To begin with, just outstanding, breathtaking presentation. Fell in love with the UI and the artwork and the soundscaping from the moment the game launched. And it only won me over more from there.
Now, for the meat of it. It’s difficult for me to size up my feelings towards the themes that this work touches, always having been a somewhat quiet voice in online discourse, mostly keeping to myself and my circles. I’ve been in fandom for a long, long while, and I was able to recognize patterns of behaviour the VN has tried to encapsulate, but mostly from the perspective of an outsider. As someone who has friends of friends who were affected by it, rather than having felt it personally. And even then, it is so palpable how real and raw these things are for you to have captured them so vividly.
I can see in C•ko•fn•ta•C so many waking nightmares I’ve seen play out as I scroll the feeds, so many second-hand accounts I’ve had related to me. It feels as if I’m listening to a replay of those stories in a different voice and in different words, if that makes sense.
And as an artist, especially one that is only now just dipping her toes into more… unpalatable stuff, and trying to keep her head held high throughout it all… I can’t help but empathize with Anita. Even though we may not see eye to eye on certain issues, I can’t help but feel utterly revolted when the fundamental want for understanding gets ignored, negated, and inverted, used as a weapon.
All that to say that, even though we may not agree on everything, I’m so so grateful that you shared this. It’s a new way of exploring issues that have been with us for decades, but from a new perspective. Although it may retread old ground, it is yet idiosyncratic and personal and raw and yours, and it should be allowed to exist and thrive. As always, excited for more.
And of course Sunny is just so amazingly terrible in such fascinating ways. “I’m going to hell” YEAH I KNOW GIRLIE LOL
Extremely important work, while being a captivating, revolting thriller cover to cover. I’d rate it 5/5 three times over if I could.