Leslie (2025)

The way this story is told is interesting. The soundtrack and images come together to make a very nostalgic picture of being a person of color consuming white dominated media in childhood. To have the story explore a character of color is an actor in that white dominated childhood is new. It’s done extremely well.

This succinctly explores a lot of different interests to me.. Exasperation with the definition of diversity in TV, diversity only existing in a way an audience can understand, using minorities as a symbol for expressing a generic belief with no further exploration of them outside of that and it being lauded as good writing, the audience clapping, peers clapping. It really did take me back to being a kid (though from a different source, of course).

The childhood actor stuff + the thoughts about Leslie’s mother was interesting. Ultimately, there’s often like.. a picture of evil parents who pressured their kids into doing something that affected their psyche without touching on the fact that there is love there whether or not the adult child has sorted out those feelings… The “evil act” has already occurred.

The dissociation and the worms and how it ends up affecting “Leslie” psychosexually is extremely well done too. The horrors in how it relates to Rita make me sick too.

Meant to leave a comment after playing this for a vn club last week, but the way this game grapples with Leslie's agency makes me want to grip my head very tightly (/p). I've finally taken the time to read the postmortem, and I'd really like to say this was one of my favorite toxic yuri games so far because of the pacing, the multitudes of depth when it comes to commenting on race, sex, and gender, and the fact that it really does feel like what could happen with a show like Ritariffic. While the bathroom and fanfiction scenes really stuck with me, the scene where Leslie is getting fried chicken I keep returning to in my head because of how quickly something that felt nostalgic and almost sweet was soured because of how of how Leslie is used for the betterment of other people over and over again. (if that makes sense)

One day I'll return to this game having a better knowledge of the Ensemble Stars war and hurt even more.

i am a worm told they are a girl...

This was such an emotional rollercoaster. It was upsetting, depressing, anger-inducing and so damn funny. The Ritariffic scenes (especially the birhtday one) all had me groaning so much - the sanitised, safe liberal slop so perfectly highlighted by the internet discourse around it,  the production background and Leslie's comments. Leslie's life is just so bleak it hurts. He is always defined by everyone around him - his mother, the staff, Rita, the audience of his movie and film critics/journalists (damn you John Whiteman!) to the point where he just doesn't have any identity of his own... This was probably my favourite dark comedy I've ever witnessed. Amazing read! <3 

real good stuff, im genuinely upset i wont be in nyc when the vn book club will be discussing this entry. 

here's some things that stuck with me:
- yeah, the "fake chinese girl who wants to be chinese again" stuff hit really really hard. im a fairly pale (and white-passing in some contexts) wasian person and have definitely been very self conscious about my detachment from desi culture throughout my 20s. it's something i've made more peace with in recent years but even so, those kinds of things that leslie talks about really resonated. 
- loved the discussion of identity politics being brought up in the show only to ultimately absolve an audience and the showrunners of white guilt without diving into underlying socio-economics or geopolitics (the juxtaposition of the writers not mentioning capitalism in the show and then being bitten in the ass when trying to unionize is noteworthy here too)
- loved the audio-visual stylization of it all, the picrew sprites, the collages as background pictures, the implementation of sitcom crowd sfx, the queen jumpscare. it's a pretty harrowing story and these things nudge it more into "dark comedy" territory than just an outright tragedy
- i think the visuals really stress that the show and leslie's life and person have completely merged

this was fantastic, i will read more of your work in the future

edit: oh and the "game description" on the itch site is a nice touch!

I'm kinda scratching my head thinking of exactly how to describe this one. There's this deeply frustrating feeling of being used up by those around you, having bits of yourself consumed by others in the name of progressivism that was done well. The Rita's Birthday scene was particularly skin-crawling. I'm still kind of chewing on these feelings but I think there's a deeper aspect to this that I really like. A lot of mixed media was neat too, the final scene utilizes it the best I think.

the best possible resolution

This was truly a dark comedy, morbid yet funny in its prose. (The Queen Elizabeth scene and Eizen's lines when he presented Leslie with the award made me laugh so hard). A lot of the morbidity came from my own personal feelings in regards to growing up as a non-white child watching (typically white) American tv shows like iCarly. Finally getting to hear the real experiences from these child actors in stuff like the "Quiet on Set" documentary or Jeannette McCurdy's book really opened my eyes to a topic I was ignorant to as a bright-eyed child who idolized Hollywood and the kids who got to be in it. 

My point of all this is that I feel like this visual novel captured that environment well. It hurts how Leslie is essentially trapped by his roles, both as a child actor and as a Chinese-Malaysian kid in America who acted out of filial piety, and how both turn into this pit that he's stuck in. It hurts even more that Rita and his mother and his "adoring" fans don't understand how he feels or even try to understand because all they see is the role he fills for them, whether that's being the dutiful child or the token Asian character or a best friend/co-star. 

The ending was a hellish nightmare for Leslie, but it amplified the horror of never having your actions or words be "yours" because you have to "represent X for Y" with no regards to the original context or how Leslie really feels. This was really freaking well-written and an amazing use of metafiction. I loved this so much thank you for sharing!!

Execellent work, love the commentary and unique set up/flow of the story, very harrowing.

Also, it was quite surprising but nice to read that leslie was chinese malaysian, I'm singaporean but that felt extra "woah cool". Great read.

Writing my first comment.

Still thinking about this story, having already played the game twice. The stalker and fanfiction scenes are def the standouts, but my personal favorite scene was when the protagonist reads "I'm Glad My Mom Died" and makes comparisons between his circumstances and McCurdy's, the differences due to race and culture making him feel more alienated than empowered.

oof. my nose still hurts.

i'm very glad this work exists. i thought i was familiar enough with other IF of what i'd expect but no. oh no.

dearly appreciate how the visual novel engine and medium was even brought in as metatext. this game inspires me, and seeks what it wanted to and with a deft hand, clever presentation and sharp pace.

loved the explorations of child acting, fandom, and behind-the-scenes showrunning in this vn. a lot of people have talked about the elizabeth scene and the fanfiction scene, which were rightfully horrifying... but for me, the most impactful scenes in this game were when i saw, firsthand how leslie is sidelined to soothe everyone else's white liberal guilt — from the showrunners and writers to rita and her family themselves. that, and the exhaustion he feels as a public figure who wants to return to some sense of normalcy.

 parts in particular that did this especially well, imho:

• one of the junior writers coming up to leslie and telling him "you paid off all of my student debt, all of us couldn't have done this without you", and leslie just thinking to himself about how everyone's career advancement relied on him staying around.
• the scene between leslie and the veteran teacher, where he spoke about why he didn't want to pledge allegiance to the flag, but was told again and again to water down his honest statement to something that was much less challenging. 
• the scene where rita and her family are talking about the mass harassment the show is receiving because leslie is a main character... but so much of the comfort is aimed at rita herself versus leslie, adding to the tokenization.
• everything about fandom's perception of leslie and how that impacted his mental health. (esp "I don't want to see my likeness be your comfort character. : ) )

all in all, good work. i'm gonna chew on this for a while...

god damn. this is REALLY good. the way everything moved back and forth between scenes. the scenes themselves. the way everything was portrayed through the screen and just. i don't even have the words for it. just.... wow. wow. this is one im definitely gonna have to return to. everything is portrayed so masterfully. it's beautiful and horrifying and just.

there were multiple times where i genuinely was like breathing heavy pearls clenched "OH MY GOD STOP STOP STOP STOP" and. god damn. god. damn.

wow

I really appreciate all the layers to this and how tightly woven they are—the rhythm of each scene and how it fed into the next one was such important glue to keep a pretty dense work altogether. On a personal level I have been really interested in what happens to the personhood of celebrities and public figures for a long time, so I nearly jumped for joy when I realized what this was about haha. I would really recommend Stanley Kwan’s movie Center Stage (if you’re not already familiar), I think there’s a lot there you’d enjoy. 

Anyways, this is one of the best visual novels I have played… it was such a treat from beginning to end, and really really inspiring. I loved how you used every part of the form in a rigorous and thoughtful way while keeping an eye for overall coherence. Something about the emotion I’d be sitting with when the scene changed was particularly effective, you really know how to build on a narrative/emotional beat and cut it at just the right moment. The most memorable example of that for me was the build towards the pub bathroom scene, the execution of it, and then the transition out of it. That image of Queen Elizabeth was darkly hilarious, and a perfect synecdoche (is that the right word? ack) for this girl, the perfect manifestation of what is chasing the protag down. The depossession of self that happens with celebrities but also hyper-visible + “normal” individuals… you have explored it beautifully! Thanks so much for making and sharing, will be keeping this experience with me for a long time.

happened to read this on a day where i almost screamed at my therapist for like insinuating that the best thing i can do with my life is continue to live it for the sake of other people and then i played this and. god. talk about being kicked while i'm down. i hope one day Leslie gets to be someone who isn't Leslie. 

sooo glad i found time to read this, i feel like i've just been put thru an emotional wringer! there are a few scenes that left me just horrified (to be vague, queen elizabeth, fanfic inspo) ooouuughhh.... and overall i really enjoyed the surreal quality of the visuals and especially the collages. i was def captivated the whole time bc ur hit pretty immediately with the vibes of how this story will be. honestly, its hard not to feel attached to the tv show characters bc the inner dialogue of the pov is so interesting, and in a cool way i feel like it creates a separation between the pov character and the reader... like oh god would i have been one of those redditors, or at least reading thru the posts... terrifying prospect. well done :3 !!

Absolutely terrifying, this was an awesome read

Wow, there are so many things to unpack from this game (that I can't get into here for fear of spoiling it). The execution - art, dialogue, pacing, everything - is so unique and so good. All these aspects really come together to hammer in the suffocating existence of the protagonist, who can't escape being defined (both by herself and the world around her) by the persona of "Leslie Lee".

Brilliant work!

Holy shit that was amazing.

The portions of the narrator talking about her exerience on the set of Ritariffic remind me of the third act of the play Our Town (1938), in which the ghosts in the cemetery are unable to revisit even a moment of their lives due to the burden of knowing everything surrounding it.  Every time they try to, the author is literally there, walking them through every last detail until it's too much to bear. This is the hell of our narrator, this is the hell of being Leslie Lee, unable to escape context.

Also this vn reminded me that I ought to get back to studying chinese.

im not really sure if i get it but fuck this made me feel a lot of things. very very good shit

a story about getting used used used used used used, and used.

The art, the music, the dialogue, the pacing, the whiplash, all feed into the all-encompassing dread that is leslie's life. I want to crawl out of my skin, curl up in the shower, and cry these feelings out until every part of me has washed down the drain. 10/10, amazing work

hell of a movie!

my wife & i read this in one sitting. i couldn't tear myself away. strange, compelling, and arrestingly funny. the layers of fiction and mythmaking and dissociation complement each other beautifully. it was very rewarding to come back & read this page after finishing the story.

(spoilers) the final sequence was especially vivid - leslie waking and re-waking endlessly into a theatre full of ritas is an image i won't forget.

ow. ow ow ow ow. this was a fascinating, unique and haunting read. a lot of this hit really hard, especially the parts about asexuality and the mc's mother wanting to assimilate him into living as a white american as much as possible.

this hits on an anxiety on how even upon expressing one's own feelings/criticisms on systems of power from a place of trauma, that will inevitably end up swallowed up by the culture at large and nothing will be learned. the ending is difficult to talk about in this regard without making a spectacle out of the mc like he doesn't want. made me feel uncomfortable and nauseous.

this is a vn I'll be thinking about and absorbing for a long time. both the writing and presentation are so well-done and rich!! 

Not even in her dreams the protagonist can escape being Leslie. It consumes everything about her. 

One of the final lines points out the protagonist is trans which I thought was fitting. She had no choice about being Leslie since it was her mother's wish, kinda like how we are born into these roles/gender we are assigned to be.