Celeste

i first heard about celeste back in late 2018, when i was in one of the lowest points in my life. i was still dealing with grief and had recently begun questioning my gender identity. i was losing interest in video games which is what i distracted myself with at the time. i didnt play it for a while since at the time i was playing through red dead redemption 2.

by the time i did get around to playing it (early 2019) i had realized i probably wasnt cis (although i still was questioning) and was dealing with the realization of what i was going to have to deal with for the rest of my life. i did the main story in one sitting, 6 hours straight and i was amazed. i knew from that point that it was going to be my favourite game of all time.

a lot of the reason i loved it so much other than it just being an extremely fun to play game was that i felt like i related to it very well and i needed that at that point in time. at the time i wasnt interested in music much so i never really payed attention to the soundtrack other than acknowledging that it was good.

i played celeste a lot. like, a lot. it's probably in my 5 most played games. this helped me get through some of the hardest points in my life, so i could say that celeste (and therefore, at least partly its music) saved my life. and i cant thank it enough like that.

around november 2019 i was sure i was a trans woman. i had a hard time coping with this until recently. in early 2020 my interest in the game resparked because i had heard about farewells release and wanted to play it. i quickly found out that there was a fan theory that the main character madeline is trans and it made sense to me. i remember that my favourite game having good trans representation meant a lot to me at the time (and it still does).

this brings me to the reason i decided to listen to this as an album finally. recently madeline was confirmed by the lead dev to be trans. and since its not long after the 1 year anniversary of me realizing i was trans i decided to listen to the soundtrack.

this album captures mental health amazingly. it sounds amazing. i cant put it into words, i really cant. this album and the game its from mean a lot to me, and i suspect i wont forget about it for a very long time.

favourite track: Scattered and Lost