Twenty-five days until I get to play Super Lesbian Animal RPG on stream again. They can't pass quickly enough at this point.

Gonna start another playthrough on my Twitch channel on the 20th. Doing everything I can to make #SLARPGDay a Thing.

Yes, you're getting another link to the game's Steam page to finish this up. store.steampowered.com/app/2124380/... 13/real fin

I miss the days when JRPGs had this kind of deep character-based writing, and didn't just try to imitate popular movies (down to the paint-by-numbers plots and shallow characterizations). At least Bobby still gets it. 12/fin

Claire no longer feels the need to prove herself, because Zinnia and Verena give her both the validation and mentorship she's craved all her life. The lessons have been learned, and Claire can now become the witch she's always wanted to be, with the help of her two magic mommies. 11/

This is what makes the scene with Claire and Zinnia and Verena such a perfect coda to the Zinnia-Verena reunion in the ending. Claire not only has her apotheosis after the fight with Verena, but Zinnia and Verena agreeing to help her with her magic gives her a long-awaited surrogate family. 10/

Those of us who have seen this behaviour in our young adult queer friends (or who acted it out ourselves) can likely see ourselves in Claire all too easily, and understand what leads to her stealing Verena's old spellbook in order to "catch up" with other magic-users who had better upbringings. 9/

Growing up queer in an unsupportive environment often leads young people to feel as if they need to prove their right to exist every single moment; this is what leads to the stereotype of young queer people being melodramatic and so on. 8/

Strangely enough, Claire being trans is more central to the game's plot than Melody being trans, since Claire's rough upbringing -- having to hide that she was trans until she got to Greenridge -- led to her making the rash decisions that set the game's story in motion. 7/

Instead of coming off as cliché, that moment before Melody and Allison transforms feels like an emotional and thematic climax where every big dramatic beat has been earned. You can easily imagine Melody rehearsing those lines in her head for years before finally saying them. 6/

After Melody finally stands up to Harmony before the God King Javis fight, she lapses into dramatic monologue speak, but it feels earned because she talks in Act I about wanting to see herself as the "centerpiece," and how that led her to choose the name Melody. 5/

The scene at the dock between Melody and Allison at the end of Act I, where Melody talks about why she chose her new name after she realized she was trans, isn't just top-notch characterization and a way to set up the introduction of Harmony in Act II. It also sets up the ending. 4/

The HRT meds show that Melody, for all her timidity, has been willing to go on journeys of self-discovery before. This not only gives her depth, but sets the stage for her quest for identity throughout the game, culminating in the moments before the fight with God King Javis. 3/

One of the best details at the start of SLARPG is the bottles of HRT medication in Melody's bathroom. It would be so easy to shoehorn Melody into the mold of a one-dimensional timid character, but the HRT medication is a brilliant bit of foreshadowing. 2/

Trans streamer here. Also tagging @ponett.dog so she can link to her game (Super Lesbian Animal RPG) if she wants. As for me .... twitch.tv/profsean