(this review will spoil which characters are in romantic relationships)
the writing is incredible. it made me cry several times. and the fact that all of our characters are women (most of them queer women at that) is just so joyous & refreshing.
and one of those women is a trans woman. a trans woman who is by her own admission "dumber than bricks." (gosh i wonder who i relate to in this story.) and who is well-written. heck, everyone in here is well-written. they're all imbued with so much personality. they're all very distinct, and very real-feeling. i love this big family of queer girls.
i think the thing about the writing that impresses me the most is how real all the emotions in this feel. it's really good at drawing you in, at making you feel what the characters feel, and feeling for them. it also tackles abuse in a way that made me feel incredibly seen.
it's not without flaws. the fact that maddie & abigail are afforded two sex scenes while tara & morgan are allowed none is a problem. a big, frustrating, unsurprising problem. the developers' excuse is that they're worried about people fetishizing tara or being transphobic, and just... hi. no. please get out of here with those excuses.
as if straight men haven't been fetishizing cis lesbians for basically as long as they've known there's such a thing. and i notice they don't let concerns about homophobia stop them from showing two cis women having sex.
ok, this is really what i want to know. why are you more interested in how cis people are going to react than how trans people are going to react? we play your games too. you're going to include a character that's "for" us but not afford her the same space to explore her romantic relationship as your other main characters? honestly, fuck off with that.
in spite of how angry i am about this, you'll notice i've still given the game five stars. i already talked about how incredible the writing (otherwise) is, and it made me cry like a bunch of times. and one of the reasons i'm so upset that tara didn't get her freak on is because the character means so much to me, and for me to hold that against the developers while not also giving them credit for creating a character that means so much to me feels patently unfair.
honestly, in spite of my one fairly substantial complaint, i hecking love this game. any game that makes me cry this much & is this gay is gonna catapult up near the top of my list of favorite games of all time, and this is no exception.
the writing is incredible. it made me cry several times. and the fact that all of our characters are women (most of them queer women at that) is just so joyous & refreshing.
and one of those women is a trans woman. a trans woman who is by her own admission "dumber than bricks." (gosh i wonder who i relate to in this story.) and who is well-written. heck, everyone in here is well-written. they're all imbued with so much personality. they're all very distinct, and very real-feeling. i love this big family of queer girls.
i think the thing about the writing that impresses me the most is how real all the emotions in this feel. it's really good at drawing you in, at making you feel what the characters feel, and feeling for them. it also tackles abuse in a way that made me feel incredibly seen.
it's not without flaws. the fact that maddie & abigail are afforded two sex scenes while tara & morgan are allowed none is a problem. a big, frustrating, unsurprising problem. the developers' excuse is that they're worried about people fetishizing tara or being transphobic, and just... hi. no. please get out of here with those excuses.
as if straight men haven't been fetishizing cis lesbians for basically as long as they've known there's such a thing. and i notice they don't let concerns about homophobia stop them from showing two cis women having sex.
ok, this is really what i want to know. why are you more interested in how cis people are going to react than how trans people are going to react? we play your games too. you're going to include a character that's "for" us but not afford her the same space to explore her romantic relationship as your other main characters? honestly, fuck off with that.
in spite of how angry i am about this, you'll notice i've still given the game five stars. i already talked about how incredible the writing (otherwise) is, and it made me cry like a bunch of times. and one of the reasons i'm so upset that tara didn't get her freak on is because the character means so much to me, and for me to hold that against the developers while not also giving them credit for creating a character that means so much to me feels patently unfair.
honestly, in spite of my one fairly substantial complaint, i hecking love this game. any game that makes me cry this much & is this gay is gonna catapult up near the top of my list of favorite games of all time, and this is no exception.