“Writers are not Strangers”

Writers Are Not Strangers succeeds in dramatizing that writers are real people with real feelings. It tells the story of Alix, a writer, along with her dying mother, her aunt, and a meteorite threatening Earth. The piece gives a similar emotional resonance to Hana Feels, although the setting and tone are very different. You can tell this story takes place in a future shaped by technology, artificial intelligence, and influencer culture, most likely somewhere in Iceland due to the volcano mentioned. There is an impending doom that we are aware of, alongside the passing of Alix’s mother, who was once a hero of sorts.

I disliked how technology and the era of AI seemed to desensitize everyone from the real world and the things happening around them. I wanted to see Alix grieve her mother, or even her pet fish that I named Darla (it’s giving Finding Nemo). Instead, everyone just continues on as if the city has not been affected, as if making content is more important than acknowledging that the world is slowly crumbling at their feet. Still, I loved the creativity of the piece, especially seeing Alix’s reactions to my choices and ratings. At one point, after she visited her mother and wrote a post, she didn’t seem to care at all about the rating I gave her work, which felt both powerful and sad.

The plot, however, feels less important than the overall theme: how readers can affect the lives of writers. At one point, I used a combination of the scores I gave her writing as a passcode to access the hospital wing where she could see her mother one last time. As the player, you rate stories that Alix has written, and she reacts emotionally to those ratings. At other times, you make decisions for Alix herself, switching back and forth between being her reader and being Alix.

Alix responds to the ratings you give her when you are playing as a reader. For example, the first story of hers that I read was difficult to follow, so I gave it a low rating. Later, I watched her go through an exhausting visit to the hospital to see her dying mother. When she checked her ratings afterward, she was deeply upset by the low score. I felt as if I had punched her in the gut after she had already been through something emotionally draining. Yet at the same time, I was Alix, because I had been the one guiding her through those same moments. In a strange way, I had hurt myself.

This pattern continues throughout the piece, as you keep rating Alix’s stories and watching how she responds. Her later stories are even influenced by your previous ratings. I found myself trying to be honest and give her work the scores I thought it deserved, but I also felt tempted to give higher ratings just to protect her feelings. This creates a tension many players will probably experience.

By the end, Alix no longer feels like a stranger. You come to know her both through her writing and through the small glimpses of her life. The title becomes true, at least within the world of the story. It also made me think about how in real life we never get to “play” as our favorite writers. We are only the readers, not Alix, and it raises the question of how much we can truly know someone through their writing. Sometimes we can, but often the familiarity we feel is just an illusion. Still, Writers Are Not Strangers reminds us that writers are real people with real emotions behind every piece they create.

Retratos Vivos de Mamá
The second piece, Retratos Vivos de Mamá, pairs surprisingly well with Writers Are Not Strangers. Both explore memory, grief, and the act of preserving connection, though one does it through technology and the other through storytelling and remembrance.

Retratos Vivos de Mamá deeply moved me. It’s a meditation on discovering and honoring a mother’s life after her death. I resonated with it personally because I care deeply about preserving the memories of the women in my family, their strength, struggles, and sacrifices. I’ve been blessed to know both my great-grandmother and grandmother before their passings in 2019 and 2022, and understanding their experiences as matriarchs and eldest daughters helps me see my own mother with more compassion and grace.

One quote that struck me translates to:

“She will peer into the past. She will listen silently. She will take careful note of everything she hears and sees. She will retrieve the photos from all the albums. And she will return to the present with her suitcase full of voices. She will return to give a second life to the woman who was her mother before she had children. She will invent another life for her mother.”

The women in my family have always loved photographs, and we have albums spanning four generations. Each picture holds a story, a voice, a moment frozen in time. This piece reminded me that revisiting those memories is an act of both grief and rebirth.

The mother-daughter relationship can be complicated, especially when trauma stretches across generations. I’ve felt resentment toward my own mother at times, but learning her story has helped me understand her humanity and pain. The line, “Two things remain with me today: the certainty of never having truly understood my mother, and the solace of having tried to understand her at the end of her life,” made me pause. It’s a reminder that understanding our mothers while they’re still alive is both a privilege and a necessity. My mother lost her own mother just a few years ago after more than fifteen years apart. I often wonder what conversations they didn’t get to have or what memories they missed. Even as I grieve parts of my own relationship with her, I know some things are best left resting. Healing is slow, one day at a time.

Both Writers Are Not Strangers and Retratos Vivos de Mamá explore what it means to connect through writing, memory, and loss. One asks whether readers can truly know the writer, and the other asks how we can keep our mothers alive through stories and remembrance. Together, they show that words, whether written or remembered, are one of the few ways we can make sense of love, grief, and being human.