Inklings Wannabe

status: hiatus (until new obsession lol) name's ej. i'm a creative writing grad with a lot of opinions on a lot of things, all of which are terrible. you get used to it eventually.

[scorchroots]

I've never loved anyone as much as I love Ursula Le Guin

[inklingswannabe]

TADC is something I've watched out of morbid curiosity despite finding it mediocre from the start, but I find it wild how deeply nihilistic and anti-human it is by the end. All of the characters seemingly decide that their hopes and goals don't matter anymore because their real world counterparts are still out there living their lives. Notably their source for this information is "a creative ai" that has lied to them to pacify them for the entire show. A suicidal character whose whole Thing is running away from their problems and difficult emotions "abstracts" (dies) off screen, without them ever apologizing for abusive behaviours, living with the consequences, OR finding peace. It is seemingly confirmed that abstraction is permanent, and it still looks like an inevitable outcome for all of them one day. Meanwhile a new plot hole is introduced in order to revive a fully artificial ai that has been thus far incapable of understanding human complexity, but it's okay, he's better now. Somehow. In fact, he will show you all how to use his ai powers in order to make this fake world more tolerable. Isn't it that nice of him? Aren't you grateful?

What lessons should be taken from this? What real world analogues? If you were abused, live with guilt, have hurt others, and want to die rather than atone and move forward, I guess you should just kill yourself, everyone will get over it. Do you worry that you won't be able to accomplish what you want to accomplish, because the world seems against you? That's right. Just give up. Do you have qualms with generative ai, and how it is negatively impacting individuals and society at large? Do you feel powerless against it and the shady tech oligarchs that created it to spread disinformation / warp reality? Well, it's here to stay regardless, so maybe you should just get used to it and learn how to work with it, buddy.

I'm certain all of these reads are unintentional, because the show has never been particularly well-written. But it is an exceptionally poorly timed piece of therapy-speak slop, sans any real therapy, or...hope? Lol

[inklingswannabe]

you know I've never interacted with the steven universe fandom (for perhaps Obvious reasons) but I feel like I never, ever see anyone acknowledge the fact that rose quartz effectively invented a way of killing herself permanently by choosing to have steven (since SUF established that shattering can be undone, and for all pink/RQ knew, the diamonds could have had some of her essence on standby if they ever did get their hands on her shards, at which point she would definitely just be a prisoner forever). like the show does not quiiiiite go there in terms of tone, because that would be pretty dark for the targeted age demographic, but like. She did just kill herself, yeah? She decided she did not want to Exist anymore, and thus chose to Die die, fully "she's gone" die, in order to have a baby. Surely...this should be factored into her character analysis as much as her various sins, which all told do not come anywhere close to what the other diamonds have done across the breadth of their existence. Anyway,

[inklingswannabe]

I just played OMORI for the first time (going in with no spoilers or foreknowledge) and I gotta say it's remarkable that a large majority of its negative reviews are just "idk it wasn't for me (stopped playing 2 hours in)" and not "why the fuck did they go with THAT plot twist (20 hours in)".

I did not consistently enjoy the game prior to the twist — the daytime sections were far and away more narratively compelling and concise, while the headspace sections felt like largely disconnected and tedious obstacles in the way of the real story. But holy shit man the "Truth" absolutely wrecked any positive feelings I had toward this game and its themes. Like, beyond the laughable logistics of two scrawny kids being able to haul a teenager's corpse into a tree with jump rope (not to mention how unlikely it is that an autopsy wouldn't find the real cause of death), you do not 'accidentally' cover up third degree murder. This whole situation ceases to be accidental when you start plotting ways to get yourself out of trouble and then sit with it for YEARS.

I get that this story may have resonated with players who live with guilt or regrets, etc., that are exacerbated by mental illness, resulting in the same real-world avoidance issues and low self-esteem that Sunny showcases in-game. But Sunny murdered his sister over a stressful recital, defiled her corpse to escape consequences, and made all of her loved ones believe that she killed herself, which wrecked them with grief for not 'noticing signs' of her unwellness. This is to say nothing of getting Basil involved and making him live with this secret alone, for years, which can eventually culminate in him killing himself. This is SO beyond the pale of anything the average person w/ a similar internal struggle could have done, it just sort of feels like it's a caricature of the real problems many depressed and avoidant people deal with/face.

Also the way Mari is treated by the narrative legitimately disgusts me. We never get to see her divorced from the memories of her friends and *actual killer*, so we're just sort of expected to take for granted that she would forgive Sunny for killing her/staging her suicide/putting all her loved ones through this. Quite literally the one time she expresses anger in the whole game, she gets murdered for it and visions of her are then dedicated to patting her brother on the head all like "aww no it's ok 🥺 i know you didn't mean to kill me when you shoved me down those stairs! accidents/lynching people post-mortem happens all the time!". C’mon man.

Anyway idk, i guess this is oldish news given the age of the game, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there somewhere. Hope if these devs make another game, it's about a quarter of the length and doesn't turn into true crime at the last second. There’s a decent game buried in here but it needed to remain an exploration of suicide and its impacts, not THIS.

[woodchipp]

What a great post! And it's a very good thing you've decided to share your thoughts here, regardless of the game's age - it could use some real criticism lol

I have little to add, but I hope you don't mind me sharing some of my thoughts as well ^^

Like, beyond the laughable logistics of two scrawny kids being able to haul a teenager's corpse into a tree with jump rope (not to mention how unlikely it is that an autopsy wouldn't find the real cause of death), you do not 'accidentally' cover up third degree murder.

Ironically, according to the game's director and writer, the plot twist is what it is since it was considered a "believable circumstance."

Which makes me doubt they understand what "believable" means.

This is SO beyond the pale of anything the average person w/ a similar internal struggle could have done, it just sort of feels like it's a caricature of the real problems many depressed and avoidant people deal with/face.

As someone who has repeatedly interacted with the game's fans, it's rather disturbing how they just. Don't care about the sheer gravity of what Sunny's done. At all.

Sunny's guilt over having killed his own sister and having participated in the desecration of her body can be repackaged into a more generic depression. It's just the same, after all. It's not like the guilt of having taken a life and then having lied to everyone has any different impact. The fact Mari's life was cut short at 15 doesn't matter. She doesn't matter. She's just the "terrible mistake" Sunny made. She's what adds weight to his emotions. The cause of the depression.

("the story was never supposed to be about Mari" is also an insane claim given that her death is literally the reason the plot takes place)

Speaking of her!

Also the way Mari is treated by the narrative legitimately disgusts me. We never get to see her divorced from the memories of her friends and actual killer, so we're just sort of expected to take for granted that she would forgive Sunny for killing her/staging her suicide/putting all her loved ones through this. Quite literally the one time she expresses anger in the whole game, she gets murdered for it and visions of her are then dedicated to patting her brother on the head all like "aww no it's ok 🥺 i know you didn't mean to kill me when you shoved me down those stairs! accidents/lynching people post-mortem happens all the time!". C’mon man.

There is no language that could convey how viscerally I despise this scene.

This goes beyond her patting Sunny on the head. This is her apologizing to her killer for making him kill her. This is the game blatantly victim-blaming her by saying she indeed was at fault for her death because she shouldn't have pissed Sunny off, even though there is no tangible evidence she was overworking him outside of a few sentences in the datamined (!) captions from the Truth sequence. On the contrary, what (little) the game shows us of her in life suggests she was as accomodating to her brother as she could've been.

This doesn't read as the touching moment it's supposed to be to me. It's more reminiscent of a battered wife blaming herself for her husband's volatile temper. I should not be drawing such associatons, yet here I am because this game's writing twists itself into a pretzel to absolve Sunny of any responsibility for his crime with no regard of the implications it would have for the rest of the story.

tl;dr omori sucks

[inklingswannabe]

lol Thanks! Tbh I feel like the weirdest part of all this is the game could have easily avoided 80% of these pitfalls by just... not staging Mari's suicide/defacing her corpse. Like, quick reimaging here:

1. Sunny shoves Mari and she consequently loses balance and falls down the stairs (or out of the treehouse, if we want to keep the ominous backyard imagery seen throughout the game). This happens because Sunny has a burst of anger/frustration that comes out as physical aggression, which is not an uncommon occurrence for young/preteen boys due to how men are typically socialized (i.e., encouraged to supress feelings until they are violent). This was definitely not intended to result in serious injury, though, let alone death. In another timeline, Mari stumbled in the opposite direction, and Sunny gets lectured about never expressing yourself with violence because someone could have gotten seriously hurt. Unfortunately, this is not that timeline.

2. Mari dies on impact, same as before. Sunny approaches her and immediately goes into shock over her death. He is nonresponsive from this point onward, meaning when he and Mari are found, it is just assumed that she fell on her own, and Sunny found her dead. No one would have any reason to believe she was pushed due to their prior positive relationship. Sunny never comes clean because he's just never asked, and slowly that lie of omission (and the guilt of said omission) compounds over time.

3. Basil is still a witness and knows Mari didn't trip/fall by herself, but he keeps that to himself and never implicates/confronts Sunny because he doesn't want Sunny to get in trouble/he doesn't want to think his best friend is a willful murderer. (Which, he isn't — at least not *willfully*. Basil only knows what he saw.) Sunny never explains himself to Basil because that would mean confronting his hand in the accident, which he is trying to overwrite in his head(space). Basil's character can either play out largely the same from here on, OR he actually takes his own life prior to the beginning of the game. This allows "coping with loss in the context of suicide" to remain a core component of the game, adds to Sunny's guilt, makes the "finding Basil" sequences of headspace feel more consequential if reframed as Sunny replaying how he could have (*maybe) saved Basil if he had confessed to pushing Mari after it happened, etc. (*In reality, Basil probably has other issues/struggles unrelated to Sunny/Mari, so neither Sunny nor the player could ultimately Know if this was an avoidable death.) Buuuuut admittedly this is still on the sensational side of things, so it's really only an addition I'd include if there really needs to be A Big Twist. Otherwise, it's unnecessary. The friend group can still fall apart after Mari's accident. Sunny can still feel immense guilt and avoid culpability without staging her death outright. Basil can still struggle with thoughts of self harm/suicide without somehow being a criminal mastermind at age 11 or something.

Overall: for me personally, I don't inherently mind the idea of Sunny being responsible for Mari's death, because ultimately siblings can get into physical rows that end up causing more harm than actually intended, and I think it is faaaaar more relatable/understandable for Sunny to just shut down/try to internally rewrite Mari's death when the extent of his actions are "he pushed her" and silence thereafter. There is no need to muddy the waters/over dramatize what happens by staging a suicide, and as a neat little bonus you completely avoid messing around with Mari's dead body like she's some kind of doll. Sure, you potentially lose specific imagery like the "something" demon (although I'm sure it could be reworked to suit Mari just being dead on the ground/looking up at Sunny) and suicide would no longer be central to the game (unless reworked into coping with Basil's suicide), but let's be honest here. As soon as the original twist happens, all the suicide PSA messaging in-game sorta flies out the window anyway. "Don't blame yourself" - nope, you (Sunny) should actually! "You couldn't have stopped it" - nope, you (Sunny) could actually! "She doesn't blame you" - ...are we Sure about that? Etc. As-is it just ultimately comes across as crass/insensitive/a non-serious handling of suicide as a topic given, by the end of the game, it's just used as a punishment for Sunny and Basil if *you* get the bad ending, i.e. something avoidable lmao

Anyway! Alas! Hate lost potential in game

[inklingswannabe]

I just played OMORI for the first time (going in with no spoilers or foreknowledge) and I gotta say it's remarkable that a large majority of its negative reviews are just "idk it wasn't for me (stopped playing 2 hours in)" and not "why the fuck did they go with THAT plot twist (20 hours in)".

I did not consistently enjoy the game prior to the twist — the daytime sections were far and away more narratively compelling and concise, while the headspace sections felt like largely disconnected and tedious obstacles in the way of the real story. But holy shit man the "Truth" absolutely wrecked any positive feelings I had toward this game and its themes. Like, beyond the laughable logistics of two scrawny kids being able to haul a teenager's corpse into a tree with jump rope (not to mention how unlikely it is that an autopsy wouldn't find the real cause of death), you do not 'accidentally' cover up third degree murder. This whole situation ceases to be accidental when you start plotting ways to get yourself out of trouble and then sit with it for YEARS.

I get that this story may have resonated with players who live with guilt or regrets, etc., that are exacerbated by mental illness, resulting in the same real-world avoidance issues and low self-esteem that Sunny showcases in-game. But Sunny murdered his sister over a stressful recital, defiled her corpse to escape consequences, and made all of her loved ones believe that she killed herself, which wrecked them with grief for not 'noticing signs' of her unwellness. This is to say nothing of getting Basil involved and making him live with this secret alone, for years, which can eventually culminate in him killing himself. This is SO beyond the pale of anything the average person w/ a similar internal struggle could have done, it just sort of feels like it's a caricature of the real problems many depressed and avoidant people deal with/face.

Also the way Mari is treated by the narrative legitimately disgusts me. We never get to see her divorced from the memories of her friends and *actual killer*, so we're just sort of expected to take for granted that she would forgive Sunny for killing her/staging her suicide/putting all her loved ones through this. Quite literally the one time she expresses anger in the whole game, she gets murdered for it and visions of her are then dedicated to patting her brother on the head all like "aww no it's ok 🥺 i know you didn't mean to kill me when you shoved me down those stairs! accidents/lynching people post-mortem happens all the time!". C’mon man.

Anyway idk, i guess this is oldish news given the age of the game, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there somewhere. Hope if these devs make another game, it's about a quarter of the length and doesn't turn into true crime at the last second. There’s a decent game buried in here but it needed to remain an exploration of suicide and its impacts, not THIS.

[inklingswannabe]

Why in the god damn did someone repost one paragraph of my review to 4chan lmfaoooo at least take the *whole post* smfh

[inklingswannabe]

I just played OMORI for the first time (going in with no spoilers or foreknowledge) and I gotta say it's remarkable that a large majority of its negative reviews are just "idk it wasn't for me (stopped playing 2 hours in)" and not "why the fuck did they go with THAT plot twist (20 hours in)".

I did not consistently enjoy the game prior to the twist — the daytime sections were far and away more narratively compelling and concise, while the headspace sections felt like largely disconnected and tedious obstacles in the way of the real story. But holy shit man the "Truth" absolutely wrecked any positive feelings I had toward this game and its themes. Like, beyond the laughable logistics of two scrawny kids being able to haul a teenager's corpse into a tree with jump rope (not to mention how unlikely it is that an autopsy wouldn't find the real cause of death), you do not 'accidentally' cover up third degree murder. This whole situation ceases to be accidental when you start plotting ways to get yourself out of trouble and then sit with it for YEARS.

I get that this story may have resonated with players who live with guilt or regrets, etc., that are exacerbated by mental illness, resulting in the same real-world avoidance issues and low self-esteem that Sunny showcases in-game. But Sunny murdered his sister over a stressful recital, defiled her corpse to escape consequences, and made all of her loved ones believe that she killed herself, which wrecked them with grief for not 'noticing signs' of her unwellness. This is to say nothing of getting Basil involved and making him live with this secret alone, for years, which can eventually culminate in him killing himself. This is SO beyond the pale of anything the average person w/ a similar internal struggle could have done, it just sort of feels like it's a caricature of the real problems many depressed and avoidant people deal with/face.

Also the way Mari is treated by the narrative legitimately disgusts me. We never get to see her divorced from the memories of her friends and *actual killer*, so we're just sort of expected to take for granted that she would forgive Sunny for killing her/staging her suicide/putting all her loved ones through this. Quite literally the one time she expresses anger in the whole game, she gets murdered for it and visions of her are then dedicated to patting her brother on the head all like "aww no it's ok 🥺 i know you didn't mean to kill me when you shoved me down those stairs! accidents/lynching people post-mortem happens all the time!". C’mon man.

Anyway idk, i guess this is oldish news given the age of the game, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there somewhere. Hope if these devs make another game, it's about a quarter of the length and doesn't turn into true crime at the last second. There’s a decent game buried in here but it needed to remain an exploration of suicide and its impacts, not THIS.

[smoluglies]

Lily of the valley 💕🧚🌱✨

[inklingswannabe]

apparently a new game is coming out called touchstarved. i was going to play until i saw that people from the arcana team are working on it.

yeah i saw the preview on twitter and wondered how tf an "indie" team got like 2k followers overnight with basically no posts, then i noticed the devs were from NH and, well, lmao.

now to be totally fair, it's possible that the lack of corporate oversight improves quality control and allows their team to make more creative risks. but. given this is the team who brought us morga in all her gaslight gatekeep girlboss glory, i'm... not... terribly inclined to play regardless. don't think upper management was saying yeah let's make the genocidal warlord a mentor to one of the last living persons of the ppl she, uh, genocided.

but whatever, ultimately. i'm not a cop and ppl can play what they want.

[mysterium-solis]

The Fairy Dance by Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1895)

[versegm]

Your friendly reminder to not spend money on gacha.

[versegm]

if your response to this post is "too late for me" i want you to sit down and think very, very hard about your life. Because maybe you said it jokingly, and it IS a joke, then good for you, but if you actually do spend significant amounts of money for a jpeg you're not even sure you're going to get, you might have a gambling addiction and that is a serious problem not a joke or a meme.

[wolfsskull]

and on a similar note, keep in mind that people who do spend money this way need support, not ridicule. these types of games are specifically designed to engage existing addictive tendencies and to create them in vulnerable people. addicts aren't stupid or irresponsible, and the root causes of addiction are often genetic and traumatic, so please be compassionate, not dismissive

[crownquill]

I made a what the fandom thinks of you generator

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

[inklingswannabe]

heard nix hydra's dead

lol

[stardustbby00-deactivated202308]

[inklingswannabe]

how we holding up gamers (namely americans)

[inklingswannabe]

understandable, my condolences

[inklingswannabe]

how we holding up gamers (namely americans)

[sapphocottagecore]

[allura-raine]