For the gender selectable ROs, will their gender make a difference in terms of how they're treated, how they act, etc.?
Yes! Rose and Raoul aren’t 100% completely different characters, and romancing Hamida and Ismaël isn’t two completely different stories, but at the end of the day this is a story set in the 1880s, and there will be slight differences in the romances depending on both their gender and Daaé’s gender. An example is that if rumours of Daaé being R’s lover get spread, R’s family is far more upset with Rose than with Raoul. Another is in the discussions Daaé can have with the Daroga about their religion, as Hamida and Ismaël have some ways of worshipping that differ based on their gender (most notable is the Hamida veils).
Here are some random romance (and some nsfw) facts about the ROs!
The Voice:
The Voice has never been in love before meeting Daaé.
The Voice does not want children (this is not a fact that will ever change), though it does enjoy the idea of planning for children with a partner (decorating a nursery, picking out a name, that sort of thing).
He reads trashy gothic pulp stories, including erotica. Vampire stories are his favourite.
Has a very warped sense of sex and kink. Views its more vanilla sexual fantasies as depraved, like getting horny to the idea of being ridden makes it feel guilty and ashamed, but then views its fantasies that are actually depraved (by society’s standards, ie necrophilia) as completely normal things to get horny to.
Daroga:
When the Daroga was younger they did not agree with sex outside of marriage. They have relaxed this stance in more recent years, though they still don’t engage in casual sex themselves.
Jumping off that point, the Daroga has been married twice before, both times out of lust.
Food is a regular motif in the Daroga’s route. They love cooking for their partner, they view sharing and especially making food as the ultimate means of caring for someone.
Likes kisses on the inside of the wrist.
R De Chagny:
R is a virgin, though not for lack of opportunity.
Very physically affectionate, a touchy feely person. This has gotten them in trouble before, when casual touches have been perceived as flirting.
A yearner of the highest degree.
Self-inserts themselves into love stories. Especially stories about enduring love and having to rescue or fight to be with someone else, like later Arthurian romances or classic mythology (Cupid and Psyche, The Odyssey, etc).
Sorelli:
La Sylphide was the first ballet Sorelli ever saw, and the love story made her bawl her eyes out. It’s no longer her favourite, but it holds a special place in her heart as the inspiration for her career.
Has attended an orgy before. Thought it was fun, will never ever do that again though.
She doesn’t like the idea of marriage. She’s more than open to being someone’s committed partner for life, but the idea of being that legally dependent on a man scares her - though she could certainly be convinced if she was in love.
Quality time is how she shows affection. She’ll find excuses to just be near someone she likes.
Just played and loved it. I like the way you write. The Voice scene was lovely. I tried every interaction with him ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ And I enjoyed the character creation, it was comfortable. Also, I'm looking forward to meet the Persian. Age gap romances are as rare as finding a strawberry in the snow nowadays. Thank you for sharing it, author. Can't wait to see what else we could do and how the story will unfold~~
SPOILER ALERT
Yoy can answer it or not, of course☆ I read that ask about sa warning. What if we have a good relationship with him? Would that scene play out to our mutual enjoyment, or would it just not happen?
Thank you, it makes my heart soar to think that people like that short snippet enough to warrant multiple replays. You'll get to run into the Daroga in the next update and might get the chance to have a pretty extended conversation with them! I'm very excited to get to write them as they have a lot of traits that I feel you don't see much in IF love interests, like you said there's the age gap (I love a good age gap in romances) but also the fact that they're Muslim with fem!Daroga veiling with a form of niqab.
Spoilers below cut.
I read that ask about sa warning. What if we have a good relationship with him? Would that scene play out to our mutual enjoyment, or would it just not happen?
The scene plays out differently enough that it's practically a completely different scene, and the intention is that unless your relationship is uniquely bad most players will get the "main" scene instead. In both scenes the Voice is perceiving a lack of control over your relationship, so his main motivation is establishing/reaffirming power over you more than anything else.
The main scene plays out like an attempted seduction no matter what - a character who is not interested may still feel uncomfortable and express that, causing him to back off (however MC certainly shouldn't mistake that for being out of respect for your wishes...); a character who reciprocates may enjoy the scene more, but ultimately nothing physical will happen between you two in that scene or for practically the entire story for some significant reasons (though I am toying with a few ways of pushing that self-imposed boundary...not to be too spoilery but as of right now I have notes jotted down on this topic that include the phrases 'voyeurism' and 'mutual masturbation' soooo we'll see).
The SA scene on the other hand stems from both his panicking over a perceived lack of control over your relationship combined with pretty extreme anger at the MC (hence why I have a few variables that track your relationship which get checked here). So in this case there's no attempted seduction at all, rather he's lashing out violently and attempting to regain a sense of control over you and your relationship. It will likely be close to impossible (if not actually impossible - we'll see what the variables look like when I get there) for an MC who is romancing the Voice to experience this scene. And an MC who is not romancing the Voice will still have to behave a specific way with him consistently in order for it to happen. While I want to have clear warnings of the scene, it's also not my intention for the majority of players to ever experience it (at least not on a first playthrough) - part of the fun of an adaptation as IF is getting to ask what the original characters would do when faced with different circumstances, and I do believe it would take a lot of very different stimuli to push this character to that point.
i am so interested in this IF! i just read the demo (which is beautiful, by the way. i'm very picky about what i read and Le Fantôme hits all my marks) it's a crime there aren't more asks. so i'm obviously remedying that!!! what is the first thing the ROs notice about Daaé (i guess other than their voice? or what about it, specifically, drew them in?)
R: This one is actually going to get answered slightly more in the story, but R's loved Daaé since you were children (whether or not that's romantic love is up to you). One of the things that made you such good friends was a mutual love of fairytales as kids, and in your first meeting R got to play the hero a bit and thus forever onwards thought of themselves as Daaé's knight in shining armour. Since they were sort of approaching that age where the adults around them were expecting them to start to grow out of playing make believe, it was especially meaningful to R that Daaé never mocked that little fantasy and sometimes in fact encouraged it (doubly so for fem!R for whom the idea of playing a knight would have been a significant break from expected gender norms).
Daroga: This one is going to definitely be answered in the story, but the gist of it is the fact that Daaé's an immigrant. It's not the most noticeable thing (Daaé's mostly lived in France and doesn't have an accent), but there's definitely a sense of a social barrier that is one of the things prevents Daaé from really developing strong connections with any individual (regardless of how much or little Daaé might try). The Daroga can relate to this a great deal, and it's something that makes them empathise with Daaé slightly more than they do other members of the opera. There's other story-related things that make the Daroga start to really keep an eye on Daaé, but this is something that made Daaé stand out to them well before the other external factors came into play.
Sorelli: Suspicion. For a long while Sorelli didn't honestly take that much notice of you. What really starts to get Sorelli to pay attention is when the Voice shows up (not that Sorelli knows it). Why is Daaé spending time at the opera house early in the morning when no one else is there? Why is Daaé behaving suddenly differently than before? Why are a host of other things happening around Daaé that individually would be nothing, but all together paint a picture of something else going on? Sorelli is very protective of her opera house and the people in it, so naturally she's going to pay attention to Daaé more - how else is she supposed to know if Daaé's the one that needs protecting or if Daaé's the one that the opera needs protecting from? She knows logically it all may be perfectly normal and benign, but she absolutely hates knowing that there's something going on that she doesn't get to be a part of.
The Voice: I think that if I ever end up making a Patreon, I'll probably write a scene from the Voice's point of view featuring the first time they notice Daaé. So for this I'll just answer what it is about Daaé's voice that drew his notice. Daaé's voice is not naturally the best (for a professional opera singer that is), it does take you a few months of practicing proper technique before the Voice deems Daaé good enough to perform a major role. However, Daaé's voice has a unique sound to it, something indescribable that makes them memorable compared to other voices of a similar quality. For the Voice specifically, he chalks this unique sound up to emotion - he views it as Daaé feeling the music more deeply than any other singer, and feels that when Daaé sings he is getting to see a part of their soul (hence the reason that I called the acting skill Acting and Soul).
I LOVEDDDD the game omg!!!! Sorelli and R have my whole heart 😭😭
I got 2 questions!!
Have the ROs ever fallen in love/been attracted to someone of the same gender? Since you said R has loved Daaé for a long time, if we chose it to be in a romantic sense, how did they feel about falling in love with someone of the same gender?
Artists have been queer since the beginning of times lollll so I'd think that society is more "whatever" regarding the artists, but for the aristocrats being queer is a bigger "problem" 🤔
And the second question is NSFW!!
I'm playing a male Daaé, but I'm not comfortable reading my MCs bottoming 😫 will we have the option to choose whether Daaé tops or bottoms? If not, it's no problem at all! I'll just skip the spicy scenes and enjoy the rest of the game 🤗
Thank you!!! :)
Thank you for the kind words! The second question is answered first here just because the answer is slightly shorter.
I'm playing a male Daaé, but I'm not comfortable reading my MCs bottoming 😫 will we have the option to choose whether Daaé tops or bottoms? If not, it's no problem at all! I'll just skip the spicy scenes and enjoy the rest of the game 🤗
I still have yet to determine just how detailed the spicier scenes will get (ideally I’d like very detailed but who knows what will be allowed on different platforms for posting by the time I get there). No matter what though I do want to make sure that the sex scenes will have a good degree of variety when it comes to getting to choose how they play out. Either you will get that choice of topping or bottoming, or the scene will be less detailed with more of the vibe described and certain actions implied, in which case it could be interpreted as either person bottoming depending on what the reader prefers.
Have the ROs ever fallen in love/been attracted to someone of the same gender? Since you said R has loved Daaé for a long time, if we chose it to be in a romantic sense, how did they feel about falling in love with someone of the same gender?
Sorelli has had relationships with other women before, you’re on the money about artists being queer (especially in Paris during the Belle Époque time period). The Daroga has been attracted to the same sex before - Hamida has once or twice acted on this in her youth while Ismaël has not.
The Voice is on the spectrum of demisexual - it has never felt sexual attraction towards a specific person before, though it has felt sexual desire and it’s the crush it develops on Daaé that allows it to feel sexual attraction specifically for them. It has been sexually attracted to the idea of certain characters in literature, nearly always women but that’s more due to the character tropes that it’s attracted to in literature almost always fitting the same gendered dynamic. Being attracted to a male Daaé is something that barely fazes it, as you’ll see - it’s got a lot of issues and even I’m not cruel enough to add internalised homophobia to the list!
R on a platonic route struggles a bit with attraction when it comes to Daaé, especially of the opposite gender - normalised heterosexuality combined with objectivity recognising that Daaé can be considered attractive means a platonic R has spent a lot of time prior to the story wondering if they’re in love with Daaé, simply because it’s hard for them to conceptualise that the strong love they feel for an opposite gender Daaé could be anything other than romantic. Same gender platonic R (or platonic R with a nonbinary Daaé) doesn’t struggle with this nearly as much, but they are attracted to multiple genders and when they start to explore that as they get older, they do wonder a bit about their feelings for Daaé, just not to the same extent as opposite gender platonic R.
Romantic R is Daaé-sexual for lack of a better way of phrasing it lmao. Daaé was the first person they were ever attracted to, even when they were too young to really understand what they felt, and every instance of attraction they’ve felt towards others has been because those people remind R of Daaé in some way. I think falling for a Daaé of the same gender doesn’t bother them quite as much as you’d expect, though there is an element of shame when they first start feeling attraction towards Daaé - feeling like they’re taking advantage of the friendship somehow when Daaé doesn’t know how they feel. At the end of the day though, R is expected to marry well and have children, and even a Daaé of the opposite gender is off limits because of their class difference, not to mention Daaé’s an immigrant who was raised Lutheran (regardless of how religious Daaé actually is), and later Daaé’s scandalously an opera performer. Most of what bothers R about Daaé being the same gender is that they can’t get married, but that was always going to be a problem regardless of Daaé’s gender. So the reason that falling for same gender Daaé doesn’t really bother R that much is because society is already looking down on this relationship either way, Daaé and R being queer only exacerbates a situation that already existed.
The exact dynamic and how R feels about it is affected significantly by gender combinations, as that affects how Philippe views it (and R does view Philippe as the main authority figure in their life) - Philippe doesn’t care much if Raoul is attracted to men and has a lover, male or female, provided Raoul is discreet about it and still marries a noblewoman. While on the other hand Rose could be telling Philippe to his face that she’s having sex with a woman (not that she actually would do that lol) and Philippe would still think Rose and fem!Daaé are just good friends. And naturally Rose having a male or male-presenting lover is completely out of the question.
Once a daroga in the Persian court, now a regular attendee of the Paris Opera, they largely keep to themselves rather than mingling after performances as the other wealthy audience members do. They have spent so much of their retirement at the opera that they have become a regular fixture, and are permitted to wander backstage as they please. Between their solitary habits and being a fellow immigrant to France, the Persian is someone that you can perhaps relate to a great deal. Secretive, compassionate, independent, noble, they are generous and kindhearted despite their reclusive nature. But is there some truth to the suspicions that they appear to know more about the Opera Ghost than they let on?
Age: In their fifties, no younger than 54, no older than 59.
Hair: The daroga's hair is dark, streaked with silver. It is very thick and heavy. It is the sort of wavy that is relatively straight when long and weighed down but shows a curl when cut short. Ismaël keeps his hair cut at an even length and relatively short, though he does not slick it down in the style of westerners, and has a neat, thick beard also flecked with silver. Hamida's hair reaches her calves, and she keeps it veiled. She usually rolls it and pins it in a chignon at the base of her neck.
Eyes: A dark shade of hazel, much closer to brown than green, framed by thick brows and smile wrinkles.
Skin: Their brown skin is rich and warm
Figure: They are tall and statuesque, with perfect posture and a regal bearing.
Features: The most prominent features of their somewhat narrow face are an aquiline nose and a strong jawline. They have deep crows feet.
Clothing: They prefer simple and dark, yet sumptuous quality clothing. Though not immediately apparent, the high-quality fabrics and well-maintained quality speak to a subtle degree of wealth. Ismaël wears a Karakul hat, and usually wears a short cape over his evening dress. Hamida wears a chador to cover her hair and ensure that only the front of her bodice is visible, with the shape of her figure being covered. She usually pairs this with a ruband to cover her nose and mouth. She veils in the evening with a transparent yashmak over her hair and the lower half of her face, and she keeps the figure of her bodice covered with a shawl.
Voice: The daroga's voice sounds like honey. It is warm, smooth, and deep. They are usually soft-spoken.
"Silence is safe." (Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White)
