LUNA-TERRA RUN
i dunno maybe it's taken me over a month to write about this because i'm fucking insane about LT. did the CM ending, since i did the MF ending for saturn. really glad i watched a bunch of gundam before this one, LT isn't char but playing from her perspective is definitely more fun when you've seen the char aznable burger commercial. i think the first time around, i did not appreciate pluto as a character nearly enough. and i didn't even know who europa was....... imagine going your whole life and never seeing her......... what a horrible way to live
i dunno maybe it's taken me over a month to write about this because i'm fucking insane about LT. did the CM ending, since i did the MF ending for saturn. really glad i watched a bunch of gundam before this one, LT isn't char but playing from her perspective is definitely more fun when you've seen the char aznable burger commercial. i think the first time around, i did not appreciate pluto as a character nearly enough. and i didn't even know who europa was....... imagine going your whole life and never seeing her......... what a horrible way to live
Great gay mech girls. Still need to play the other endings though.
Appalling and unendearingly juvenile: it's a display of trans women's tragic, enforced inability to conceptualize a future for themselves, bereft even of the understanding of this limitation.
The lack of structure, which in a more purposeful work might express a belief about narrative itself or the patterns of human life, is here an expression of its belief in the fundamental passivity of the demographic it represents. Its characters are incapable of meaningful action: everything they do is an expression of sexuality, while actual sex is functionally absent from their world -- it is reminiscent of Valerie Solanas.
The vacuity of the interpersonal relationships between these characters, which never extend beyond flirtation, seems lost on the game, which miraculous transmutes these into serious, committed intimacy in the final act. Love and belonging are nothing more than an abstract hope here: the labor, the negotiation, and the compromise that render either of the positions possible is regarded as an impossibility.
Indeed, the possibility of any contact between the transgender and non-transgender worlds (which are in reality one world: Earth) seems to be explicitly denied. This theme is especially prominent in one ending, in which the allegory of a doomed romantic relationship is used to express it: a motif I find particularly vexsome.
While my support for the developer is unwavering, I cannot abide the work itself. I truly hope we can one day count on transgender authors, at the very least, not to produce narratives of transgender impotence.
The lack of structure, which in a more purposeful work might express a belief about narrative itself or the patterns of human life, is here an expression of its belief in the fundamental passivity of the demographic it represents. Its characters are incapable of meaningful action: everything they do is an expression of sexuality, while actual sex is functionally absent from their world -- it is reminiscent of Valerie Solanas.
The vacuity of the interpersonal relationships between these characters, which never extend beyond flirtation, seems lost on the game, which miraculous transmutes these into serious, committed intimacy in the final act. Love and belonging are nothing more than an abstract hope here: the labor, the negotiation, and the compromise that render either of the positions possible is regarded as an impossibility.
Indeed, the possibility of any contact between the transgender and non-transgender worlds (which are in reality one world: Earth) seems to be explicitly denied. This theme is especially prominent in one ending, in which the allegory of a doomed romantic relationship is used to express it: a motif I find particularly vexsome.
While my support for the developer is unwavering, I cannot abide the work itself. I truly hope we can one day count on transgender authors, at the very least, not to produce narratives of transgender impotence.
I respect women like Halimede. Women with courage.
SATURN RUN
i have absolutely nothing intelligent to say about this game. that's not a mark against it, that just means i have gone so insane about the characters that i already changed my discord profile pic to luna-terra. it's got mechs and lesbians and GRAVITY and politics and a whole lot of very abstract flavor text that took some getting used to. but once you're vibing with it, it captures your soul in the tidal forces and pulls you into a crushing embrace. cannot recommend enough.
i have absolutely nothing intelligent to say about this game. that's not a mark against it, that just means i have gone so insane about the characters that i already changed my discord profile pic to luna-terra. it's got mechs and lesbians and GRAVITY and politics and a whole lot of very abstract flavor text that took some getting used to. but once you're vibing with it, it captures your soul in the tidal forces and pulls you into a crushing embrace. cannot recommend enough.
I got enough low-key anxiety from the gameplay loop that I ended up dropping it, but great writing and art style regardless.
I enjoyed this game a fair amount - the art and the soundtrack are particular high points and work very well stylistically with the story.
My only gripe is that I think that the writing was simultaneously superficially dense and relatively shallow. So while I enjoyed the story and was interested by the points it was making, I felt that it was trying to make it seem like it has more to say than it actually does.
Worth the time to play for sure if you like the subject matters of mechs, queerness, or sci-fi politics, and can put up with deliberately obtuse language.
My only gripe is that I think that the writing was simultaneously superficially dense and relatively shallow. So while I enjoyed the story and was interested by the points it was making, I felt that it was trying to make it seem like it has more to say than it actually does.
Worth the time to play for sure if you like the subject matters of mechs, queerness, or sci-fi politics, and can put up with deliberately obtuse language.
I really tried. On paper, this should appeal to me so much. It doesn't. The writing is stale and lifeless. I can usually overlook things like that if there's a decent enough core. There isn't here. Sci-fi mumbo jumbo is thrown around and you're just expected to go along with it. To the point it feels hard to follow what is going on.
Had this in my backlog for years because I loved We Know the Devil and ultimately I'm actually surprised that the devs who made such a great game like that followed it up with such utter mid. The game tries to do in media res but does it terribly, the characters all know each other but it’s not done in a natural feeling way so it just feels confusing and its worldbuilding is barely even explained enough to give the reader enough context to go in media res like that. Like I admittedly didn't even finish my first path, Luna Terra's, but I was already just checked out with the game and that’s not a good sign at all to me. Also for being a VN it barely has any actual visuals. Just feels super amateurish, like this was the dev's first outing instead of their second after a truly great game. Really just made feel like I'd would rather be playing Citizen Sleeper, which does sci-fi existentialism far, far better.
"keep your friends close, and your exes closer."
I heard of this game because of the halimede twitter account lol. thusly I played as luna-terra.
I really wanted to like it. it could be that I'm not that into visual novels as a whole. it has interesting themes and art direction, but it lacks something to me. I'm not a big fan of the writing, the whole thing feels somewhat vague, failing to elaborate as much as I'd like on characters, story beats, and such. still, some lines did strike a personal chord with me.
the game does flesh out the factions and the mechs as you play, but going into it I was looking for more detail on that, and the general world building, and I found myself a little lost.
I kinda wish this was a book.
I heard of this game because of the halimede twitter account lol. thusly I played as luna-terra.
I really wanted to like it. it could be that I'm not that into visual novels as a whole. it has interesting themes and art direction, but it lacks something to me. I'm not a big fan of the writing, the whole thing feels somewhat vague, failing to elaborate as much as I'd like on characters, story beats, and such. still, some lines did strike a personal chord with me.
the game does flesh out the factions and the mechs as you play, but going into it I was looking for more detail on that, and the general world building, and I found myself a little lost.
I kinda wish this was a book.
This review contains spoilers
I played Luna-Terra as the most resigned cop, as a paragon of uncharismatic adult compromise, and yet she still found it in her to shoot her womanchild ex in favor of a fluffy three-girl polycule.
I'm assuming that there are bad endings, or at least endings with a little more substance, but I don't know if I care to play a second route. The whole effort is kitsch without a sense of humor, something which appropriates the thematic structure of early-00s Gainax while insisting, without adding much substance, on a dry profundity that those shows never aspired to.
That missing sense of humor, or even just a sense that any fun was had in its composition, could have made the piece work. The fight sequences, in particular, are made up of creative writing program prose poetry which I found painful to read and yet too rote to be called cringe. They're obviously intended to evoke sex, but what this amounts to is a series of coy allusions to topping and bottoming and characters grinning deviously at one another while reading their Twitter posts aloud. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, this is erotica written as if it were a painful duty.
The decision to split the game into scenes which can have no real consequence beyond filling one of three meters willingly sacrifices the possibility of a dramatic structure, of character growth, or of developing relationships. The aforementioned ex betrayal and polycule ending didn't come out of the game's events: Luna-Terra's decision to lunafy terra seems to have come about offscreen prior to the game's start, and her shockingly robust sense of solidarity with the other two pilots seems to have been formed because she was mildly charming during robot impact play.
Ultimately can't help but feel this is using its medium and genre not to support its themes but to avoid developing them. I hate to have to say this sincerely but I think the Halimede RP account deals with a lot of these ideas more succinctly and completely.
I'm assuming that there are bad endings, or at least endings with a little more substance, but I don't know if I care to play a second route. The whole effort is kitsch without a sense of humor, something which appropriates the thematic structure of early-00s Gainax while insisting, without adding much substance, on a dry profundity that those shows never aspired to.
That missing sense of humor, or even just a sense that any fun was had in its composition, could have made the piece work. The fight sequences, in particular, are made up of creative writing program prose poetry which I found painful to read and yet too rote to be called cringe. They're obviously intended to evoke sex, but what this amounts to is a series of coy allusions to topping and bottoming and characters grinning deviously at one another while reading their Twitter posts aloud. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, this is erotica written as if it were a painful duty.
The decision to split the game into scenes which can have no real consequence beyond filling one of three meters willingly sacrifices the possibility of a dramatic structure, of character growth, or of developing relationships. The aforementioned ex betrayal and polycule ending didn't come out of the game's events: Luna-Terra's decision to lunafy terra seems to have come about offscreen prior to the game's start, and her shockingly robust sense of solidarity with the other two pilots seems to have been formed because she was mildly charming during robot impact play.
Ultimately can't help but feel this is using its medium and genre not to support its themes but to avoid developing them. I hate to have to say this sincerely but I think the Halimede RP account deals with a lot of these ideas more succinctly and completely.
Heaven was indeed theirs.
YURI DE MECHAS YURI DE MECHAS!!!!!!
When I finished Heaven Will Be Mine I was left feeling like most people who play this will either claim it to be a religious experience or view it as a slog to get through. Then there is myself who sort lands in the middle where I there are parts I greatly admire and parts I question a lot.
For starters, the art direction and atmosphere of the game is top notch. As visual novels go, this one does a great job of standing out. Mia Schwartz's stunning art does a great job of showcasing the most intimate and intense moments of the story in a way that really sticks with you. They use colors in a way I find very appealing and left me admiring almost all of the art in the game. Alec Lambert delivers another fantastic soundtrack with a lot of moody pieces that feel right at home with the story about transcending humanity and flying sexy robots.
Where I think the game falters the most is its story. Similar to the developer's previous game "We Know the Devil", there are three routes to choose from with three different characters to play as. Of course when I say play I mean you are just reading and boy is there a lot of text. Unlike the previous game, each run can take over an hour based on your reading speed and if you want to read all you can about the world it will take even longer. My biggest gripe with all this reading is that I just did not find it nearly as compelling as the previous game. There's a lot of optional text that goes more into the world and relationship between certain characters the main problem was that none of this text enhanced what I was reading in the main story. I feel this game would have benefitted from a smaller script because by the time I got to the last playthrough, I was skipping a lot of the dialogue which I normally don't like to do.
By and large what upsets me the most is that I just didn't enjoy this game nearly as much as "We Know the Devil" which I loved greatly. There is a lot of cool story bits that I wish I could wrap my head around more as I feel it would have enhanced my experience. I can see why this game is often talked about in regards to LGBTQ+ games I just wish I resonated with it more.
For starters, the art direction and atmosphere of the game is top notch. As visual novels go, this one does a great job of standing out. Mia Schwartz's stunning art does a great job of showcasing the most intimate and intense moments of the story in a way that really sticks with you. They use colors in a way I find very appealing and left me admiring almost all of the art in the game. Alec Lambert delivers another fantastic soundtrack with a lot of moody pieces that feel right at home with the story about transcending humanity and flying sexy robots.
Where I think the game falters the most is its story. Similar to the developer's previous game "We Know the Devil", there are three routes to choose from with three different characters to play as. Of course when I say play I mean you are just reading and boy is there a lot of text. Unlike the previous game, each run can take over an hour based on your reading speed and if you want to read all you can about the world it will take even longer. My biggest gripe with all this reading is that I just did not find it nearly as compelling as the previous game. There's a lot of optional text that goes more into the world and relationship between certain characters the main problem was that none of this text enhanced what I was reading in the main story. I feel this game would have benefitted from a smaller script because by the time I got to the last playthrough, I was skipping a lot of the dialogue which I normally don't like to do.
By and large what upsets me the most is that I just didn't enjoy this game nearly as much as "We Know the Devil" which I loved greatly. There is a lot of cool story bits that I wish I could wrap my head around more as I feel it would have enhanced my experience. I can see why this game is often talked about in regards to LGBTQ+ games I just wish I resonated with it more.
If you're a transfem who uses twitter to flirt with other girls and you reply with ASDJDKFJAKLFSA or "ohh you're so mad i bet you wanna kiss me right now" when arguing with someone online, I think you'll get a huge kick out of this
HWBM isn't a bad Visual Novel by any means, but it has a very specific audience in mind - probably one that has watched all of NGE - and I'm just not part of that, and therefore found it aggressively impenetrable. I get what HWMB is going for. It wants to create a world that existed before you got here, with pre-established character relationships and world building, and there's nothing wrong with that! But you've also got all these huge paragraphs full of vague science fiction terms, so I ended up feeling incredibly overwhelmed while struggling to follow along. I really felt like I was missing something, like I'd started reading a book half way through. And again, this isn't an objectively bad way to tell a story but it's not personally for me
It's a bit of a shame because towards my first ending (which itself was honestly extremely cool!!), I actually started getting kinda into it - when the writing is good, IT IS SO GOOD. However, when I then started my second playthrough as another character, with a more positive open mind this time, I soon found myself hitting the same issues
The visuals, UI and audio are really cool as well, creating a great atmosphere though
HWBM isn't a bad Visual Novel by any means, but it has a very specific audience in mind - probably one that has watched all of NGE - and I'm just not part of that, and therefore found it aggressively impenetrable. I get what HWMB is going for. It wants to create a world that existed before you got here, with pre-established character relationships and world building, and there's nothing wrong with that! But you've also got all these huge paragraphs full of vague science fiction terms, so I ended up feeling incredibly overwhelmed while struggling to follow along. I really felt like I was missing something, like I'd started reading a book half way through. And again, this isn't an objectively bad way to tell a story but it's not personally for me
It's a bit of a shame because towards my first ending (which itself was honestly extremely cool!!), I actually started getting kinda into it - when the writing is good, IT IS SO GOOD. However, when I then started my second playthrough as another character, with a more positive open mind this time, I soon found myself hitting the same issues
The visuals, UI and audio are really cool as well, creating a great atmosphere though
Gave me big "This Is How You Lose the Time War" energy. If I'd played this before reading that, I'd say it reversed.
I appreciated how my understanding of events grew over three playthroughs both through gaining more context and also just repetition. I was so lost as the start of my Saturn playthrough, but I got it by the end of Pluto's.
One point to note: I would have liked the main secondary characters of each route to be a little more involved in the endings. I was invested in Mercury, Mars, and Europa, you know.
I appreciated how my understanding of events grew over three playthroughs both through gaining more context and also just repetition. I was so lost as the start of my Saturn playthrough, but I got it by the end of Pluto's.
One point to note: I would have liked the main secondary characters of each route to be a little more involved in the endings. I was invested in Mercury, Mars, and Europa, you know.
Got every ending. So much of this game was like looking into a mirror and then also kinda seeing my brain's interpretation of my friends in that same reflection. I see Luna-Terra: "That's my buddy Maya", I see Saturn "That's my buddy Izzy", I see Pluto "That's my buddy myself". A beautiful little collage of ideas held together under some of the best VN presentation I've ever seen (sometimes with VNs, giving presentation to make the game look like it has more gameplay than it does is all you need to make it feel like a more deep and engaging experience! Really! I don't know why either!), and that isn't even to mention the beautifully hilarious dialogue. So much of this is gonna stick with me forever-
"Why couldn't you just be a bad person with bad ideas and wicked dreams!?" (Halimede complaining about their frustration towards fighting the protagonists)
"It's not really pain, but it's a feeling so overwhelming it shuts Saturn down like pain would. It's fascinating, full of information." (Description of Saturn kind of getting off on being shot)
"I'll forgive you if you left us for something stupid, but I'll never forgive you if you left us for something you don't believe in!" (Pluto complaining about Luna-Terra's motives)
"Why couldn't you just be a bad person with bad ideas and wicked dreams!?" (Halimede complaining about their frustration towards fighting the protagonists)
"It's not really pain, but it's a feeling so overwhelming it shuts Saturn down like pain would. It's fascinating, full of information." (Description of Saturn kind of getting off on being shot)
"I'll forgive you if you left us for something stupid, but I'll never forgive you if you left us for something you don't believe in!" (Pluto complaining about Luna-Terra's motives)
Really good story about a multitude of different things, but ultimately I think the main purpose comes down to deciding who you want to be and how you want to it. Spoke a lot to me on various different levels and I adored the main cast in this. Really happy with how the endings were and the overall presentation was great. Definitely give this a read
9/10
9/10
It's good but my ex gf gifted it to me and it makes me wanna slit my wrists every time I see it in my steam library :(
This VN bombarded me with information and it left me very, very confused. Some people hate when a story is confusing. I do not. I adore chaos. I adore the surreal. Because when you don't know what's going on, all you can do is follow your heart. And then the results of your actions teach you a little about who you are and what's important to you. A long time ago, I played Fallout New Vegas for the first time. I was a dumb kid. I decided that, for whatever reason, Mr. House was the rational decision. But then, he revealed that the next step in his plans was the destruction of the Brotherhood of Steel. You see, I had met Veronica a very long time ago. I adored her. She was my one true friend in the Mojave. When I was given that quest, something in my mind snapped. I killed Mr. House and decided I would end this game on my own terms, not anyone elses. I kicked the Legion off the Hoover Dam and then I ordered General Oliver to a watery grave. I chose an Independent Vegas. But then I saw the ending slides and I felt... guilt. I regretted my choice. I looked inward and decided I was arrogant and greedy. I thought I knew what was best when I was just some kid. I've wished I chose the NCR ending for years. I don't wish that now. I look back on that original New Vegas playthrough and understand that the thing that cracked in my mind wasn't arrogance, but the last straw. I couldn't be obedient anymore. I couldn't stop myself from being me just because I didn't know what was going on. I followed my heart. That's all Jupiter wants too. To follow her heart, to be herself, to live however she wants. Rules and expectations be damned. I wanna live that way too. I want to let my greed and arrogance run wild. Heaven will be mine.
Picked this up in an effort to understand the funniest RP account on Twitter. The art has its charm but it's often too abstract for me, as is the prose. The worldbuilding and backstories ended up being the big draw for me, but it's tough to want to explore the rest of the branches on my first route (LT's) and on the other two without a way to skip the shared scenes.
I didn't get it.
I kind of hated this. The aesthetic, art and music were great, but oh my god, the writing is such a drag. So much exposition with meaningless back-and-forths that never kept my attention for more than a few textboxes. The dialogue was stilted, with so little flourish or character, where even reading aloud did not aid my engagement. I read books and visual novels and have never had this much trouble. I ended up button-mashing through the third route and a good portion of the second route because I realized I wasn't feeling or retaining any of it. Who knows, maybe I'm not the intended audience (despite being a chronically-online trans person who loves Evangelion and writing) or am missing some cultural context. Whatever, I got my 100% acheivements, but the reward was not worth the 4 hour chore.
i played all three routes and had a lovely time! simple in some ways, but the writing style i found interesting and i love a story that aims to never hold my hand, just my heart. plus pulverizing my brain into oblivion with noise music while doing cute gay things is maybe one of my natural states of being
i would let luna terra do things to me that are beyond the limits of human comprehension
The main author on this game is/was a Xrd Baiken main. Not a real one, the realest.
cooptação de estéticas orientais (em diversos níveis: o robô gigante, a visual novel, o yuri, o harém) pra uma história que simultaneamente valida toda a fetichização dessas coisas que vem lá do outro lado do mundo e também cria a pessoalidade necessária pra usar tudo isso como descobrimento de si - o próprio amor é instrumentalizado como opressão governamental e passamos pelo nível de rebeldia até chegar na aceitação de que vale a pena amar mesmo que isso seja uma ferramenta de controle. diferente da objetificação natural? não sei, por ser apenas um observador externo (e o guia mais popular no steam se apresenta apenas como "sou um gay que quer ver as cenas que me façam sentir coisas!!") mas fiquei feliz por elas.
reposted from my Cohost
I tried to play HwbM the first time on mobile while I was a private tutor in a big city. I am a nervous transit rider and constantly am peeking at what stop is next, so this was a bad environment for a very introspective, metaphysical game. Idk what character I even picked, this was yeeears ago.
I played it all the way through later, (maybe a year, this was after I left the city to go back home) as Luna-Terra and remember thinking ‘this all sounds really rad, but my brain does not feel like it can piece together anything precise.’ According to itch, that was 3 years ago. I was like ‘maybe this game just isn’t for me and that’s okay.’
A friend mentioned they wanted to play it for the first time, and I was excited because I wanted to actually talk to someone about it, maybe see if that would help me see what other folks like. So on wednesday, I sat down and did a playthru as Pluto, had already decided I was going to have my notebook open and jot down notes as I went and—wow? hey. fuck. This game finally clicked for me and clicked so hard. To the point that I have no idea what happened that it did not click for me before?? Maybe the LT narrative has a different approach to the lore, or maybe I was just not focusing back then. But whatever, shit happens.
Anyway, HwbM is fucking so good. The metaphors… it has me thinking a lot about space, like literally the cosmos and also metaphorically what I think of as one aspect of sci-fi. It can be dystopic, but it can be optimistic, too. Escapism, basically. This earth sucks, what if we do something as a people that makes it rad for the coming generations? And that feels good. It’s the hope for a better future that escapes the influence of all the bullshit we’re in now; the fantasy that we can find something better beyond this planet’s pull.
I am a public school teacher. I am visible and part of a community, and I love and hate that. I am viscerally aware of how I am perceived when I do things like grocery shop or run errands, or just go for a walk.
I have this dream of a life where I can dress how I want and love who I want and not care about what people think based on a different me that they used to know. I think about how I can do my hair, and what I can say without worrying about what midwestern parents will say about the person teaching their kids, or how they might react, because it seems like the church here is so tall that it sees everything.
And that’s Culture, in HwbM, exerting itself physically; its gravity.
It constantly pulls me down, and I let it. I gingerly roll onto my tip toes, wondering how high I can jump without attracting the wrong attention. I’ve always been afraid of standing taller than everyone else. The entire time, I look up at the stars and hope there’s a place without any gravity at all—or where the gravity pulls in a different direction entirely, or every direction at once—or where all of us have our gravitational fields, and we can choose to orbit each other indefinitely, or sail briefly by like comets.
These are things I haven’t really been able to get off my mind since starting this job here; since recently coming out to a select few friends and family members, that HwbM acted sort of like a totem for. Something to focus my thoughts. Like the game’s multiple endings, I don’t know what the solution is: fight to make a place home, recreate a new one, or settle into the stars themselves. And that’s okay, because honestly, it just feels good to remember I’m not the only one trying to figure it out. That even though gravity pulls us to earth, it brings us together, too.
I tried to play HwbM the first time on mobile while I was a private tutor in a big city. I am a nervous transit rider and constantly am peeking at what stop is next, so this was a bad environment for a very introspective, metaphysical game. Idk what character I even picked, this was yeeears ago.
I played it all the way through later, (maybe a year, this was after I left the city to go back home) as Luna-Terra and remember thinking ‘this all sounds really rad, but my brain does not feel like it can piece together anything precise.’ According to itch, that was 3 years ago. I was like ‘maybe this game just isn’t for me and that’s okay.’
A friend mentioned they wanted to play it for the first time, and I was excited because I wanted to actually talk to someone about it, maybe see if that would help me see what other folks like. So on wednesday, I sat down and did a playthru as Pluto, had already decided I was going to have my notebook open and jot down notes as I went and—wow? hey. fuck. This game finally clicked for me and clicked so hard. To the point that I have no idea what happened that it did not click for me before?? Maybe the LT narrative has a different approach to the lore, or maybe I was just not focusing back then. But whatever, shit happens.
Anyway, HwbM is fucking so good. The metaphors… it has me thinking a lot about space, like literally the cosmos and also metaphorically what I think of as one aspect of sci-fi. It can be dystopic, but it can be optimistic, too. Escapism, basically. This earth sucks, what if we do something as a people that makes it rad for the coming generations? And that feels good. It’s the hope for a better future that escapes the influence of all the bullshit we’re in now; the fantasy that we can find something better beyond this planet’s pull.
I am a public school teacher. I am visible and part of a community, and I love and hate that. I am viscerally aware of how I am perceived when I do things like grocery shop or run errands, or just go for a walk.
I have this dream of a life where I can dress how I want and love who I want and not care about what people think based on a different me that they used to know. I think about how I can do my hair, and what I can say without worrying about what midwestern parents will say about the person teaching their kids, or how they might react, because it seems like the church here is so tall that it sees everything.
And that’s Culture, in HwbM, exerting itself physically; its gravity.
It constantly pulls me down, and I let it. I gingerly roll onto my tip toes, wondering how high I can jump without attracting the wrong attention. I’ve always been afraid of standing taller than everyone else. The entire time, I look up at the stars and hope there’s a place without any gravity at all—or where the gravity pulls in a different direction entirely, or every direction at once—or where all of us have our gravitational fields, and we can choose to orbit each other indefinitely, or sail briefly by like comets.
These are things I haven’t really been able to get off my mind since starting this job here; since recently coming out to a select few friends and family members, that HwbM acted sort of like a totem for. Something to focus my thoughts. Like the game’s multiple endings, I don’t know what the solution is: fight to make a place home, recreate a new one, or settle into the stars themselves. And that’s okay, because honestly, it just feels good to remember I’m not the only one trying to figure it out. That even though gravity pulls us to earth, it brings us together, too.
bought this game for space sapphics, left with utter confusion. i do not understand what the fuck goes on here 99% of the time and am just clicking options with hope that they'll end up in two women kissing. putting it on shelved to delude myself that maybe one day i'll come back to this and try to use a fraction of my braincell to comprehend the actual lore but we all know i'm actually abandoning it
I have always loved the underlying themes and social and psychological implications of the mecha genre. I have watched and played anime and games respectively that question the elements from which mecha is built, but I had never played something like Heaven Will Be Mine: it goes beyond its genre.
At their core, these stories are always about the people piloting the robots, but Heaven takes both the superficial plot elements of the mecha genre and its inherent, mind-bending themes newer stories have as a well-structured, but ultimately backdrop to the relationships between the pilots. I was amazed at how they made it work so well. The writing is excellent and reminded me of how I look for myself and my interests in everything I read.
At their core, these stories are always about the people piloting the robots, but Heaven takes both the superficial plot elements of the mecha genre and its inherent, mind-bending themes newer stories have as a well-structured, but ultimately backdrop to the relationships between the pilots. I was amazed at how they made it work so well. The writing is excellent and reminded me of how I look for myself and my interests in everything I read.