Aliska is straight up butch badassery incarnate. The action in here is very good, I definitely got a good adrenaline rush. My initial reading of the relationship between the two's dynamic was kind of akin to staying alive for your "inner child"/younger self, or rather someone that represents it, but there's definitely so much more to it than just that. The use of a unreliable narrator was very good, it had me guessing everyone's intentions so much, that the final twist at the end was very impactful.
The couch scene made me think that Sasha had been groomed before, perhaps by her birth parents, and that perhaps the way she was interpretating Alishka was her reliving a trauma/misreading her intentions... but nope! That sense of unease in my gut ended up being right. I almost didn't want to believe it, and perhaps this is a consequence of Alishka being the protag/main narrator (and also myself for being butch, and more connected with her character/gender). I remember being like, 1k words from the ending and thinking "hmm... why was this submitted to the toxic yuri jam... Maybe it's going to be something with Misha....? (already knows the answer)". I really like the imagery of meat and flesh that appears across your works, it is such a gristly way to portray dissociation and dehumanisation. The whole atmosphere of this game is top tier, I especially love the dithering on the background images.
If I had to critique something about the writing, I would say that the ending is slightly too abrupt? I also felt this way about the endings of passenger princess and girls symbiosis. For Ache Vermin, the ending feels like getting hit by a truck, there is more impact/improved from previous stories, but I really want to feel like I'm bleeding out a little bit more... The day after finishing I was thinking that while Sasha can read people's minds, would she have even needed to in order to see Alishka's passive suicidality? That must have been so awful witness regardless, but I wish I knew the impact of being around someone who does not care for themselves more. I find it so much harder to understand Sasha, personally.
Overall, I adore this game. It has given me a lot to think about and provided a sort of emotional catharsis for me. Thank you for bringing it into this world! I look forward to both replaying this, and experiencing future Lunaticker works.
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Love love love this story!! The way you write feels so natural and similar to my own internal monologue, making it easy to connect with the characters, both in bad ways and good. The scrubbing scene felt like it happened in my own shitty rented bathroom - the layout I visualised feels almost exactly the same as mines and I think I've noticed mold on my shower curtain too lololol. The dialogue between Vera and Dodie was very touching, it felt like everything that was said would be exactly what I would want to hear in my own worst moments.
I went on a little bit of a "snails as pets" research rabbit hole after playing this, and it's really touching how many other real people have reported that these creatures have taught them so much and brought joy into their lives. It kinda made me want to have a snail to hang out with too. I created a small Vera sculpture instead though, she's not my best work by any means but I wanted to make her so I remember this story and to show her to you to let you know it matters to people <3