Comment Archive: Moonlight Duelists Correspondence

Archive page for comments and discussions on Moon Duelists which I don't trust myself not to lose. Some text is un-rot13ed so expect spoilers if you've found this

Table of Contents

From: Balina

The fact that I came out of this desperately wishing I knew more about everyone means you made characters I care about. After writing the first draft of this, I went back and asked myself how I felt after it was over. This is, uh... If I was self-conscious about brain-dumping earlier, I'm downright worried about posting this. I'm not sure if it's overstepping to describe where my brain goes thinking about what happens after the credits roll, about violent daydreams that branch out from what we got to see.

Really, I guess the tl;dr is that I spent much of today unable to think about anything else, and I hope that comes across as praise? Inexpert and misguided, but earnest praise.

In all three endings, Bao is just an absolute wreck. No matter what, Jan hates her, or is at least angry enough to refuse to interact. This is a story about Bao just absolutely slamming against the reality that the girl she's violently pining for just does not return her feelings, and the more you let her indulge the further away it pushes Jan. Hell, in the sicko ending Jan just outright threatens Bao's life; it's hard to know how sincere that is, but it doesn't sound like she makes that kind of threat lightly.

Naturally, how they're behaving in that instant is not necessarily where things stay. In the cold depths of my heart I find myself hoping that Jan copes with this so poorly that she finds herself drug down into the mud. I hope that she relives the dream over and over, usually it goes the same, sometimes it turns out different, sometimes she sees herself as the aggressor. I hope she wakes up in the middle of the night utterly baffled and terrified by her own feelings.

What sticks out the most is the way that Jan turns around as Bao's viciousness gives way to impotent rage and despair. This... isn't the first time this has happened, huh? Probably the first time she's been cut up like that by someone who was abjectly horny for it, but she doesn't just keep herself together, she rallies so hard that it breaks what little composure Bao had left. She's the top duelist for a reason, but you have to wonder how many times she's won by just refusing to lose. God I wish we knew more about what goes on in her head.

On Bao's end, she spent the entire day psyching herself up, of making innuendo about murder and literally getting herself off to how it felt to run Micky through. She wakes up from the Dream either confused and frustrated or absolutely terrified at herself. It was only her second Dream, and she was clearly unprepared for it. She's new to this, and seeing her own deepest desires laid out, and having the unreal reality of it spelled out it scares the hell out of her. That's not how things end, that's how things start. What happens when the sharp pains fade to a persistant, gnawing ache? What happens when she finally has the energy to look in the mirror and ask what's left after she's spilled herself out? She's terrified and ashamed right now, but what comes after that? I don't want her to get better, exactly, but I want to see what horrible alloy forms in her heart on the far side of all this.

(side note: god the scar she gets for losing directly is hot; hell of a consolation prize)

I want to see these girls keep hurting one another. I want to see them find horrible comfort in one another's mangled arms. I want to see the raw, jagged beauty of two broken vases inexpertly glued back together.

My Reply to Balina

So obviously THANK you for all the kind words, it's really touching to read so much said about what I wrote. I really really appreciate this and has such have NOTES ON THE NOTES ☺️

As for Bao and Jan, and even the whole setting... This is, I think unsurprisingly, a simplification of a roleplaying settings and two side characters within it. Technically, Jan was originally someone else's character, by a different name, adapted with permission. Even the throw-away name of Donovan represents the top 3 that existed in that RP. Even though both characters weren't played much (Jan's influence practically not at all), I feel there is definitely a lot of textures that comes from that. It's generally important to me that people and places in games feel larger than the world their is, so reading someone toiling over the choices of these dumbasses, wanting to know more makes me so so happy.

For my part, and I say this as no definitive canon, My heart and imagination goes with the least bad ending. It's closer to what we were kinda expecting in RP and leaves the most places to go. I think, in the worst ending, Jan would be true to her word and while that might sound exciting, I feel like it would mostly just be pathetic. It's hard for me not to think that there isn't hope for Bao. As fucked up as she is, she WANTS good things, even if she doesn't even know how to articulate it. I would never want to show something like this if I couldn't show it miserably and painfully.

As a highly modified adaption, things are harder to say on Jan's part. While I'm not planning any followups, now that she exists of a character of my own, it'll be hard not to imagine how things go, just like everyone else. She ended up having a lot more implied damage than her original counterpart and I think I'd want to play into that more. My mind goes to the act that Jan is probably more what Bao self stylizes herself as than she is. Jan's certainly shanked someone, possibly has killed (surely for justified reasons, but that obviously scars you). Her blade has tasted real flesh in a way Bao has only fantasized about.

The original setting of this had a more 'Lord and Pawn' aspect, hinted at in the Red Lady's dialog. Lords draw weapons from their Pawns for the Pawns to fight with, and what someone can draw varies with their potential and the twos relationship. The Red Lady is there as... a backup. Or to test people for Lordship. Jan's original version was more destined to be a Lord and the idea was maybe a tamed Bao would become her Pawn... But Bao and Jan here, it seems like, even if eventually they find peace... Lordship seems like a thing that would be elusive to her and the two clearly have a lot of blood to bleed in their future.

From: Allison

Formatted Thread

oh my gosh i love this!!

fellow rgu fans, do you want to taste a toxic TOXIC sword lesbian yuri vn?

play this play this play this

a beautiful, twisted entry in the highschool dueling genre!

cw: discussion of rape, bodily harm, kink, sadism, and bao's general horribleness

i'm going to rot13 some of this, you'll need to put in a bit of an effort if you want to see those parts

(note: i played version 0.9.3)

background

bao:

janis:

the ends of the world:

well played kayin <3

ROT13 Segment

Fake Screenshots and Ending

tl;dr A+++ excellent work

i'd love to post some screenshots but i don't think there's any way here on bsky to mark images as spoilers, or prevent them from showing up in my media tab

so just imagine i posted the following screenshots:

someday, far away from me, maybe bao can shine:

i'm going to call the endings the bad, worse, and worst endings. i really like how these were handled. really dark, difficult events to tackle but i think the game gets it right

anyway, final thought on the epilogue

conclusions:

My Reply to Allison

Thank you so much this was a great thread to read! Lemme give my own notes back and I'll try to be vague because the ambiguity is important. Even to me, the creator, parts of this are vague. I have idea where they might go but they could be so many different ways in my head and none of them are real unless I decide to do a followup, which I likely won't. I hope none of this comes off as too revealing. It shouldn't. These are just passing thoughts.

Bao is made up so many parts -- parts of myself, parts of other people I know, tropes, whatever. She truly is an awful awful creature, but not without reason or hope. My happiest consistent feedback is people are fond of her despite all this. She sucks, but she sucks in ways that feel familiar! She's a chuuni little raging brat and I think the most chuuni thing is not understanding how your fantasies can't survive contact with reality.

Jan is an enigma for me too. She is an adaption and heavy revision of a friend's character who now is an entity all of her own. The one thing I think I can say is I don't think she is fake. While there is many possibilities for how Jan is in reality right now thinking of it she comes off as extremely dualistic. The things she does are self serving but they're not necessary insincere. Perhaps what we see is who she wants to be vs who she had to be to survive, and somewhere in between is the real her. We can wear masks so long that they sometimes become just as real.

Endings become so complicated because in a sense, if I did more, the first one would have to be the canonical one. In fact, for the RP this was based on (this actual scene never happened but it was like a theoretical we'd talk about), this was the end result I expected. But that contrasts with what is thematically more appropriate. The worst ending tells the story, and shows where Bao is doomed to fail. We see the most of her laid out in front of us and just the.. impotence of her gluttony. Bao is capable and even maybe one day deserving of some redemption in her life, but it is not a redemption that is deserve to be seen, or a redemption that deserves to be acknowledged by the person she hurt. The only place it makes sense for her to find peace is in the black empty void, outside the narrative.

As for Jan sparing her, I think it's pragmatic. Killing and disappearing someone isn't easy. I'm not even sure if Jan HAS killed before, but the possibility definitely is supposed to be there and implied. She's definitely stabbed people though, before her life in the school. She's done the things that Bao fantasies about, but finds no glory in it. That said, even if she's never killed, if Bao came back I think she would be true to her word.

Also hell yean Andromache, that bougie ass know it all bitch. It's so easy to seem right just by being mean and cold about it. I have to also constantly double check myself before pronouncing her name out loud. My mouth wants to say AN-DRO-MAH-KEE in the same way one might feel compelled to sa BO-LAG-NA. Between her and Bao's surname (which, and I might be wrong, I say line 'win' but with like a bougie pre-h sound like hwin. I THINK that's right??) there are some tough names.

As for Bao potentially winning by beheading Jan, I think it's kinda important that she could. She COULD win. She IS a good fighter. In terms of talent, she probably has higher highs but lower lows than Jan, who is by comparison a rock. In my mind at least, Bao could have even won by doing nothing. A disarmed Jan might have conceded right there. That would probably be considered quite normal for these duels... usually. But once Bao exposes herself, Jan can't give her that. How can she lose to someone so pathetic? And Bao can't just finish her off because of her gluttony. Bao loses not because she's not talented enough, but because she is too flawed as a person to leverage her strength. She lost something she already won by just being so stupid, and greedy, and unrealistic.

As for tagged for non-con I figured it's implied but the annoying thing is I WOULD tag it, but those tags are the exact type of thing itch uses to flag stuff!!!! It's very annoying! Once I have stuff more set up and have a page on my website set up for it, I'll probably include a link on itch to my own page where I can have a nice spoiler-tagged list of content warnings for people who want to be safe.

Anyways thank you so much and connecting so deeply with this thing I adored making!

From Catssidy

I played it tonight!! wow!!! that was so fun!! I have so many little thoughts here and there, but probably not so many very cohesive ones. that little rare baosmile during REDACTED melted my heart a little.

ohhh this VN is gonna make me Worse (positive)" "the mouse cursor is GREAT :)" "girl you are SO 😍 😱 🤤" (in response to the passage starting with "Bao considered clipping off a flower for Jan")

my friend made fun of me a little for recognizing some of the rgu elements from revue starlight instead

(to my credit, I did recognize that there was a TON of rgu DNA in it! but I haven't seen rgu yet, so it was kind of inevitable that I'd go "oh, this is just like in revue starlight" at SOME point.)

"girl I'm pretty sure that's just mental illness" "this is the miasma of champions" "bao, most people can enjoy spending time with their friends" (when Jan invites Bao to take a walk with her) "This Will Not Fix Her, But I Do Believe In Nice Things For Bao Anyway" "vulnerabao..."

(upon getting to "Everything didn't have to hurt") "unfortunately for everyone involved, this isn't that kind of story" "this is ryona and we're gonna make things weird and bad"

at "Fu Fu Fu... A beautiful charming girl with an honorable disposition! What more could a girl ask for?": "diversity win! these catty women are gay!"

I was intrigued by the various little hooks alluding to a bigger picture, like the way the Dueling Society manages to interface with the Dream, and more broadly the sinister air of mystery around the intentions of the college

oh, and as a little design/UI note, I thought it was a nice little hint when after her top is torn, and after the "we can still be normal" option is crossed out, the option can be selected again

that clued me in to the possibility that I could keep clicking, both on that screen and the one before

the line about "At a certain point, lying to yourself becomes easier..." really hit me hard, because it read as an acknowledgement that Onb knows she's not being realistic in her interpretations of Jan's intentions

which just makes it all the more heartbreaking

(gonna make some quick remarks about the sexual content that do, in a fairly dry manner, relate to my own relationship with the kind of material explored, so you can skip over those if you'd rather not see that!)

I went into this fully expecting to enjoy the cutting/stabbing/etc. -- and I did! what I didn't expect is that I'd also enjoy Bao's sense of shame/defeat/humiliation as she carries out the act ^^ that's new. so really, I was right that this game would make me worse

also, her daytime tower ruins scene was really charming to me because the depiction of her kink felt so real and believable

also, I might be missing a more obvious reading here, but I thought it was interesting to consider the idea that we see Bao struggling to look at the moon, because it's too bright. we also see her struggling to look at Jan at various times.

in the final moments of the dream duel, with all pretenses stripped away, perhaps what's dauntingly bright to Bao is Jan's unconquerable will.

I did have a bit of a worry when I saw "You have crossed a line" that I'd gone and locked myself out of a Good ending in a persistent-across-playthroughs way, and ended up uninstalling the game and eventually purging the %APPDATA% folder for it

in order to check whether getting the "best" ending unlocked an even better one on a second playthrough

because, like. you know how visual novels are sometimes with this stuff.

My Reply to Catssidy

No need to apologize for confusing RGU and Revue Starlight elements, as I'm a Revue Starlight nerd too and love the comparisons between the two! Very recommended. Also the RGU movie's 'transformation scene' seems to me to be the direct visual influence for the Revstar one, which is one of my favorite transformations ever.

And yeah, unfortunately everyone had to hurt. I really wanted the emotional pain to hurt more than the visual pain -- visually I tried to keep it like hyper real. Somehow Bao squirming during her first duel feels almost than what happens physically to Jan due to the nature of the dream.

The hooks were fun and easy. This was an RP setting I came up with a few years ago for a friend so there was a lot of 'lore' to draw from. I simplified things a bit, I love making worlds and characters who seem bigger than whats immediately in front of you.

... Also helped by Bao being, in many ways, relatable. The level she takes things is unhinged. She is truly a hingless lass... but the impulses of self hate and anxiety feel like things most people have at least felt a little bit. But she can't turn away. Like you said, she has to lie to herself, because this weird aggression is the only kind of defense she has left.

Bao was originally going do the classic and fuck a table but the sword sheath thing brought so many elements together. It felt perfect for a little horny intermission.

As for your reading in Bao being unable to look at things, even people, I think that's a pretty good read. When she goes outside she has to put on blinders that eases the pain other people inflict on her. Also LOL I'm sorry about the ending thing, that text box is there to both be ominous and kinda hint that there is another way to go (MASHING BE NORMAL). Unfortunately while that does work and give a different ending, there are no good endings here.

Also you're welcome for unlocking new kinks~ 😌

Fromnewtypewoman

I played @kayin.moe 's Moonlight Duelists. What a game. A truly gut churning exploration of self loathing so deep you have to take it out on everyone else. The sadism is delicious and pathetic. It captures a very particualr sort of self loathing- you're born wrong.

There's no getting outside what you are, no escaping your own context. It's very transgender to me, as a woman of transgender myself. It's so easy to get stuck in that thought loop. A girl who knows she'll never be a real, proper girl, so why bother even trying? why not just hurt people?

Of course, this isn't a true thought. It's very selfish- a thought that can only exist when you're so caught up in your own head. When you still think that being a 'proper girl' is possible and achievable- and forget that you can just Be A Girl.

similarly, i love this sort of sickening sadism. There's no way to show this love but to force it on people, right? No one would want to be hurt. That's not a kind of person that exists. So you're doomed- hurt and betray someone utterly or never get to experience all of someone.

no one wants to cry. No one wants to feel scared. No one wants to feel sick in their stomach, right? Consensual existence isn't possible for things like us.

Bao can't imagine a world where she gets touched. Where someone holds her and means it. Where anyone could want the pain she wants to give so badly. But it's there- god knows I know plenty of people that want that. Frankly, many of them want more than my own heart can handle to give!

because hurting people can be love. Don't you want to see every side of someone? See the guts wriggling inside them? See them at their weakest, at their lowest? Make them cry, make them bleed, make them make every cute little sound of pain there is? Can that not be love?

But Bao can't accept that it could be. And so she's doomed to only cut open herself, bear every miserable piece of herself to the world and show that disgust. She can't hurt Janis because she can't make herself a person that matters. eb 27 at 2026, 2:28 AM

If I have one complaint about the game, it didn't need to explicitly spell out that Bao didn't believe Janis' true offer of help. I got that.

but god. i love the guts of this thing. I love that at her best, at the so hard to find 'less bad ending'- she's still someone who at best has the chance to get better, far away from the person she loves the most.

I gotta go harder sometimes. EVen when i'm playing in this sort of nasty space I pull my punches a bit more. Maybe I shouldn't.

After all, this game rules.

My Reply to newtypewoman

This is a beautiful reading of my work 😭 The one thing I'd say while your one criticism is fair and I don't think that bit goes as smooth as I intended, to me Bao DOES, in the MOMENT, believe her, but to "protect herself", as soon as Jan is gone, she has to tear that trust down.

Reply to my Reply

I'm really glad you liked it. It spoke to me, as a tgirl who's been finally poking into her local kink scene and having some thoughts about rape.

This one's for the trannies.

I've never been Bao. But I could have been. My version of it was a very different selfishness that I was pulled out of before it could get disastrous. But there's a world where I too never learned how to do anything but force my love on people. Caught in my own self loathing.

I'm so glad I'm not the person I was when I was 19 anymore.

What I'm saying is i can fix her (Holding her firm and supporting her but making her reckon with what she's done) and seperately I COULD FIX HER (elaborate dommebreaking by showing her love so painfully gentle but mocking that it causes her guts to twist inside out even as she reaches for it frantic

I could see her whole deal and figure out the exact cruel sadistic way to be nice to her and let her know that's what I'm doing and she'd be forced to reckon with it as true and manipulative at once so on so forth okay sorry we're past the earnest media critique and this is just fantasy now

I could make her want to throw up by touching her gently. Someone needs to tell this girl love doesn't have to be penetrative.

ok back to media critique her whole fixation on penetration as the kind of love that's right for her is, again, such sad tgirl stuff. Imagine a world where someone will touch you for god's sake!!