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.