gonna put this little review up elsewhere later, but to make sure you see it:
Another deceptively cute-looking Toxic Yuri Jam visual novel! This one is a single linear route, and very short, but it’s super well-written, well-designed, and deft in how it juggles and combines its themes. I think the most obvious interpretation is that this is a story primarily “about” how AI “companions” ensure that people will stagnate in masturbatory escapism and remain passive to an increasingly dystopian world, while without AI it’s possible they’d’ve eventually made real connections with others that challenged them and led to change. At the same time, Snowy didn’t cause Danica’s problems— this is also a very I Saw the TV Glow-esque evocation of how empty and suffocating life as a repressed trans person can feel, and how the childhood fandom interests that initially serve as an escape from those feelings can become their own type of growth-stunting cage, ill-equipped to help a person cope with the complexities of adult feelings, responsibilities, and relationships.
As someone who used to struggle with this a lot, I also appreciated this game’s depiction of how…uh…a certain kind of addictive tendency isn’t limited to or even really attributable to one behavior or substance or act or focus, but is rather something that warps and shifts to conceal a deeper feeling of self-loathing and dis-ease with the world.