#just realised this spiraled into a while Ojima MaDD analysis from just a simple ask

[laniemae]

OMG OJIMA THOUGHTS (rn mine are all just “AHHHHHHHHH”

ID LOVE TO HEAR YOURS

OJIMAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Hmm my thoughts I have so many thoughts about Ojima that it’s impossible to properly convey all at them at once so I’ll just go over what I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my thoughts on his maladaptive daydreaming.

So I feel like there hasn’t been enough discussion on Ojima’s maladaptive daydreaming despite it being really important to his character. And there’s a lot we still really don’t know about his daydreaming which I hope to be further expanded upon in the story or an interview. One of the things I think about a lot is what type of paracosm (daydream world) Ojima has in particular. And I think back to one scene in chapter 1 where everyone was discussing about how to get up to the vent with Ojima suggesting fantastical ideas such as a grappling hook and flying while he was out of it. Which could make me think it could be a childish world in nature especially with him being a children’s illustrator, perhaps drawing inspired from his daydreams. And how it’s said in the secret logs that he draws out his daydreams all over the walls of his room.

Something I really wanna know is what person Ojima is in his daydreams. Like maladaptive daydreamers aren’t always themselves in their daydreams, they can take on perspectives of characters that aren’t them, sometimes switching between multiple. Being an idealised version of themselves, a spectator watching the events or something else. And I think it’d be really interesting to figure out this specifically with Ojima as we still don’t exactly know too much on how he views himself as a person.

It seems Ojima’s main trigger for daydreaming is stress, said so in his interview in the prologue, but he also says that he just likes to do it. And from what we’ve seen as Ojima tends to space out and have trouble staying grounded when stressful things are bought up with him such as his parents and the killing game, probably either being typical dissociation or slipping into his daydreams. And as well we’ve seen him completely black out for hours after witnessing the deaths and being completely unresponsive to everything.

And the nature of his daydreams are quite interesting as sometimes in real life people may pace around or do certain things while daydreaming but in Ojima’s case he is completely still. But still able to perform motor actions such as walking when Hiroaki was guiding him throughout the 2nd investigation. And as well specifically after traumatic occurrences such as witnessing Sasaki and Chiba’s deaths he becomes unresponsive for hours at a time, despite peoples attempts to bring him back.

It’s also interesting with how in the 3rd investigation we properly were able to see how badly Ojima takes it when he forces himself not to dissociate, especially after the fight with Hiroaki when he blamed him for ruining all the investigations. And with tactical retreat Ojima broke down crying just showing how mentally challenging it is for him to not daydream at the presence of a highly stressful situation. Especially with his daydreaming being a trauma response and he had to survive by retreating into his mind into kinder worlds where he can feel safe. And the absence of being able to daydream is especially stressful to him.

But even with all this we’ve seen how much Ojima’s daydreaming can impact his life. As he misses and doesn’t remember entire days when he spends daydreaming. And even how he can’t control it and misses important deadlines and stuff he does want to be present for. And has been struggling at school with his grades declining and even spacing out and going missing. One thing particularly notable is from how in two truths and a lie when we learned that Ojima has broken a ton of bones, it seems to imply that could be a result of his daydreaming. As when spaced out he’s completely unaware of his surroundings which has seem to have gotten him into a lot of accidents and severe injuries, and how he said that he can’t even drive because of this.

It’s kinda a situation where Ojima has become dependent and essentially addicted to daydreaming. As it gives him a relief from stress and a safe space he can retreat to in his mind. But it interferes with his life heavily by impacting his school and work lives and even seems to have lead him getting injured a lot. And this all developed from his abusive childhood where completely detaching from a traumatic reality and into an innocent daydream world was the only way he could survive.