I really enjoyed this! (spoilery thoughts post my first playthrough below)
The character writing in this is so excellent. The beginning scenes establish the uneasiness of Daizy and Anisia's dynamic via tiny details like Daizy putting up with Anisia's radio despite telling herself she'd turn it off if she knew it was making her uncomfortable, immediately setting up the themes of consent, manipulation and control as we question what the truth of their relationship is. There's a backdrop to their intimacy that feels cosy and lived in, but also cloying and isolated even in the scenes where everything seems normal or positive. It makes the gradual transition into scenes that are absolutely wrong feel uncanny, as we see how distorted Daizy's understanding of boundaries and her bodily autonomy has become. Whether they're having unpleasureable sex or eating a picnic, Daizy seems adrift in their relationship and the world at large. It becomes clear over the course of the story that Anisia isn't an anchor holding her steady, but a stone around her neck dragging her deeper and deeper into the red liquid.
The sense of dread is done really well throughout, and established long before anything supernatural happens. While I don't have psychosis I appreciated how the writing style tries to grapple with how to depict Daizy's thoughts, and values conveying her experience over making a frictionless reading experience for the viewer. The narrative fragmenting as Daizy's inner monologue and voices that may or may not be supernatural intrude on her understanding of the world more and more brings us into her perspective and shows the relentlessness of her condition, its constant onslaught against her mind. The way she overanalyses and explains herself away until there's nothing left is really sad. It makes the gradual encroaching of the red flowers genuinely terrifying as Daizy grapples with the possibility that her condition may be about to tear her stable life apart. It's almost a relief when the demon turns out to be real, at least for a little while.
And that demon. Oh boy. I've seen other comments analysing the thematic progression from previous games (the ocu - ophanmikei cinematic universe) and I definitely see what people are saying in the sense that themes established in WIILTT are explored here in a darker direction, particularly themes of caregiving and autonomy (with a dash of Honeydew's plant horror). What stuck out to me personally is how in WIILTT Aiyana's mother feels like this distant darkness in her past that Emma can see the effects of but not ever fully understand, though we occasionally get glimpses of what living under her thumb must have felt like. Here mother-daughter trauma is very much at the forefront and explored in some really intimate and frightening ways that feeds into the themes of flesh and the inability to run from what's in our blood. The gradual reveal of what happened to Daizy's mother (or what I interpret to have happened to her) via Daizy's own degradation into similar circumstances is horrifying yet somehow beautiful, as is the enmeshment that forms between Daizy and the creature. It's like the daughter's life is sacrificed to form an altar for her dead mother, who is ressurrected as a symbol of her abusive control via the figure of Mammillaria.
The line where the demon mocks Daizy and Anisia for having forgotten their roots and with that lost the ability to defend themselves from her is really interesting to me. It suggests a potentially alternative path of events where the characters are able to overcome the rot taking advantage of them by grappling with the traumatic legacies they have inherited rather than running from them. There's a kind of hopeful message in that. These girls who spent so much time believing their pasts were something to be hidden and frightened of could have in fact been saved by facing them head on. Food for thought! And I suspect that my interpretation and feelings will change as I sit with this one.
The artwork, music and presentation is also so slick and well made. Really thoughtful game that is able to cover a lot of emotional and thematic ground <3 Thank you for sharing!
Viewing post in Veil of Mammillaria comments
This is very thorough. This analysis makes me extremely happy. A lot of work was put into the story, so I’m glad you are sitting with it. I had a very strong vision I felt from the get-go and being able to collab while also having so many beta readers check/critique my work was really helpful for me this time around.
spoilers/ more thoughts
OCU really made me giggle. It’s good. I avoid directly stating how the structure of my stories work or explaining to others that they are (generally) all in one universe so when I see things like this, it makes me smile.
Anisia was really fun for me to write. I’m happy that the feeling of “wrongness” between the two of them comes through, even from the start. I love to depict imbalance and underlying friction ^^
I know most people will jump to comparing it to Glow of Honeydew because of the flowers, but I really do view it as a reflection of WIILTT. Many times I found myself comparing it to WIILTT’s structure and pacing. I do not think this work could exist narratively without having made WIILTT last year, even though it goes in an entirely different direction, so this analysis means a lot to me. When people notice it, it really feels good too.. People have stuck around somehow ^^;
WIILTT was also a VN where I kind of prioritized an experience with “friction,” in that I felt some people would want to bash their head into a wall reading it, but it is somewhat intentional. I love depicting mental illness in this way, so it’s nice when readers indulge me ^^
Mammillaria, to me, really is an entity that meant a lot to me to write. Her dialogue was changed quite a bit to reflect my thoughts on her. She cannot say a lot in some ways due to the nature of her existence in story, but well, I tried very very hard to make what she said count ^^ Same with Daizy’s mom of course.
Thank you again. This made me smile.