Another one that's a little tough to rate because it's rather vague, maybe reminiscent of Lugh's crew's art pieces. The individual moments are great, but as a cohesive project I'm not sure it left the impact that was intended.
Going to roll into the breakdown, spoilers from this point forward. I'd normally handle all the criteria separately, but my thoughts on theme and story are so intertwined on this one that I'll do those at the same time.
Implementation of Theme and Story:
Deepbluefeeling has two likes and a :) whereas these are suspiciously lacking from the other comments here (guys I think that means they got it).
I'm being a bit facetious, but I think this is the right reading, with Dusty tossing coins in the fountain hoping that one day he'll get a Lugh. I have thoughts:
1) It's still unclear to me whether the implication was that Dusty eventually did get his romance or whether it was all in his head. The slightly jarring switch to third-person narration at the end makes sense if you interpret that as Dusty seeing himself as the main character in a romance novel that someone else is writing, and his move to Seattle may have been influenced by his desire to turn those dreams into reality, even if reality turns out to be much more mundane (drinks at Applebee's oof) than he wanted. The other Lugh plot beats work as a fantasy too (e.g., staring at the pictures and looking back nostalgically is how a romance novel would start; Dusty wants the meet-cute; Dusty wants the steamy sex scene; Dusty wants the feeling of nervously accepting holding someone's hand in public [it's the "dream" of a gay kid from the south]) and there's some implications here and there that he wishes Lugh was Randall (tell us how we met -> we meet Randall instead). The part I can't really parse is the office scene though, other than the mundanity. What's the deal with the "celestial bodies"? Do the stars look like the coins in the fountain or something? Not sure whether the implication is supposed to be that Dusty is leaving the office to go run into Lugh for the first time, whether it's supposed to be ambiguous, or whether it's nothing at all. This kind of leads me into the next point-
2) The sort of reality for a more complex narrative like this is if only half the audience gets it, you're probably fine. That means it was too subtle for some but others get to feel really smart when they figure it out. On the other hand, if everyone is missing the point, you probably needed to lay a few more breadcrumbs along the way. I can see what you were trying to do with some of the parallels - Randall asks Dusty what kind of girl he likes, so he fantasizes about meeting a dude; Dusty gets caught with gay porn, so he fantasizes about a time when he is a willing, appreciated participant in gay sex. I think maybe some of the disconnect might have been through the abrupt scene transitions and the different levels of maturity in the individual scenes. It's a bit hard to place the fantasies (if accurate) 1:1 with reality since they don't feel like the thoughts of a teenager. It works once you get the idea, but a little more signposting to get the reader there could go a long way.
3) This all brings us to the theme. After all of the above, I'm still not sure the theme comes through super clearly. The darkness is this sort of ennui Dusty has about being gay and out of place in his home, and the light is... well, I'm not sure. It could be (ha) Lugh, but if he's made up then that feels like less of a light and more something that's keeping him in the darkness by continuing to absorb him in this fantasy rather than letting himself go out and smell the roses, so to speak. Like, if he goes out and meets Lugh after leaving the office, great, but if you're bailing on your coworkers to go dream about your fake boyfriend, maybe just go to Applebee's. Could be a cute waiter there, I don't know.
With all of that said, I thought the individual conversations were really well-done. Everything felt age-appropriate to the characters in the scene and I thoroughly believed every interaction, including the unfortunate "we can still be friends but maybe keep the homo to a low volume" scene.
Presentation and Creativity:
I've been going on for way too long anyway, so I'm just gonna combine these two as well. These were both good - I found the start button all by myself and I thought the art provided for this project was really well done, even if the one stock sprite felt a little bit out of left field. As others have pointed out, the coin-to-fountain set of CGs were particularly impressive. As can be gleaned from the earlier comments, I think there's plenty of creativity here. You clearly tried to do something new and complex with the narrative, so much so that it might have gone right over many readers' heads.
Or maybe it didn't. My intelligence basically only extends to "lol that doggo gay :D" so what do I know.
Official rating is 16 baguettes out of 41 Civ turns.