#yumediary

[makitsukis]

Really intrigued by this thing and its design. I may have to go back later, when you try to leave after examining it you get forced awake - but I Happened to look up from the screen because of my cat. So all I knew was soutarou screamed while I looked up and then suddenly when I looked back down he was back in his room.

(Which something about this also feels fitting for the vibes of this game so far tbh...)

[shakeurlimbsforever]

i need to mute that yumediary account because some of the things i see on there are genuinely insane

[theshipsong]

i'm going to spin my stance against intellectual property into the ultimate defense of non-sharing yumeshippers that also i hope gently critiques that widely shared/mocked yumediary tweet confession

[sams-selfship-madness]

dear yumediary, i wish my f/o didn't become enemy of the government, i miss him :(

[unluckyxse7en]

Oh my god ynfg + yume nikki fanbase

Does everyone know about Yume Tagai? It has super cute designs and lovely sounds from what I’ve seen so far and if thats not good enough the dreamer turns into a whole DEER to run fast??? If you havent seen it yet please do and I’m probably including a playthrough in the rbs for this tbh

[makitsukis]

Ok bye

[makitsukis]

This is fine.

[makitsukis]

Oh cool!

Uhhh...

Uh oh.

[makitsukis]

Decided to pick up Mikan Muzou and uh. Hm.

It's probably fine.

[makitsukis]

Yay comfy chair!

Hey wait a sec-

[makitsukis]

[makitsukis]

Forgot the rest of the mikan muzou posts I have are queued, not necessarily posted... now my dream diary is gonna be out of order 😔

[makitsukis]

Found my 6th effect, Window, and he started doing this... is he developing headaches or something as I find more effects? Was this a random thing by chance, like how I think Madotsuki sometimes wakes up with her head turned funny? I'll be intrigued to see if this means anything more...

[unluckyxse7en]

Return of the Yume Nikki posting - I found this spot in the white desert that I don’t remember seeing anyone find on playthroughs? The squares make really fun noises, I highly recommend looking for it when you’re in the offset areas of the world.

[unluckyxse7en]

Ok im gonna ramble about my Smile hcs, mostly in regards to where he fits in Sabitsuki’s story.

DISCLAIMER: I have not/cannot(?) play the game, this is based on what I’ve observed watching a few .flow playthroughs, I may be missing or misremembering some details.

(readmore because long and incoherent)

But basically like. You see Smile everywhere in the school world, and then in the house just outside of its borders. Obviously his influence is pervasive. He’s in one classroom each on at least two different floors, and then on the rooftop, but it doesn’t end there, because there’s also the iconography littering the school, the eyes and smiles plastered on the hallway and classroom walls, and whatever those weird things are in that one room with the eyes printed on them.

And in all of these representations, he’s clearly a threatening presence, or at least unnerving. And on top of that, untouchable. You can’t even get to him because he’s barricaded away in the classrooms, and on the rooftop you can’t even take a pipe to him. When other npcs balk at the iron pipe, he lives up to his name and Smiles, pulling out a carpenter’s hammer. He almost literally laughs in the face of danger. You can’t intimidate him.

But there’s a reason for that. He can’t afford to be seen as vulnerable.

When you see him in the house, his demeanor doesn’t change too much. If you hold a weapon he grins at you. But it’s the setting you find him in that changes everything. It’s the small, empty room, the little girl behind him, that adds a whole new layer of interpretation for this guy.

Were they neglected? Orphaned? Was he the only one his sister could rely on? Clearly she could and felt comfortable doing so to some capacity - even when you’re not threatening them, she clings tightly to his back, only peeking from safety occasionally before dipping back behind him. He’s the only one there for her, and despite- or perhaps because- of his life at school, he can’t afford to let anyone get to him. He can’t afford to be beaten down, and makes sure no one does.

Which brings me to the thought process of, how much did Sabitsuki know about this? How much did she understand? She was very obviously closely tied to Smile and his gang in some way beyond being a victim - the tattoo effect points to this, an iron pipe being a good choice of weapon for a gang member, that whole mini-event with gaining the school uniform effect… I could go on, but a lot of the symbology adds up to say that Sabitsuki was just as much a part of Smile’s gang, she may have respected him as much as she feared him. If nothing else, she was clearly quite familiar with him at school and I feel like the effect version of himself on the rooftop commands a sense of awe more than fear.

“But if she sees him and his sister in that house, doesn’t that mean she already knew?”

And maybe she did! But something I’ve seen a few people speculate about that adds an interesting layer to this is, the reason she enters via computer is because she isn’t just dreaming, she’s also researching. Searching for leads, dredging up information on old classmates, all while she tries to work through her memories and trauma… It adds the possibility of, maybe she didn’t know. Or never made the full connection.

Smile’s house is very close to the school world, but also so very detached all at the same time. You go up all these stairs to this abstract building that’s barely even recognizable as a house. There’s nothing about the setting, save the character himself, that really conveys it’s connected to the school at all. Maybe she never really knew and is only learning about this while researching. Or maybe she had been to his house, a bare handful of times, and met his sister, but nothing else ever leapt out. Maybe she didn’t make the connection until years later, sitting alone in her own one-room apartment, that he was essentially fending for himself and his sister. It’s entirely possible she knew this well and understood why at the time, but given how detached it feels, it seems somewhat unlikely.

So tl;dr I feel like Smile as a character has his own interesting subnarrative sprinkled throughout the game, and despite the fear and raw intimidation he clearly stands for and influences/d in Sabitsuki, also has undertones of his own troubled backstory and call me a sucker but that makes him suddenly more sympathetic to me and thus… I had to write an analysis. Ty for coming to my ted talk.

[unluckyxse7en]

I really like that .flow has very transparent symbology everywhere like... Even when a lot of it pulls obviously from yume nikki for reference, there's a lot of common threads and themes that all build up to a more cohesive narrative about the individual going through these dreams(?). Like I feel like I can easily find symbolism in half of the effects for Sabitsuki alone.

And maybe it's not so transparent to be one straightforward interpretation? It probably isn't, my takeaway isn't going to be the same as someone else's, especially when ultimately I'll never be able to cover every inch of the game myself to analyze it for all the pieces of the puzzle. But it's easier to tell when there's a significance in the choices made for the game and that entices me to apply my own reading of it, making it pretty interactive for me as an experience.

(Not that Yume Nikki doesn't Also do this but there's enough in there that feels like it's intended to BE meaningless the way dream mush is, so I have a harder time sorting out what's an abstract symbol and what's just there to add to the surreal atmosphere.)