregard any other types of intelligence which do not fall into this category. Personally, I see Rory as someone who’s lack of eloquence becomes extremely detrimental to them. Leading most people to extremely underestimate them. Because they can’t express their thoughts properly nor quickly (due to either lack of vocabulary to express their words well or filtering their thoughts for too long) they can be viewed as fairly ditzy or slow by most people.
An example I can see of this in-game is when the MC successfully persuaded Rory to read Hickory’s book as Primrose was extremely surprised to see Rory successfully told Primrose how much they hate the book she gave them. Primrose while saw Rory’s potential CLEARLY underestimated them and so when Rory surprised them she was clearly pleased that they’re not as much as a blockhead as they are.
I also have an IRL example of this (specifically it happened to me)
Random Life experience talk
There was this one time when I was grouped together with a group of classmates I wasn’t particularly close with when doing an assignment. While we were doing the assignment one of my classmates asked the group what was the answer to a question was. Since I knew the answer I explained it to him how to solve it and he was clearly surprised at me since he said to me right in front of my face “wow, you’re surprisingly smart”. We’re not particularly close but I find this experience to be fairly interesting as people do set up certain expectations so when you exceed it they tend to be very surprised as it does not align with what they thought about you in their minds. Up to this day, I STILL don’t know whether I should be offended or take it as a compliment
I also think that the only way we can gauge Rory’s intelligence is by truly looking at their mental process as a way you can truly gauge a person’s intellect is by looking deep into their psyche and successfully dissect their thought processes. This is exactly why so many people trash Kirito from SAO. Most people only see him from the anime which doesn’t show his thought processes and in the anime, he’s shown to be a complete mary-sue who is only there to be cool and be the audience surrogate self insert. But, If you read the LN you’d be surprised at how much of a sarcastic nerd he can be. The amount of personality Kirito has in the LN compared to the anime is so huge that I kinda find the anime to be an insult to Kirito’s character (although the writer can do much better). But unfortunately, we’re human so we can’t EXACTLY READ people’s minds so… (though I’d argue that since this is a text-based interactive fiction we can peer into Rory’s mind much more effectively).
Though it can be argued that Rory is meant to be a jack-of-all-trades character as Rory in-game is stated to be a character who has TONS of potential so I wouldn’t be surprised if they have fairly stable stats.
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Plot twist : Rory knows that it was the MC in the Prof. Hickory outfit but they just decided to tease them by pretending that they don’t know it’s not them. But , they decided to drop it once they realized that it was probably a very mean thing to do and decided to have a heart-to-heart with the MC especially if Rory’s crushing on them
Another plot twist : I just realized that you were talking about Fitzie NOT Rory and I have to agree they are more observant and smarter than they look. Another interesting thing I noticed when interacting with them is that as much as Fitzie can be very cold (if that’s the correct term for them) they latch on to people surprisingly quick to those who seem to like them and it’s possibly because they were abandoned as a baby as a result they needs reassurance (like Haze and Rory) that you’re not going to abandon them like so many people do.
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I might just weep, it’s awesome to hear that you’re still considering little details like that! Thank you for the response. In my head, my highly proper, soothing TH MC will have some strong Opinions about Haze’s club activities.
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Ha, I feel like that’s the main thing I do, is consider little details and corner cases and weird little cul-de-sacs that .01% of players will reach! That’s my favorite.
Progress today is great–I’m definitely going to hit my goal today. I’m in total romance mode.
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Sorry to pry but can you give us more details about this? 
Sure, and I’ll put it in a spoiler tag.
Summary
I’m writing love notes that the ROs have left for the MC if the romance is progressing in chapter one. It’s been really fun writing them in the different voices. Some of them are funny, some are sweet, some are sexy, and some are perplexing. Some are a combination.
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I’m guessing that’s just Fitzie 
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Wait… when does the game talks about Fitzie’s former employer ? 
I think Greyscales is talking about Haze being Fitzie’s ex exployer! Well, technically it’s Haze’s mom, Lady Vanessa Vermillion. It’s mentioned when you and Fitzie talk about his letters of condemnation, right before attempting to steal them from the Cadbury Club.
Spoiler tagged, just in case!
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