starting ep3 tomorrow but wanna jot some thoughts on the duology as is. like both quite a bit, maybe ep 1 just as equally as this. in particular ep2 is more forthright in its suffering but cloaks what would be naked cries for help really cleverly. like the titular charlotte the text seems at both ends exorcising some necessary catharsis and questioning whether said catharsis is even helping anything, much less being therapeutic--characters abound with taunts and riddles for the audience investing in charlotte's suffering in hopes for some kind of didactic bow to justify the pain, yet same characters take interest in charlotte's suffering for their very own didactic lessons and utility. tries at all three to both ridicule altruism as an ethical doctrine, pathologize it as a psychological motivation, and dismiss it as a political utopianism---yet, also, offers only calming reassurance that your choice was understandable when you go to grave lengths just to relieve someone's else pain. both more of a 'RPGMaker' game in drawing up social interactions as random battles but also not a RPGmaker game in how ambivalent it is about you engaging with this system at all (could be misremembering but im p sure ep 1 at least had health values but in here they were just ??). conflicted conflicted but far from confused, i think the text is confident in its ambiguity, a read bolstered by the very ending coda being yet another dilemma that pricks at the audience's investment in the narrative. like drake said,,,,, its a combination. uniquely invested in the risk of vulnerability in relationships as shown by the drama and that same risk of vulnerability as a creator to audience as shown in the metanarrative, ane's cooking imo