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otome_gamesThis is a very enjoyable Chinese m/f dating sim from the makers of "My Vow To My Liege", about being a poor noblewoman who pretends to be devoutly religious to get an arranged marriage with a rich not!Buddhist monk to save her impoverished family.
There are three love interests:
1) the Perfect Not!Buddhist fiance, at first MC feels defensively guilty about her pretense but then he shows himself to be a mean dom and she is confusedly into it. This was not entirely my thing but was certainly an experience, with Sexy Priest tropes that are probably hotter if you grew up Buddhist. At one point she worries there's going to be consent issues but it ends up fine.
2) Fiance's pure-hearted younger brother who was raised to be Above Worldy Desires. This was DELIGHTFUL, full of angsty repressed pining with a solid foundation of very cute friendship.
3) MC's grumpy childhood friend who happened to become a monk, he is pissy about the gold-digging and also aware she's engaged to his kinda-boss so there's a lot of complicated tsundere pining. This was pretty cute!
There's more other female characters than you might expect given the premise. In every route MC is encouraged to seek her own happiness instead of just caring about her family, and be honest instead of saying what people want to hear. There was some interesting philosophising about balancing worldly needs like money and love with 'enlightened' detachment, but mostly it's just slice of life romance without much plot.
The sex scenes were all a little no-no-yes dubcon but in a way I could roll with, she's overall very happy and into everything. I did one bad end and found it a bit meh so didn't do the others.
You can choose whether the monks are bald, and I chose to give them hair, because I am shallow >.>
There are three love interests:
1) the Perfect Not!Buddhist fiance, at first MC feels defensively guilty about her pretense but then he shows himself to be a mean dom and she is confusedly into it. This was not entirely my thing but was certainly an experience, with Sexy Priest tropes that are probably hotter if you grew up Buddhist. At one point she worries there's going to be consent issues but it ends up fine.
2) Fiance's pure-hearted younger brother who was raised to be Above Worldy Desires. This was DELIGHTFUL, full of angsty repressed pining with a solid foundation of very cute friendship.
3) MC's grumpy childhood friend who happened to become a monk, he is pissy about the gold-digging and also aware she's engaged to his kinda-boss so there's a lot of complicated tsundere pining. This was pretty cute!
There's more other female characters than you might expect given the premise. In every route MC is encouraged to seek her own happiness instead of just caring about her family, and be honest instead of saying what people want to hear. There was some interesting philosophising about balancing worldly needs like money and love with 'enlightened' detachment, but mostly it's just slice of life romance without much plot.
The sex scenes were all a little no-no-yes dubcon but in a way I could roll with, she's overall very happy and into everything. I did one bad end and found it a bit meh so didn't do the others.
You can choose whether the monks are bald, and I chose to give them hair, because I am shallow >.>