1838

Either way is fine by me, though if you respond instead of DMing you’ll be informing anyone else who has that question. And yeah, I was a bit surprised at the end (and at the supernatural training, even if that one gets interrupted regardless) when your choices are “yes” or “no”, when so far the author had given us very clear “yes”, "no, “no, because” options (there’s even multiple “no because” answers over the desire for a deeper relationship).
Definitely M-mancer - not only do I find the flirting lines hilarious, M actually has the best romance arc so far, imo (i.e., getting M to realise that it’s possible to have feelings other than in your pants)*. F’s also great, because F is great at everything, and it’s the more smooth love path that you play to relax. N’s a tamer path, but it doesn’t work as well for me because the way I play the detective ends up with him being nearly identical to N in personality. I find A’s suffers a bit** on the count that you spend one and a half books with them repeatedly going “feelings are bad and I’m going to bury them deep until they go away”, which is particularly egregious right now as 1.5 books is 75% of available content. That problem should be alleviated as more books come out, and it DOES have an amazing B2 ending sequence (second-best to F’s).

EDIT: I also like that M is the one that most stands up for you as an independent individual (they’re the ones who can tell A and N that it should be you choosing the type of training, and they’re the ones that agree that you’re the best choice to talk to Falk, while all the other romances have them saying it0s a bad idea) AND that they seem to be the most concerned about consent (something that the game handles well with everyone), possibly because the author felt more important to showcase that with the character that has the bad girl/boy role of the group. But yes, M, we’ve been getting each other’s hormones on fire for one and a half books, heavily flirting for half a book, and I just invited you sit on my lap, you can DEFINITELY turn around to face me.

*M also has the most dangling plotlines in general - everyone has a romance plotline and a past plotline (shown in the mirrors), but M’s past plotlines is actually two (getting their memory back, and then dealing with those memories), and then there’s the pheromones thing.

**It does get you the spider plant scene, which is absolutely hilarious. I wish there was a B1 scene where you notice she deformed the filing cabinet, for a more thorough running joke, but alas.

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1839

This is pretty much my entire ranking for the whole team as well, M and F ftw. I only use one MC for all my play throughs and he just seems to connect the best with M. F is also just great with him, he actually started out as an attempt to see how close I could make a character to F. N I also really like, and I never run into that problem that people seem to have that their relationship is “too perfect.” I think that undercurrent of tension is what keeps me interested. I haven’t done a play through for A yet, cause it’s not really up my alley. Not a huge slow burn guy. Eventually though, I’m gonna get to it. LT, we just don’t talk about.

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1840

I had a huge problem getting invested in A’s, because it’s one and a half books of her hitting the EXACT SAME KEY, and right now 1.5 books is a HUGE part of the available content. I feel it really picks up at the night at the warehouse, though, and has a great B2 ending. Also, the plant scene is great - it might be one of my favourite scenes in the series, and it makes me giggle like a teenage schoolgirl every time I picture the sequence. It includes what might be the best F tease.

The N romance is, probably, going to be all class and love until it hits her particular “snag”, which I suspect is going to be a Dark Phoenix kind of thing - an extra personality that’s lurking around in there. It helps explain WHY N needs more blood than everyone else (they’re drinking for two), why they have two power tiers, why they seem more vulnerable to going haywire from the detective’s blood at the end of B1, why they don’t feel guilty in the mirror scene, AND (and this is important) it makes her saying she never killed anyone by her own hand NOT disingenious claptrap - if it isn’t another personality running the show in the ship slaughter, then odds are N pheromone’d the sailors into murdering each other, which, while technically not killing by her own hand, is eeeehhhhhh…

I actually have a save for the LT, but I can’t replay it for B2, let alone carry it into B3. I feel immensely skeevy at parts, and A’s “I wish I were the only one” in the hospital after the Sanja rescue is such a huge gutpunch that I just absolutely can’t.

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1841

Hey guys, @marimerspace @JBento

I saw your convo about Mason/Morgan’s route and I decided to check the game’s code for you so you don’t have to potentially wait super long for Sera to answer your ask. That is, if she even answers it at all, since I assume she receives a ridiculously huge amount of asks daily considering the popularity of the series, and she can’t possibly have the time to answer everything in her inbox.

So, hopefully my response answers your question, but if you need any further info or want me to check something else, feel free to tag me and I’ll get back to you! I also hope I’ve correctly understood which scene you’re referring to. I’m not that into Mason/Morgan as a LI hence why I’ve played through their route only a couple of times, so my memories of scenes from it are a bit hazy, but I do believe I’m thinking for the correct scene! With all of that being said, let’s get into it.

So… the haunted house. Mason/Morgan is being their usual self, they get the horny™, they wanna do the horizontal with the detective, you know the drill. According to the code, if you accept their proposition in this scene and you HAVEN’T kissed them or done anything else with them prior to this chapter, the game only seems to note and record for your save file that:

  1. You have now canonically kissed Mason/Morgan, in addition to remembering this as the chapter in which you have your first kiss with them
  2. That you have now canonically had sex with Mason/Morgan in Book Two

There are no other variables that get changed if you take the choice that leads to you doing the horizontal with them in this scene (or should I say the vertical, since I assume the MC and Mason/Morgan do it against the wall or something, not on on the dirty floor of a carnival attraction). :rofl: Meaning that the variable that tracks whether you’ve expressed that you want a deeper relationship with them remains unchanged. So if you’ve rejected their very first proposition in Chapter Ten and told them that you want more than just sex, the game still remembers that, even if you do decide to have sex with them in the haunted house scene!

If I understand it correctly, this should presumably mean Mason/Morgan is still aware that your MC has a desire for a deeper relationship with them (provided you told them that in Chapter Ten when they first proposition the detective), except now you’ve also had sex with them so uh… it’s even more complicated than it already was??? :rofl: I suppose the only thing we can do is wait and see how this particular combination of choices plays out in Book Three. But yeah, point is: worry not, the game still remembers that you’ve expressed that you want something more with Mason/Morgan if you made that choice!

Uhhm, I’m sort of bad at explaining stuff, so I hope I’ve managed to explain all this in a way that makes sense and is not incomprehensible gibberish. In addition, I also very much hope I haven’t misunderstood your question and subsequently inadvertently ended up writing out this long explanation for the wrong thing or scene or whatever. :rofl: But as I said, feel free to tag me if you have any further questions, want me to look into anything else in the code or if I need to clarify something in general! :smiley:

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1842

Nope, you got it exactly right. Thanks for taking the time and the trouble! Much appreciated!

We still don’t know what the consequences are for B3, but it DOES mean that now we know it might be worth it to do two M romance playthroughs in B2 to carry forward to B3 - one where you turn them down, and another where you take them up. Oh no, I’m going to have to see more M, how… terrible :smirk:

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1843

No problem, I’m glad I could help! :smiley:

I should have probably added this in my previous reply as well, but I feel the need to point this out just in case: to you and anyone else that read it, please feel free to take what I said with a grain of salt. What I stated is factual since I directly referenced the code of the game, however there’s no way to really know how much of a difference it will make.

While the variable that remembers your choice of wanting something more with Mason/Morgan doesn’t get changed by the choices to sleep with them AFTER the first time they proposition you and you reject them for that reason, who knows if it will actually end up mattering? Since you’re kind of contradicting yourself and your initial choice to say that you want to have a deeper relationship with them before you have sex with them. :laughing: :laughing:

Sera has gone pretty crazy (in the best possible way) with the variation and branching in Book Three, so I feel pretty confident in saying that there will probably be at least some difference from a MC that says that they want more than just sex with Mason/Morgan and sticks to their decision not to sleep with them until an official relationship or a declaration of feelings or whatever, but still… Just something to keep in mind, because I didn’t want to unintentionally mislead anyone that reads my previous post, I would feel bad if I did. :sweat_smile: :sweat_smile: :sweat_smile:

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1844

I think it was quite clear, which is why I went with “hmm, probably going to have to make two saves of the M path”. If that’s how the flags are set, there’s probably going to B3 differences between a detective that both said they wanted something deeper AND did the deed at the end (M:“Well, I thought you’d changed your mind”) and one that wanted something deeper and turned them down at the end.

I STILL think it’s weird there’s no option at the end to go “no, because” (or, if there is, it isn’t mentioned in the options)

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1845

I really enjoyed all of the romance routes almost equally, (Even the love triangle). My favorite route is actually A’s. (A is the kind of person I’m attracted to in real life which concerns all of my friends.) I think a lot of A’s path is more subtle though, and I actually really appreciate the tiny details that show the progression. I actually don’t necessarily mind how long they’re avoiding their feelings because its a long series, and the detective has really only known the vampires for a few months. A few months really isn’t very long for A to work through 900+ years of emotional baggage.

My next favorite is probably M’s for a lot of the same reasons that you mentioned, and M’s was the first route I played through multiple times. M is also probably my favorite best friend route as well. Now I have multiple detectives for each route. I tend to stick with my main 4 for replays, the others are just so I can see variations that I would never get playing my main detectives in character. (The exception to this is actually A’s route- the ‘soulmates’ vibe worked so well that playing that path with anyone other the detective I originally paired with him feels wrong.)

F’s is probably next for me because F is just so cute, but the marigin between the last three routes is so small. (Like I said above I liked them almost equally). I mean F is cute anyway, but even cuter on their romance path, and I love just how much visably happier they around around a detective they are in a romance with. My main F-mancer is still holding out on a relationship though which annoys me sometimes.

I generally don’t care for love triangles, but I thought I’d go for it, just to play through every path, and I ended up really liking it. The writer in me really appreciated the way it was written. Also just the drama and angst is gonna be so good.

N’s was probably my least favorite, but not because it feels too perfect as seems to be common. I actually agree that they are enough subtle warning signs to keep me from getting that feeling. The only reason I would rank this path last is because, I am a lot like a more sarcastic version of N, so because I see so much of myself in the character that makes romancing them a little wierd for me, but I can usually get immersed enough in the story not to let it bother me.

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1846

Yeah, this is really important. Like I said, I think the biggest reason why A is currently my least favourite romance is that it uses up 75% of the current content in pretty much the same state, which is something that will be much alleviated as more books come out.

I think it says a lot about me that my two favourite scenes of the N romance (excepting the B2 ending, with the kiss in the Ferris wheel which starts the relationship) are:

  • at the warehouse when M says she doubts N’s intentions towards the detective are honourable and you can answer “I hope they aren’t”
  • in the lead-up to the sewer raid, when N tells M they have “taken steps” and M basically goes “omfg, get ON with it”
    I don’t WHAT it says exactly, but I’m pretty sure it says a lot of whatever it does say.

I’m going to gush about F a bit - I still find it incredibly telling that F, being by far the least powerful of the Bravos, is the ONLY one that actually sends the kiwi Alphas reeling when they start sniffing around you. And they’re an absolutely adorable chaos raiser in every situation.

One of the advantages of playing all the romances is that you can see how the different Bravos react to the same situation, which might be the best way to inform about their personalities. As an additional example, M is the only one that after they snap out of the mirror house trance checks on you. I’d say this was because their amnesia means they’re the least affected by the experience, if it were not for the fact that they’re in an absolute PANIC that you might have been harmed.

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1847

My things was there was no way to turn her down and make some sort of funny comment or give her some big romantic gesture, like you can when M gets hurt by the Trappers. I definitely agree that I hope there’s a difference between those who turn them down completely and those who haven’t but still want something more. You can already kinda see that with the line from M in the demo when you say you want something more “after what we’ve already done?”

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1848

Ahh!!! I cannot wait! This is my favorite CoG series.

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1849

Yeah, there’s a huge difference between “No, I don’t want to have sex with you” and “I want to have sex with you BUT not if that’s all it’s going to be”. I’d go so far as to argue that’s a bigger difference than between “yes” and “no”.
And I can’t see that in the demo because I haven’t played it - I just know that if I do it’s going to make the wait for the full release even harder. It’s bad enough that my favourite romance is M’s instead of the smoother ones of F or N, my masochism has limits. :laughing:

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1850

My favorite is probably N😂! I just love how sweet he is. But honestly, all of them are cute and awesome! I don’t play the love triangle, cause I don’t like pulling the boys apart when I could just play both roots separately

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1851

Am I the only one who hopes Murphy escapes in a later book so the Detective can have a rematch?
I’d like to make him pay for Garret Hayes’ death.

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1852

I’m not sure “hope” is the word. I have literally zero doubt notMurphy will be making a reappearance. If you capture him, it’s specifically mentioned he gets transported to a different facility across the country, which doesn’t strike me as having a narrative purpose other than making sure he’s not within striking distance of the detective after an escape. That means you can’t immediately start hunting for him and lets the author build tension far more effectively than him being able to come for you immediately.

For similar reasons, I have zero doubt that the caging at the nearby facility is going to fail at one point: there’s not much narrative use in having a non-nebulous jail full of superpowered murderers if not to either have a prison riot when the characters are there or a prison break when they are not (alternatively, someone you care about - mum, one or more of the Bravos - is going to get imprisoned there and you’ll have to break them out).

Also, your lack of thought for Janet Greenland makes me sad. Poor Janet. :pensive:

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1853

I’m pretty sure the author said on tumblr that Murphy will reappear in a future book. The answer makes me think the detective will definitely get a rematch.

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1854

I was just about to link that exact same ask as well, but you beat me to it. :smiley: :blush:

I’m extremely curious to see how Murphy will reappear if he was captured in Book One.

I mean, if he escaped, obviously he’s somewhere out there roaming free and can attempt to come back whenever to try to take revenge for Unit Bravo ruining his plan and rescuing his intended bloodbag for the foreseeable future, aka our beloved detective. :laughing:

But how will he come back if he was captured? He’s supposed to be in one of those mental torture cages Rebecca shows us in the first book, right? Because if so, him reappearing despite being imprisoned would imply that either someone frees him (unlikely, in my opinion) or that the imprisonment method of The Agency is somehow going to fail, the implications of which are… kinda horrifying. :sweat_smile:

Though, since I did mention The Agency’s imprisonment method failing, I also wanna say that I’ve personally had a hunch/suspicion for the longest time that this is something that may actually happen later on in the series and may be a major plot point. :face_with_monocle: :face_with_monocle: :face_with_monocle: Can you imagine all these extremely dangerous supernatural rogues escaping while our detective is just out there existing with their tasty, tempting blood? :scream: :scream: It would be a disaster of the highest proportion, pretty much. :sweat_smile:

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1855

Sounds like a perfect book five plot device to me :wink:

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1856

My vote? It’s going to be a one-two punch combo. Caging facilities all over get sabotaged, resulting in a world-wide escape, sending the Agency into chaos. You spend a considerable amount of time (an entire book?) corralling the Wayhaven escapees.

  • If not!Murphy escaped, he’s the one responsible for the prison breaks. With the Agency weakened and in disarray, he hopes to make use of the opportunity to get to the Detective.
  • If not!Murphy was captured, you get a call to go to the warehouse, where you find mum and the Bravos supertense and looking at you worriedly, and the VERY LAST SENTENCE of the book is someone telling you “Murphy has escaped.”

As I said previously, there’s not much narrative point to having a non-nebulous containment facility filled with superpowered murderers if they’re not going to escape.

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1857

Exactly, yes! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: This is actually one of my main theories for what may happen during Book Five to make it into the angst fest that it’s supposed to be.

However, at the same time I feel like there may be a hole in this theory??? Sera has dropped certain hints that the detective and their LI are going to spend a significant amount of time apart during Book Five. One of the hints that she has dropped that come to mind at the moment is her saying that we’re going to spend a lot more time with Tina and Verda in Book Five compared to the rest of the books. As a side note, please forgive me for not wanting to deal with with Tumblr’s terrible search engine in order to find the specific ask where she says this. :joy: And idk, at least I personally sort of interpret this as a subtle implication that we’ll be spending a lot more time with them than usual because Unit Bravo aren’t going to be around?

But point is, if The Agency’s imprisonment method fails or gets sabotaged somehow in in Book Five, shouldn’t it be the other way round, as in the detective basically having to be constanly glued to Unit Bravo’s side so they can protect the MC? :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: That’s the main thing that makes me skeptical of this theory. Or at least, it makes me skeptical that it’s going to happen during Book Five specifically. As for the other books tho… I think it may still be on the table as a possible plotline. :thinking: :face_with_monocle:

I lowkey feel like this post sounds like the ramblings of a crazy person. :joy: Who knows, I may be interpreting things completely wrong, but it’s fun to discuss theories and such, so fuck it, I’m just gonna post my inane ramblings. :joy:

Yep, pretty much, you said it best! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: Completely agree with you here. :face_with_monocle:

During the scene in Book One where Rebecca is showing us those mental torture cages, I feel as if Sera was trying to tell me: “Look at all these extremely dangerous and powerful rogue supernaturals. They’ve killed dozens of people. It sure would be a shame if they were to one day somehow end up escaping…” :joy:

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