writing your fave having sex with with their love interest is OUT writing your fave shamefully jerking off and coming pathetically fast at just the idea of fucking their love interest is IN
the power of soulmate AUs, they truly are the great unifier. you make one (1) single post about a soulmate AU and then suddenly you've infected other people and several of your friends are in your DMs breaking down alternate soulmate AU concepts (and it's a blast, we're all having a great time)
nothing but respect for our troops (smut writers) but listen. i dont want to be the person to tell you this, but not every character is going to be a dom or a sub. some people. and i know this is hard to hear. but some people do have vanilla sex. and some of those people might even be The Character.
one of the things that i really like about pillars is that the companions aren't just there for funsies and so you have people to help you in the combat encounters, they're actually integral to understanding the themes of the game as a whole. like, you cannot meaningfully talk about anything else happening in the game without also discussing what the companions have going on.
(obviously major spoilers ahead for... everything)
edér's entire companion quest line is, in some ways, a microcosm of the Whole Point™ of the game. he is a simple man from a farming town, born and raised into faith. all his life, he made choices that reflected what he believed his god would want from him—exactly as thaos teaches. and eventually, he finds out that maybe he was wrong. his brother, who he trusts, made a different choice, and it sends his entire life spiraling. his whole questline is trying to chase down answers that don't exist, because the question he's asking is was i wrong? did i make the wrong choice? and the only person who can answer that is him. not you, not eothas, not woden. just him.
aloth is a cautionary tale in and of himself. the stuff with iselmyr (which i could do a whole other post about lmao) isn't separate from the themes of his story with the leaden key—they're intertwined. aloth is someone who has sought an escape his entire life, and both iselmyr and the leaden key give him that, though only one is by choice. either way, his story is about abdicating control of his own life, allowing others to take the reins so that he doesn't have to bear responsibility for it, and refusing to ask the questions that might break the illusion of his own powerlessness until someone else does it for him. only then can he properly come into his own and decide what he thinks the world should look like.
durance is, as one would assume from his profession, extremely devout. his whole life is framed around his conception of magran and her teachings, and (despite how abrasive and unpleasant he is) it's super worth travelling with him and talking to him because he actually has a lot to say. as time passes, you learn a lot from him, and his exact role in the saint's war, the death of the god eothas, the purges of eothasian followers afterward, and how he ended up where he is. as we come to find out, his own goddess tried to kill him—she used him to create the godhammer and remove eothas as part of a conspiracy with the goddess woedica, and then she attempted to cover up her involvement by killing the priests who knew. for years durance has been aimless, feeling like he has displeased magran despite doing everything she ever asked... only to find out she had only ever intended to use him and then discard him.
you meet kana rua as he is attempting to get into caed nua, an ancient engwithan keep, so that he can descend into what are called the endless paths. he's a scholar looking for an original text, hoping he can use it to convince his nation to choose a path of peace and unity with their neighbours. but he quickly learns the hard way that the engwithans weren't necessarily people to emulate and sometimes, the answers to your questions only get you a difficult truth. there is no flawless past that you can point to as your north star.
pallegina is a really interesting case here because she is vocally against the gods... but that doesn't mean she is without an authority figure. she defines herself by her service to the ducs bels, the leaders of her home country. she is ordered by the ducs to make a frankly scummy trade deal on their behalf, one that will benefit her home country but completely fuck over the ailing dyrwood, and her companion quest is about whether she should make the decision to do what is right and face the consequences of disobedience, or if she should take the path of least resistance and do as she is ordered. thinking for herself and doing what she believes is right is punished severely, she is ostracized from her home and kicked out of her paladin order as a result, her entire life upended by it. but it's what she believed was right, not what she was told was right.
grieving mother is a direct mirror of thaos himself. like thaos, she believed it was better to have the people around her believe a comforting lie than a terrible truth. and like thaos, the cost of maintaining that lie grew and grew, and she had to take more and more drastic measures to make sure no one, including herself, could discover the truth. it's interesting that ultimately, the final choice for both grieving mother AND thaos involves choosing whether the path to redemption (if it is indeed possible) requires memory of the wrongdoing or not.
sagani has been sent on a mission from her tribe to find the reincarnation of one of their village elders. it's a sacred tradition for her people, but it's one that's not without cost. she's been away from her family and home for five years searching for persoq, and it hasn't been an easy journey. she's determined to see the tradition through and find him, but she struggles with finding meaning in the quest, and you can influence her and her priorities, or leave her dispirited at the resolution of the quest.
and while this one is a little more abstract, i think it still does play into the final reveals and the Whole Point™ because what sagani is doing is going on a quest to find a trusted authority figure, and at the end we find out he's been reincarnated as a stag. just an animal. one that is literally dying as we find it, the victim of local hunters. her quest is about cycles, but its also about disillusionment. what was it all for? and sagani has to figure out the answer to that. i think it's a reflection of the experience of finding out the truth; having to reckon with a world where there isn't the higher meaning you were expecting, and having to find meaning and purpose despite that.
hiravias is probably the most transparent example of this, since he directly talks about having to think for yourself, especially if you nudge him further towards wael. his story is an interesting one—he was a worshiper of the seeker god galawain, and while following his teachings to discover himself and his spiritshift form, hiravias was attacked by a beast and, in his own words, mutilated. but it worked: he spiritshifted for the first time... into the very same beast that attacked him, the autumn stelgaer, a cat-like monster that his village considers an omen. like durance, he did everything right. he did what his god told him to, and as repayment, he nearly died and was cast out from his home. the difference? he did something about it. he stopped worshiping galawain and instead turned his sights to wael, the god of mysteries, who encourages its followers to ask questions for the sake of it, and to accept that some answers aren't meant to be known. as a result, he is one of the least shaken companions by the revelation at the end of the game, because he has already been prepared for the idea that the gods are fallible and you are responsible for thinking for yourself.
and it's so crazy because as you're playing, you can see how these stories tie into what you're experiencing and into each other, but it isn't until you get to the end and finally learn that big, terrible secret that it all clicks. everything in the game was always about this: that terrible lie that thaos and the engwithans had been telling for centuries. the gods were created; neat and tidy fabrications to keep the world acting Right, to make people fear punishment for wrongdoing because they believed that without a threat hanging over their heads, everyone will just behave like animals.
but the thing is, it's not true. the gods can be cruel and capricious, just as their creators had been, and just as many people use the gods as an excuse for atrocities as they do a reason for righteous and pious living. it's a comfortable lie, that having something powerful and unquestionable to look at will somehow create peace and prosperity and order. it's always been a lie.
and once you know that, once you've seen that big reveal, once you've met iovara and talked to thaos, it's so easy to see how the threads connect. i love when a game fully and completely just knows what it's about. pillars so clearly had something to say, and it hammered that into every fucking second of this game.
an incomplete list of indie romance visual novel recommendations
‣ these are all indie titles, many of them made by a single person or a small team, and several were put out there for free (or quite cheap). if you choose to play them, do so with an open mind and consider supporting indie devs financially whenever possible.
‣ most of these feature gender neutral or gender selectable player characters, and predominantly male or nonbinary romantic options. i've specified per game for convenience.
Blooming Panic by robobarbie
free*
4 routes, gender selectable PC, male & nb ROs
fave route: nakedtoaster, but xyx gets an honourable mention
the GOAT, honestly. i think most people who play games in this niche (especially in the chatsim subgenre) have come across bloomic at some point, and it's loved enough that other games reference it pretty frequently. what i love about bloomic is that it doesn't shy away from telling interesting and emotional stories while also delivering on the cutie romance aspects. i return to bloomic often as a comfort game, and it gets me in my feelings as a creator.
Rewritten by Weird Little Beasties
free (pay what you want)
5 routes, gender neutral PC, male ROs
fave route: nightshade
inkheart if it was a really cute dating sim. the art and music are super nice, the routes are all short and sweet, and there's a little bit of something for everyone. ironically, it really did feel like sinking into a cozy book. this is one i got a little unwell about (positive), so i have to recommend it.
(more below!)
A Date With Death by Two and a Half Studios
free, with purchasable expansions
1 route, gender selectable PC, male RO
legally required to rec this one because 1) it basically introduced me to chatsims, and 2) i own merch for it (say hi to azrael for me when you see him). it's just really good and fun. grim is so lame (complimentary) and i love a kind of loser boyfriend in games like this, so he delivers for sure. plus the CGs are just stupid good. i haven't played the expansion (yet), but i still recommend it for the base game content alone.
Ace in Space by Cadaver Carnival Studios
CDN $7.99
5 routes, nb PC, male and nb ROs
fave route: forge is my favourite, but zipper is the best route
this one's a little different on this list for reasons that are difficult to get into without turning this into a novel. it's structured like a dating sim so it makes the list, but the story is more about the player character, and you can choose to pursue romantic or platonic relationships as part of their journey. this one made me cry a few times, but that's sort of inevitable when the main themes so heavily involve grief and illness. proceed with caution, but i do urge you to proceed. if it helps sweeten the pot, most of the ROs are robots, and i'd like it a lot if you supported this game because it's from a somewhat local-to-me dev duo.
Fledgling Manor by In Secret Places
CDN $15.18
3 routes, male PC, male/nb/female ROs
fave route: stefan (but eight i love you please call me back)
y'all didn't think you were getting out of this list without an FM mention, did you? i'm obsessed with this game. i'm going to shill this game until the day i die. reality tv + sexy vampires? how could i resist. i was waiting for this game waaay before it came out and i was not disappointed. plus, usually predetermined protags are a turn off for me in these games but rocky is my ride or die (and my profile picture). i went over this game with a fine-tooth comb and i'm still hungry for more. play fledgling manor.
SeekL by robobarbie
free*
1 route, gender neutral PC, nb RO
another chatsim, and so, so good. odxyny is a really interesting RO that i think resonates with a lot of people, and the other server members are super fun to hang out with. also, the gameplay of the coding as part of the story is so fun and innovative while never being an obstacle. really makes it stand out, and it's another one that hits emotionally.
Hustle Cat by Date Nighto
CDN $22.79
6 routes, gender selectable PC, male & female ROs
fave route: graves bc i can't resist an older goth 😔
this one's cute. cats and coffee and magic, with a villain and everything. each of the routes resolves more or less the same story with different twists along the way, and you learn a little more every time. i could talk a lot about this game, but this isn't meant to be a review. why don't you play it and tell me what you think?
Pirated Code: Admin Edition by Hollowmend
CDN $14.99 (a version with less content is available as pay-what-you-want here)
1 route (lots of endings!), nb PC, male RO
i like this one a lot (enough to painstakingly 100% it myself). It's not as heavy on the relationship (which can be romantic or platonic) as some of the other entries on this list, but it's definitely there and extremely cute, and the story happening around it is really good too. it definitely sucked me in and got me really invested in finding answers to the mystery of your PC's past, and dex, the RO, is an absolute sweetheart.
*robobarbie has requested that those who wish to financially support their games donate to charity, instead.
