No Empty Threats

Another certified Snek banger! I have a lot to say about this one so I’ll go off the top of my head.

The premise here is great, the vileness and disgusting nature of everyone and of the setting itself work well; there’s no moment of reprieve from the horror from the start almost ‘til the end. The dynamic of crime boss + indebted pet is a classic for a reason and it’s no different for yuri. But I’m glad you went so far with the concept, that you really made it feel as horrifying as it would probably be in real life, and thats why it works.

Heather’s great. I remember you telling me something about characters who hate when others make assumptions or act condescendingly toward them and she really embodies that. Despite how unthinkably horrible everything is in her life now, here and there you can see those sparks of defiance born more out of spite than anything else, and it’s what ends up saving her at the end. Like, a smarter character might’ve just played along until she got a chance to kill Sophie, but that sort of character wouldn’t fit this story. So Heather goes back and forth between the horror of her situation, a desire to submit and a desire to fight back, and ends up acting on all those at the wrong time each, because who wouldn’t, in her position? But what makes this story IMO is that she’s not the only one who fucks up like that.

And that brings me to Sophie, who despite having every single advantage in this ‘relationship’ does everything wrong too, and I love that. I once wrote a character very similar to her, and she was one of my favorites. And what that illustrates for me is that Sophie really is kind of pathetic and delusional.

Like, regardless of whether she wanted Heather to submit or to ‘rise above her circumstances and become a monster like her’ she goes about doing both the wrong way. She’s too horrible to give Heather the impression that submitting might be in her best interest, and she’s too wrapped up in her own sense of superiority to realize the latter just isn’t Heather’s style (in my personal reading of her, at least). Was she actually telling the truth there at the end, or is her ego so great that she has to get the last word in? Everything that happens has to be ‘part of her plan’ no matter how contradictory it is, everyone has to acknowledge how smart she is.

And that’s why I love the end. My first thought (and Sophie’s too, I’m sure) was that Heather might not outright kill her, but instead flip the script on her and keep Sophie on a leash and torture her, but that would actually prove Sophie right. Not that Heather cares, of course. Unlike Sophie, she just wants this to be over, wants to leave this horror, so she just kills her. No torture, no payback, just doing what she’s been trying to all along… leave. Sophie was wrong, and whatever she wanted from Heather either way didn’t come to pass.

It’s as good of a conclusion as you could get out of a story like this, and I’m a huge fan. I also really liked the epilogue, short though it was. My favorite scene of the whole thing was Steph and Heather lying together on the bed, sleeping and talking.

Great sprites too! Heather looks so scrunkly and like a lost kitten, and Sophie’s face is so punchable, it’s great.

The only minor nitpick I have is that I’m not sure I got the point of bringing up Anna in the middle of the story again, I get maybe Sophie wanted to fuck with Heather’s head, but it felt a bit abrupt considering it’s never brought up again.

Also this is 100% a me thing but I did have to squint a little through some of the gore at the end lol, but it was a very tense and horrible scene, good job.

But that’s very minor. I had a blast with this one, as with all of your other games before!!