This is such a finely tuned story that really, really impacted me, down to my core. It’s been such an immense pleasure to watch you two go from great to phenomenal over the course of three visual novels, and it sounds really so so corny but I mean it when I say I feel lucky to be reading your work!
Anyways, to the review part of the review. You’re both very good at breathing life into specific characters, and then viscerally communicating all the friction that is communicated at the point of contact. Alba and Nicole I felt that particularly strongly with, and I am happy to add Ys to the group… what an astoundingly compelling character. Yamos was also lovely but Ys really sucker-punched me, I think in part because she had the privilege of placement—you go ok long distance relationship, ok older woman in an age gap relationship, ok emotionally closed off older woman who refuses to listen to the very understandably emotional college age kid who is going through a lot—I started to tip the scale in Yamos's favor, assigning the driving force of the toxic yuri to the woman who conceivably has the upper hand in the dynamic. And then you get Ys’s side and I just cried a lot.
At that sort of reversal, a lot of the themes of the novel clicked into place better, and I was also able to better appreciate Yamos's character. It’s such a stunning exploration of traumatized and arrested time from two two people in very different places, shouting past each other. The ending was really perfect with all of this in mind, but the organizing narrative device (? not sure the best way to describe this) of the scorecards is just SOOOOO outrageously perfect and compelling, and pairs really well with AIDS quilts.
Love your work—thanks as always for making and sharing.