#headspace hooligans

[sometimes-online]

pretty colors!

[greenandsorrow]

HEAL || MASTERPOST

SUMMARY-> The healthcare system assigned you to Suntoro Suzuki as his caretaker. He's a mentally unstable teenager and a former shut-in. You're a young woman in your late twenties. You hope you can work with him despite his file proving you otherwise.

TW-> Mentions of medications, depression, anxiety, suicide & self harm. Descriptions of nightmares, violence and gore. Angst, guilt, grief, age regression & all that the game deals with. Sunny with a crush on Aubrey. There's also lots of fluff & hopefully wholesomeness.

AUTHOR'S NOTE-> The title is inspired by Tom Odell's song "Heal". If you're the kind of person that judges someone's morals based on the fanfiction they consume, this ain't for you. We can all have different opinions on whether Sunny is redeemable or not and that's the beauty of the game. Even the ending scene doesn't show the reaction of Sunny's friends after the truth comes out. Also, this fic is supposed to be my side hustle so don't expect pretty words or accuracy.

Ch1(very soon!) -

Masterlist of all work-> click here

To support a struggling writer-> paypal link

Resources-> @saradika-graphics, @cafekitsune

You can ask to be added to the taglist.

[dannybobany]

my first thoughts on the omori manga !!!

(Go read it yourself first)

This is interesting because it eludes to what exactly the relationship between Kel and Basil was during Sunny’s absence- apparently not good since Kel considers Basil to be completely off the table for hanging out

CAPTAIN SPACEBOY!!! AUGHHH HES SO PRETTY IN THIS ARTSTYLE

Gays reunite (terrible things are going to happen)

HOLY SHIT AUBREY WHAT THE FUCK

THIS IS WAY WORSE THEN IN THE GAME JESUS- SHE ROCKED BASILS SHIT FOR NO REASON!

lil bit disappointed that the scene was restructured for Basil to talk to Aubrey directly rather then trying to appeal with Kim, because not only do I not get to see Kim yet (aw) but it also isn’t entirely in character for Basil to look confrontation in the eyes like that

NOT ONLY IS THIS SCENE INSANELY COOL LOOKING but it also gives some (in my opinion) needed clarification on what exactly Aubrey’s injury was when Sunny stabbed her (I think about it often I’m glad this makes it clearer)

HI ABBI

THEYRE HOLDING HANDS AWWWWW

Those were my initial thoughts <3

[lilac-gold]

hey! currently, i'm accepting omori one-shot writing requests! i can't promise anything immediate/rapid with whumptober coming up next month, but i assure you, i am very stubborn, and will finish a fic i set my mind to doing. feel free to reach out through reblogs or asks! i'm lilac_the_book_lover on ao3 too :)

no proshipping or nsfw requests please, i won't write it. i am, however, fully willing to do character studies, explore dynamics and write a whole lot of angst, fluff & whumpiness :D

[her0maris]

fucked up in the club about hero again. do you know what it’s like to have a sibling 3-4 years younger than you? or any younger sibling at all? one of the most important things of being a good older sibling is knowing when your wants, your needs are less important. sometimes you’ll be tired at the end of a long day and so frustrated and upset and irritated with your younger sibling, and you have to kill those feelings in the moment because they look at you and you know that in that moment you hold the power to hurt them in a way no one else on the planet can, and that you must never use it. hero is a character who is always holding himself back, prioritizing how others feel, because that’s what comes of living with the heavy knowledge that a word from a sibling- especially an older one, and especially a Perfect older one- can carry more weight than an entire speech from someone else. when you’re older and bigger your parents make sure you know it: they look up to you. you need to be a good example, show them what they should be doing. both physically and emotionally, you have the power to hurt them- and you know you never want to. and then that’s what you get used to. oh wow this came out ventier than i thought huh

[crowbasils]

ON WHY BASIL AND SUNNY, WHILE NOT BEING OPPOSITES ON A SURFACE LEVEL, ARE OPPOSITES ON A MORE DEEPER LEVEL — 🪴

SPOILERS FOR OMORI’S PLOT!

Despite acting similar, they do contrast in ways that highlight the character trait of the other.

While SUNNY doesn’t particularly desire to be loved and doesn’t suck up to others, he is cared for and wanted by others. this contrasts BASIL who desires to be just… wanted by others—to be cared for and loved. despite how much he sacrifices of himself to be wanted by others, he does not receive the same care that he gives out. SUNNY being loved without effort on his part (which, he does canonically feel guilty for, as mentioned in the OMORI fight) highlights BASIL’s struggle just to be wanted around by others. BASIL’s struggle highlights how treasured SUNNY truly is in rhe group—how important he is. This is further reinforced by how everything started to get back together only when SUNNY came out of his house.

We do also see that BASIL is more scared of concepts and events (abandonment, being alone again, interactions, etc.) than things traditionally found scary, such as spiders, heights, even deep bodies of water (despite him not knowing how to swim), even stuff like darkness. This contrasts to how SUNNY is more scared of things that can be found in reality. Spiders, heights, deep bodies of water, etc. He is scared of what is traditionally found scary—things that can usually be found in the real world.

BASIL being scared of such concepts highlights how even dreams aren’t an escape for him—how even his imagination is not a safe space for him. He has nowhere to be safe. Outaide, he has to face the judgement from the hooligans, the stares, the verbal abuse, the physical abuse. Outside, he has to face the guilt of knowing you played a part in destroying the very friend group you loved—the very friend group you took pictures of because you didn’t want to lose them. Inside, he has to face the overwhelming feeling of loneliness, the pain and hurt that comes from once again being alone, the heavy and empty feeling in your heart after being abandoned. This highlights how SUNNY is more scared of the real world—of things like spiders, heights, his friends, the consequences of his actions, the effects of it and how it ruined everyone. He feels the deep guilt of it all, and witnesses the suffering he had caused, and just wants to hide from it all. Just wants to withdraw back to his fantasy world where he’s safe, where harm can’t reach him, where nothing happened. He is more comfortable in his imaginations, having always relied on it when he’s troubled. He is safe there. He can hide there. And he did—for 4 years straight, until the truth’s roots eventually seeped its way into the soil of his headspace in a manner that cannot be uprooted. In a way where BASIL’s feelings and MARI’s thoughts found its way into his dreams.

However, there is a similarity in terms of their fears. Both of them are scared of being alone. however, their reasons for it are different. BASIL is scared of it due how he’s always been alone—desperately doing everything so that people won’t abandon him. Desperately wishing and praying he doesn’t have to go back to that. Whereas sunny’s more scared of it due to him never experiencing how it is to be truly alone with nobody “by his side”. He’s always had people around him, his parents, HERO, KEL, AUBREY, MARI, and BASIL. And him, being scared of the unknown, was terrified at the aspect of how bad it would feel—especially when he’s heard the feelings of one who has experienced it.

The tragedy of their character also contrasts. The tragedy of BASIL’s character lies in him re-experiencing how it is to be stuck with nobody being there by his side again just right after he finally found people who he can rely on and confide in. It lies in him having to go through everything just to be loved again. It lies in losing everything and going back to having nothing once again. While the tragedy of SUNNY’s character comes with the loss of something you have always had by your side. The tragedy of inexperience, and the grief from losing something you loved. The tragedy of being alone when you were always surrounded by loved ones—one way or another.

Even if BASIL wants to be free, no matter how much he does to free himself and SUNNY from everything that happened—he’s still essentially trapped. While SUNNY traps himself deeper via his headspace despite him being the one who could set both himself and BASIL free. He does realize this, though—however, it was too late. He finally realizes how much trapping himself affected BASIL, he finally realize that he needs to be there for him even just for a little while right as BASIL was about to kill himself. SUNNY desperately rushes in to save him, and no matter how much he wants to leave, he decides to stay. There’s no more running away when the life of a friend you love—platonically or not—is on the line.

Perhaps there was a deep sense of jealousy within BASIL towards SUNNY. A deep sense of jealousy that he rejected out of fear of accidentally hurting SUNNY. His color is green, right? The color of hope, of life, of modesty, of renewal, endurance, growth… but also the color of stagnation, isolation, sickness, envy, death. It perfectly incapsulates him, and his feelings towards SUNNY. Towards everyone. Towards himself.

In a way, they’re like the sun and the moon. Whenever SUNNY reaches out for BASIL, BASIL avoids him. Whenever BASIL reaches out for SUNNY, SUNNY runs away. Rather than the waves and the moon, they’re like the sun and moon—running away from each other in cycles. Rinse and repeat. Over and over again.

[fermiomoriblog]

The pitfalls of every Sunny ship

Diving straight into the hot coals with the first post. But it has been on my mind lately.

The setup in Omori is naturally quite mentally (and in some cases physically) taxing on every main cast character, and a shipper can very easily be overenthusiastic about getting a "happy ending" for their preferred pair, glossing over inconvenient problems and dynamics. I think that it really is rather contrary to the game's themes that this occurs, but it is also understandable that not everybody does a full psychoanalysis of every plot point in their story. I'll list some "common" problems I've personally encountered with people making content about sunburn, suntan and sunflower. I'm more familiar with the dynamics common on ao3 than elsewhere, so if you have any other observations or things to add, please feel free to do so.

# OMORI SPOILERS BELOW #

Sunburn

The "canon" ship. The fact that the ship is explicitly mentioned in game means that the ship is viewed as the "default", and it can lead to some lazy dynamics or lack of justification. You have to remember that no matter what headspace says (and headspace says a lot of things that aren't true), the first thing Sunny and Aubrey did after four years is beat the shit out of each other. Sunny knows nothing about the Hooligans, even though we do, and Aubrey thinks Sunny abandoned her (which is a feeling unlikely to abate after the truth). There needs to be basis for the ship as well - they aren't going to just pick up where they left off (presuming they had anything to leave off in the first place) right away. Which leads us to the first common problem:

Basing the relationship entirely on the past

This is the default reaction and requires the least writing creativity, so it is not surprising that it is common. Simply porting the HS dynamic or the swing scene to the future and copy-pasting is fun and cute and all, but it ignores the fact that both Sunny and Aubrey have changed massively. There's a lot of guilt that is going around, both with Sunny for obvious reasons and Aubrey for pushing Basil in the lake, and Aubrey has a bunch of new, closer friends whom depending on your interpretation are either theatre kids or delinquents. This is not really just going to get talked away on the swing set - they involve third parties.

I would venture to argue that this is actually a very problematic pitfall, despite it being generally not a very serious transgression in real life. Omori, as a game, is about moving on from the past. If you write a fic where the characters forget about bad things in the past but hang on like hell to the good things... that's Headspace. You've just put Sunny in a new Headspace.

Getting Basil out of the way

Even among sunburn/suntan shippers, it is pretty generally accepted that Basil was somewhat attached to Sunny even before the accident. So if you don't want to do sunflower, how do you deal with that?

You can write angst, where Aubrey and Basil end up fighting over Sunny. Weirdly, I've never seen this actually happen (probably because it's too heartbreaking). You can have Basil go to therapy, and get rid of an unhealthy attachment. You can also go the seriously angsty route of Basil hating Sunny for abandonment, Sunny hating Basil for his role in the incident, or a less intense version which just puts a barrier between the two. You can also have Sunny reject Basil. Or you can argue that the attachment was platonic, which is entirely fair.

What you cannot do is have Basil be romantically interested in Sunny, but "get out of the way" for Aubrey "so that Sunny can be happy". Or, well, you can do that, but you can't frame it as anything but serious angst from Basil's POV.

Unfortunately, many, many "pure fluff" Sunburn fics do this, because "pure fluff" fics don't want to untangle the whole thing as most methods involve some degree of emotional turnmoil. This is no ordinary infautation - Basil has waited for Sunny for four years. Nursing unrequited love like that is really, really painful. It is certainly not something that someone with Basil's character and history can do with a smile on their face. If you need any further convincing, I point you to Note to Self: Don't Be Gay in Faraway Town by witheredahlia.

A version of this which I think is a lesser sin (because it is at least framed with some nuance), but a sin regardless, is Aubrey getting annoyed at Basil for "stealing" Sunny's attention from her. This gets dangerously close to the reddit comments you see about "the friend group will be better off if Basil never joined".

Suntan

Despite sunburn being the "canon" and sunflower being the natural alternative, I actually think that this is the default. After all, Kel was the one to bring Sunny out, generally saving his life, and is his first friend, etc. Kel is also a clean slate character, with nothing anyone can particularly hold against them, and as a result suntan is the "healthiest", "least questionable" ship. This commits the customary mistake of believing Kel's parents when they say "eh, it's Kel, he'll be fine".

"Kel's fine"

No, he's not. He's spent the better part of four years trying to forget the happiest times of his childhood, and has been going around doing nothing but fixing and saving other people, putting others' needs far above his own, for the entirety of pre-canon and foreseeably for a good part of post canon as well. Suntan, especially with Sunny still in a vulnerable state post-canon, can very easily be written into Kel being Sunny's unpaid, untrained therapist, and his mood/health being Kel's only/majority source of validation. Kel's self-worth independent of his friends needs addressing and development, and without a lot of development, Sunny alone is not really equipped to provide that.

In all fairness, while I would be somewhat confident in saying that the majority of canon-compliant sunburn fics run into the problems above, suntan fics do usually handle it better. That might just be because there aren't that many suntan fics though.

Sunflower

It goes without saying that sunflower has the highest potential to be unhealthy. But precisely because of that fact, people writing sunflower are usually very careful to address it. Either the fic is written as a work exploring codependency/attachment/trauma/other general unhealthiness (which you can make your own judgement on whether it's a legitimate art form or problematic), or there is at minimum an attempt at pacing, therapy and general juggling of the various mental issues the game leaves Sunny and Basil with (for a shining example, see These Days Without You by Smitty1899, my go to answer for when anyone says "but sunflower toxic!!1!").

The issues that can make sunflower unhealthy and problematic are generally pretty obvious - shared crime, codependency and attachment, commitment and abandonment issues, and the whole "getting together before their friends forgive them" thing (which can still be done well, but from the POV of especially Hero can be kind of eh, and unlikely to be conducive to a healthy relationship given that it kind of depends on their friends' pending "approval".) As a result, there aren't a lot of works that don't address them in one manner or another. However, I do think there is one major pitfall that some fics fall into in the other direction:

Having everything in the relationship be dependent on someone else's approval.

In an attempt to make sunflower as healthy as possible, some authors make it so that Sunny and Basil effectively never make decisions on their own. There's always a third party present to psychoanalyse them, tell them what's fine and what's not, etc. and every step they make in their relationship is with the express blessing, support and help of the rest of their friends. The problem is, that's not healthy either.

I feel that the value of sunflower is greatest in the context of the themes of the game of moving on and forgiveness. Making it so that Sunny and Basil hang on to their guilt forever and robbing them of any "right" to decide for themselves what makes them happy is very much contrary to that - they're on crutches for the rest of their lives, and the point of the good ending is the hope that they won't need to be. It also is just not a good thing for any third party to intervene so extensively in a relationship.

Conclusion

Omori is emotionally deep, with many, many themes to explore. Ships in Omori have unique meanings and themes, which in a canon compliant context is quite hard to simply wipe away. Rushing into a ship with insufficient pacing and development, which works in "cute" fandoms, generally leaves lots of outstanding holes in Omori.

This post doesn't necessarily mean that I think less of any particular ship mentioned - to reiterate, every ship has unique meanings and themes which is interesting to explore and form a part of the message of the game. It is however true that some pitfalls in some ships are easier to fall in, and overlooked, than others, and the obvious problems get a lot more bashing than the non-obvious ones. (Yes, sunflower bias. Sue me.)

And of course, in a plotless or AU context, cute art is cute art.

[daisy-daze17]

Omori Manga Thoughts cause it was uhhh

OK so like. The thing is I only got into the omori fandom in February of this year so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

1. I'm mostly a fan of the art style-- a lot of people said that Sunny always seems to have a panicked expression so it's hard to read into him, plus the characters look a lot younger than they're supposed to (Which I find odd). But other than that, I think it does a really good job representing the scarier parts with very abstract drawings of Mari/Something. They coloured it well and thank god did Kel's skintone right. There is one particular panel that I especially love:

So much detail and it captures the feeling of seeing faraway for the first time really well ^^

Some nitpicky positive thoughts:

Sunny could have looked more distinct from Omori because the only difference I see are their outfits. Maybe make Sunny's features softer and have less contrasting values so we can see an immediate difference.

I like how they did everyone's eyes-- Sunny/Omori's are just dull and black, and everyone else with dark eyes are shown to have a light in them. (Just a nice detail i appreciated)

I like how Omori is clearly less expressive compared to sunny, but I think Sunny could have benefitted from having more emotions than surprised/blushing.

2. The pacing was weird. like really fucking weird. The basic structure of the game Omori is: Omori is in whitespace -> Omori plus the gang (Hero, Aubrey and Kel) meet up with Basil and Mari in headspace -> everyone minus Mari goes to Basil's house and learn all the combat stuff along the way -> after fixing the photo album it suddenly shifts to basil in a panicked state before glitching you back into white space again. The moment when basil shifts the mood from calm to terrifying is REALLY important.

It forces the new tone on you very suddenly and also sets up a lot of mystery surrounding Mari when Basil can't finish what he was going to say about her. By now we know that something is very wrong and it has to do with Mari, but we don't know what.

The manga is kind of all over the place the whole time. First we see the christmas scene when Sunny gets his violin. But then Mari does her whole nightmare thing and we know somethings up from the first few pages. Next we wake up at night as Sunny in the real world... yet it shows the little "THREE DAYS LEFT" as well? At this point I was super confused because basically the entire nighttime sequence is shown through a sort of montage with Sunny's mom's voice message in the background before transitioning into the day when Kel first knocks on the door. A cool thing they did was parallel Kel's knocking with the creepy knocking we get from Mari Something. HOWEVER for reasons unknown they just completely cut out the fight against something on the stairs??

Something I was really excited about was seeing how they would integrate the combat into the manga. And they do it later with the Aubrey fight (more on that later), but not now? So now I'm wondering if they'll include Sunny's three fears that he has to overcome.

So next we find our boy (KEL!!!!!) and he is asking Sunny if he wants to come to Hobbies. I did find the dialogue here pretty awkward as Kel bounced back and forth in demeanor, but that's to be expected since Sunny isn't talking. (And I appreciate how he shows some kind of reaction to seeing one of his best friends after 4 years lol)

I mean compared to this when he just jumps straight into his hobbez idea without much reaction to actually seeing Sunny lol.

The most notable thing after this is the Aubrey confrontation with Basil and the other hooligans. I DONT KNOW WHY but they chose to not show the hooligans in that scene!! The hooligans are aubrey's little gang/posse who she hangs around with all the time and the people we always see when she's bullying Basil.

It's very important to note that Basil is talking to KIM here. He starts the conversation begging for her to tell Aubrey to give the photo album back. Aubrey is actively ignoring his attempts to get it back, with basil claiming "She won't listen to me."

In the manga she appears out of seemingly no where and proceeds to beat Basil directly with her bat. Prior to this we get no setup or explanation as to why Aubrey's attacking him or what the situation is. WORST OF ALL, It's only Aubrey alone attacking him and NOT her gang of the Hooligans. The hooligans are important in showing us just how isolated and ostracized from society Basil really is after Aubrey began bullying him. He literally has a whole gang of kids who call him a creep and attack him regularly. Here it seems like Aubrey is insane and is just beating him selfless for kicks. (not that I'm justifying Aubrey's behavior in the game, but the lack of context makes this situation even worse.)

I think It's also important to bring up how they switched around the order of events because in this situation, it's not working. We're supposed to first be introduced to younger Aubrey and Basil in headspace-- their younger counterparts. Aubrey is strong-willed and excitable and Basil is calm and kind. And most importantly-- they're VERY GOOD FRIENDS. So seeing Aubrey revealed to have been bullying him these past 4 years shocks the player and makes them understand how much things have really changed. Doing it the other way around will automatically villainize DW Aubrey since we already know what goes on in real life.

And then something interesting happens-- Sunny blacks out during the fight and returns to Headspace. This is SUPER weird as we've only ever seen Sunny go into headspace while sleeping, because it's an escape mechanism he uses to avoid The Truth. Does this mean he isn't aware he goes into headspace unwillingly sometimes? And what does this mean for the continuation of the real world story? Are we going to go through the entire Space Boy quest just to get back to that scene?

Anyway, I'm interested to see how they take it from here. Maybe they'll do a continuous switchover to the real world where they jump between it more frequently. But I question what that would mean for the timeline because the events of headspace happen in between the three days while Sunny is sleeping-- so he can't be in two places at the same time. Maybe they'll write more and more random ways for Sunny to black out to do this?? They defiantly are trying to take a step back from following the game exactly. I can't say I don't like it because I don't know how it'll turn out, so I'm excited for chapter 2!

[some-mari-thoughts]

im ootl, whats up with the manga? i havent been reading

Nice! Probably its best u dont

From ok to bad:

Events have been rearranged to unknown extent to adapt to faster pace.

We start with the christmas memory dream instead of headspace, and we are introduced to everyone that way. The dream is very very short.

We then go to start 3 days left skipping the phobia fight for its unneeded at this point, and see kel, basil and aubrey (no mention of their friend groups)

Sunny freaks out and leaves to white space right upon ending Aubrey fight (after seeing a photo of Mari) and thats where we meet mari properly

That said, Mari. In the dream/memory she is introduced via visual horror, stress rising as soon as she comes into frame and when we see her face it is already kinda terrifying! Her name and sight alone continues to scare sunny into panic for the entirety of chapter. Almost as if he is scared of her rather than anything else

We dont feel any easier as we meet Dream Mari either because she sneakily guilt trips us about taking too long and making her wait

Sunny is treated a bit better but he is freaking out almost the entire time we see him and his reactions seem a bit misplaced. I am also pretty sure he doesn't even get to throw up the steak. He does get several gay tension moments which shippers are extatic about but for me doesnt make it literally any at all better or easier. Just raises my brow higher. Seems like its the only place where manga will have any success. The sunburn lovers are also happy bc in the dreamworld omori gets to help aubrey out instead of kel

Other events have been slightly changed. We start with not seeing any of the hooligans which leaves us with aubrey alone. So she alone is doing a lot more bullying than she originally was doing. Then she also focuses on bullying sunny alone and verbally hitting where it'll hurt, also reminding him that mari is dead here instead of church (which causes him to collapse and then slice her with the knife)

What does not help is the artist consistently fails to make a good line of motion or guide the viewers eye where it needs to go, so 90% of people will first miss that 1 - aubrey doesnt hit basil in the head with her bat, but trips him instead; 2 - she then seemingly misses at kel and aims to hit sunny straight across with the bat; 3 - Easily missable detail that sunny stops freaking out as he handles the knife, either bc of smth abt him or bc of omori (unclear, sunny is the one drawn there), 4 - Sunny looks like he is trying to kill Aubrey; 5 - Unclear who is panicking and thinking "no" as Sunny readies the knife

The manga is not at all beginner friendly and in theory can only be enjoyed by a member of the fandom. Well. It fails at that too bc only very specific ppl will be actually happy abt this retelling. (Shippers. And another subset of ppl who are there for different reasons)

The artstyle is making anyone with good internet background tense and for good reason too (shotacon/CP classic artstyle) People have spoken out about more evidence to the manga's artist drawing messed up things (including for OMORI fandom) not too long ago. Omocat's rep is once again in shambles and i cant and wont defend her til we get a goddamn good explanation

[sometimes-online]

HEADSPACE HOOLIGANS!

shiny version below!:

[greenandsorrow]

Omori masterlist

Oneshots

by your side - Basil x male!reader/ sfw (🦋)

Multi chap

HEAL - Sunny x fem!caretaker!reader/ nsfw, platonic

general masterlist

how you can support your struggling gal; click here

[askhooligans]

PINNNNEEDD- ✨

Welcome to ask the hooligans! You can send in asks for specific charas, or the gang in general!! this is for fun so <3 .. We're also open to doodle requests, which may be delayed or accidentally ignored due to school/motivation but! yes!

DO'S ! / DON'TS!

- Ask about other characters! We're fine with ship asks too, but it depends !

- Asks about the gangs general opinions like.. favourite food.. GO WILD!!!

-Ask about individual characters! YAAAY

-SEND DOODLE REQS!!

- NSFW ASKS, Admin is minor, characters are minors. little "peanits" type jokes are fine!

- FORCE shippy things. we've seen it happen!

-JUST... Don't be weird or rude I guess!!!!!

-------- GUIDE!!

- 🎀 AUBREY! ,Will speak for her in pink!

- ✨ The Maverick!1!1 IN ORANGE<3

- 🍬 KIM! They'll be in blue!!!

- 🍭 VANCE, red fella!!

-☕ CHARLIE!!! Purple for her!!

- 🧩 ANGEL-- Green. Greeeeee!!

- 🌙 ADMIN - (We'll..just type in white)

(NOTEEE. we can take headspace asks and doodle reqs too!!!!! so.. they'll be in the same colours)

--- YAAY! send asks..NEOW!1!1!1

[lilac-gold]

thinking about how one of kel's first lines is "man, aubrey always gets what she wants". thinking about how aubrey wanted to go see sweetheart's show for hearts, so hero took them all to sweetheart's show for hearts. thinking about how aubrey told molly not to touch omori, and she didn't again.

thinking about how all aubrey wanted was to keep her friend group together. thinking about how aubrey's clothes are too big in headspace, she only has one toy and in the real world, her house is a tip with her room almost bare. thinking about how aubrey wanted to keep the photos of mari and throw the rest in the bin, and how she put them back in the album after kel picked it out of the trash.

thinking about how sunny viewed her as a protector of his as a kid, someone who'd look for for him, and how the hooligans trust her to lead and look out for them, and how hero and mari were like older siblings to her when she was younger, and how aubrey's parents didn't look out for her. thinking about how aubrey is angry and insulted and violent and vengeful, and how she wants the girl she knew as a sister to come back. thinking about how she believes she wasn't enough for her old friends, for anyone. thinking about how little possessions she has, how she pushes away people who care about her, how she's viewed as a "bad kid" by the residents of faraway.

want is such a big theme with aubrey. in headspace, every one of hers is fulfilled. in the real world, we see almost none being.

[77ngiez-archive]

post-good end omori thoughts brought to u by the sunny omori himself

sunny and basil stay really close, mostly because they think everybody else in the group hates them but theyve been thru too much shit together to hate each other. basils the first in the group to get his drivers license (besides hero) and so sometimes he’ll drive up to the city sunny lives in. he’ll leave friday right after school and stay until sunday evening. sunny’s mom is almost always gone working so it’s nice that basil’s around.

basil is also the only one that sunny’s told about headspace. partly because of the aforementioned "wow everybody else probably hates me for killing mari" and partly because. basil could see "something". he doesnt tell basil everything ofc but he tells him a fair amount, and weirdly basil can guess some stuff before sunny says it. or maybe it’s more than guessing, who’s to say?

at any rate, because basil and sunny know about headspace but the others don’t, that’s another reason that they’re closer even when the main friend group reconnects. aubrey will be over at basils and mention that she’s considering dying her hair purple, and basil flinches and is like "are you sure thats a good idea?" and shes like What Are You On About and then he has to avoid the topic.

obviously the rest of the group Does Not hate sunny and basil (except maybe hero a bit, but not even him really, he’s just in a lot of pain), but it takes a bit to get that through their thick (read: traumatized) heads. it ends up being kel who helps sunny realize that he’s been forgiven.

for basil, oddly, it’s kim—she noticed aubrey was acting weird ever since sunny moved, and she felt guilty about having bullied basil in the past, so she tried to talk to him about it. obviously he didn’t tell her about the whole mari thing, but he tried to help her understand what was going on with aubrey a bit because he still cares about her. yadda yadda yadda kim and basil ended up becoming friends somehow, and bcoz aubrey drags kim (aka kim follows her) to a lot of her hangouts with kel and hero, kim ends up picking up on a bunch of stuff that never gets said out loud. and she convinces basil that he is NOT universally hated by everybody except sunny.

sunny completely loses his eye, and so he wears his eyepatch at pretty much all times except when he’s sleeping. even though he’s home alone. he feels like when he looks at things with his missing eye socket, he can see omori and mari. so he just. covers it lol.

hero dates a lot of girls from college. they never last too long, though. he’s never really managed to get over mari, but he knows she’d want him to, so he’s trying. but none of his relationships really work out since his heart still wholly belongs to a dead girl.

kel still bottles things up for a bit. everybody can tell that he’s upset, but he refuses to admit it, until one day aubrey takes him to one of those places where you just break things. kel first treats it like a joke, but he ends up screaming and crying and shouting while he breaks things.

"SUNNY!! BASIL!! I— FUCK YOU!!! I LOVE YOU BUT FUCK YOU!!! I HATE YOU!!! I HATE YOU SUNNY, I HATE YOU BASIL, I HATE YOU HERO, I HATE YOU AUBREY, I HATE YOU HERO!!! I WISH YOU GUYS WOULD STOP NEEDING ME FOR JUST A MOMENT!!! WHY AREN’T I ALLOWED TO BREAK DOWN?! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU, I HATE ALL OF YOU, EVEN MARI, I HATE EVERYBODY, I HATE EVERYTHING, I HATE IT SO MUCH-!!" and etc

but once he gets it all out, he’s a lot better. he’s even more willing to be vulnerable and talk about things. although he’s only really able to bear his soul with aubrey. for what it’s worth, it’s pretty reciprocal.

speaking of aubrey. she’s probably been coping the best for the past four years, but once sunny tells her the truth, she kinda breaks. she copes with self-destructive behavior, and sometimes drugs (mostly just weed, from the maverick). she stays really close with the hooligans, maybe even closer than with the others. it takes years, and sunny and basil’s permission, but eventually she tells kim everything.

when they reach college, they end up going to the same place—except hero, who’s graduated from medical school but is taking online classes for culinary school without telling his parents.

basil and sunny move in together, because. they’re still very very close. aubrey lives in her car. on purpose. most of the hooligans do, to be honest. they’re still super tight-knit. kel lived in college housing, but eventually hero made him move in with him, which ended up being good for them both.

basil and sunny have hallucinations. sunny’s are mostly omori and the stranger (mari’s gone now, and he thinks maybe she wasn’t a hallucination after all but her ghost, who’s finally moved on now that the group is healing enough). basil’s are mostly something, although sometimes he sees the headspace version of himself. sometimes alive, sometimes with his head crushed like a watermelon. (when he talks about it after a particularly bad nightmare, sunny chokes up, because he never told basil that particular detail.)

uhh yeah this is getting too long soo goodbye for now lol

[volivolition]

hey, so your drama skilltober drawing (which is amazing btw!!) got me wondering, do you headcanon that the skills are like, aware of how many levels they have? like obviously endurance and volition have those health pool meters but theyre kinda special cases lol

but do you think the others are consciously aware of their levels or do they just kinda vaguely know its easier/harder to do their job when harry is wearing this or that clothing, has this or that thought internalized, etc

HI OMG THANK YOU!! yes they do! not aware of the whole game aspect (except Tutorial Agent who is Very Aware of All Of It), but the skills are often aware of meta things in my fics and headcanons, where they acknowledge things like skill points, tasks, giving harry choices, check difficulties/successes/failures, and a few other mechanics (usually when it'd be funny tbh hgdhjf, i find a lot of humor in leaning into the fourth wall <33)

for clothes specifically, i have a whole bit in Meet the Parts where they suit up in Shivers bonuses so they can go talk to her hjkgjgs

SAVOIR FAIRE – Best to dress for the occasion!  INLAND EMPIRE – Her voice can be elusive otherwise, lost in the bluster and breeze. VOLITION – Which ones are her favorites again? I know your big white coat is one. She gave that to you. ESPRIT DE CORPS – The RCM patrol cloak. It’s one that she and I share. A keen knowledge of the city while searching the streets in her name, to protect her people. All of your half-siblings serve her well, wearing this. She guards us as you guard her. SUGGESTION – The scarf with the spring perfume! PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Ugh, I hate that thing. You want to talk to the big lady while sneezing all over her? I don’t get what she likes so much about it. Though, her tastes aren't all bad. She likes the Hjelmdall shirt too. AUTHORITY – I thought you said they *aren’t* all bad. The shirt is terrible. You’re an officer of the law, not some T-shirt wearing hooligan. Zip up the coat if you're wearing it, that's an order. INTERFACING - Alright, that's +3, which totals 7 for the city.

^ as a note: Polar Anorak gives +1 Composure (<- he says something after Esprit's line actually, i cut it for space) and +1 Shivers, RCM Patrol Cloak is +1 Esprit and +1 Shivers, Scented Scarf gives you +1 Shivers, but -2 Phys Instrument (due to allergies lmao), Hjelmdall T-Shirt gives +1 to both Phys Instrument and Shivers, but -2 to Authority hkgj (since you can't wear both jackets, it's only a +3)

all this to say, yes, they know their levels!! :D actually, in my headcanons, Conceptualization created the skill chart specifically so they could all keep track of skill points!! it's a tangible thing in their headspace, built right into the control board (if you look closely, you can see it under volition's right hand here actually!!) :] all the skill portraits? that's Concept's art style babey!! xe painted all of them, Logic sorted them, and Interfacing set it up to work! gotta love some skill teamwork <333

[moog-enthusiast]

photobomb offers a combination of many wonderful tropes that i enjoy. it combines childhood friends to lovers and enemies to lovers, (though enemies is used very loosely, keep in mind). they were each others first friends, and then first enemies, and in my mind at least- first to reconcile with one another. they’re both lonely people who care deeply about their relationships, and both particularly insecure in them despite having different outlooks- with aubrey being more angry outwardly, and basils meek anxious running away.

aubrey loved cutesy cheerful things growing up, and likely still does as a teen, even if she tries to cover it up! basil likes to share his interest with others, and aubrey likes the attention and the help, and it bounces off of each other.

Basils “softness” can help Aubrey feel safe enough to let her own softness and emotion deep through too. Aubrey’s tough outlook on the other hand, is beneficial to basil as well, being that she could be an excellent help to getting basil to stand up for himself and get a little more confidence to say no and stand off.

they also have matching color-schemes which is just very cute to me…

even in headspace it’s obvious how much they cared for each other. in realworld too, basil was the first person aubrey looked for after the incident. basil was her comfort person, and she wanted him to be the first to join her again. if it weren’t for the miscommunications and basils savior complex surrounding sunny, then i have no doubt they’d be leaning on each other throughout those four years!

when things get rough, the bullying isn’t truly from aubrey herself either. she still cares about basil, and while she does wrongly act as a bystander, she never approaches basil, and tries to leave him alone via distancing herself. basil broke that distance to try and talk to her again out of his own desperation, only to be met by the pushback of the hooligans, trying to get him away from aubrey knowing she was pissed at him.

after the lake incident—(which was an accident) — she immediately feels guilty for acting on a whim, and feels even worse in neutral endings!

tl;dr —> they lov each other