A very rambly 'about' post

Thank you for taking the time to play/read. This was a very self-indulgent project, which, coupled with the fact that i have 0 writing experience, might make it cringey or hard to read at times, so i apologize if that was the case for you.

I’ll talk more about it below. Just a warning first, this post might get a bit (or very) personal (to be fair, i think expire is more of a vent post made in ren’py than a VN with an actual story).

What prompted me to write this VN is a weird, gross feeling i got last year after graduating from university. I felt completely useless, like i had nothing more to offer to anyone or to the world. I had no energy or will to think about the future, or even to distract myself with things i liked. Even when resting (immediately after graduating or when i was sick) i still felt pressure because i knew i was already falling behind in every respect. Completing my degree took much longer than expected, mostly for reasons beyond my control, but the end result was the same, regardless of how or why. I also take a lot longer than most people to get things done, even if it’s stuff i enjoy, so i don’t think i’ll ever be able to keep up with regular expectations (and definitely not with high ones) about where you should be in life.

About the narrator “character” - they’re mostly a medium for me to process/vent about that weird feeling, so i intentionally left them as a blank slate without any real characterization. I think i wanted to represent certain feelings and thoughts rather than the person experiencing them. I’m not sure about what happens to them at the end. All i know is that they just ‘give up’, but i don’t exactly know what that entails.

The physical aspect of the mold (as in ‘a scary/gross thing on your body that gets worse instead of going away’) was partly inspired by my experience with rosacea these last few years. Not knowing what it was and seeing it get progressively worse was definitely not great for my self-esteem and mental health, but it’s better now that i know what it is and i’m treating it properly (mostly).

Side note, i probably didn’t make it super clear in-game, but it’s only about the mold until it isn’t, so to speak. The idea of mold (vs any other gross thing/substance) growing on your body was meant to reference the concept/belief that people have some kind of set expiration date, as if they were products to be used and disposed of. “You’re not useful/productive/pretty/young/healthy anymore, so there’s basically no point to you” - i feel like that’s something we get told pretty often (mostly indirectly, and possibly even without malice, sometimes), so it’s not that strange that some of us eventually start to believe that. Then one day you might realize you’ve given up on yourself a long time ago, without even knowing why. It’s a very lonely feeling, but i think there are many who feel this way sometimes.

I started working on expire in june 2024 (about a month after i was done with uni) and then i abandoned it for months because consistency is a foreign concept to me. Oddly enough, this is around the time i graduated last year, so it somehow feels appropriate to finish it now. I hoped that putting that weird feeling on paper (or screen) would help me leave it behind. I still don’t know if it worked, but i’m glad i did something with it.

I know expire is overall pretty gloomy and this post was very ‘we live in a society’-esque, so i want to end on a more positive note. I hope everyone who reads this finds a way to live life on their own terms. I’ll try my best to do the same. (Also if you have any concerns about your health, mental or physical, please please seek help if you’re able to, even if they seem trivial. I can’t even begin to list all the ways not doing so has complicated my life in the last 10 years)