okay so uh, this evening i had an extremely extended experience of what i guess could be a called a "self hatred episode", one of those times when i just cant convince myself that im not ugly, stupid, lazy, shallow, and all that. i experience them semi-regularly and i feel absolutely awful about it, not just because of the pain of the episodes themselves but because i always feel like im forcing my problems on others when i talk to others during them,,,especially those close to me

this evening i also beat the main story of celeste. ngl i cant like, elegantly weave these two things together, i wasn't sitting there going through an emotional thought process that the game helped speed along, in fact i barely thought anything. by the time i was getting to the home stretch of the last level, there were multiple times when i flat-out thought that getting past a certain obstacle was beyond my ability. the only solution when you reach a point like that is to stop thinking...build up your muscle memory, etch closer and closer, and finally exhale hard when you get past it. thinking hardly enters the equation,,,its all in feeling, ig

and i think that's my point? beating celeste gave me such an unbelievable rush of relief and satisfaction. and the ending isnt big and fireworksy, its quiet and contemplative. it hit me so hard that i almost cried for the second time today. maybe no game can help me work through my problems, but it's hard to imagine a game coming along at a more perfect time for me...when rational thought fails, maybe i need to be viscerally moved. celeste is both viseral and moving...ty to the devs

madeline said trans rights