thank you so much for playing (and appreciating!) our VN!!! i think you make a really great point about the like cyclicality of human failure and the fucked-ness of everything and the only real option a lot of the times is to kind of like fuck it back, to maybe fuck it back into place. a kind of percussive maintenance of the world.
i'm glad (and sad?) that i was able to show dynamics between R--- and C--- (and how they respond to the world) that were resonant for you. i think especially in R---'s case, there is that deep need for rest and healing (and to be cared for, to herself be mothered), but also this like dread that she's realized as an adult that like she has no real possibility of that as a very isolated woman in poverty and chronic (physical/mental/emotional) illness, and some part of her will at times whatever it takes to buy her a moment's peace.
and then as you elucidated there's also the like aspect of being joined at the hip or really connected via a sort of spiritual, bidirectional umbilical cord, and how that results in being dragged into situations that are really no place for a child to be in, because the alternative (separation) is conceived of (and may very well be!) far worse. for better or worse, R--- was unwilling to abandon her kid to a world that had abandoned her.
also i really like the metaphor you led this comment off with, it is fantastic!!
(also i am excited to a) read your work! and b) write about growing up in anywhere nowhere texas (soon, i hope) which is a place that is. god. this mess is a place, for sure. might spend the rest of our life here though :) )