MATTHS 26

hey. i haven't fully finished this and have really barely started but i go to the college in this vn; the one that's closing. i'm part of the last class. i don't jnow what your connection is to the college but i can tell you that as part of its final class reading this feels weird. campus is super empty (i work at the library and can honest to god count on one hand the number of people who i see in a day) and seeing all these pictures and stories of it as alive is... a lot. a lot to deal with. i was part of the short lived visual novel club here and am going to send this over to the others who used to be part of it and see if maybe we would wanna find some way to play it together even if most of them didn't stick around for one reason or another. don't fully know the point of leaving this comment just... yeah. we're still here. thanks for reminding me of our history and i'm sure i'll leave a very very emo comment when i've played more  than 20 minutes. 

this is very great I think, good story with genuinely rattling segments (split across sessions), and neat art & sound direction! (definitely achieves a sort of otherworldly feel in places, backgrounds like a cross between Earthbound battle patterns and the screens from the obscure Donkey Kong 3 on PC-98)!

That definitely was... something... something very good, for sure, and I had a great experience with the game... but I think it's the game I felt the most viscerally. I could comment on the amazing art direction, how it depicts somehow madness (?????????????) so well, the music tracks were immaculately chosen too, the writing was so good I took screenshots of LINES..... and yet, I feel like that would be trying to analyse/break down what makes this game work, when that's sincerely not how I experienced this game. I do tend to see patterns in stories, to connect them, and that's something I really enjoy doing — gotta put that master's degree in literature to good use. But I just can't here. Not exactly though (I guess spoilers ahead for anyone reading this who would like to avoid them??)

Like, that hegar sound scene... is legit the first time that, playing in a VN, I genuinely, non-metaphhorically was about to throw up. I could feel it in my body, I hated that, I hated that so much, gosh!! And my mind does perceive the motif of forced penetration (between the piercing, that, and what eventually happens...)... But I actually just viscerally reacted to the scene, and to the game in a broader way. Even as I'm writing this, I can feel the sensation lingering in my chest, my throat is occupied, and I hope it goes later today because there's no way I'm able to eat while it stays.

In the end, I think I identified with Kevvz to some extend. In the end, in particular, I was half-dissociating I guess?? Not really dissociating, as I could still read what was going on... But I felt estranged to the fact I was interacting with a VN. Like, if you guys ever heard of co-consciousness without co-fronting in DID, but that felt like it? Like, I was watching the end of the game from afar, but somehow, I wasn't truly interacting with it? Just reading Miri's words and takes, and I was like "ok what's the point tho i just feel vi**ated"

Like, even as I'm writing this comment, I have to take breaks to clear my mind a bit, and one of them involved me clencing my first and whispering "I hate him I hate him" repeatedly thinking of Matths.

And to make it clear: this is high praise. My visceral reaction speaks volumes about how well-crafted the game is, how subversive it manages to be, and also, how fleshed out the characters are. If I try to say more "objective" things (not that they are objective, but I guess there are worth more than my rambling), I loved having the two perspectives, I loved how the visuals and the writing rendered Kevvz' stream of thoughts, how many questions he has, and let us wonder whether it was actual insanity or just some sort of anxiety-induced mess that still, somehow, has meaning — we do live in times of existential dread and crisis. This was a very masterful experience.

I'm sorry if my words aren't worth very much because everything is all over the place. I just wanted to share my thoughts and, ultimately, thank the team for allowing media like that to exist, to represent what it is like to be overwhelmed with your life, your thoughts, your thoughts, oh God, how overwhelming can those be.

P.S. : I can't have a meal without sriracha. I also drank sriracha straight frm the bottle once. I love sriracha.

aaaaaaaaaa so fucking good. i have to go drive to that fucking college while i still can i need to immortalize that space within my mind. love seeing a mind that's taking itself apart so thoroughly

Honestly life changing and gives me massive brainworms. Kevvz I love you sooooo much let's be schizo4schizo. Matthew I support your trans man wrongs. So much of this writing really exposed my thoughts and feelings. I think about this multiple times a day truly. Amazing. Truly phenomenal.