hikikomori notes 3

exploring Otherworld

• DVDs in the duckrabbit house! Timeline point!! Hmm, apparently they were released in Japan in 1996, with a US release in 1996. Having a bookcase full of DVD-saved records suggests the tech isn’t new, though, which potentially nudges Omori closer to the 2000s than I’d previously assumed :0c
  • I am aware the Fandom wiki suggests Specific Years based on the week-days various photo album dates fall on, but also, heck with that it’s fun to reinvent the calendar
  • on further thought: growing up in the early aughts, I had VHS tapes, and only later DVDs—and they seemed new to me, definitely not like something that’d been around since the late 90s, but I was also a small child who wasn’t paying attention to that and obviously New To Me = New to Whole Entire World and Everyone. but either way, recording like, family histories on them was not a thing I would’ve considered doing with DVDs, then OR now actually insert tangential rant about how everything’s being fed to The Platforms now, long-term personal archives what are those
• detail that sticks out more retroactively than before: flower growing through the table at Pessi’s house. not sure what Kind but it’s kind of weirdly specifc, with the pointy pink petals?
  • —oh, uh, exact same flower is growing outside at random places, no flavor text or anything. idk, table placement stuck out!

Spaceboy

• the hell was I saying earlier about birds not being prominent, Spaceboy’s whole crew is Birds. and I think his dad is too?? (I don’t know much about that character other than that He Exists, name’s… Pinkbeard?) between this and the guidepost birds, hmm—if not a pet bird, ig Sunny just likes ’em?
  • most obvious diegetic answer is that Spaceboy (comic character) has bird henchmen, but naturally I Gotta Dig. Why Birds
  • >NPC right outside confirms that the name is indeed Pinkbeard
• so to be clear the reason I find the whole Spaceboy/Sweetheart schtick symbolically ??baffling, or at least Kinda Weird, is that… well, we’re introduced to about two facts right away: that he’s going by “Boyfriend” now (though at this point we don’t know why), and one henchman (“Space Pirate Ace,” apparently) says Spaceboy(friend) hasn’t left his bed since… [in shaky text] she… stopped coming around…. y’know, like how Sunny’s been a Mega Hermit more or less since Mari died?
  • on a less eyebrow-raising note I didn’t notice that the crew all had variations on “bro” for their nametags, that’s great
• in Spaceboy’s room: A bookcase full of knowledge from all across the universe! ← that… might actually be the first “!” flavor text yet? I definitely do not remember seeing flavor text exclamation points much
• tbh I’ve played the White Space motif on piano handful of times now and Omori does pretty well; he only messes up when the three-note pattern changes. which I guess is the Point, though—doesn’t matter if the mistake is minor as all heck, Mari still would’ve made him restart…
  • have I mentioned (publicly, at least) that I got advice from my piano teacher to play past mistakes and no one will notice? I was told to, during recitals, just play through mistakes, and chances are no one will notice. don’t practice mistakes either, correct them when you’re playing to learn, but in practice (gotta love English) who give a shit. people just hear nice music. if you stop, and get all flustered, then of course people will notice you made a mistake…
• Kel, who notably does not like to get up early (this comes up at some point when he and Hero are traveling with Sunny, though I forget exactly where): jumps on Spaceboy’s bed and yells at him to wake him up. A+ understanding there, buddy
  • I mean you can definitely argue that it’s not early, dude really needs to get up, but still. nat1 charisma check
  • though on a less jokey note, nice ~parallel to him being the only one who consistently reaches out to Sunny; confirmed by voicemail, He’s been calling us every week for the past few months! (if only sparked by the house going up for sale), and ofc for at least one day he straight-up knocks. (I assume he doesn’t come back if you turn him down at this first and only chance, since once you’re on Hikikomori there’s no way out….)
• He’s never gonna wake up now! Or even worse… He’s gonna wake up… angry. dying better than being mad (and hurting people), confirmed…. :(
• Space Boyfriend isn’t sick… He’s… lovesick… :T underrated Aubrey trait is that she has always been melodramatic, and she hasn’t even dropped the “Space Ex-Boyfriend” line or gushed over (or made the big marriage speech to) Sweetheart yet.
• on the other hand I also forgot that Aubrey calls Kel on being like “well, that’s sad. […] oh well then let’s go,” and specifically she uses an appeal to—well it’s actually not empathy she’s talking about him taking her toy, but still. The Seeds Are There, right down to Kel actually getting mad at the (wrongly-assumed) implication Hector’s being brought into this (iirc he didn’t take great to Mari being dragged into their argument) and okay this note is a wreck but here’s the script (this exchange starts at “Well… let’s go!”, after which Kel starts walking away)
  • oh, and Huh? I don’t remember anything like that [stealing your stuffed toy] 8) what a shit. although he also genuinely doesn’t seem to remember Sunny drowning at the lake (at least not until actively reminded), so the “I NEVER made fun of you when we were kids” exchange continues to be ambiguous, lmao
• in response to Aubrey’s “Should we help [Spaceboy]?” I said No, because this is a Certified Asshole Run, and If you wre sick in bed you’d want someone to help you too, right? …8,)
  • ohh yeah, though, Spaceboy seems to be like, not just emotionally wounded but ill, with the dramatic coughs and such. uhh maybe possibly faint line between sleep/death/etc. and getting sick over the steak? oh, and lest we forget, Omori’s You’re sick.
• anyway the “you’d want someone to help you too, right?” dialogue is on loop (from that back to the prompt) until you finally say “yes.” which is Haha Funney Vibeo Gaem Moment, but you can say “no” back at the playground re:tackling the ladder and the cutscene moves right along without forcing you to say yes. here, you have to say you’d want help (Sunny would want help) to move on. big fucking F honestly
  • also for context, aforementioned Y/N playground dialogue is something like (paraphrasing, not checking) “are you scared to go?”, I think? the fear of heights is very much invoked, and saying no just has everyone be reassuring (whereas if you said yes, they encourage your bravery). aww….
  • saying “no” several times in a row here has no effect on the rest of the dialogue
• oh, curious detail: you can run in his house! I haven’t been paying close attention to this but you are usually not allowed to run indoors; I forget if that includes Sunny’s own house. if it does, that’s another link….
  • by “indoors” I specifically mean like, shops and NPCs’ houses. Sweetheart’s Castle is free stomping estate (yes I am aware it’s even free real estate in the sense of Hikikomori’s potential takeover, that too)

not-so-short shortcut

• anyway I totally missed this first game, I’m sure being underleveled (or at least not grossly overleveled) for it won’t make me regret anything: time to disrupt The Earth
  • damn it doesn’t even have a different battle theme. anyway I don’t remember if this is particularly hard (or not), wish me luck
  • The Earth is cruel to Omori! Omori feels Sad… aw.
  • “oh this is pretty easy, it’s slow going but we’ve whittled down the HP”[ultimate attack]“What The Fu—”
    
  • we were doing so well… everyone but Omori had full health (and his was still like 3/rths, thankfully) and it wasn’t even a crit… the heck, man
  • twice in a row???? bruhv
  • thrice. in a fucking row. Aubrey Kel Hero down in that order oh,, my god
    
  • if it hadn’t made Omori sad at first I would’a been slaughtered on that last turn my god.^[1]
• a n y w a y. You know how he [Spaceboy] gets when he’s angry is a foreboding line; I know we see that upfront with the boss battle (good lord am I dreading/looking forward to all these big fights actually being a challenge; I’m even using skills this time!!), but anyway, something something Sunny anger issues long before The Incident? can’t say I’d be too surprised; he definitely doesn’t show it as much but like, look at him getting irrationally mad at supermarket bugs. bro can be way more expressive, at least nowadays, than Omori is.
  • there’s also the idea of Spaceboy being a Dad ~analogue (because divorce. that’s it that’s all I got, so admittedly this is loose; very curious to see what Pinkbeard’s like, yeah), in which case this line suggests Dad’s got anger issues. who knows
  • in all honesty though both Mari and Sunny give me big “you won’t like me when I’m angry” vibes; the Type of person who gets outwardly pissed off once in a blue moon, but when they do they really, really show it, to the detriment of themselves and anyone in the crossfire. because they feel, at least in the moment, that they have earned this and who or whatever they are mad at is In The Wrong. I’m extrapolating bigtime, mind, but something something the more you supress something (Something™) the more it’ll come out when it does, no matter what feeling it may be….
  • worth comparison: Aubrey and to a lesser degree Kel (lesser nowadays than when younger, I’d wager, but even then he’s no stepford) show their anger pretty damn openly. Hero’s token Anger Moment is nigh-unforgettable once you’ve heard of it—and, quite notably, he took that as a sign to get better. Sunny… well, in better routes, one hopes he’s working on that along with the whole self-forgiveness thing. that ain’t this route, though.
  • oh and Basil, Mr. “that’s mean, that’s so mean,” -proceeds to have what seems to be (I mean this in the most straightforward way, not as an insult) a psychotic break, apparently stabs or grabs or otherwise Fatally Maims Sunny’s eye-. where do I even start with that guy though
• [One Totally Unrelated Detour Later] Thanks, dude. You’re always there when I need you. okay hold up now, now this makes the whole conversation metaphorically sus. hmm, one facing forward one facing back (idk which is which), over whether to leave Spaceboy… hm. idk!

anyway this is solid proof the game, despite not running in the background (music stops :( ), does count the entire duration the file’s open under “time played,” because like hell if I logged 3 hours today. oh well! look at fuckign,, Everything that got written as-is! no restraint no masters!!!!