The Creature in My House

It’s hard to pull off having a character whose dialogue is entirely composed of kaomoji, but you really got it to work here. Bake’s animations are cute, as well as its actions described in the text (I liked the part where it ate all the garbage and then spit it up on command). The horror of its appearance sets it apart from other cute mascot characters and helps keep me from experiencing cuteness overload.

I like the idea of Carlos’s behaviour towards Johnny pre-breakup mirroring Bake’s behaviour towards Carlos post-breakup.

I was left with some confusion about the tone of the ending. Carlos does acknowledge that Bake is annoying like Carlos is himself (and Carlos communicates more that he is annoyed than Johnny did), but it’s saddening to see Carlos go back to curling up on the couch being down about himself. Sure, Bake is there with him now, but hanging out with the loneliness spirit that vaguely resembles your ex-boyfriend doesn’t sound like a good thing to be doing long-term. It’s a mixed bag between a sad ending (Carlos is just as depressed after speaking with Johnny and learning why he’s been dumped) and a happy one (he has a friend now and experiences some insight into why his relationship didn’t work out), but those two elements aren’t working together for me as well as they could.