#018
First, according to the game settings, you could only raise romantic favorability (limited to romance-eligible targets) after filling general favorability to 100%, but with Carlisle, even raising general favorability had an incredibly high difficulty level.
Everyone tried it alone, all failed, and came to the forums looking for strategy guides, but no one had succeeded in conquering him. Everyone poured out their rage, cursing the developers and asking whether they wanted us to conquer him or not. At this rate, everyone agreed that conquering Carlisle would be the very last thing remaining even after finishing the main ending, sub-stories, and hidden stories.
As the forums burned daily with laments and fury that Carlisle was an impregnable fortress, even many homophobic male users who claimed to be hardcore players but refused to do “gay stuff” began actively attempting his route. But they too ultimately all met the ending of complaining about difficulties and condemning the developers’ failure to adjust difficulty.
At this point, I couldn’t help but be interested.
“What the hell is so difficult about this?”
Actually, when the Carlisle conquest boom was just starting, I wasn’t particularly interested in romance simulation with male NPCs. This game originally allowed romantic pursuits regardless of race and gender, but even so, romance simulation with male characters somehow felt repulsive.
Moreover, even though Carlisle was included as a romance-eligible NPC, he had no separate story outside of romance events and wasn’t involved in the main story, so there was no need to get involved with him.
Of course, I had played through all the romance simulations with female characters. I wasn’t quite a hardcore player, but as a user with my own affection for this game, I wanted to see all the background stories and events that each romance target NPC had.
In the same context, I was curious about male NPCs’ stories and events, but the excessively detailed and elegant screen illustrations actually held me back. Not only dating, proposal, and wedding events, but also embraces and sweet conversations in married life afterward, kisses, and even implications of sex life – the descriptions and sound effects of those scenes were quite explicit.
No matter how much it was a game and characters, there was something repulsive about watching my character kiss a man filling the entire monitor. Hardcore players might mock it as over-immersion, but that’s how I was anyway.
However, when the forums were plastered with Carlisle’s name day after day, I finally decided to take on the challenge and went all-in on conquering Carlisle, putting other quests aside. (To avoid having too much time taken away, I tried to memorize “101 Things You Must Not Say or Do When Conquering Carlisle” from the forums, but following that left almost nothing you could do, so I gave up after reading about a third.) And I was soon bewildered.
“What exactly is supposed to be difficult?”
Among other main NPCs, there were some with quirky personalities or ones who seemed easygoing but had unexpected preferred gifts or dialogue. If anything, they were more difficult. Of course, Carlisle was also in the prickly personality category, so he did make quite irritating remarks early on.
But not long after, when his favorability went up, he changed so much you’d wonder if he was a flirting expert. He constantly threw sweet and ticklish lines while giving off embarrassing gazes and expressions through the screen, making me scratch my arms and sides several times while playing the game.
The expressions and gazes were implemented so realistically and in such detail that it really felt like dating a game character. I might be mocked for over-immersion, but when Carlisle stared at me intently through the monitor, I unconsciously turned bright red and had to fan myself with my hands.
Honestly, I had never seriously worried about my sexual orientation. Since most people are heterosexual, I lived thinking I would be too, but I had never really fallen for or had my heart flutter for either men or women.
If I was like this, I wondered what heterosexual women or homosexual men would be like. Regardless of whether conquest was possible or not, this was enough to set the forums ablaze.
Even for dating, proposal, and kiss scenes, each scene had effort put into it to a degree where you’d think other NPCs weren’t quite like this. Petals flew during the day, starlight sparkled at night, and high-quality OST that made your heart flutter was inserted. Especially the kiss scene! Was it really necessary to direct that scene in slow motion and close-up filling the entire screen?
Anyway, I succeeded in the conquest while scratching my arms red.
I usually only occasionally looked at forums and didn’t really like posting directly, but since everyone was making such a fuss about no one succeeding, I simply captured the wedding scene and posted it on the forum with the content “Carlisle Conquest Success.” The forum immediately went into chaos.
– ????
– It’s manipulated, right?
– Photoshopped?
– That’s supposed to be my prickly man Carlisle?
– My Carlisle doesn’t know how to make expressions like that, where did you manipulate this?
– Oh ho, this friend knows how to handle Photoshop a bit
– What did you do? What gifts did you give? How did you flirt? Please post the conquest route in detail
It was a bit annoying to do something I’d never done before, but since I’d already dipped my toes in, I organized and posted the process as detailed as possible. I did capture and post scenes where fireworks went off every time events succeeded, but naturally I left out embarrassing scenes like kiss scenes.
As soon as I posted it, thank-you messages started coming as expected. But not long after, comments different from what I expected poured in, leaving me bewildered.
⌙ This is all bullshit I tried giving all those gifts Carlisle spat at me (Carlisle’s contemptuous expression.jpg)
⌙ 22222222
⌙ 333
⌙ 4444
⌙ 55555
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⌙ Really fucking scam don’t be fooled ㅅㅂ
⌙ Is it good to grab attention like this? Good?
⌙ Wow the capture is so realistic I thought it was real would you put this much effort into this? Live your real life like this
⌙ If you’re an attention seeker you’d put in this much effort look at the views ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
⌙ Fucking annoying reported
⌙ I’m reporting too
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After watching the endless stream of curses in bewilderment, I eventually deleted the post. Even after I deleted my post, new posts cursing at me kept pouring in. I was well aware that strange people who bite at you without reason were permanently stationed in communities (that’s why I rarely posted), but it was rare for everyone to unite and bite like this, so it was absurd.
It was incomprehensible, but if I posted anything more to prove myself in this situation, it would obviously all be treated as fake, so I just left the community. At worst, I’d probably get banned. Since I originally just occasionally browsed the forums anyway, it wasn’t much of a loss.
Anyway, I continued playing the game after this incident. The problem was that once you got married, interest in that NPC dropped completely. In reality, you’d get cursed out for this, but there was nothing you could do about it due to the game settings.
Just because you had a spouse didn’t mean you did housework together or farm work together, nor were there quests to do together. It just felt like you had gained one moving doll decoration.
The player was busy doing various quests, and the spouse NPC acted according to their original routine. Because of this, Carlisle’s married life setting itself was ambiguous. He was originally a character who didn’t stay in town for long periods. Normally, he should have been in a state worse than weekend couples, staying outside town for business reasons and only briefly coming in during autumn.
But something strange happened. Carlisle’s routine changed after marriage. He was a character who bustled around busily, but for some reason he started staying home longer.
While I hurriedly did farm work, he cleaned the house and prepared breakfast. And he stayed by my side until I left the house for quests, and when I returned home, he was already back at the house.
‘What’s this, was the marriage setting updated?’
Actually, playing the game sometimes made me strangely lonely. The more I played the game, the more it was like that. Early on, there was a lot to do, and constantly clearing endless quests seemed to keep dopamine bursting, so rather than feeling lonely, it was just fun. I kept calling for what’s next.
However, after finishing quests to some degree and completing all the worthwhile content after several years of in-game time, I suddenly felt desolate. Wealth accumulated and I developed affection for the town NPCs. But affection only developed on my side – they were just data fragments living their programmed lives mindlessly like hamsters in a wheel.
Game characters are just game characters. Naturally, relationships can’t progress further. Whether novels, movies, or dramas, only one-way relationships are possible with characters in virtual worlds.
Perhaps because he was updated last, Carlisle showed quite different aspects from other NPCs, but ultimately wasn’t much different. It was actually Carlisle who gave me reality shock. Was it because I was too immersed? I felt a strange loneliness toward Carlisle who was just mechanically affectionate.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
