Do you by any chance happen to have the text for if one goes for the prolific parent ending but only dates Sym? I'm curious but I also don't really wanna go through an entire game just to check if I can at all avoid it.
You would think that living with your alien boyfriend would be weird, but... you've already shared everything of yourselves by interfacing through the Array.
The intimacy of accidentally using the same toothbrush is nothing when you've lived inside his memories of being a mushtree. You move into a Gardener-like abode where Sym can form a connection to the Array, glowing pool and all.
He delights in your small army of children - but, of course he would. He loves you, and all of humanity.
Surrounding him with smaller, even less predictable humans is one of the greatest gifts you could ever have given him, and he proves to be a wonderful - if a little eccentric - co-parent.
Nem/Sol Snowball fight? (Nem's had her nap, today is action prompts)
She shrieks, as a whole handful of the stuff gets shoved down the back of her shirt, and by the time she spins around Sol's already danced away, tongue sticking out. "You little...!" shouts Nem, trying to hide the grin that's stretching over her face; "I'm not gonna let you get away with that one, Sol!"
"You're gonna have to catch me first!" Sol shouts back before spinning on her heel and sprinting away; laughing so hard she stumbles over her feet, Anemone gladly gives chase.
Sdfghjkl you can't just say that there's a second storyline with the boiz and not provide any details on how to get there! D:
For obvious reasons, this whole post is SPOILERS!! The instructions here are minimal spoilers, but I'm including the entire transcript of the scene below the cut.
Per Jobs_expeditions_artifacts.exo, you need to:
Set Sol to polyamorous (easiest option IMO is to date Rex and Marz simultaneously, then break up with both; IDR the other methods)
Get friendship 90+ with Dys
Flirt with Dys at least once
DO NOT onboard Dys OR Sym's relationship
Complete Wresting Ridge's first four (4) boss fights before Dys set us up the bomb.
Return to the Wresting Ridges after either Dys bomb route
Once Dys & Sym come out to you and explain their plan, you'll receive a different dialogue option for convincing Dys.
>>"Because I'm in love with you, spacehead!!"
This option has a whole little branch with Sym being Particularly Sym about these wayward teens thinking his 20 thousand year old alien ass cares if they also make out.
Anyway, here's the transcript, and remember:
MAJOR SPOILERS
>> "Because I'm in love with you, spacehead!"
Dys fumbles his dinner into the fire and stares at you. "Y-you... you what?" he stammers, "I... wait, you are?"
He stands up. "And you didn't... I can't believe you! How _dare_ you! How dare you come to me now," he spits, gesturing at the wilderness around you, "after I went through hell, thinking I was alone! That no one loved me!"
>> 1: "I'm sorry. I'm here now."
Dys's expression softens. "You are," he says, quietly. His fists unclench, and he looks at you as if he wants to cry. "I waited so long for you, [Name]..."
Proceed to [dysKiss]
>> 2: "You're not the easiest person to love…"
Dys seems to deflate before your eyes. His expression softens, like he's about to cry. "I know," he replies, quietly. "I'm a real asshole. I always was. But... I never really thought I had a chance with you, [Name]."
Proceed to [dysKiss]
>> 3: "Clearly, Sym does! That's two, asshole!"
Dys deflates, and he turns to look at Sym with a conflicted expression. Sym only laughs. "Oh, please," he says, waving his hands at you both. "By all means, continue!"
Proceed to [dysKiss]
[dysKiss]
Dys's eyes drop to your mouth, and you have a thrilling few moments to consider what that means before you're kissing. Well, being kissed.
Dys grips the lapels of your jacket, crushing your lips together. It's inelegant and desperate, and Dys makes a noise into your mouth like he was the one surprised by the kiss. He makes it again when you swipe your tongue over his lips, opening your mouth to bite and taste of each other.
You break for breath, chests heaving, and just stare at each other.
"Oh!" Sym says, causing you both to jump. You'd almost forgotten he was there. "You young creatures are so _wonderfully_ unpredictable!" He clasps his hands to his chest in delight. "What _is_ it like to have organic sexual desire? Truly, I cannot imagine it." Dys wipes his mouth and stares at you, wild-eyed.
"Come with me," he says, suddenly. "Come be a Gardener with me."
>> 1: "Wait… what about you and Sym?"
Dys looks at Sym, who looks back at you both blankly before startling, realizing you expect him to weigh in.
"Oh! No, this is delightful," he says. "Monogamous pair-bonding is unfathomable to me. When one has spent some time as a flower being pollinated by hundreds of one's closest friends, it changes how one feels about infidelity."
He gestures broadly to the both of you. "Don't let me get in the way."
>> 2: "I can't. I'm here to bring you home."
Dys looks like he wants to argue, his red kiss-bitten mouth working in silence for a few moments before his shoulders slump.
"I... okay," he says. "I'll give it a shot. For you."
>> 3: "If it means being with you… okay."
Dys looks like he's about to continue arguing, but your acceptance stops him in his tracks. "What... really?"
He looks at Sym. "Can [Sol] do that?"
Sym thinks it over. "Well... by the letter of Noctilucent's offer... no," he says, carefully. "But the Gardeners are big-picture thinkers, almost to a fault. Most of them don't even recognize your species as individuals, so they won't know the difference."
His eyes seem to twinkle. "And as for Noctilucent... well. I have ways of handling them."
[Causes Join The Gardeners ending route.]
>> 4: "I cant be with you if you're with Sym."
Dys's face crumples, but Sym only shrugs.
"I accept this," he says, simply.
Dys whips around to argue, but Sym holds up his hands placatingly. "It is not that I do not love you," he assures Dys, "it is that I am capable of loving you regardless of what human constraints [Name] has placed on that love."
Sym gives you a slight smile. "No offense, [Sol], but I am eternal. I can outwait you. Dys _will_ return to me, be it by his own choice, or when he becomes a Gardener, or when his essence returns to the planet and into my caretaking. I do not begrudge you your jealousy."
Dys looks at you, hopefully.
>> 5: "I can't. But… I support your decision."
Dys's eyes fill with tears.
"Y-you do?" he says. "But... we won't be able to be together."
Sym clears his throat. "Well. _Technically,_" he says, "You will become a part of the planet itself, as I am. [Sol] is a part of the ecosystem, and therefore... everything [Sol is] will be within your domain."
He smiles. "And when [Sol's] physical form fails and [Sol returns] all that [Sol] took from the planet, you'll be together, forever. I can think of nothing _more_ romantic."
You thumb away Dys's tears, and he smiles as well: sadly, but tinged with a little flicker of hope. "I'll wait for you," he promises. "Take as long as you want."
Nem/Sym "he's not my boyfriend" (or just flustered/in denial in general. If there was a prompt list I missed it ;~;)
"Oh, sorry," says Cal, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck; "I just, uh, I mean, you guys are together a lot, it seems like...?"
Stars above--Nem can feel her whole dumb face turning redder than her hair and the worst part is she can't even get mad about this the way she would with anyone else--she and Cal have barely started talking again, and exploding over this would be a hundred steps back. "I don't," she starts, only to find that for some reason that's escaping even her, think of him that way won't come out of her mouth.
Dys/Sol - Second colony unlocked, they get to see the ocean for the first time.
When they make it over the hill and see the shore in the distance, the very first thing Dys does is feel grateful he checked with Sym if there’d be anything too dangerous in the water, because the very first thing Sol does is tear down the hill towards the water, kicking off her shoes as she goes and then plunging in with a shriek like she’s still fifteen instead of nearly forty-five. Luckily there’s not, which means instead of dropping all his shit and tearing after his wife in a panic, he can drop all his shit and tear after her with a grin stretching across his face.
The water’s really nice -- weird and warm and pink, and when he pulls back to the surface she’s beaten him there, pushing her hair out of her face with laughter already spilling out of her mouth; somehow, impossibly, when their eyes meet her smile only grows.
Fifteen years later, and her very first thought when she crawls out of the rubble of the spaceship is Besk would've loved it here, which makes her chest hurt with the same old stupid ache. Every year she thinks she's killed the flowers and every year she's wrong, coughing up bright red flowers that are never fully in bloom.
Now's no different -- she catches the cough in her hand, shoves the flowers in her pocket, and resolutely pretends it'd never happened at all.
Okay so, before I head off into politics. On a scale from 1-10 how bad is that ending for vertumna and the gardeners? 'Cause it'd be nice to do peace on Vertumna but idk what sell out means in this context.
Specifically, you need to:
Complete the Assistant to The Administration job
Avoid the astronaut ending
Avoid peace
If you do that, the end card should play regardless of what job Sol officially takes.
In a peace run, you do get a little info about it too, though. Specifically:
you learn that the gardeners were never at any real risk, unlike the colonists.
In short, Sol's wormhole powers are probably why the Strato and Helio made it through at all, and the gardeners send the rest of the human race to die in empty space by launching them out one or more random wormhole exits.
Sym really does smile way too much when talking about how he and Noctilucent are exes who bonded over a doing genocides. I love him, I do. But truly, the moral coding there is alien as hell lmao.
