#musethemoose

[mussthemoose]

Omori Sibling Swap AU

I had this brain worm in my head for too long so now I’m writing it out here. Basic premise is that Sunny and Kel swap as siblings, with Sunny staying with his parents and Mari swapping over to Hero’s. Under the cut because it might get a bit long and also because it’s likely going to have a few uh...things in it.

tw: child neglect, child abuse (being safe for this one)

Mari and Kel

I’m going to have to be honest right out of the gate here, these two definitely get the better end of the deal in this

It doesn’t matter if it was going to be Kel or Sunny, Mari absolutely loved the idea of having a little sibling

She spends time with him, adores being around her little ball of energy and excitement that just wants to go go go

And she’s more than happy to go with him! She often leads, but never has trouble with getting Kel to run off charging forward on his own, letting him take the chance to explore the world. “It’s your own little oyster” as Mari would love to say

Kel grows up with a sister who understands that he sees the world in his own way, interacts with it a bit differently than most people would think, and who spends the time to try to understand that

She teaches him how to interact with people and solve his problems working with his mindset, different than his parents who seem to be almost patronizing when they try to teach him the ‘right’ way to do it

Mari doesn’t ever tell him he’s doing it wrong, she only ever works with him on how to interact with the world without accidentally stepping on its toes in his excitement

Kel grows up an excitable and rambunctious kid as always, and while he might not be completely there for the book smarts, he is stupidly good at emotional intelligence, even more so than in the base game

Because he’s had someone help him learn how to interact and process his own emotions, how to recognize and respond to others own emotional states, he’s much more able to read someone and then go “oh, I should probably act like X because they’re not feeling too well.”

He’s a much happier healthier kid too, because Mari is his role model, and with having a household that still has expectations, but isn’t as strict on her to meet them? Her perfectionism doesn’t develop as hard over the years, and she’s always had a stronger personality, enough to be able to stand firm in doing what she wants to, not just meeting her parents expectations

She does still meet them often because she’s just Like That to a degree, but it’s important to Kel because it lets him know that when he tries to follow in her footsteps, it’s not because Mari is the better sibling and he needs to follow her example, even if he refuses to believe she’s not the better sibling because she’s just so amazing and loving in his eyes

It’s because Mari shows that if she excels because it’s who she is and it’s what she wants to do, than it’s also fine to be bad at some stuff but good at other stuff if that’s what Kel wants to do!

And unlike Hero, Mari doesn’t try to play as the neutral party/the diplomat in the household when her parents talk down at Kel she steps in and puts her foot down, lets him know that he doesn’t need to be just like her, that he’s perfect in his own way

Kel’s never happier than when she says he’s perfect the way he is. Mari loves when things are perfect, perfection is something she strives for, he knows how much it means to her

So every time Mari says he’s perfect, he feels like he’s doing something right

Talking about how they will interact with the friend group as a whole is likely for another post, but know that by their powers combined these two are fucking nightmares of pranksters. There is no escape, only japes.

Hero and Sunny

Hero and Sunny...do not get the better end of the deal, but to be more specific Sunny does not

Hero does not actually have much problem with the household. High expectations and standards put on his shoulders would be an issue...if he wasn’t Hero

It’s not to say those expectations aren’t an issue, that he doesn’t feel the pressure nipping at his heals, but Hero is someone who is good at everything he does without much effort, and excels when he puts his mind into it

The only thing he doesn’t excel completely at is sports, but when he seems to be able to handle any instrument handed to him, be top of his class, and even at a young age have his charisma start to shine through? His parents don’t really hold it against him outside of light teasing

One of the jokes his father would say when Sunny was born is that he might finally be able to play some sports with

Hero can still play sports, he can play catch, he can do most things as long as he doesn’t do them for long and overexert himself, he’s just not perfect at it. (He doesn’t know why this upsets him so much)

Sunny is not someone to play sports with, and in fact he doesn’t seem to be one to do a lot of things unless he’s told to, and even then it can be...tricky, to know exactly what he wants to do

It’s not too bad for awhile, there’s high expectations still but he’s still a little kid for awhile

They have Hero, and the parents at least know that two golden star children is maybe a bit too much to expect, that Sunny will learn how to catch up eventually, especially with Hero as a role model and being there to guide him

And this, this is the first time Hero feels like he’s really failing at something important

He’s not Mari, he loves his little brother and every time he can get a smile out of him it means the world to him, he would do anything to help out Sunny

But he’s not Mari, he realizes this when the two eventually meet and he sees how she acts around Kel, realizes how much better she is at just understanding people. Sees that she seems to figure out Sunny better in a few weeks than the entire lifetime that he’s had

It’s not that he’s completely bad at it or doesn’t understand at all, but Hero has learnt a lot of his charisma tied to how to please other people, how to be what they want him to be because that’s what’s expected of him

In the main universe Kel didn’t need his help to be himself, to interact with the world, their relationship dynamic was different where Hero was the role model that tried to help Kel ‘be better’

Sunny follows Hero like a little duckling, trying his best to mimic when he can, but that’s most of what it ends up being, mimicry

Hero doesn’t know how to understand Sunny in the way he wants to, the way Sunny needs him to, and it hurts

He helps as much as he can, with homework that he translates in a way Sunny seems to get so that he doesn’t do bad not good enough, but not bad, just enough to be disappointing compared to Hero, not a disappointment...yet

Sunny does not grow up with someone who understands him like Mari understood him, he has someone who loves him dearly and would do anything to get him to come out of his cage, who has helped him open up more than he would have on his own

But it’s not the same

Sunny grows up with the axe of disappointment hanging over his head even more than before. Kel’s parents would at least say that he should be more like Hero. After a point Sunny’s parents just...stop.

It’s not that he’s even less of a disappointment, but almost like he’s not worth the energy and time to say so anymore. If you never met Sunny or had seen the pictures in the house you might not even know they had a son besides Hero, and Sunny can’t help but feel that they might like it better that way

Sunny doesn’t mind, really! It’s not like they’re actually hurting him or starving him or any manner of things. His dad tolerates him and his Mom really does love him, he just knows that Hero is the only one they really want and that if he suddenly vanished one day than it really wouldn’t be that much of an issue because they’d still have Hero. A story only needs one Hero to carry on, he knows that he’s just the side character

Hero is a mixture of ignorant and...afraid. Not of his parents, they love him too much for him to ever be seriously concerned and they actually do listen to him (a part of him calls him a coward because of that, what kind of Hero has the power to save someone but then doesn’t?)

But he’s worried of ever losing that respected position of favored child, respected child, the perfect prodigy. This is just the way things are in his world. He does his best to guide Sunny through it and hope that his love is enough for him even though he knows it isn’t, it’s nowhere near what he needs, what he deserves

He’s known this ever since the day when Sunny came over to his bed because he had another nightmare, but his presence didn’t save his little brother from restless sleep after. That’s when he knew he failed, because even if Sunny didn’t say it, he realized that Hero couldn’t...or wouldn’t, protect him him from the things that scared him

Hero is thankful for meeting Mari, for meeting everyone in the friend group, because Sunny finally has people who can understand him better, and teach Hero how to help out Sunny the way he’s always hoped he could

It’s not perfect, there’s still a mountain or problems but...Sunny followed him around now these days like a little duckling because he really did just believe that Hero was someone he wanted to follow

...And not just because he was afraid that if he didn’t have Hero, there wouldn’t be anyone left who’d really love him

[trescic]

Mcgee is too photogenic submitted by /u/MuseTheMoose to /r/aww

[mussthemoose]

.....drop the sunny meta.....plssssssss.....do it do it do it.....also what do you think about Sunnys mom? No one ever talks about her but I ahve feelings

Ps don’t leave me hanging!! o/

Hey there! Finally got around to giving this an answer because I’ve procrastinated on it enough! Here’s a few things I’m going to drop that’s personal headcanons and stuff from what I gathered from the game:

-People say Sunny is a good listener, and the reason for that isn’t just because he’s quiet, it’s because Sunny has a very active imagination and whenever he listens to someone talking, he seems to almost be making a whole little scene in his head -He doesn’t express a lot, but you can always tell he gets the meaning behind what you’re saying once you learn to read his expressions -It’s also a sign he really likes you, because the space inside Sunny’s head is very precious to him so him letting your words roam free there of his own choice is just a huge mark of trust for him -In order of people who can read Sunny: Basil, Mari, Kel, tie between Hero and Aubrey. -They can all actually ready him pretty damn well, it mostly comes down to who can notice the smaller signs. -Basil puts as much love and effort into noticing the little things for Sunny as he does for his most loved plants, and he has a lot of experience with noticing when something small is wrong in something that doesn’t give many signs about it -Mari is second, but it’s a very close second. She’s been with Sunny since he was a baby and puts so much love and effort into understanding him. The only reason she is slightly lower than Basil is, in part, because of how well she’s known Sunny in a paradoxical way. -Sunny is after all, at the end of the day, still someone who can be tricky to read, and sometimes it’s easy to look at past ways he’s acted and think it’s just a repeat of that instead of something new. Like a parent who doesn’t realize that they’re using personal knowledge that’s 7 years old to figure out what you like. -Hero and Aubrey can ready Sunny quite well, they just don’t notice the small signs as much. It doesn’t make them any worse friends for that, but Hero tends to take people on their word and Aubrey trusts her friends, and hopes they’d let her know if they needed help or were hurting. -Kel is...an interesting case. You’d think he’d be the densest for reading Sunny, and sometimes, in some ways, he is. But also I think he’d be one of the few to realize how much Sunny was hating the violin. -Everyone else I think, from what we see, seem to think that he’s just being Sunny, worried about doing something with these expectations but thinking that’s just how he normally acts, and he must obviously love getting to play with his sister Mari! -But Kel is so honest and straight forward that he’d put the pieces together, how Sunny has to be pushed to play for them, how sad he looks to have to leave to practice with the tutor, the look he gets sometimes staring at Mari. -He still doesn’t say anything because even though Sunny seems sad and upset, he knows what it’s like to feel like that to do something for an older sibling who’s just so much better, so for once he lets it slide because he also trusts that Mari is a good sibling and would stop him if something was seriously wrong, like when Kel almost got to the point of throwing up in the hotdog eating competition and Hero stopped him (but still managed to win...) -Later, realizing what happened later post-truth, Kel reaffirms to himself that he’s always going to be honest when he sees one of his friends hurting. Never again. -Sunny’s favourite breakfast is that oatmeal with the dinosaur eggs that melt to reveal dinosaurs when it’s warm and his absolute favourite thing is to pretend that he’s digging them up from a sand dune, hence the whole dino dig. -He does this well into his adult years still -Kel got him a pirate eyepatch after noticing this (Sunny makes sure to dig it out whenever Kel visits, it makes him happy...and maybe Sunny happy a bit too). To stop this post from getting too incredibly big, some Sunny’s Mom meta real quick: -I’ve read a lot of meta, and I personally think she didn’t know the truth. -Sunnysviolin did a really great few posts about autistic Sunny which I heavily agree with, and I heavily agree with the fact Sunny’s parents probably aren’t the best fit for the kids they got (it’s really easy to code them as Asian-American and there is a lot there when it comes to non-neurotypical kids) -And while there is a decently common consensus that Sunny’s dad has a lot of disappointment in Sunny for not being like Mari, I feel like Sunny’s mom was one of those ‘bless her heart she’s trying but she really does not understand at all’ -I feel like she’s tried, honestly tried, but didn’t have as much time to try to look into this stuff that Mari had, or the drive to think she needed to do so heavily in a sense. -Mari loved Sunny so much and seemed to want to do so much of the work anyways, and it’s so much effort to even get a proper idea of how Sunny’s mind works so, I think she’d end up being happy to have Mari be a sort of translator for her, more or less -She wouldn’t excessively baby him, though she’d likely act a bit much because she doesn’t really understand how his mind works so she goes with what she knows instead of what’s best -And at the point where we start the game, I think the whole ‘mommy’ thing where she seems to almost baby him comes after Mari is gone. -Her Husband is gone, Mari is gone, and her last son barely seems to be able to take care of himself unless she holds his hand to do it (not because he can’t do it, but Sunny seems to have trouble sometimes finding enough care to put in the bare minimum effort to survive). -It seems more likely to me that she, like some other people, tried to mentally distance herself from everything. -Her sun is all she has left and all he wants to do is sleep, she’s entirely out of her comfort zone and she doesn’t have any lifelines. -I think there’s a part of her that knows this too, that knows that this situation isn’t good, and isn’t fine, but what’s she even supposed to do? She doesn’t know, so she...just keeps going on. -It’s horrible, everything is wrong, she’s hurting and suppressing and she just wants Mari back so so much, she wants her husband back, she even wants Sunny back because at least back then he’d look at her when she said she loved him. -But they’re not coming back, Mari is never coming back and she knows that without her she has no chance in figuring out how to pull in the other two. -Sunny’s all she has left, and sometimes she doesn’t even known for certain if he counts at this point in the bad endings she gets an answer, he did. He counted for so much and now she has nothing

-Sunny’s mom once yelled “Ayo, the pizza is here!” and Mari almost tripped down the stairs with Sunny. They all had a laugh at it after a gentle scolding to be more careful. -Sunny always takes the steps extra carefully whenever he picks up food delivery with his friends post-true end, none of them say anything about the way he grips the handrails hard enough to leave a mark on the way down