I Was Really Interested In This Perspective On The Final Duet And Wanted To Talk About It A Little. I

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.

I fuck with him honestly he's so chill

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.

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.

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)

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.