banner credits: omoriboii; pfp credits: zipsunz // i write analyses and apparently also voice act
87 posts
Somekindofsentience - Not A Puppyboy - Tumblr Blog
it's totally cool to reblog!!!! I appreciate literally any additions to my ideas :D
That's a good idea, actually - the lack of rationality regarding the Phobias is also my endless beef with this game, as someone who actually has a clinical specific phobia. The way he gets them, the whole "slips into deep water from a height after seeing a spider" - although I recognise that it's possible to get all three phobias from a life or death situation like that, it sounds really fucking goofy.
It seems more like the Phobias are just fears Sunny has - if that's true, I'm upset at the use of clinical language. Separate incidents would increase the rationality and perhaps link better to Sunny's status as a Hikikomori.
spiders, or how to fix half of omori's plot with one symbol
i think i can fix omori. well, some of it.
This will be an attempt to prove that a key symbol related to Mari is a spider/bug, and how making this more obvious to the player would have fixed half the narrative.
Mari is closely associated with bugs and spiders in several scenes, but I believe the photos in the real world and Headspace demonstrate this most explicitly.
This photo is one of few direct redraws from the real world in Headspace, and it identifies Mari as a character unafraid, even fascinated, by bugs, which is one of very few character traits she's actually given. This is repeated multiple times as we explore Headspace, where Mari comforts Sunny and Hero about their fear of spiders, takes the group bug-hunting in the real world, and previously put bugs in Hero's desk. It's notable that the reframing of this photo specifically puts a spider in Omori's hand, further linking the girl to bugs in his mind.
Within Headspace, spiders are shown to be far more present than the other two phobias present. We see it in Daddy Long Legs, the ominous nature of Pyrefly forest, the Spider Area, the references to the creatures from Hero, Mari and Basil, and much more - it's clear that the creators wanted this symbol to be present, but overwhelmed it with subtlety, making it impossible to actually understand, and leaving it in the dust in favour of following other threads. The narrative fails to distinguish the Arachnophobia boss, and loses its the relationship between Mari and spiders/bugs.
There are several benefits to making this metaphor more deliberate to the player, by enhancing the relationship through jumpscares, making it important to the Truth/Final Boss segments, or even just distinguishing Arachnophobia from the other bosses. I've decided to organise them into a list since there's so many.
Cohesive narrative interactions between the Phobias and the recital day: I'm always talking about how the juxtaposition between these two events is so subtle that people miss the point. Singling out the importance of Arachnophobia would highlight these two events and bring them to the forefront, making the Final Duet more cohesive.
The Phobia bosses become relevant: If the game is able to properly integrate Arachnophobia into the truth segment, this provides so much more purpose to the Phobia bosses, who often feel like just game mechanics to teach you how fighting against hallucinations functions.
Intriguing moral exploration: I think the idea of the subtlety of conveying Mari as a bug portrays her insignificance - Sunny was able to just kill her, as though she were just a spider to be swatted. It furthers an interesting understanding of morality in the text, talking about the prioritisation of life, leaving more of an impact on the audience. Are humans really as fickle as that?
Hero's character: Connecting Mari to a spider not only allows for more theory and AU creation, but actually mimics Hero's actions in the real world. Only two characters are afraid of spiders - and only those two characters have not visited Mari's grave since it was dug, which mirrors (but fails to highlight) Sunny and Hero's character arcs. In a similar way, Mari and Basil's love for bugs could also mirror some sort of decline.
The relevance of Daddy Long Legs and spider-related Black Space areas: Spiders are regularly referenced in Headspace and Black Space, with a whole room of Black Space surrounding them, but there's never any lucid reason why they're so prominent compared to the other phobias. Making a clear connection to the truth would clear up this confusion.
Basil's Something and Headspace Basil's dialogue: Basil's Something is deliberately abstract, but it is never defined further than its presentation. Not only would it properly link the Spider Area to the reality of the truth, but it would potentially connect Basil's Something to it, too.
Just plain easy to add: Much of Omori's story, characterisation and pacing is very difficult to improve without hours of effort. Being able to cohesively connect elements of the narrative with one symbol is much more realistic.
song i listened to while writing this:
this song is literally the reason i came to this realisation, the themes of environmental preservation were essential dskjhjdsgdjhsgjhkdg shout out to me rediscovering this after years and years
through the looking glass again, or re-establishing colour theory in OMORI
WARNING: MAJOR OMORI SPOILERS.
CONTENT WARNING: REFERENCES TO SUICIDE, DEATH, LOSS, AND GRIEF.
A while ago, I wrote what I consider to be my magnum opus - an analysis discussing deliberate colour theory and windows in OMORI. This analysis is excellent, it is the fundamentals of almost all my other analyses, but it is disorganised and I don't get my point across as adequately as I need to.
The main reason for this is, well, I discover things as I write about them, so my points tend to get lost. Lmao.
So, I'm going to reframe my analysis by establishing the purpose of each colour I discuss. Hopefully this reaches a wider audience and is more digestible than my ramblings.
Saturated Blue
Saturated blue is a very deliberate colour choice - we know this from Omocat herself. Let's establish where it is used:
It is the colour of the Phobias, and Sunny's house during Phobia sequences. The use of saturation conveys intensity and fear, and there is a sense of impending failure - we cannot "beat" any of these boss fights by normal means, but instead are doomed to lose or wait until Mari consoles us.
It's prevalent in the Deeper Well, but notably absent from many Black Space rooms, who choose to use solid monochrome or other colours to convey emotion. It still exists within Black Space despite this.
In a similar way, it exists with the Basil boss fight, but more features are monochrome, which ties it more closely with the Truth.
Saturated blue is also the colour of Hellmari, but I will discuss her in depth later.
This blue is also deliberately not black - this somewhat disconnects these segments from the Truth, and considering how the Phobia bosses were formed, I propose that the ultimate purpose of this colour is to provide a comparison between Mari saving Sunny's life and Sunny ending hers.
This comparison is essential to the game, and yet absent from a lot of key moments. Highlighting this juxtaposition would have fixed these two narratives into a cohesive whole.
Red Light, streaming through windows
I am talking about red light in particular - while red is carefully used in the final boss fight, Red Space, several areas of further Black Space and in the Red Hands, red has more complex meanings in this game, where it depends entirely on the other colours around it:
Red and black represents malicious intent - this is present in several areas of Red Space and the Omori boss fight.
Red and white is more closely tied to repression - notably present in the red hands, some areas of Red Space and the Omori boss fight.
Red standing out against the Dreamworld is tied to Truth - present in the bloody footprints.
However, red light streaming through windows has its own specific meaning - it is designed to feel wrong, the same way the encroaching fog across vast forest feels wrong, and the deeper well's atmosphere feels wrong.
This gets even more important during the Truth sequence, where are introduced to red light streaming through the sliding glass door.
The sliding glass door in Omori is both a window and a door - letting in the eerie red light, but also letting the player (and Sunny) access it and understand it for the first time. Sunny never represses the sliding glass door, but will refuse to go outside until forced by his friends in Faraway visiting the Treehouse. It is opaque and cannot be seen through.
Entering the door leads to the peak combination of our colour theory.
This first looks like a fade between red and purple, but the only possible relevance purple would have is its association with Mari.
This colour scheme is actually the result of a fade between red and saturated blue. Combining the colours of the Phobias, fear, as well as Mari's support and safety, and the day of the Phobias' creation; and the Truth, repression, and the fateful day of the recital. This is the game's big (failed) comparison, and the main purpose of mentioning the creation of the Phobias at all.
These two days are designed to compare Mari and Sunny, increasing his guilt as he remembers the way his sister generously saved his life, and remembers what he did to kill her.
Monochrome
Monochrome is a key colour associated with Truth in Omori, and it does so in a relatively obvious way.
It is the colour of White Space, Black Space, Something, Stranger, and, notably, the colours of the photos that show the player the Truth. In this way, monochrome simultaneously represents repression of the Truth and the past; but also the desire to uncover it.
Areas and characters that contain more black than they do white tend to represent truth, whereas the opposite tend to represent repression, save for portions of the Final Duet and the Hospital, where white represents acceptance.
White also symbolises Sunny, shown in the pinwheels, and it has further meaning in the multiple flowers associated with it.
Spirit Mari is also associated with monochrome, her sprites existing in this colour.
Establishing the presentation of monochrome and saturated blue allow us to understand the mechanics of Headspace itself.
Despite Stranger's quote, Sunny, Basil and Mari are all split in halves, each half with different goals. Sunny, although he doesn't always know it, wants to seek the Truth; but Omori wants to repress it. Stranger wants to free the real world's Basil; but Headspace Basil is a representation of desire, the idea that everything is okay. In a similar way, Spirit Mari wants Sunny to seek forgiveness, and Hellmari is a hallucination of a Mari who would never forgive him
Pastel Blue
The final duet has a very key theme of acceptance and ascension, which is particularly present in this scene.
The whiteness of the area is highlighted with a light, pastel blue. Unlike the horror of saturation, pastel in-game represents peace and purity, being directly contrasted with each other. Pastel isn't symbolic of repression, although it is the main theme during the happier segments of Headspace. These particular colours - white and pastel blue - are also found in the Hospital, and in the final scene of the good ending. Pastel means acceptance, and it means there is no need to "saturate" the events of the recital day.
Here, the colour gradient, and Mari ascending through the window, are symbols of freedom. Sunny has accepted the Truth, and can now properly grieve his lost sister in peace. Simultaneously, you could argue Mari's spirit is finally free - she isn't tied down by Sunny's repression, and her ascending through the window is symbolic of finally entering the afterlife.
since people seem to really like this analysis, I wanted to add a few suggestions as to how someone would integrate this into the game
The Arachnophobia boss will be the final phobia boss, and likely replace the Something boss in the timeline. The Thalassophobia boss looks more spider-like (not sure how to change the Acrophobia boss).
As a result of this, Headspace is rearranged and the Deep Well segment is shorter. Instead of the Deeper Well, Pyrefly Forest is after Sweetheart's Castle, and this either leads to Garden's Edge (a link between SC and Black Space) or the area with Daddy Long-Legs. Either choice leads to Black Space.
Garden's Edge, a potential link between the two that could be explored.
Most, if not all, jumpscares should have spiders or spider references. Something itself could be replaced with a spider or an abstract version of one. Hand-related jumpscares are now spider legs, possibly including the red hands.
The spider area is either the final or a significant part of Black Space. Mewo in Black Space is the cat-spider found in Pyrefly forest, and that cat-spider is found much more often in Headspace and as a Real World hallucination.
During the Memory Lane sequence, two scenes are added - a scene of Sunny as a baby accidentally killing a spider, and the day of the Phobias' creation. This better integrates the morals and overall story.
More time in the Real World (obviously). Hero's character arc now revolves around getting over his fear of spiders and learning to visit Mari's grave again. Basil is much more linked to spiders, and Sunny has far more hallucinations about spiders.
Happy to hear ideas. Might add more.
spiders, or how to fix half of omori's plot with one symbol
i think i can fix omori. well, some of it.
This will be an attempt to prove that a key symbol related to Mari is a spider/bug, and how making this more obvious to the player would have fixed half the narrative.
Mari is closely associated with bugs and spiders in several scenes, but I believe the photos in the real world and Headspace demonstrate this most explicitly.
This photo is one of few direct redraws from the real world in Headspace, and it identifies Mari as a character unafraid, even fascinated, by bugs, which is one of very few character traits she's actually given. This is repeated multiple times as we explore Headspace, where Mari comforts Sunny and Hero about their fear of spiders, takes the group bug-hunting in the real world, and previously put bugs in Hero's desk. It's notable that the reframing of this photo specifically puts a spider in Omori's hand, further linking the girl to bugs in his mind.
Within Headspace, spiders are shown to be far more present than the other two phobias present. We see it in Daddy Long Legs, the ominous nature of Pyrefly forest, the Spider Area, the references to the creatures from Hero, Mari and Basil, and much more - it's clear that the creators wanted this symbol to be present, but overwhelmed it with subtlety, making it impossible to actually understand, and leaving it in the dust in favour of following other threads. The narrative fails to distinguish the Arachnophobia boss, and loses its the relationship between Mari and spiders/bugs.
There are several benefits to making this metaphor more deliberate to the player, by enhancing the relationship through jumpscares, making it important to the Truth/Final Boss segments, or even just distinguishing Arachnophobia from the other bosses. I've decided to organise them into a list since there's so many.
Cohesive narrative interactions between the Phobias and the recital day: I'm always talking about how the juxtaposition between these two events is so subtle that people miss the point. Singling out the importance of Arachnophobia would highlight these two events and bring them to the forefront, making the Final Duet more cohesive.
The Phobia bosses become relevant: If the game is able to properly integrate Arachnophobia into the truth segment, this provides so much more purpose to the Phobia bosses, who often feel like just game mechanics to teach you how fighting against hallucinations functions.
Intriguing moral exploration: I think the idea of the subtlety of conveying Mari as a bug portrays her insignificance - Sunny was able to just kill her, as though she were just a spider to be swatted. It furthers an interesting understanding of morality in the text, talking about the prioritisation of life, leaving more of an impact on the audience. Are humans really as fickle as that?
Hero's character: Connecting Mari to a spider not only allows for more theory and AU creation, but actually mimics Hero's actions in the real world. Only two characters are afraid of spiders - and only those two characters have not visited Mari's grave since it was dug, which mirrors (but fails to highlight) Sunny and Hero's character arcs. In a similar way, Mari and Basil's love for bugs could also mirror some sort of decline.
The relevance of Daddy Long Legs and spider-related Black Space areas: Spiders are regularly referenced in Headspace and Black Space, with a whole room of Black Space surrounding them, but there's never any lucid reason why they're so prominent compared to the other phobias. Making a clear connection to the truth would clear up this confusion.
Basil's Something and Headspace Basil's dialogue: Basil's Something is deliberately abstract, but it is never defined further than its presentation. Not only would it properly link the Spider Area to the reality of the truth, but it would potentially connect Basil's Something to it, too.
Just plain easy to add: Much of Omori's story, characterisation and pacing is very difficult to improve without hours of effort. Being able to cohesively connect elements of the narrative with one symbol is much more realistic.
song i listened to while writing this:
this song is literally the reason i came to this realisation, the themes of environmental preservation were essential dskjhjdsgdjhsgjhkdg shout out to me rediscovering this after years and years
through the looking glass again, or re-establishing colour theory in OMORI
WARNING: MAJOR OMORI SPOILERS.
CONTENT WARNING: REFERENCES TO SUICIDE, DEATH, LOSS, AND GRIEF.
A while ago, I wrote what I consider to be my magnum opus - an analysis discussing deliberate colour theory and windows in OMORI. This analysis is excellent, it is the fundamentals of almost all my other analyses, but it is disorganised and I don't get my point across as adequately as I need to.
The main reason for this is, well, I discover things as I write about them, so my points tend to get lost. Lmao.
So, I'm going to reframe my analysis by establishing the purpose of each colour I discuss. Hopefully this reaches a wider audience and is more digestible than my ramblings.
Saturated Blue
Saturated blue is a very deliberate colour choice - we know this from Omocat herself. Let's establish where it is used:
It is the colour of the Phobias, and Sunny's house during Phobia sequences. The use of saturation conveys intensity and fear, and there is a sense of impending failure - we cannot "beat" any of these boss fights by normal means, but instead are doomed to lose or wait until Mari consoles us.
It's prevalent in the Deeper Well, but notably absent from many Black Space rooms, who choose to use solid monochrome or other colours to convey emotion. It still exists within Black Space despite this.
In a similar way, it exists with the Basil boss fight, but more features are monochrome, which ties it more closely with the Truth.
Saturated blue is also the colour of Hellmari, but I will discuss her in depth later.
This blue is also deliberately not black - this somewhat disconnects these segments from the Truth, and considering how the Phobia bosses were formed, I propose that the ultimate purpose of this colour is to provide a comparison between Mari saving Sunny's life and Sunny ending hers.
This comparison is essential to the game, and yet absent from a lot of key moments. Highlighting this juxtaposition would have fixed these two narratives into a cohesive whole.
Red Light, streaming through windows
I am talking about red light in particular - while red is carefully used in the final boss fight, Red Space, several areas of further Black Space and in the Red Hands, red has more complex meanings in this game, where it depends entirely on the other colours around it:
Red and black represents malicious intent - this is present in several areas of Red Space and the Omori boss fight.
Red and white is more closely tied to repression - notably present in the red hands, some areas of Red Space and the Omori boss fight.
Red standing out against the Dreamworld is tied to Truth - present in the bloody footprints.
However, red light streaming through windows has its own specific meaning - it is designed to feel wrong, the same way the encroaching fog across vast forest feels wrong, and the deeper well's atmosphere feels wrong.
This gets even more important during the Truth sequence, where are introduced to red light streaming through the sliding glass door.
The sliding glass door in Omori is both a window and a door - letting in the eerie red light, but also letting the player (and Sunny) access it and understand it for the first time. Sunny never represses the sliding glass door, but will refuse to go outside until forced by his friends in Faraway visiting the Treehouse. It is opaque and cannot be seen through.
Entering the door leads to the peak combination of our colour theory.
This first looks like a fade between red and purple, but the only possible relevance purple would have is its association with Mari.
This colour scheme is actually the result of a fade between red and saturated blue. Combining the colours of the Phobias, fear, as well as Mari's support and safety, and the day of the Phobias' creation; and the Truth, repression, and the fateful day of the recital. This is the game's big (failed) comparison, and the main purpose of mentioning the creation of the Phobias at all.
These two days are designed to compare Mari and Sunny, increasing his guilt as he remembers the way his sister generously saved his life, and remembers what he did to kill her.
Monochrome
Monochrome is a key colour associated with Truth in Omori, and it does so in a relatively obvious way.
It is the colour of White Space, Black Space, Something, Stranger, and, notably, the colours of the photos that show the player the Truth. In this way, monochrome simultaneously represents repression of the Truth and the past; but also the desire to uncover it.
Areas and characters that contain more black than they do white tend to represent truth, whereas the opposite tend to represent repression, save for portions of the Final Duet and the Hospital, where white represents acceptance.
White also symbolises Sunny, shown in the pinwheels, and it has further meaning in the multiple flowers associated with it.
Spirit Mari is also associated with monochrome, her sprites existing in this colour.
Establishing the presentation of monochrome and saturated blue allow us to understand the mechanics of Headspace itself.
Despite Stranger's quote, Sunny, Basil and Mari are all split in halves, each half with different goals. Sunny, although he doesn't always know it, wants to seek the Truth; but Omori wants to repress it. Stranger wants to free the real world's Basil; but Headspace Basil is a representation of desire, the idea that everything is okay. In a similar way, Spirit Mari wants Sunny to seek forgiveness, and Hellmari is a hallucination of a Mari who would never forgive him
Pastel Blue
The final duet has a very key theme of acceptance and ascension, which is particularly present in this scene.
The whiteness of the area is highlighted with a light, pastel blue. Unlike the horror of saturation, pastel in-game represents peace and purity, being directly contrasted with each other. Pastel isn't symbolic of repression, although it is the main theme during the happier segments of Headspace. These particular colours - white and pastel blue - are also found in the Hospital, and in the final scene of the good ending. Pastel means acceptance, and it means there is no need to "saturate" the events of the recital day.
Here, the colour gradient, and Mari ascending through the window, are symbols of freedom. Sunny has accepted the Truth, and can now properly grieve his lost sister in peace. Simultaneously, you could argue Mari's spirit is finally free - she isn't tied down by Sunny's repression, and her ascending through the window is symbolic of finally entering the afterlife.
alright, i've been developing an oshi no ko au (which i can explain if people are interested) and i have some kinda decent redraws... so
i've spent ages rewriting and redrawing panels, these are my best ones.
maybe if you look at them from a distance they'll be good?
i wanted to voice something from hellmari's perspective because humanising monsters is really fun. script under the cut (which I also wrote)
i hope this makes you open the door for her every single playthrough :)
dear sunny,
i've been wandering this house for, three or four, years now? i honestly stopped keeping track.
i really miss you, you know. i hope things have been going okay. i've been knocking on your door for hundreds of playthroughs, but… you kinda stopped opening it.
you know, last time you opened it, i was so happy to see you, but, you didn't… look happy to see me.
and i get it. when you looked in that mirror, i… couldn't recognise myself. i mean, huge, barren sockets, no arms; a crooked neck; a gaping mouth… look at me. i'm a monster, sunny.
someday, i hope us dark creatures that scratch at the recesses of your mind… maybe we can let go, just like you. that's my only wish.
but for now… i stand blind, knocking at a closed door, missing my keys, and the night just gets… colder.
oh right. i have literally never done va work ever but i thought this was stupid funny.
the original comic is by @rainydaysleuth, I originally found it on reddit. I DIDNT DRAW THIS I JUST DID THE FUNNY VOICE OKAY
if it does well i might do more stupid funny shit since normally i use this voice to harass people. i can do a pretty decent sweetheart.
mari could have OCD - an analysis
Mari as a character is left mostly up to speculation by the player - which is partially a fault on the creators' part, but is also somewhat deliberate to allow for consumer projection and exploration. Because she's left so open, I want to explore a personal headcanon of mine - that Mari has OCD.
Disclaimer: This is my opinion! I may be wrong! I am a human and I am wrong sometimes! I do have OCD, but my experiences and how I write about them are not necessarily indicative of all people with OCD.
I want to pre-establish here that doing things that I market as "compulsive" is not necessarily compulsive behaviour, and it does not necessarily mean you experience OCD. The reality is, we can't know if Mari has OCD, or any disorder, because we don't get any insight into her mind. Cognition and thinking patterns are vital to a diagnosis of OCD. If you like to play the piano over and over again, you might just enjoy playing the piano. As with anything, if it's causing you distress, please seek a therapist!
Mari has three prevalent character traits that could potentially link to anxiety of some form - her perfectionism, tying into her compulsive piano playing; and her responsibility as the "mother" of the group. From these three traits, I think I can somewhat develop an argument for Mari having OCD.
Mari is a perfectionist; this is explicitly stated multiple times in the game. It's practically the only "negative" trait (or, rather, trait that comes with a downside) given to her, and despite that, it's still painted in a glorified light. It's somewhat implied that the recital day's events occurred due to this perfectionism, but we will discuss the piano playing later.
Now, OCD is not perfectionism, and mixing them up leads to horrific misinformation about the illness. But OCD can lead to perfectionism in specific instances. Let's say Mari believes if she doesn't play the recital perfectly, she'll be a failure and a terrible person. While it seems like an extreme jump between the two ideas, and it might feel so irrational to her, something in the back of her head just won't let that idea go. To feel more confident in her playing, she keeps playing it, over and over and over again. Every time she gains some confidence, she loses it just as fast, trapping her in a little cycle at that piano. In this case, we can see how an irrational intrusive thought could lead to perfectionistic tendencies in a person - and can see a rational cognitive explanation for Mari's behaviour.
I also want to talk about an aspect of OCD that isn't commonly spoken about - taking responsibility to an extreme extent. When we discuss mental disorders, we tend to talk about where they begin and how to treat them; but with disorders like OCD, it's actually important to consider how they continue. Everyone experiences intrusive thoughts, but there are several factors that increase the likelihood of believing them. One of them is the idea that one must take responsibility for their own intrusive thoughts - "if something bad is going to happen, I have to be the one to fix it".
Some people are naturally very self-reliant, and this can be for a number of reasons. I see this in Mari in the responsibility she holds over her brother and her friend group - she's the pinnacle of their rationality, keeping an eye on them (even in Headspace, which mimics some reality), and she's the one to save Sunny from drowning during the day of the Phobias' creation. Mari is fifteen, but holds so much pressure to monitor her friends, so it's not impossible to believe that worrying over her brother would cause intrusive thoughts. OCD is sometimes exacerbated after traumatic experiences, and having to save your younger brother from drowning is a lot to go through. Maybe she became more overprotective later on - not that I really have any evidence for that, since we don't have the most lucid perspective on Mari throughout the game.
I don't really have any way to reasonably conclude this, but I will say, I can recognise that a lot of this is projection. I have OCD. It's very difficult to see representation of complex OCD in media, since it's so hard to convey what intrusive thoughts and unobvious compulsions feel like, so it's nice to be able to give it to a character. But I feel like it has some basis in the real game, and could genuinely provide an interesting headcanon for people to use.
I dunno. You tell me.
Oh right, I forgot to mention. I wrote about this headcanon here. I'm pretty proud of the fic, so, I'd appreciate people checking it out if they're interested.
spiders, or how to fix half of omori's plot with one symbol
i think i can fix omori. well, some of it.
This will be an attempt to prove that a key symbol related to Mari is a spider/bug, and how making this more obvious to the player would have fixed half the narrative.
Mari is closely associated with bugs and spiders in several scenes, but I believe the photos in the real world and Headspace demonstrate this most explicitly.
This photo is one of few direct redraws from the real world in Headspace, and it identifies Mari as a character unafraid, even fascinated, by bugs, which is one of very few character traits she's actually given. This is repeated multiple times as we explore Headspace, where Mari comforts Sunny and Hero about their fear of spiders, takes the group bug-hunting in the real world, and previously put bugs in Hero's desk. It's notable that the reframing of this photo specifically puts a spider in Omori's hand, further linking the girl to bugs in his mind.
Within Headspace, spiders are shown to be far more present than the other two phobias present. We see it in Daddy Long Legs, the ominous nature of Pyrefly forest, the Spider Area, the references to the creatures from Hero, Mari and Basil, and much more - it's clear that the creators wanted this symbol to be present, but overwhelmed it with subtlety, making it impossible to actually understand, and leaving it in the dust in favour of following other threads. The narrative fails to distinguish the Arachnophobia boss, and loses its the relationship between Mari and spiders/bugs.
There are several benefits to making this metaphor more deliberate to the player, by enhancing the relationship through jumpscares, making it important to the Truth/Final Boss segments, or even just distinguishing Arachnophobia from the other bosses. I've decided to organise them into a list since there's so many.
Cohesive narrative interactions between the Phobias and the recital day: I'm always talking about how the juxtaposition between these two events is so subtle that people miss the point. Singling out the importance of Arachnophobia would highlight these two events and bring them to the forefront, making the Final Duet more cohesive.
The Phobia bosses become relevant: If the game is able to properly integrate Arachnophobia into the truth segment, this provides so much more purpose to the Phobia bosses, who often feel like just game mechanics to teach you how fighting against hallucinations functions.
Intriguing moral exploration: I think the idea of the subtlety of conveying Mari as a bug portrays her insignificance - Sunny was able to just kill her, as though she were just a spider to be swatted. It furthers an interesting understanding of morality in the text, talking about the prioritisation of life, leaving more of an impact on the audience. Are humans really as fickle as that?
Hero's character: Connecting Mari to a spider not only allows for more theory and AU creation, but actually mimics Hero's actions in the real world. Only two characters are afraid of spiders - and only those two characters have not visited Mari's grave since it was dug, which mirrors (but fails to highlight) Sunny and Hero's character arcs. In a similar way, Mari and Basil's love for bugs could also mirror some sort of decline.
The relevance of Daddy Long Legs and spider-related Black Space areas: Spiders are regularly referenced in Headspace and Black Space, with a whole room of Black Space surrounding them, but there's never any lucid reason why they're so prominent compared to the other phobias. Making a clear connection to the truth would clear up this confusion.
Basil's Something and Headspace Basil's dialogue: Basil's Something is deliberately abstract, but it is never defined further than its presentation. Not only would it properly link the Spider Area to the reality of the truth, but it would potentially connect Basil's Something to it, too.
Just plain easy to add: Much of Omori's story, characterisation and pacing is very difficult to improve without hours of effort. Being able to cohesively connect elements of the narrative with one symbol is much more realistic.
song i listened to while writing this:
this song is literally the reason i came to this realisation, the themes of environmental preservation were essential dskjhjdsgdjhsgjhkdg shout out to me rediscovering this after years and years
i cracked the omori manga. it's written like an isekai anime but trying to mimic a psychological horror game. this manga fails at its clashing of genres.
the rushed pacing. the jagged storyline. the odd characterisation of real world characters. the strange of horror elements.
it would work if sunny was not a hikkiomori.
it would be more logical and rational if going out was shown to be sunny's daily life, rather than rushing over the elements that made sunny's shut-in nature prevalent, like the significance of opening the door for kel, which was an incredibly upsetting thing to dismiss.
if sunny going outside had been pre-established, although it clashes violently with the canon game, it would feel less rushed and more like an intro to an isekai anime, which is an awful and frustrating misinterpretation of the game.
may as well just disconnect the manga from the game and make it something else.
Foreshadowing in Omori and its manga: a critique
I'm back again, although it's been a while since I've written anything. I'm waiting on more Dreamscape chapters to formulate an analysis on Mari.
Omori Spoilers and Omori Manga Spoilers under the cut
Omori has poor foreshadowing, in the manga and the game, but for different reasons. And I can tell from one chapter.
Firstly, a rundown on the narrative device itself - foreshadowing provides an advance hint toward the events of the story. It's a very common device, but it's actually relatively difficult to do well. There's a very fine line between too obvious and too subtle, especially with the expectation of twists.
Foreshadowing in these types of psychological horror games tends to be very subtle, take Doki Doki as an example, and further foreshadowing in games like Yume Nikki is so subtle that the reality of the world isn't even evident at all. While this can be frustrating for the players, it's actually incredibly important, allowing you to theorise and discuss.
In the original Omori game, foreshadowing was often too abstract and subtle to be properly understood by a player - and this was fundamentally because there foreshadowing was so widespread, it overwhelms the player as they attempt to discover the truth.
Let me cite an example. Daddy Long-Legs belongs to a group I'll call the "Truth creatures" - characters like Stranger, the various Somethings, Hellmari, Phobias etc. He exists in a portion of Pyrefly Forest which foreshadows the truth of Headspace. But he's purposeless as a character otherwise, he only appears in a corner of Black Space 2 that is practically inaccessible to those on the Truth route. Why would you introduce a new character, one who becomes irrelevant, to foreshadow a part of the game that would be far better foreshadowed by Stranger? Someone who is actually relevant? This convoluted choice feels unnecessary, adding characters for the sake of subtlety.
In a similar way, the Somethings, Phobia bosses and Hellmari are loosely linked, and it's not quite explicit where each comes from and the relevance of each to the truth. Where's the distinction between the Mari Something and the others? Where does the game show me an explicit difference between the formation of Something and the formation of the Phobias? Why aren't Hellmari and Something more related, considering the events that formed them? A better foreshadower would be able to accurately make these distinctions, leading to overall better contrast between the recital day and the formation of the Phobias.
This is also incredibly obvious in Black Space, where the foreshadowing and symbolism ramps up. I will say it here, there is no way anyone will ever understand the purpose and analysis of every single area, object and NPC in Black Space. As a result, while it feels magnificent, there's so much that feels pointless, as well. This worked in Yume Nikki because it is very focused on this premise of "no real truth", but since Omori has a real truth and a real reason for Black Space's existence, it makes so many objects and areas feel pointless to analyse and overthink. Again, it's this insistence on adding things upon things to make foreshadowing far too abstract and impossible to understand.
Music and its importance to the truth was also very poorly foreshadowed. While I can understand, from a repression perspective, why Mari playing the piano or Sunny playing the violin was only very very subtly foreshadowed in the music itself, there is a point where you do need to make it obvious to the players, otherwise it feels like this idea of Sunny playing the violin is just thrown onto the players with no real interrelation. Similarly, Mari's character was far too hidden, where it isn't evident at all that Mari is a human with emotions - she's portrayed as a God the entire game. Again, too much subtlety has led to story beats feeling out-of-place and underrepresented.
However, in the manga, foreshadowing makes events very obvious to the reader, making me question the goals of this manga at all - are you really going to introduce Omori to new audiences in such a rushed and evident way? Making everything obvious and clear, when foreshadowing was such a key element to the original game? The whole point of the twist was it was completely unexpected!!
Immediately as we get into the manga, it's already obvious that Mari and violins are relevant to the truth. I wouldn't be surprised if the dialogue that Mari speaks during the Hellmari sequence is related to the argument between Mari and Sunny on the recital day, and I would be so disappointed if they chose to immediately out key dialogue that was not present in the original game.
Furthermore, why on Earth would you immediately reveal the hidden part of Mari's character in the first chapter? Mari is supposed to be perfect, at least in Sunny's mind. The game absolutely goes too far with this - it was a fundamental failure to have no dialogue in the Truth segment, as it led to so many misinterpretations of Mari as a character - but you choose to reveal her anger and humanity now???? NOT LATER??? NOT LIKE A BIT LATER?? SO WE CAN PERCIEVE HER AS PERFECT??
I'm not even going to get into the mischaracterisation of Aubrey, portraying her as evil and horrible without the very necessary exploration of how her relationship with Kel influences her actions.
I want to have faith in the manga. I want to enjoy it, but, just, the pacing and foreshadowing is already off. I'm worried. At least the horror art is gorgeous.
a summary of this analysis. HOW THE FUCK DID YOU MESS UP FORESHADOWING IN BOTH DIRECTIONS??
song i listened to while writing
i've been obsessed with the beef recently, it's so funny.
tossing around the idea of a heromari spiderverse au...
mostly because you could very easily make hero miles and make mari gwen and keep most things the same, lmao.
and i'm a heromari guy and i love them so much please kiss heromari.
(spiderverse and omori spoilers, under the cut, obviously)
because i'm not an artist, but rather, a nerd, i want to explore things based on what will better enhance or explore character development/arcs.
the addition of siblings would really change the spiderverse series, i think. imagine the implications of gwen's choice to leave her father in the second film if she had a younger brother who admires and loves her waiting for her at home. sunny could even be (overtly or secretly) obsessed with spiderwoman, increasing tension in the home.
in a similar way, it'd be interesting to see the conflict caused in sunny's family if sunny's mom died. we know the family becomes completely shaken after mari's death, and if we take their father's choice to abandon the family as a habit, watching him struggle to pull the strings together after the loss of their mom would pressure his character more. this could even trap him further into his "duty" to catch spiderwoman.
figuring out who gwen's peter parker would be is difficult, but i've decided on hero. in fact, it would be interesting to explore how a gwen-esque character would cope with the having miles in his position in her universe, and needing to reconcile with this idea that he is alive, but he is not the same. giving mari restraint despite the desire to see "her hero" again would also be very interesting to explore.
also MAYBE i just wanna see mari drawn in the gwen watercolour style. i wanna kiss her. leave me alone.
miles honestly feels like the kel sibling, so i'd prefer to just have him be hero with kel characteristics. however, there is more to it than just that - hero's character would inhibit the story of spiderverse at multiple points, because of his maturity, so he needs kel's immaturity to choose to take particular actions. if you need an example, miles' choice to enter the portal after gwen was an impulsive, emotional decision, which simply doesn't fit hero's character.
this scene was absolutely gorgeous btw. i can't believe people don't talk about it, the upside down scene was amazing but THIS. THIS. and sorry for awful quality
there are several aspects to miles' character that mimic hero's personality. the pining for gwen and miles' surprise when he sees her again could easily fit into hero's character. although implied in the original movie, having hero as a character could bring miles' acceptance that he might never see his friends again to the forefront. (although the desire to study physics could replace hero's desire to be a chef in the original game, to smoothen out the story.)
i'm not sure how to input kel or basil, but aubrey would make a good peni parker, i think.
I was really interested in this perspective on the Final Duet and wanted to talk about it a little. I haven't seen a lot of critical takes on this scene, since I (like many people) were too busy crying to critique it, but I think this is well-written.
I agree with some things, but I also have some criticisms of your criticisms (lol). Hopefully my points come together in a way that makes sense to everyone.
While I agree the visuals are relatively bland and non-sequential, leaving gaps in our understanding of the formation of friendship group (which is frankly pathetic and absolutely should've been explored at least in the game's Headspace), I also don't think it's appropriate to dissociate and analyse these slides without talking about the significance of the Final Duet piece. The PowerPoint slides are not and should not be made the focus of this portion of the game, even though many people in the fanbase do ostensibly shower said slides in gold stars.
Music sheets have been a symbol in this game since the barn in Cattail Field. I do think that the duet itself has its criticisms (although its simplicity is hopefully intentional?), and the way that music as a symbol is handled in Omori is very abrupt and not well intertwined with the narrative; but I can't agree with the choice to criticise only the visuals of the game without mentioning the audio. It not only doesn't properly capture the scene, but also limits your ability to analyse it.
With regards to your discussions of Sunny being a "blank slate"- we have to recognise that a lot of this game is designed for audience projection. Inherently speaking, the audience isn't going to forgive Sunny if they don't project onto him to some extent, so like a lot of recent media protagonists, Sunny acts as a player stand-in. Omocat takes this way too far, and Sunny's character does become entirely inferential, forcing us to understand him from Headspace and the way characters speak around him. While the idea of exploring personality from a character's dreams can be done very interestingly (Yume Nikki and subsequent fangames are a good example), this idea clashes with Omori itself - Omori, to some extent, cannot be an exploration of friendships and relationships when one character is a void waiting for player insertion.
Mari is absolutely nothing but a blank slate, and now the fandom also thinks she's Jesus. She's criminally underexplored in, like, a physically painful way.
I believe you've misinterpreted the images of Mari and Sunny hugging, and the change to Sunny alone (although I recognise that I could entirely be looking into it too much). These scenes aren't supposed to contrast when Mari was dead and when Mari was alive, rather, to contrast the act of Mari saving Sunny's life and him ending hers. This juxtaposition is not highlighted enough in the game (merely referenced in the Lost Library), but it's a contrast that I think should be at the forefront of the game's Truth sequence, instead of floating vaguely in the background. For some godforsaken reason, references to the Phobias and the day of their creation are basically absent from the ending of the game, which means major themes of guilt and regret are wasted. It makes the Phobias feel so irrelevant, which is frustrating.
Omori isn't really a representation of severe depression, he's moreso a manifestation of the idea that repression is the only solution. I actually don't think the ending of the game suggests Sunny is cured at all, but he's realised that he does deserve to live, despite everything he's done. It's not a representation of healing from trauma, it's like taking a feeble first step back from the ledge.
I really do give Omocat a lot of slack, here - personally I think a lot of the game's complexity is inferred entirely by the fanbase, an accident on the team's part. I definitely fall into that rabbithole when I write about it, because I want to believe things have meaning. So does everyone, I think.
this got waayyyy too long i'm sorry
I'm gonna be honest - along with OMORI pressuring the player into choosing the good ending lest Sunny kills himself, the whole DUET cutscene doesn't strike me as anything but very blatant emotional manipulation either. Every mention of it I saw was followed by fans talking at length about how thoroughly devastated they were left by that moment, but if you look past the Feels and focus on the Reals, what is there to be devastated about, really?
The (supposed) purpose of the cutscene is to show Sunny placating his depression by recalling the good times he had with Mari and his friends... except that is exactly what he's been doing via Basil's photo album throughout the entire game. That's what Memory Lane, which you have to go through right before the final boss, was there for. And just like the aforementioned two, the good times showcased in DUET are glurgy, meaningless fluff. They don't tell you anything new about the characters and they don't show them helping each other through thick and thin as people you could call "real" friends are supposed to. The fact that the cutscene itself looks like a PowerPoint slideshow or something you could theoretically cook up in Windows Movie Maker doesn't help, especially if you remove the music track altogether.
I think one of my "favorite" moments is Sunny and Mari meeting Kel and Hero, which is represented by the latter two literally popping out of thin air
You'd think that as a story with the power of friendship as one of its central themes, the game would show how the characters became friends in the first place and what makes them gel together, but no. This is all you get.
It's the same thing with Aubrey and Basil. The gang meets Aubrey for the first time while she's crying on the sidewalk before the game cuts to her introducing Basil to them. Was them comforting Aubrey over her lost shoe enough for her to befriend them? How exactly did she and Basil meet? I dunno, you tell me! Think about the plot so the writer won't have to!
So emotional. So peak. Two hundred thousand dollars was spent on this.
Speaking of Sunny and Mari, the cutscene's Peakest™ moment is the smash cut from a bright shot of Mari embracing a younger Sunny to a gloomier shot of the older Sunny sitting there all alone and morose, which delivers the message with all the subtlety of a nuclear bomb explosion
she passed on The Emo to him. truely devastating. also why do they both look malnourished. what the hell is this artstyle
Yes, game. I get it. The grass was greener when Mari was alive. That's roughly her gravestone's epitaph. What is the point of this? What am I supposed to cry about?
That brings me to what I believe is the main problem with DUET, and a problem with the game itself as well - the story doesn't put in any real effort to flesh out the characters you're supposed to feel bad for, yet expects you to feel bad for them anyway. Even after playing the entire 25 hours of this game, I don't know anything about Sunny, nor can I recall anything noteworthy about him except from him calling lemons "oragnes". I don't know anything about who Mari really was except that she's treated by the narrative as if she was Jesus in the flesh. They're not characters - they're effectively cardboard cutouts, and I have no idea why the game's imploring me to shed tears over two cardboard cutouts.
The cherry on top is Omori straight-up vanishing after the cutscene ends. One could argue that Sunny's victory was temporary, but that's not indicated - Omori seems to actually vanish once and for all after the game's events, and the main menu even features Sunny himself as opposed to Omori to mark the change. Because we all know that severe depression can be treated by thinking happy thoughts, right? tfw the powerpoint slideshow was so cringe that even the depression decided to peace out
Maybe I wouldn't have been as harsh if the story had Mari kill herself instead of it being a cover-up for manslaughter. Maybe then I'd have been able to see the tragedy. But given the context of the plot twist, all I can see is a coward and a liar soothing his well-earned guilt over committing a serious crime and lying about it in the most laughably melodramatic fashion possible.
The things that @somekindofsentience makes on my discord server are great.
Yes the voice is me.
more dreamscape shit!!!!
art by @omoriboii
og post
name: scribble
characteristics: cracked wooden goat mask from the *Passage of Reliance* without blue highlights, hair fluffs over the top, dirtied long sleeves and pants, scarf cape (pre-character arc); ghost manta cape (post-character arc)
background: passed the trial of reliance as a child and was awarded with their mask, but is single-handedly the cause for why the golden wasteland is the way it is. was supposed to be on lookout for the battle, protecting the vault's entrance, but got distracted scratching space mantas in the sand, causing almost all the soldiers but him to die as dark creatures stormed the area. does not go back to the wasteland, never leaves the vault. the oldest scribble ever got to was just after the incident.
personality: obsessed with forgiveness, so tosses himself into Eden obsessively, like it's some sort of ritual. loner, prefers the spirit mantas to moths, spends a lot of time with them. the elders absolutely hate him - they cracked the mask after hearing the news of what he did. carries his mask as a reminder. the spirit mantas are a representation of his guilt and his desire. he thinks someday eden might rebirth him as a space manta... and then everything will be okay.
when he enters eden, he doesn't even try to save the petrified moths, he just sits at the end and waits for darkness to bombard him. that's why his actions are questionable - he's taken something good and made it selfish. it's not that he doesn't want to save them, he's just not even considering it as an option. everything floods back when he goes to Eden, everything he regrets. he doesn't think rationally.
similar to ocd mari, he continues to do selfish and immoral things because of his guilt, twisting the truth of Eden for his own atonement. perhaps he doesn't recognise his own immorality. ocd-fic mari took the selfless desire to protect her brother and made it into a selfish controlling compulsion. scribble takes the selfless act of sacrificing oneself to Eden, but turns it into a selfish desire for redemption.
Making Sky kid lore with friends. There will be an update with screenshots and a summary at some point
(pokes @somekindofsentience @littlelunarprince)
oh right i forgot i wrote a chapter 2 to this
negative focuses on more personal experiences of OCD
i think that the possibility of a Mari with OCD isn't too far-fetched. lots of people only ever write or portray her as perfect, which isn't true, but Sunny doesn't provide enough perspective on what Mari was actually like and apparently half the fandom can't look past his idea of her.
i was interested in writing an analysis exploring the way Mari is portrayed but i think i sorta explained what i wanted to say in this analysis exploring angry dead women. it's just fascinating to me that the fandom falls into the same trap that Sunny fell into, some weird desire for the perfect older sister.
I wrote something about my experiences with OCD from Mari's lens because I need that in my life apparently.
Right, now that's finished, I can finally get onto schoolwork and shit.
tomorrow won't come for those without, or exploring disconnection in the procession of mental illness and trauma
SPOILER? WARNING: This analysis assumes you have played the game's noise ending at least once. I'll provide screengrabs of things where I can. I do believe it's a masterpiece of a game, and would highly recommend it.
CONTENT WARNING: Discussions and allusions to suicide, severe mental illness, grief and religious trauma/criticisms of religion.
Tomorrow won't come for those without (TWC for short) is really... confusing. To the extent where I've got a notebook with pasted cut-outs of dialogue and imagery simply to try and... understand it.
As with much of the things I write about, I don't think it's designed to be understood - etherane's work often revolves around very personal and complex depictions of mental illness, as is evident from the hello charlotte series, so this is to be expected.
I want to discuss Rem, celestials and the Dithyrambs in this, saving conversations of Mari and the Choir for when I better understand it.
Rem is not human, he's a celestial - this is revealed in the noise ending, where he melts into his true form. We can also determine what type of celestial Rem is, from the way his form manifests.
Domain: Shadow; The Eldest. Distorts continuity, converting affected areas into liminal spaces.
Now, at first, I spent much of my time trying to associate these cards (and as such, the Celestials) to specific mental illnesses, but I realised it didn't work. While 'Domain: Post-Truth' (Card Type 3) could be associated with PTSD and 'Domain: Thighs' (Card Type 12) could be associated with body dysmorphia, many cards do not fit a specific mental illness, and much of them instead reference dissociation or other specific symptoms. It's somewhat implied Mari had the celestial present in Card Type 12.
It makes sense for a different universe to identify mental illness in a different way, considering there's little evidence that the characters have information on "pre-humanity". Instead of our current system surrounding mental health, the Choir demonises Celestials, and attempts to 'purify' them.
One particular line during the noise ending stands out to me.
"Tell me, how do I stop the noise in my head?"
Ori is not, by any means, a stable character. That's not to say Rem is stable, but Ori is somewhat less rational, losing his mind over the Choir and his Rosary. He devotedly follows the Conductor up until the noise ending, where he loses his grip on purity and reality, wanting to stay in the 'Dark' and '...play in the forest', rejecting the suppression of creativity by the Conductor.
The Dithyrambs is the noise in Ori's head - somewhat implied to be caused by the celestial. When Ori first wakes up, the Rosary insists that he must "...find the source of the Dithyrambs," perhaps implying that the Rosary is corrupt in the same way Ori and the Choir are, although it does not state to destroy the source. This noise causes Ori a lot of pain.
Alright. That is my discussion of the actual evidence present in the game. The next section is going to be a lot of personal speculation, on what I feel the game is representing.
I compare the relationship between Ori and Rem to that of Charles and Scarlett in Hello Charlotte 3, although it is framed differently. Instead of Rem being portrayed as horrific and irrational, Rem is scared, small; humanised, distrustful.
I believe that Scarlett Eyler and Rem represent fundamentally the same thing - intrusive thoughts, anxiety and OCD. Unlike Scarlett, who is fixated on tormenting Charles, Rem's representation of this manifests toward himself, and his desire to be caged for safety.
Fundamentally, OCD is a disorder surrounding fear. As much as it feels like your brain just, absolutely fucking hates you, it's as scared as you are. In a similar way, Rem is terrified of the liminal hotel that he and Ori reside in, and he's terrified of the outside world. He responds by shutting himself away - rather than Ori's desire to reach the end of the veils, Rem begins the game locked in a bathroom, and must be coaxed out.
Rem is incredibly "human" for a nonhuman being. Humanisation of intrusive thoughts is an interesting concept, especially considering the demon Scarlett Eyler was in HC3. Rem is far more disconnected from Ori, far more skeptical of the world around them. Rem isn't there to punish, but more to question and doubt, contrasting with Ori's inherently trusting nature.
Hmm. I feel like I haven't properly explained it, but I hope it somewhat makes sense.
Despite that, this is just my own interpretation of it, and I don't feel it really aligns with the game, necessarily. It's just me. lol.
song i listened to while writing:
I enjoy playing TWC with the BGM turned down and this song playing. It makes me feel pure, like my regrets can be washed off. I suppose that's not the point of TWC LMAOO.
okay this is spoilers for the omori dreamscape au but i thought it was really really really funny and i edited it and i'm notoriously cool and epic.
art by @omoriboii obviously
video is from brandon farris. he is funny.
I wrote something about my experiences with OCD from Mari's lens because I need that in my life apparently.
Right, now that's finished, I can finally get onto schoolwork and shit.
You won't believe me but I was talking to @j00d-3ug and he mentioned that you thought I sent the asks.
I genuinely didn't and I think that's so fucking funny.
the absolute funniest part of all the chubby hero content is i literally didn't ask for any of it LMAOOO
That sounds like a lie..I swear one of these looks like it’s written by you. DONT TRY TO FOOL ME
I fuck with him honestly he's so chill