Awwh thank you too and don't worry about rambling either, it's very insightful stuff to read.
It is awful the narratives adults can impose onto children without their understanding & use them as tools against one another yeah... It is powerful that you wanted to accomplish what you did then.
And successful reflection and communication is great too. :3 It was interesting reading how some of the letters described that sort of Headspace realm that different alters were travelling through and could find one another in even when someone got lost.
The ways dissociation operates can be quite intricate and alluring. We liked the perspective the alter who was a Princess offered in her letter because of that too. A lot of our ones feel like that, sharing a body with those whose origins feel more foreign to you yet it was sweet to see her willing contribution for that reason too. May she get fun balls and whatever else she enjoys forever
And the acknowledgement that even someone who hurt you is going through something similar, including her own moments of age regression, it's aaugh very real and with so many emotions intertwined to that. It's truly not fair that Coco doesn't have someone fully equipped to look after her. She shouldn't have had to be enmeshed into being a partner and carer herself at such a vulnerable age but to look at the Why is still very humanising too. Reminding me of certain themes and characters from famous visual novel Umineko.
One thing that's occurring to me now is how you described that the VN was perhaps negating the experience of neglect in writing, since there's a lot of time given to show the main relationships and not as much to the Loneliness itself. Though it's not something I'd make a point of critique either, since for a game jam about the toxic relationship itself it makes sense you'd want to feature that most.
The part about, "I don’t think I could have even begun to work on something like this when she was still alive." makes a lot of sense though hmm... Maybe we'll find ourselves more capable of having that shift in perspective as well whenever It happens.
Anyhow thank you so much for your reply, for sharing everything you have and your kind encouragement too! We'll look forward to what you explore in those future works then🙏