I Posted Like A Tiny Bit To Ao3

i posted like a tiny bit to ao3

considering that the majority of this fic isn't anywhere near done i can't promise regular updates but i hope this... interests people??

next update will be when i finish the mari au

why not put the worst thing i have ever made here too.

context: dreamscape au. may apply to the actual canon if you want. (???)

art by me. song is that one kuromi ai cover of 679. based off something i found on insta.

posting tiny snippets of fanfic until someone finds it interesting and i am motivated to finish it, part 4

content warning: gore, drowning.

[MARI - 25]

Mari plummeted through the grass, soil swallowing her up, suffocating her with darkness, she was drowning just like he did. Her hands disappeared and the Puppeteer’s gnarled fingers wrapped around her throat, yet you still did it you still did it you still did it you still did it

Mari gasped for air, choking in an inky black ocean, and the Puppeteer tightened its grip. She tried to scream out, but no words could be heard, her ears filled up with swollen water, leaking into her mind, fading out, the Puppeteer’s limbs tangled with her, pulling her down, lower and lower and lower and lower…

Mari crashed onto solid ground. The Puppeteer was gone.

She looked around, picking up her shovel. A small note was written on the handle.

A shovel for burying your sins.

A movie theatre. Everything was dark like the ocean. Rows of seats stretched on forever, down to a brightly lit stage. The stage had nothing on it.

Shh! The movie is about to start!, said No-One. The theatre was empty. 

Mari moved down the stairs, shielding her eyes from the light. Something drew her to it. Her fingers were missing. 

Shh! The movie is about to start!, repeated No-One. Shh! The movie is about to start!

Her hands were missing. She dropped the shovel, but she kept walking.

Shh! The movie is about to start! A chorus sang those words piercingly, like a choir at a church. Shh! The movie is about to start!

Her arms were missing. She reached the stage.

Shh! The movie is about to start!

Mari looked down. Her body was missing. She was missing. 

You are meant to be here.

A man with a crooked neck stared at her with harshly dyed black hair. His eyes were white scribbles. He was the movie.

You were born to be here.

The man reached into her neck and pulled out her throat.

I think an Omori 2 staring Basil would fall into the same trap as Subnautica (2) below zero.

Subnautica Below Zero is an awesome game! IF it would have been the first. It is literally smaller in map size and less scarier in nearly every way.

An Omori 2 might find itself in the shadow of the Original, in many aspects.

Omori 2, if it even comes to exist (hope not), might honestly ruin the franchise as a whole. Although the team seems to be milking what they can, with merch and the manga, so it's still relatively popular.

I can see, what, a few functional (?) possibilies:

Your Basil idea could work. I wouldn't trust it unless all assets were completely rewritten, and everything was entirely changed, because if not, it demonstrates a very poor understanding of trauma. I can't really stand people who try to give Basil or anyone else a White Space, it just misses the point of representing dissociation and repression. Different characters value different things, and their trauma manifests differently. Even as minor things as people assuming Basil can actually see Sunny's Something and isn't viewing a different hallucination are incredibly and dangerously damaging.

A potential Mari AU might work, but it would have the same problem. It would also need to have better twists or other convoluted, since the original game's twist was so central to its current fandom.

I really hope that Omori 2 never exists, genuinely. As much as I love the original game, its irreplaceability is key to its charm.

posting tiny snippets of fanfic until someone finds it interesting enough for me to finish it and put it all on ao3, part 5

content warning: serious self-harm, references to emotional neglect and abuse.

[MARI - 25]

Mari booted up the old PC. The Puppeteer watched, warped face sneering in the reflection of the black screen, long, stringy hair covering thin shoulders; Sunny was busy with Basil today. 

Trying to ignore the creature behind her, Mari looked out the window. Perhaps her vision was getting worse, some parts of the backyard looked blank, like raindrops distorting the view outside a windowpane. She could still see the forest and sky, and figure outside. He was always there too, scarf flapping in the wind. She imagined him as her father, waiting peacefully for her to come outside and play…

Come now, Mari. You know that’s not good enough. Take a break, we can do more soon.

Mari’s fingers tapped absent-mindedly along the desk. She played out some notes… right, G4, E5, …left, C4, G4 and E4, once again,... everything played mezzoforte, she hummed quietly to herself… 

Yes, this one would sound good enough for Dad. This one would be perfect…

She closed her eyes. It was like it was all really there… left, A3, C#4 and E4; G3, C#4 and E4, repeat,... right, G5, D5, no, wait, E5…

Wait.

Mari froze.

What was she doing?

No, what the fuck was she doing?

No, no, no. Absolutely not. Never again

Her mother's voice echoed in her head. 

Don't hurt yourself, Mari. I told you to stop. You're burdening me and everyone else.

No, no, wait, but,

Mari slammed her hands on the edge of the desk, and again. Over and over and over and over and over. She hit them harder and harder. Over and over and over and over and over. She hit them until they turned purple and throbbed, she hit them until they went numb. Then she kept hitting. 

She stopped. Her fingers were shaking, bent in odd directions. The bandages must've slipped off.

She knew it was supposed to hurt, but it didn't. She looked blankly at the shattered mechanics of her hands.

Her mother burst into the room, the door flying open. Mari hadn't heard the footsteps. “God, Mari, what did I tell you? That's the third time this month.”

Mari stood up and looked at her mother's shoes, avoiding her eyes. They were navy velvet loafers, with a small rose near the top of the shoe. Perfect mom shoes for a perfect mom.

“No, we're not going to the hospital again. They're fed up with you.” Her mother grabbed Mari's wrists, pulling them harshly. She peered at the fingers.

“Go and clean them up and bandage them. I'm sick of this. I know you miss him, but this isn't appropriate.”

Mari moved to leave, slipping past her mother, avoiding touch. As she walked toward the door, her mother sighed deeply.

“You know you're fine. Don't pretend otherwise. I'm fine and you're fine. If you weren’t fine, you would talk to me.”

Mari nodded distractedly, and busied herself in the bathroom. Puppeteer loomed in the mirror, hissing the words her mother said. 

You're a burden. She's sick of you. They’re fed up with you. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. This isn’t appropriate.

Mari tried to ignore it.

a place between unreality and lucidity, or understanding the intentions of Chapter 12

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSIONS OF DEATH, SUICIDE, AND ABUSE. I ALSO TALK A LOT ABOUT LUCID DREAMING, WHICH CAN BE DISSOCIATIVE FOR READERS, SO PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.

SPOILER WARNING: REFERENCED YUME NIKKI AND OMORI SPOILERS, AND OBVIOUSLY, DREAMSCAPE SPOILERS.

We're back bois, and we're back with my favourite chapter.

I love Chapter 12 so much, the same way I adore the Truth Sequence in Omori. Originally I was going to compare the two, but I realised there's little overlap other than the intentions they're written with.

...so I wrote about the intentions instead. The little bitch boy intentions. You'll see what I mean.

Buckle up, this one takes some insane turns. I had wild epiphanies while churning all this out in a couple hours. I think I may be losing my mind.

understanding what I mean by "lucidity", and discussing dreams as plot devices

Lucidity is a very particular type of plot device that I find difficult to describe - it is a specific type of fragmented narrative that fragments location, exploring an impossibility that often has links to deeper meaning. Typically it is an abstract way of foreshadowing or revealing something to the reader, and it mirrors the concept of a "liminal space".

Dreams in texts have been used as a method of foreshadowing for hundreds of years. While the human brain has no ability to predict the future, but only reframe the past, the uncontrollable fragments of memory that are spat back out at you during unconsciousness have captured human fascination since we first started sleeping.

Dreamscape itself isn't a dream, but it is a different form of consciousness, and the creator has stated that Chapter 12 draws a lot from lucid dreaming, which suggests this counts as part of the 'Lucidity' narrative trope. As someone who does not dream much, I find this shit fascinating. Like I'm sure it's horrific as hell but. It seems so fucking cool.

Perhaps some of the best examples of the use of lucid dreaming to form narrative are Yume Nikki and its fangames, as well as Omori. Yume Nikki was a catalyst for the creation of many RPG maker horror games, and it's an excellent piece of work. No concrete story, just wandering an endless abyss of Madotsuki's mind, observing the horrors within it. The fangames branched off this concept (I personally recommend .flow ) and added more aspects, but never being concrete about the trauma.

Things are illogical in the Yume Nikki dreamverse, but they don't have to be logical, and things don't have to make sense to the player - it is purely up for speculation. At the same time, we know it has to mean something. There's an innate sense of exploration and meaning in dreams, despite the real life version often being meaningless bullshit.

This is where Omori explicitly diverts - it outright states what happened on the Recital day, in a short, distorted sequence known ominously as "The Truth". While the entire game is about lucid dreaming, this section captures the horror due to the illogical nature of it, where Sunny travels from his living room, to a hospital, to stairs, his bedroom, backstage... things are wrong. At the same time, the player is focused on completing the album and collecting the polaroids, with the confusing nature of the locations building to the horror of the final moment.

Despite all this, none of these sequences are the big moment, or even nearing the climax.

Yume Nikki doesn't have a big moment, unless you see the ending as significant enough for that title. It is a game about wandering unreality, and without a plot, it can't have a climax. It uses lucidity to provide a sense of narrative, even when there isn't one, tricking the player into trying to comprehend an impossible universe.

Omori is not building up to that that one sequence, but rather, it is a stepping stone leading to the Final Duet, which is the true climax of the game. It's an emotional release for Sunny and the player, a sense of finality in a game without a proper "ending". The Truth sequence is merely a way for the player to understand plot and build horror, and without the Truth's photo album... we would understand nothing at all. An impossible universe.

This leads to my big theory...

the purpose of chapter 12 - you can't understand it

Chapter 12 is a lying piece of shit and won't admit to us more than cookie crumbs about the future of the Dreamscape universe. And I still love it. And here's why.

Due to the abstract nature of it, we can't understand it. Perhaps Sunny can, to some extent, but since we're not sure the cause nor purpose for it, we can't understand it. We can speculate, but we can't understand. Just like Yume Nikki, we might never properly understand what each segment means.

Here's some little nuggets I've been scrambling through for information.

The beginning talks about time and distortion of it, which mimics some of the issues with time Sunny has in real life. This may be foreshadowing his eviction or declining physical state.

Body horror is incredibly prevalent, particularly self-mutilation. This has several implications, but it likely hints to Sunny's feelings for himself. It may also foreshadow what Mari looked like during the Recital day scene, which I'm starting to realise hasn't actually been shown yet. Interesting.

While this is one of the first times we see Mari as more than a virus or a corpse in the text, it's also completely distorted by Sunny's unreliable narration. Despite the slightly manipulative conversation held between them, Sunny is completely frozen in grief, desperate to beg for her forgiveness.

Sunny sits there with her pain in that hospital, insisting he deserves it. It hints further to Sunny's declining mental state, but that doesn't tell us anything more than his own self-loathing. Both this and the above point foreshadow Mari's potentially abusive nature.

Sunny is completely determined to stay within the lucid dream, and is also very insistent that Mari is somewhere at the end, which turns out to be right. How he knows this is not shown to the reader.

Segments of this are related to Mari's own memory, which provides us with a better understand of the VHS system, and of the accident that lead to her suicide.

The lucid dream is a representation of Sunny's unending trauma through what he perceives to be Mari's eyes, perhaps even a representation of what he feels he needs to do for her forgiveness.

We also learn a bit more about Pianoboy, who we know is a clone of Sunny, and he specifically highlights a connected feeling of isolation. At the same time, it has to go further than that, but we're again limited by understanding. There's more, but not enough to guess what 'more' means.

But those tidbits mean nothing. And I can't do much more than spew nonsense about segments, with no ultimate conclusion.

Because Chapter 12 is not designed to be understood, but rather, it's something to look back on when you finally do understand. It's foreshadowing in its most complex form, hinting ominously to what you don't understand. It is also similar to Black Space in this way - no-one can figure out the truth of the Recital Day from Black Space alone.

I could spend hours trying to understand every symbol, every room, the essence of Chapter 12 itself, and fuck me because i totally would but ultimately, it's all fragments of a deeper narrative, more complex than our limited understanding.

And it's a horrible, horrible thing to do to a reader. An unanswerable segment, dangling understanding right in front of their nose, but making it unreachable. Haunting them with the human desire to see patterns in chaos. What utter cruelty. How could you do this to me, @omoriboii. Why would you do this to me, the analysis God, with the most overthink-y brain in existence, and yet give me, ultimately, nothing to lead to. Why leave me a crumb to look back on, something I can never understand with the information I hold. I may be stupid, but I can understand when I am beat.

It's perfection.

why even torture someone with the inability to understand?

Building horror is incredibly difficult, because it's so easy to do foreshadowing incredibly wrong. We've all seen horror movies that are so bad they're funny, relying entirely on petty jumpscares, terrible props and showing off the killer way too fast-

Wait a minute. Showing off the killer too fast ruins everything? Dammit, I wanted to flex my big sharp knife. That's right guys. I'm the serial killer of this blog. ?????

Anyway, demonstrating the inability to understand something to the reader is a common feeling that gets the emotional brain hooked and the cogs whirring in the logical segments. You need to understand. You develop theories, you discuss them with others, seeking evidence, only to find something that changes your view, ruining everything, forcing you to start again. Being teased is fun. I am kinky

That's my favourite feeling of all time. It's why I spent hours searching for that again after I played Omori. I still remember my first theories of the truth of the game, right up until the one I had just before I discovered the real Truth. Even after that, there was more for me to analyse. Analysis. I love analysis. Yk?

I love a good challenge, and analysing these segments are so much of a challenge that I actually can't do it, which is why I get so hyped over it. Why do I do this to myself?

I actually don't really know how to end this, but I think you get my point. It's fun. I like it. I love suffering. uhh. dreams cool.

new bit: song i wrote this listening to.

today's song, the main title theme from Tomorrow Won't Come for those without.

i needed a reminder of what horrible liminality feels like, and that goddamn game does it better than anyone. i love it so much. thanks, etherane, your games cursed me with a sick desire for unreality.

special thanks to all the games who ever bullied me for having boring ass dreams.