tl;cr meme

[marriagebroker]

post your character, people reply, give them the deets. you know how this goes.

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[researcherstory]

go ahead then

[phenomerom]

Since my brain is still chugging through the remainders of Rom's stupid 4d chess logic, here I am to yap about his thoughts on lovely Miss Odile.

To start with -- Rom really did like Odile from the start! And not just because her being a no-nonsense older lady made him think of his Master back home. Yes, the semblance did put him a bit more at ease than a lot of other people did, because Mitsue is basically the singular loved one he's managed to retain in his life -- despite some previous strife and conflict driving a rift between them for a while, Rom loves and cares for her a lot! But even setting aside that semblance, I think they settled into a pattern of conversation that Rom found quite comfortable. When it comes to interpersonal interactions, Rom's most accustomed to things like banter and the gentle push-and-pull of him being his usual self and getting side-eyed or rebuked; while he doesn't find any intrinsic gratification in people treating him with suspicion, he does find satisfaction in that very rote sort of interaction, it's basically his usual form of enrichment! Odile really hit the perfect balance of being a little dubious and stern towards him, but never turning him away completely, making her a great target for enrichment. Not to mention -- she raised some subjects that Rom found genuinely fascinating, like her complete disbelief in ghosts and spirits. Truly a wonderful conversation partner!

But that was that, and the game was the game. And this where I need to don my clown makeup as usual.

To reiterate the usual song and dance as succinctly as possible: Rom's approach coming into AYTO was entirely cynical and strategic, as he was working under the assumption there was a zero percent chance he was meant to find any sort of normal, organic romance. Thus, Rom immediately got to work trying to figure out which fellow outliers in the group the production must have matched him with in very 'pair the spares' fashion while the more television-friendly ones got to enjoy the spotlight. For the record, he had no negative feelings about taking this approach for himself, because Rom is very aware of what he is and how he presents himself; he knows full well that he's not really the sort of person palatable to the wider public as 'a person you'd want to root for in a romantic context,' and simply considered his approach the most efficient way of playing his part in winning them the game and getting those wishes fulfilled.

However, that doesn't mean Rom is equally callous about applying that same mindset to the other players he'd have to consider his match candidates. Rom is shown to have been painfully conscious from a very young age that he is someone 'other.' So I think he always tends to draw a very sharp line between what is meant to happen for him, and what is meant to happen for others. And while he is perfectly fine with making relatively cold, and sometimes almost cruel conclusions about what is fitting for him, he's also extremely soft-hearted and empathetic by nature -- he would balk at coming to those same cold conclusions for people other than himself, because they are not 'other' like he is.

One of the reasons Messmer was his immediate top candidate was because he felt that cynically evaluating Messmer as someone 'the production might have considered worthy of pairing off with me' was less cruel than it would be if he applied the same thought to other people. Like, no, he still wasn't in any rush to say out loud that he thought Messmer was as incompatible with the game as he was, on as generally ill-suited to deeper human connections as he is. But he at least felt that Messmer's obviously inhuman appearance and his dour personality would have made it an obvious conclusion (see: Poppy's "they match each other's freak" comment validating him), thus not something he needed to feel as bad about thinking. Everyone other than Messmer, though ... that'd be a whole 'nother ballpark.

This sets the stage for the second match ceremony.

On the most surface level, Rom meant his 'sorry' upon going up on stage with Odile as a 'sorry you had to be paired up as a leftover.' Nobody likes feeling unwanted, after all. And while he knew on a rational level that not being chosen wasn't necessarily any reflection of one's desirability and charm (see: both Luka and Serpilia going unchosen during that first ceremony when Rom would have evaluated them both as objectively extremely desirable people) ... it still feels bad, you know? Rom's spent most of his life being rejected by people (his family, then polite society) to varying degrees; it's not something he'd wish upon other people to any degree.

But honestly, what Rom meant more was that he thought there was probably a really good chance that they'd be a match up on stage ... a notion he harbored with some guilt, because he would have considered it an unkind conclusion to draw about Odile. Though he did think there was a very good chance production might have labeled Odile as an outlier like him, I think in his mind, that categorization would have happened for very different reasons. For himself, it would have been obvious -- he presents himself as a Freak, and so he is obviously an outlier, it is only logical for the production to categorize him as such. But for Odile, it seemed much more a result of happenstance -- Odile is generally charming and easy to get along with, and if she happened to get shuffled into the outlier category, it would have been more as a result of her personal discomfort with the game setting (given she'd self-professed to feeling a bit out of sorts, e.g. really hesitating to participate in spin the bottle, etc.) and bad luck (not stumbling onto good chemistry with others yet.) In other words, he thought it would have been a very plausible but also unfair reality, if Odile was put on the same level as him.

Hence, 'My apologies.' It was basically him preemptively apologizing in case he happened to be right, because he would have thought she didn't deserve that treatment.

Of course, that didn't end up happening in the end! And while the blackout of that round sure did put Rom into a bit of a bad mental state by completely throwing him off-course, I do think a part of him was a little relieved. The blackout confirmed to him that Odile hadn't been treated that cruelly by the game's algorithm. It admittedly put him a lot more at ease being around her after that. And even if a little bit of the guilt lingers from how he thinks he'd drawn a rather cold conclusion about her in the beginning, I think Rom was able to let go of a lot of that entering the later weeks of the game, when he was made to realize that wow, hey, maybe his cynical approach to the game wasn't correct in the first place.

So, setting aside all of his 4d chess -- Rom really did end up liking Odile a lot as they neared the end of the game! Without having to worry about his cynical game-focused calculus, he could better just appreciate her company like he enjoyed in the first place, which is nice! Admittedly, he doesn't really know how to handle it when Odile puts him on the spot -- things like ambush compliments, or calling him adorable(????????????????) -- but that's okay. Feeling flustered and awkward is very unfamiliar to him given people generally just can't get him on the back foot like that, so he has to respect Odile's ability to do it, ad he also knows that she doesn't mean it cruelly, so. He can endure it just for her! Worth it to get to pick her brain! And while I think a part of him does wish that Odile's match had turned out a little differently for her, he also gets the sense that she got something quite gratifying out of the game in the end, so who is he to say anything about it? So long as Odile is satisfied with the conclusion, he's happy for her!

As they depart the game, I do think that Odile is someone Rom will pester now and again through texts -- she really hit a comfortable cadence of conversation for him, and I think he'd really value her input when it comes to certain subjects (incl. maybe how to 'court' Edamura ... maybe ....) And of course, he'd want to make sure she's doing well out there -- he can't imagine it'd be easy on her watching over both Yingying and Yi Sang. Whenever her visit to his world does happen he'll do his utmost to make it a nice, relaxing, indulgent vacation for her!