Like most straight young ladies who grew up surrounded by more anime than is probably healthy, I went through a pretty heavy bishonen phase. My earliest video game crushes included Vega from Street Fighter (the Spanish ninja, not mutant Hitler), Locke from Final Fantasy VI, and, of course, Zero.

I’m largely uninterested in bishonen now, with an notable exception: The Fire Emblem series. Most of the dudes in Nintendo’s strategy series are total sizzle factories. Yet I still managed to give these gentlemen a passive glance and an interested “Hm, yes, quite,” before getting down to the business of playing.

Then Nintendo had to go and complicate things by making me choose a husband in Fire Emblem: Awakening.

And I made things even harder on myself by playing as a male avatar, because I tend to default to male when playing a game.

Too many cooks [too many cooks~]

Dude likes candy. Really likes candy. I could make a comment about how he probably knows what to do with his mouth, but I’m trying to keep this site PG.

But there’s more to this wily ginger than candy puns. He has some grey secrets stashed with his candy, including a tidbit about a prisoner’s tattoo he’s a bit sensitive about. He does his best to hide it; he even wrapped it up when the game’s beach-based DLC had him strip down to the great joy of fangirls everywhere.

Gurl

When the female avatar character accidentally walks in on Gaius naked (something that happens a lot in this game), she gets an eyeful of that tattoo. When she asks about seeing something “concerning,” Gaius thinks she’s referring to something more rash-like. To this day I don’t know if this is supposed to be a joke about an STD or not:

Applying wet lollipops will ease the itch, Gaius.

It probably is a reference to an STD, since the Japanese version of the game sees Gaius take Chrom to a brothel he’s obviously patronized before. In the translated version, Gaius takes him to a carnival. Hey, brothels are like carnivals. Just with more breasts bouncing in your face.

So there you are. I’ve developed a crush on a character that’s probably rotting from the inside-out with syphilis. Can I pick ’em or what.

But let’s end this on a happy note. Gaius made a pretty clever reference to Liam Neeson’s “Taken” quote before the internet smeared the meme everywhere.

Appropriately, he values candy more than his kids.

So, that’s that. Gaius is Fire Emblem: Awakening husbando #1.

More will follow, I assure you.

[Special thanks: Just One Gamr]