itch.io

aurghghgh i found this story pretty upsetting ngl hahaha

it has a pretty goofy premise but it handles it so earnestly and so poignantly, sarah feels like an incredibly realistic character, her thought processes are laid out in such a stark and intimate way (that you know she would hate herself since she prefers to keep her thoughts hidden) feels quite painful

i also really like that her parents are also characters with sprites in this story: i feel like so many vns will just never show parent characters at all because they're not ~interesting~ and they ~get in the way of the narrative~, but imo it's more realistic to give thems ome focus. having sarah feel so conscious of living under her parents' roof and her mixture of gratitude(?) to them that they provide for her and the discomfort of knowing that she'll basically always have to follow their rules and do what they want her to also feels very lifelike... i imagine a lot of people would be able to relate to these emotions, the passive aggressive comments from her mother and the flippancy of her father add further layers of Pain to the story

as for the main relationship... well, it feels like there was no other way to end it, but i'm sad that graye's shounen pluck was not able to get through to sarah. the ending was genuinely very sad, seeing her turn her back on everything she once took solace in while not having anything to replace the void? she still isn't comfortable in her own skin, still doesn't know what she wants in the future, and is still pushing people away.

i hope she will be happy in the future, even without graye. also while bun was quite grating in her "oh well i only care about my yaoi"s stuff masquerading as some sort of progressivisom, it was sad to see sarah block her without a word when she was her best friend. i also feel bad for bun and she wasn't in the story that much haha, i feel like sarah at least should have had a talk with her but... i suppose she's running away again.

i feel like it's a story about a character stuck in her ways, constantly concerned about what other people think. her only solace is her own fantasy world derived from what seems like a fairly shlocky boys manga whose fanbase is actively hostile to its female readers by a mangaka who treats its female characters like props (is this why sarah takes an interest in it? the female characters are pretty shallow and pale in comparison to the male leads, so it's easier to ignore them and The Presence Of Womanhood: it's easier to erase herself from the narrative), and then even that is sullied in the end when the potentially poignant reveal is clumsily fumbled and it reveals to her how empty it all was. she wants to change, but in the end, she still can't, and she loses her main coping mechanism.

it's hard not to find it very sad, but i do hope she will find something else to fill the void and she can some day become more comfortable in own skin and more confident in her own abilities. i'd like to imagine she will find something to replace graye, but i suppose that exists beyond the boundaries of this story........


anyway i liked this a lot, it feels so real and sincere and i am sure there's a lot of girls in fandom out there who can relate to this. thank you for making it, i really enjoyed it (even if it made me very sad lol)