FGHJGFHJ I'M GLAD THIS WAS A RIDE FOR YOU IT WAS A RIDE FOR ME TOO
Re: slice of life start up vibes!! That's something ironically a lot of my favorite stuff does: start up with slice of life intro stuff and then BAM horror/fantasy/mystery vibes commence~ So I'm happy to hear I emulated that well here, especially since I wanted to introduce the cast and then slide over into the horror stuff as the slowburn outcome of the mystery pieces itself together.
Creating the relics and rendering them was perhaps my favorite part of this. Twisting the relics into the monster's designs, even more so (and fun fact: Irise's monster form was invented before her relic was). I wanted to make sure the relics were always omnipresent in the scene considering how, at the end, they're presence is Very Relevant to the mystery haha. I'm also happy to hear you like the sprites too,,, I feel like I could have done much better on them and make them look less wonky to my eyes if given time but ultimately i did learn a lot about them (and mad respect to you and everyone else who does sprites w/ so much variance bc that's like godtier patience in my eyes to have all those combinations made and ready to use).
Michi!!! My boy!!! I'm not going to lie for how little he appeared in this he is ironically one of my more favorite characters in the series he actually comes form. Granted, there's a lot more complexity to him there than I got to show here but yessss him being sweet and plucky is just The Best (plus his design is soooo good I love coloring blonde hair so much and his magenta eyes really add to the appeal: i can't wait to draw him even more in his actual story just bc i love his colors so much). And Abby,,, local protagonist in his original series turned love interest in this piece,,, The scenes w/ him and Vidal are probably the closest I'll ever get to being truly overtly romantic in my works and the clocktower scene was very fun to push myself in that regard (so I'm happy to hear the romance is very welldone despite its subtlety because that's very much what I crave in every romance story I read ngl).
Speaking of worldbuilding: would you believe me if I said I had to speedrun the world-building in like 3 days because I had An Idea pre-jam but when writing I found out I really didn't?? I at least got to shove in some cameos tho,,, especially Sadie even tho she only shows up to further enhance the debate about the mystery of what's happenin'
The summer CG!! That one was so great,,, I am a Big Fan of saturated colors and I really let myself go loose with that one. Wish I could've drawn more like that but alas,,, time ate me up
The mist monsters,,,, they are indeed very spooky and Vidal's one in particular is my favorite (RAINBOW COLORS RAINBOW COLORS). I'm really a "monsters are horrifying especially if they're non-humanoid" type of gal and I had fun trying to create ones that looked creepy (and haha Irise's neck was a spur of the moment design but I think it really works for a horrific, almost unattached-from-one's-own-body look :3c)
Overall just super well done and a great story that really ramped up at the end and left me wanting more. Like I wanna know what's happening now?? What's going to happen to them? What even really ARE they? I have so many questions.
>:3c I really like creating mysteries with no real answerse so it's really up to you what you want to make of the ending and what happens after! I consider Blue Moon Lament's story done as of the ending although shortly after Vidal's...happening...I'd like to think the world now knows what's happening to all the disappearing lamenters and how that causes chaos and horror across the world. It's even better when you get to know people don't get to become lamenters by choice...which also means that that will happen to any lamenter whether they want it or not just because they are lamenters :333333333
(and thank you for the note!! i uploaded new files so hopefully those work now \>o</)