Spoiler Alert!
A rather short entry with a beautiful message. However, it didn’t hit as hard as it should. One part is because the entry is too short, and another thing is the rather jarring shift between tones halfway through the story. I love the 2 poems though, it really drives home the core themes of the story. I’d suggest slowing it down though, suddenly entering an 8 months and 2 days timeskip might be too much (perhaps add a scene where Sergio had to go to the hospital or sth like that). Oh, and also it is generally not a good idea to slam the reader with the entire cast at the start of the story (idk if it’s just me but I got them really mixed up for the first few scenes, though the color coding does help somewhat). Perhaps you could let MC do a mental profile, or introduce them slowly by adding scenes before the hangout.
For presentation, I like the vibe of the story, the interaction and characterization is really friend-coded (not the way I have a relationship exactly like Ryan and Manny 😭😭). Maybe it’s just me, but you could consider splitting off the NVL sections better, it wouldn’t hurt to have one or 2 extra screens rather than trying to fill the entire NVL box to full. Some prose are a little difficult to read, and maybe would benefit from some cuts (either to shorten the sentence or split it into 2 textboxes instead).
For the theming, moving on was probably the ‘Light’, and the ‘Dark’ is also clear. It’s present throughout the story in the form of Sergio’s time ticking down (but the payoff wasn’t really there). I expected to feel more…painful at his death, but maybe this was the intention, to move on.
P.S Writing cringe poems is so romantic, wish someone would do that to me ngl :vvv
Rating: 3344
Edit: Rebalancing of rating to 4344