OCD In Hello Charlotte 3, Or Why Charles Eyler Doesn't (necessarily) Have Dissociative Identity Disorder

OCD in Hello Charlotte 3, or why Charles Eyler doesn't (necessarily) have Dissociative Identity Disorder

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR HELLO CHARLOTTE 3

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of severe mental illness, including intrusive thoughts and psychosis. Please be warned if this may cause you to spiral out of control, and take care of yourself.

DISCLAIMER: A lot of this is coming from my personal experience and understanding of OCD. While I do not experience DID, I don't really focus much on it in this, more reframing Scarlett Eyler as a character. You can take Charles' experiences however you feel is accurate.

I feel like the fandom gets tripped up when Charles calls Scarlett Eyler a tulpa.

I've seen a lot of people state that this quote directly implies Charles has DID, and that's therefore canon. But I'd actually like to propose a different take, that Scarlett is a physical manifestation of Charles' intrusive thoughts.

First of all, a tulpa implies a sense of desire - it is willingly created through spiritual meditation. Scarlett is, in no way, a desired existence that haunts Charles. There is some debate as to whether or not the game was originally in Russian or English, but regardless, tulpa just may be what Charles refers to the phenomenon as. It's not as if this directly confirms anything, as we know in-game Charles is only diagnosed with autism, and takes medication for psychosis.

Charles experiences many symptoms of OCD, contamination OCD in particular. He is intensely preoccupied with purity and disease, insisting that the majority of the population has a "parasite", aside from a select few people (Vincent being one of them, and by the end, the only one).

OCD and psychosis have several unique overlaps when acting as comorbid conditions. It has a relatively high comorbidity, due to both conditions often suffering with heightened paranoia. I couldn't find any research which suggests it can cause the hallucination of intrusive thoughts, but OCD does make people more susceptible to hallucinatory disorders, and vice versa.

Many people with OCD, especially those who have experienced symptoms since being a child, start to conceptualise these thoughts as a being - appearing as imaginary friends which act and react negatively. It definitely happened to me - I genuinely thought I had DID for a year or so of my life, because I had this voice in my head that hated me, and it didn't feel like myself. As a child, it just felt like my own mind was trying to bully me, and I didn't understand why.

We know that Scarlett Eyler is the instigator of "punishment" for Charles' actions...

This sort of "punishing" is very reminiscent of OCD. The rule-breaking itself is confusing to an outsiders, and the punishments even more so. However, I find this rule-and-punishment system very relatable, and I'd argue that some people with OCD might have even more confusing rules and punishments - for example, I can't watch very specific youtube videos, I can't explain what the rules I have surrounding them are, and I have strange punishments for this (that which I will not disclose).

Scarlett also doesn't exhibit typical alter behaviour. She never takes over, Charles doesn't seem to lose time, she does little more than act as a harsh observer, and also physically threaten Charles. She seems very real to him, aside from the fact that he knows taking pills will make her "disappear".

For Charles, Scarlett is simply a being who threatens and instigates intrusive thoughts, but in a particular way. Charles still experiences other intrusive thoughts - Scarlett never discusses the parasites, even though that's a very prevalent fear of Charles'.

Scarlett is the manifestation of intrusive thought that Charles is a failure, rather than being a separate existence to Charles.

my little rat analysis lmaoooo. this was my first hello charlotte one, i've always loved charles, he's just peak gender in so many ways, incredibly relatable.

hope your little polycule goes well salutes

posting tiny snippets of fanfic until someone finds it interesting and i am motivated to finish it, part 1

content warning: self harm.

[KEL MULTIVERSE 1 - 332]

At least 46,656.

Oar dipped into murky, purple waters as Kel pushed himself along the river. How many times had he travelled through this exact spot, in this odd, hand-whittled canoe? He couldn't remember.

46,656 universes. Maybe more. Hopefully more.

Eerie, white light streamed in from the… ceiling? Roof? Could it be the Sun? 

He didn't think this place had a Sun.

But he supposed it didn't really matter.

He pulled himself towards the shore, which was made of an opaque salmon crystal, and pulled his dull, orange canoe onto the bank. He dragged it to one of the many coral-like plants, each brightly coloured with pastel pink, orange, green, and laid it along the plant’s pointy edges to dry. 

Kel sat down, feeling the hard, cool ground beneath him.

He turned his eyes to the fleshy, pink walls surrounding the water. They stood high above him, making him seem like a small bug tasked with climbing a mountain, beating with obscure, lifelike movement. Their ribbed texture reminded Kel of cutting slices of ham with a jagged kitchen knife. 

Ham sandwiches. 

Hero.

The walls themselves seemed to hold their breath.

Kel hesitated. He had tried not to think about this.

How many times had he watched Hero-

Kel put a hand over his mouth, his head spun around, the world began to cave in, heavy smoke filled his lungs, he couldn't breathe, he was dying, he was dying, he was-

Kel stuck his hand into his pocket and grabbed forcefully onto the edge of his knife.

He took a deep breath in as the blood dripped down his fingers. Calmness enveloped him.

Sure, it was an unhealthy way to cope, but what else was he supposed to do? Talk about his feelings to the open air? Wait for comfort no-one would give him? Waste time letting a panic attack occur?

Fast relief was far more important than worrying over his mental health. He had things to do.

Kel pulled a wrap of white bandages out of his pocket and pulled some around his bleeding hand, leaning back on the pulsating wall. He dipped his knife into the river, and pulled it out completely clean.

The light began to fade, and Kel realised he wouldn’t be able to travel to the Forest tonight. 

I'll have to set up camp.

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

the relevance of arcs in the DreamScape AU, or trying my best to make predictions

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE OMORI DREAMSCAPE AU - THIS ANALYSIS ASSUMES YOU HAVE READ UP TO THE CURRENT LATEST CHAPTER (14) PLEASE READ IT!!! ITS GOOD!!

CONTENT WARNING: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE.

READING-THIS WARNING: I'M STUPID AND MISINTERPRET THINGS SOMETIMES, ITS ALL MY ANALYSIS AND DO REMEMBER THAT IT CAN BE WRONG/BAD/STUPID SOMETIMES

*cracks knuckles*

Let's do this.

Determining the Goal of Each Arc

If a story is formatted in a particular way, typically it has a specific goal for that. You learn this back in the years of High School English, when you start to understand the point of plays being separated into acts. They have somewhat different stories, but ultimately link to the same final goal, or final climax of the story.

In DreamScape's instance, it is split into three arcs. An arc (in other contexts) typically refers to the development and eventual resolution of a particular theme or aspect - such as a character arc, which portrays character development over a period of time. I tend to use arc when referring to characters, so I'll capitalise when referring to the actual in-text arcs.

I believe that it is possible to use our understandings of the current Arcs to determine where loose ends might be tied up in Arc 3. We know for certain the ending is "bittersweet" - somewhat good, somewhat bad, not unlike the original game.

Arc 1

The first Arc provides us with the most understanding, since it's complete, but it's relatively easy to miss the goal of the Arc, considering how much is going on. We gain understanding of DreamScape as a location and a plot device, and begin to understand the characters centered around it, which is a lot to process.

The importance of the events that occur is obvious. Sunny fucks with the program, revives Mari, and causes a shit ton of problems, including seriously injuring Basil. Basil knows the truth of Mari's weird online activity, and Sunny is trying to fix the problem he made, causing more problems on the way. In the meantime, Kel and Hero wrestle a dysfunctional relationship, and Aubrey and Basil aren't on good terms.

Despite all this, the finale of the Arc is focused on Aubrey's relationship with Sunny, and it deliberately doesn't end with the creation of the Mari virus - that's the beginning. Having it as an ending would be a relatively reasonable ending for a beginning arc, so why wasn't it?

I believe the goal of the first Arc revolves around Aubrey/Kim/Kel discovering what Sunny has done, and also reader discovering the "truth" about Mari's death, as well as the way Sunny's life rotates around it. Rather than a journey of creation, it is a journey of discovery.

Mari's suicide is first directly described in Chapter 10, and so is Sunny's suicide attempt (mimicking his sister's). We also see Sunny's direct involvement in Mari's death - while her legs breaking was already mentioned, here we see Sunny curled up in the corner, sitting with Mari's dead body, when Aubrey finds him. We see Sunny mimic Mari's suicide, and we get one of the most key lines of this arc-

From this, we learn more about Sunny as a character before the events of her death, and the nature of the destruction of Aubrey and Sunny's relationship, indirectly destroying Aubrey and Basil's relationship at the same time. Similar to the original game (except actually explicit), we watch how the friendship group broke up. This is the goal of the first Arc - much like the Truth Segment of the original game, we are understanding what happened in the past.

The first Arc also introduces Kel and Hero's clashing personalities, and also introduces Kim, to act as "Aubrey's Hero" (at least for this section). Kim and Hero are third-parties who don't like and rarely interact with DreamScape, although they are later required to. I believe setting up these characters makes them more relevant later.

Arc 2

As of current writing, this Arc is incomplete, which makes it difficult to determine its main goal. However, we can look at the current state of events and determine a potential conclusion from there.

Arc 2 has us understand more about the Mari virus, and its interaction and storage of memory. It also introduces Sweetheart, as well as Hero's bargain with her, and it foreshadows/demonstrates severe destruction of DreamScape.

The sequences wherein Sunny enters Mari's memories are very reminiscent of several Truth sequences in the original game. Even the images reflect this, depicting Sunny falling through a red sea; or the hospital. It depicts a continuum of Mari's memory, which also foreshadows the destruction of the way Sunny perceives time.

Despite the horrific nature of it, we know Sunny enjoys being with Mari or acting as her, in her memories - his obsession with his sister has driven him to insane lengths to see and feel her again, punishing himself . In this way, Sunny now acts as an antagonist, where his goals are somewhat beyond reader empathisation and understanding, pivoting them to want him to get help. It may be that we rarely see Sunny as the main perspective onward, but it's perfectly possible for that to not happen as well.

It is likely the game will be immensely broken from here on, or at least somewhat changed. I also predict Sunny will break free from Sweetheart's weird little lab to cause further destruction, because it would ultimately lead to a more interesting future climax.

Considering Loose Ends for Arc 3

The Potential Ending of DreamScape (as a game): Considering the best possibility for a bittersweet ending, the destruction/abandonment of DreamScape as a game would tie up Sunny's grieving and acceptance character arc. Though Hero's focuses on the use of DreamScape to heal grief, Sunny is more relevant and requires more support. Either the virus itself will ruin the game, or Sunny will choose to leave it.

Understanding the Mari Virus: At the present moment, Sunny (and everyone else) has a very limited understanding of the virus - we understand why it is there, and somewhat understand what it can do, but nothing of its extent. Surprisingly, we also understand little about its creation. Either another character will introduce a better understanding of it and its potential, or we learn from Sunny's experience.

A Possible Sunny Final Boss Fight?: Could be an interesting avenue to go down as complete corruption threatens the game, but also threatens Sunny's safety. Aubrey has already fought Sunny before, so it's not impossible. However, that fight also didn't achieve any goals of the other parts of the main cast.

Kel and Hero's relationship: I feel absolutely confident it won't stay this way forever, and we can already see slight change. This also goes for Aubrey and Basil. Whether or not the entire friendship group is revived is debatable, and potentially unlikely, considering Sunny's apparent differences.

Kim as a Character: Putting this here because she's apparently going to get more relevant. This may be because she knows something we do not, or perhaps to understand Aubrey more.

Sweetheart and her Crew: These characters definitely know more about DreamScape than the reader, as is evident by their relevance in the second Arc, as such I believe they might be beneficial to keep around for the next Arc.

Sunny's Eviction/Expulsion Threat: While stated to be five months away, time has been slipping from Sunny's grasp recently, meaning that this is definitely going to become relevant again soon.

Sunny's Physical and Mental Wellbeing: Need I say more?

Basil and Unrequited Love: The pining is probably going to get worse from here, especially considering Sunny's current state. It is possible Basil will have an internal strife between his desire to see Sunny happy and what is best for him.

There's definitely more. It's like, insanely early. I stopped having a train of thought twenty minutes ago. But I hope you enjoyed this!

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.

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.