[card review] Luke's 4th Anniv Card, SSR The Answered Heart, is a welcome and much-needed return to a core theme that makes Luke and LukeRosa so special to me: the call to live hopefully in the face of fear and uncertainty
[OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER that these are all my own thoughts and opinions. if you disagree, that's alright of course, but make your own post about it, HAHA]
i apologize in advance for what i'm about to do, but i'm gonna start this review by sliiiightly complaining about the state of luke's recent card stories KBKSJDF.
see ever since 1st anniv, luke's card stories have by and large followed the main plot of "They Have A Cute Date/Activity/Day Out Together With Minimal Narrative Conflict, Or, If There Is Any Conflict, It's Not Very Compelling Anyway". there are standouts and exceptions to this, of course, like his AU cards (which obviously explore new circumstances), his birthday SSRs (which tend to have some kind of a novel plot due to the special occasion), and SSR Dreams of Benji in particular (this card came out of nowhere with how good it was, wdym the FLUFFY FUZZY TIME CARD tackled mortality, past, and future so well).
but ASIDE from those standouts, luke cards have been... forgive me for saying this, but i've been bored. a lot of his card stories were boring me.
and i feel like that's especially a sin for luke's stories to do, because he is so interesting and nuanced. his entire pre-1stanniv to 1stanniv story arc was so gripping and so full of tension and conflict, so full of messiness and imperfection, and his unfurling relationship with rosa felt like a love letter to life itself, embracing both its flaws and its joys. both the pain of living and the delight of living.
seeing how luke's cards strayed away from this messy, imperfect, but beautiful core theme in favor of safer stories that only explored joys felt like we lost the plot, so to speak.
but this card made me go WE ARE SO FUCKING BACCCKKKK
in the story, luke has basically all but recovered from his illness. which... honestly disappointed me a bit, ngl. not because i dont want luke to be well and live (i VERY MUCH DO, I LOVE HIM) but because the reality of recovery is not as clear cut and neat as how they depicted it. recovery is messy, and luke's entire character is messy, so it wouldve only been fitting and narratively satisfying to lean into the turmoil and difficulty of the process.
alas, thats not what we got. but what we did get in this card...
oh it had me teary eyed. it was the raw, real, messy imperfection that made me fall in love with luke in the first place
in the story, aaron tells luke that he doesnt need to take his meds anymore, but luke continues to do so. this leads to the crux of the matter with luke: after spending so long thinking he'd die, he doesn't know how to live.
what a wonderfully contradictory issue to have. luke just got told he got his life back, but his reactions to it are subdued and avoidant. he just got told what he's always yearned for and wished for, but now that he has it, he's at a loss.
whether he wanted to or not, the fact that he was trapped by looming inevitability for so long trained his mind and his heart to no longer hope past the limits that his illness imposed onto him.
when you're trapped in hopelessness for so long, hopelessness feels safe, and hope feels scary. it feels too good to be true.
luke got his future back, and that's a beautiful thing, but its light is blinding, like staring into the sun.
"I'm... just a little afraid. Is it okay to be this happy?" and "I feel like I'm just used to the impermanence of the world."
luke, who knows impermanence so intimately that it might as well have been his shadow for years, knows best how cruel the world can be.
but the card's answer to this is that core again of luke and lukerosa's story: the call to live hopefully in the face of fear and uncertainty.
it's not an easy thing to do, but it's a choice that's worth it. it's the choice that lukerosa made on the day they got together, and the choice they continue to make for every day they spend at each other's side.
do i think the card's story was a little rushed in reaching this conclusion? a little bit, yes. additionally, do i think luke's illness was rushed and handled too neatly, as if tot were afraid of fully committing to what writing a chronically ill character would entail? kinda a lot, yes. but do i still think that in spite of that, that this is a wonderfully done card? very much yes.
at the end of the day, this card reminded me why i love luke and lukerosa so much, and why i love this game. it's got its hits and it's got its misses but god, when it hits, it does it well.
it highlights the beautiful, imperfect, hopeful nature of living life. of loving life. of embracing life and all it brings.
