#im a fucking mess

[somekindofsentience]

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 wrote all this on copious amounts of caffeine #dreamscape au #omori dreamscape au #omori au #dreamscape #lucid dreams #sentience's stuff #i'm such a nightmare in this LMAOOO #i've written my own little chapter 12 lucidity within my analysis of chapter 12 #what have i become #omori fanfic #im a fucking mess #i think i lost my mind here #Youtube

[el-im]

t/t on scrap paper

#trek #trip tucker #t'pol #star trek ent #my not art #all art #havent drawn anything in over a month. feel like shit. #trying to do some practice #rip me i looked at this again and went. wtf is going on here. i'd scanned it at 300 dpi rather than 600 lmfo #*lmfao #im a fucking mess

[lizzaroona]

Aot is over and everything is worse now

#attack on titan #attack on titan season 4 #aot #im a fucking mess #it literally feels like someone died #i guess people DID die but still

[bellaturner]

i seriously need alex to reject the fuck out of me so i can move on with my life

#im a fucking mess #honestly can't take this shit anymore #i hate being so attracted to him #alex turner #arctic monkeys

[dnphan]

i’m fine til i start remembering that over half of my life has been spent online

#like wtf #im a fucking mess #online #chronically online #mentally ill

[iguessricciardo]

team photo 2022

#im a fucking mess #daniel ricciardo #abu dhabi gp 2022 #mp*

[elialys]

Let me say this. I just finished rewatching Peter. Yesterday I somehow got through Jacksonville. I've never been this slow watching Fringe. I used to average 5 episodes a day during my previous rewatches, easy. Often a lot more. It was like a sport. "How fast can I get through the first half of season 4 hahaha!"

But it's been SIX YEARS. I hadn't let myself feel the fringe feels in 6 years. And it's hitting me all over again. Most of the time right now, I finish the episodes in tears, and I just sit there crying for five minutes, absorbing it all, because it's liked I've received an emotional punch to the gut.

I'M ONLY MIDWAY THROUGH SEASON 2

#im a fucking mess #but in a good way? #i love this fucking show so much??? #its so good and beautiful and flawed and glorious #pray for me though #fringe #fringe rewatch 2023

[skelussy]

i loooooove giving head. i want you to shove my head back down on your cock when you feel impatient. i want to feel your tip press against the back of my throat. i want you to make me lay so you can fuck my throat, so i can feel you fuck deeper down my asophogus. i wanna gag on it. i wanna push on your hips because im gagging too hard and i want you to laugh and press my face harder into you.

i want you to cum straight into my stomach and then make me clean you off

#bruv...idk #im a fucking mess

[the-tubort]

It really is all for love. Everything. Its all going to be for love isn't it?

#tuborts thoughts #between bluey and the stress im going through and rewatching the good place #im a fucking mess #internally of cpurse externally im looking just fine. ahahahaha. #anyways

[jigo-ku]

.

#i didn't have to overshare like that #im sorry #i need time to process it before i even write it on social #i cant even spell it in rl #im a fucking mess

[mrs-hilmarson]

Safe and Sound-The Owl House  

(Updated Version!)

#im new to this #please be nice #im a fucking mess #eda misses her kids #i miss eda #eda the owl mom #eda the owl lady #edalyn clawthorne #toh eda #luz noceda #king clawthorne #toh #the owl house #toh fanart #toh fanedit

[lost-in-space-69]

I'm too overwhelmed by everything and cry over pointless shit. It's horrible to have all this paranoid inside of me. It feels like I'm a feather touch away from getting shattered and becoming broken. Why can I be normal and handle things like an adult???

#depressing shit #mental health #anixety #sensitive #emotional #im a fucking mess #and a crybaby #too sensitive

[amlovelies]

So apparently today my dad decided to try and get in contact with me after 30 years

#im a fucking mess #why now? #what has changed that you suddenly care? #what do you want? #what do i want? #i dont fucking know #ignore me #sky speaks

[spidervvite]

Rewatching Dimension 20's Fantasy High

Om episode 15, Family in Flames and sobbed my fuckimg eyes out dude. Any things with family and parents break me dude lmao

#dimension 20 #im a fucking mess #actually cannot stop sobbing

[unwatchedfadeout]

could someone plz reply to something here? anything idc what. i just want some proof that i exist, ty. ❤️

#tw ana diary #ed but not sheeran #disordered eating thoughts #i want to be weightless #always alone #why can’t i just be okay #why do i do this to myself #im a fucking mess #sorry for being depressing

[kinyeee]

I need to stop reading replies and quotes from Bible's post. The hate is so bad. No, I don't need that in my life. But it hurts too much

#im a fucking mess #cried pathetically #buildjakapan #bible wichapas sumettikul #biblebuild #bible wichapas #build jakapan #i need a break