this game took us by suprise. plot wise i was on the edge of my seat. each of Saden's bigheaded bpd ass decisions felt like a tour of self inflicted misery. although is a joy to see her desperate

as a protag she is beautifully  fucked up, on the level of an asuka langy ,a holden cawfiled, or a jax. you can understand how they came to think the way they are or how they think, even if u cant support it, and every page u flip u think "will they learn their lesson" and u go into the next scene with hope she'll be less controlled by spite,ego, or envy...oh how much hope we had.

its like you see her vaunarablity when it escapes her and hope she doen't instantly stuff it down or try to cover it up with "evil". let alone chasing the back of someone who's probably all too like the people who hurt her in the first place!

this game actually chellenges the idea of evil. i dont think either girl is evil how we tend to think of it, but rather evil is just the framework of...not being a victim in a world where u cant only see prey and predator.

and stories, be them fables, gossip, or popular fiction often explore very black and white moralities. and its the stories that explore the grey that are considered interesting, and yet we still go back to tales of classical good and evil

but seeing Saden, who would have essentially grown up in the same world we did, and felt the evils of the world but decided to be evil herself as revenge....this is im realizing as a writing this a character study. and a damn good one

given how strongly the game opens with what kinda life that many queer people have, in a world that hates us, that expects evil from us, its hard not to find some catarsis in Saden's attitude or at least her wounds.

this game invites one to think of how yourself would act in such a scenerio, one where ur actions dont have consequences, or rather u are above them. I guess thats part of the isekai genre but thinking about not just freedom but the power to be cruel without consequence.

despite all signs pointing to an ending i would have a hard time swallowing , i was suprised again by the way it all ended. i have to say its proabably the toxic yuri jam game 2026 game we played today that made us feel the most hopful in th end?

and i know that stories dont need to have something consdered an optomisatic ending  to be good (let alone in the jam this was made for)  but maybe since i felt i was getting negged by the protag in real time while playing for even hoping she could get her shit together, made the ending hit so much more if it done the expected outcome.

but even at the end i don't feel like "oh my so much growth" it feels like the start of a new outlook. more of a chaotic neutral than evil. u did something great here. thank you for bringing celestial counterfeiter into the world!