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Finally got around to reading this, and what a read. What a damn read.

Spoilers incoming----------

Even the things I initially disliked about the prose (like Stephanie's pompous way of speaking and Hellen's internet-speak) only made the story better once the reveal happens. I think it's easier for me to feel for Stephanie because we get access to her inner world, and we can guess the amount of religious guilt and self-loathing she's going through from the bits and pieces beyond the facade. But the circumstances of her relationship with Chrys are way worse than Hellen's.

 Hellen was a kid. A confused teenager. One who did endless harm, yes, but a confused teen nonetheless. Something I've always thought about a lot is when do we, as adults, start going from confused kids trying our best to navigate tough changes to people who are completely responsible for the harm we inflict upon those more vulnerable than us ? Is it the arbitrary 18 ? Is it when we reach higher societal power than our victims ? Or rather than going up, should we look down, and consider anyone above 15 as fully responsible for said harm too ? When do we stop ?

Obviously there isn't any clear cut answer. This is something societies still struggle with today, and will probably disagree on for the rest of human life. But there's one truth that remains when we talk about the standards of perpetrators : a victim has to exists for them to be called so. Someone was hurt. Someone was groomed, someone was bullied and harmed and pushed to the the brink. And because we focus so much on perpetrators, we often don't get to hear the victim's words. How they see themselves. How they lived through what happened to them. How they felt about it all. We as readers can guess about who Chrys was (I have many such guesses myself), but ultimately, we -- just like Hellen and Stephanie -- can only have an idea of who she was. The one living in our head isn't the real Chrys. Nobody knows the real Chrys but Chrys herself, and Chrys is gone.

I usually say something along the lines of "this was a joy to read" but was it ? I don't think I felt much joy reading this entry ; but I did feel very strongly, and I think that's everything when it comes to fiction. Thank you for making this beautiful game !!

Congratulations again Jaxxie. I've very much been a "quit-when-it-gets-hard" kind of person too, always searching for the right time, the right opportunity ; avoiding and avoiding and telling myself I'd do it later. I feel everything you've written on a very deep level and I am therefore SO happy you got to the finish line this time. I think you can be proud of what you made !! Your piece rocked !!

Here's to many more projects full of sincerity and tried-our-best, and let them blossom into amazing works of art along the way !

Thank you SO MUCH for playing and thank you even more than that for this lovely & thoughtful comment theo !! ;___;

Thank you so much for playing !!

Ah, perhaps I was playing an older build then ? I did download it much earlier !

It's an artistic masterpiece is what it is. Not a single superfluous word, the raw feelings bare and nerves exposed and the beautiful soft art that is so cute and comforting and yet !! And yet only exacerbates the things festering below. It's so rare seeing vaginismus treated with care and honesty in media too. Beautiful read !

What a stellar read !! I don't often really enjoy works from a hard sub's point of view, mainly because the experiences these characters feel are so foreign to my own. I'm extremely thankful as a dom, but as a person I find myself utterly confused at the Hows and Whys people would ever want to put themselves through the wringer like that (aside from religious trauma. That one I got pretty early on).

Well this is the first story ever to actually make me understand, even if only a fraction of it all. The repetitive mechanic of Simone "choosing" to not make a decision was an amazing narrative design move. The choice is there, in full view : she could make it. She just has to reach for it -- yet she doesn't. Time & time again, she goes where she's told to go, does what she's told to do, not because she doesn't have a literal choice in the matter : but because she refuses to make one knowing it could have consequences. Because her whole self-worth relies on not being a Bad Person, she needs plausible deniability. Kink, at its core, is wish and needs fulfillment. It makes sense that this fundamental need to not be made responsible for her own actions leads to the intense pleasure she feels when she is led around. It actually altered something in my brain to finally realize where that relief of relinquishing control to someone else can stem from..

The dynamic between all of the characters is the highest high of the story. Cora is a pebble thrown in Simone and Fox's well water and the ensuing havoc is a joy to witness. I know none of them is supposed to be "likeable" in the average sense of the word, but all of them were endearing for vastly different reasons. I think Cora is my favorite though. Her grandiloquence, the ways her prejudices show themselves in the smallest of ways (her line about the maid is amazing at conveying the kind of person she really is under her pretenses) and of course how unhinged she can get was so up my alley. Again, such a joy to read !

I've loved selfcest since I was a wee thing. This feeling of loving, loathing, longing for yourself - a you that is not quite you yet fully you. I think this story explored all of that and more in a really heart-grabbing way. I empathized a lot with Erin, and just as I really wanted to give her a hug, the final scene happened. It's easy to see how much sincerity was poured into every word !

As the tiniest of asides, sometimes the prose exited the window in NVL mode and I couldn't quite grasp some sentences (blame it on my bad ESL, perhaps). I think tweaking it ever so slightly so the entirety of the text can be read in its full glory would do justice to it !!

Thank you for the ride, congratulations on your first VN and may we get to read a lot more from you from now on ~

Made me deeply, DEEPLY uncomfortable. Stellar writing, an amazing look at the slow erosion that isolation and toxic positivity brings out. Especially relevant to the kind of dystopia we are heading into with LLMs !!

Thank you so much for the kind words Jaxxie !! I'm planning to finish it by the end of the year at worst, and I hope you'll take the time to give it another look when it's complete !

This is my absolute favorite flavor of enemies-to-lovers : enemies-to-enemies AND lovers. Beautiful art, great prose, amazing story. I felt so much for both of the leads !

Kagamin feels textually like a tragic heroine. She's an outsider both in birth and in attitude, she rises through the power system through her desperate hard work, and well, there's the ending. She is so easy to empathize with and so well written.

But I actually like Swallow more. We see so much of Kagamitsuki's interiority and so very little of hers, but what we do get is enough to piece together a horrific vision of profound loss. The kind of loss that can only be felt by someone who theoretically has it all but who truly has nothing. The way she lashes onto Kagamin as her lifeline and savior speaks to my heart in the way only the best fictional toxic dependencies can.

Thank you for sharing such a splendid work of art with us Lunran !!!

I am in love with everything from the moody prose to the vivid voices to the insanely sexy dynamic between the characters. I actually yelled "NO" out loud when it ended. 100/100 no notes I will be requiring 4 seasons and two movies ASAP thank you very much

This killed me in such a satisfying way. Pure existential dread and the kind of loving and longing you can only have for someone dead or dying - those are some of the rawest emotions a human being can feel, and I felt it all while reading this. Thank you.