Hi, I am a lifelong mental healther and I'd rather have a million people with no experience with suicidal ideation make a million shitty/lazy/stupid suicide games than have one person who's been there get scared away from making art about their experiences.
What an awful take. :( There are many games made by people who have actually gone through such experiences, and I've never seen them get hate.
If anyone is looking for one, I highly recommend: i won't finish this game
ETA: Now that I have a moment to sift through some past games, I'd also personally recommend The Longest Walk and Winter in June for other short experiences about the same topics (depression/suicide) and Adventures With Anxiety! for anyone struggling with or curious about anxiety disorders. All hit close to home for me.
Take care of yourselves and please make sure you're in a good headspace if you decide to read/play. 🧡
What a horrible thing to say. Mental health as is, especially depression, is already very demonized and misunderstood. People making a million bad games about negative streotypes about depression will only harm, not help and make it significally harder for them to get any sort of help. People who have these ideations and make these games about their own experiences usually do it in a respectful and carthodic way that does not harm anyone and these games barely get enough attention as is, so you pushing this mentality on other people and displaying it proudly on a creators page is actually very gross. You are pushing a very harmful viewpoint and if you cared about other peoples experiences and other fellow "mental healthers" you would not be saying this as it benefits no one but rather pushes them back into regressive and stigmatized corner. Shame on you.
hmmmmmm idk no clue maybe because DDLC did it a lot better and accurately wrote Sayoris issues and struggles to be realistic instead of just shoehorning the suicide in? That’s just me tho 😂😂 you do your own thing bro! Have you ever considered that maybe execution is important and doing research on these issues before you write them is a good thing? Learn some critical thinking and understand media literacy and come back to me.
DDLC was the most I've ever been upset by a piece of media as an adult, not because the game has onscreen suicide and self-harm but because after that it goes "they're AIs of shitty moe archetypes and the only reason they're this fucked up is that Monika altered their code to make them less likable, so really who cares". Sayori and Yuri being well-written actually makes this worse, because the twist comes after they were already made relatable. It still baffles me that this game isn't universally detested by the mentally ill.
And yet, that game is meaningful to many people who've experienced serious mental illness. Because people get different things out of art, and are not all offended by the same list of writing decisions. This is a part of critical thinking and media literacy, too.
Good for you that you dislike it, I’m just saying that the difference is one is well written and the other isn’t and that is apart of the reason why people like one and detest the other. That’s also apart of media literacy. I never said you couldn’t like it or that it was an accurate representation of your issues or all our issues as being mentally ill, all I said is that because it had nuance and made the characters likable and throughly explained a lot of plot threads and did a new and interesting story it is way more meaningful and memorable in that way. I’m tired of you guys trying to write this off as art when art has meaning and research and love put into this while this did not. That is the primary difference. Your main points were still bad and this doesn’t prove or deny anything, congratulations for disliking a universally loved game, you are so original and unique.
broski they did it the practically the same way the only difference was that sayori decides to open up to the player and this character doesn't they both used the suicide as shock value and ddlc literally stays one the death longer, like ur all hating n the game for a two second picture how tf are they supposed to show research on suicide for a 2 second picture???
First, don’t call me broski. Second, Sayori was different because she actually displayed clear symptoms throughout the story, even after her death, directly or otherwise you had a lot more time to get to know her and even if she didn’t decide to tell you it was actually adequately explained why. (Monika’s doing and Sayori’s own trauma combined to why she did what she did.) Zilas was a bad portrayal because it made it seem like a split second decision and it was very unrealistic, especially since he literally set goals for himself and for the future and he literally sold his SOUL to Ryuk just so how he could have extra time with the protagonist, why on earth would he want to die? I understand what Jenny was trying to do, influencers are real life people too and they have feelings, but suicide in situations where depression aren’t involved are highly rare and highly unlikely. But I don’t think Jenny was given adequate time to actually explore this topic to the extent she wanted to and that caused ALOT of writing contrivances. I actually don’t think comparing DDLC to GL is a good comparison since one took years of actual development and one took a month. People should not do topics like suicide of depression if they do not have the time or motivation to do it in a proper and professional way. This is not me trying to say Sayori’s issues are 100 percent realistic and this is how every suicidal person should feel, I am merely saying the developers had different time frames and one was too ambitious and wanted to do a lot in a short amount of time which left a lot of plot holes and the other had years and years to think about how he could do it properly. Jenny should’ve saved this project for something else or released it in small doses instead of trying to dip her toes in everything at once and biting off more then she could chew. DDLC has its own issues, of course, but comparing it to GL and acting like everyone is comparing it to it is not a good take or comparison because one person said so.
maybe think it's because were seeing it in more of the players perspective than zilas in ddlc we are given more info on how the girls feel but this game prolly is going for mcs perspective as zilas never really truly opened up and from the perspective of a loved one suicide is often feels random and out of nowhere . But i do get what ur trying to say.
I agree that DDLC was well-written, and that people are going to like things that are well-written better than things that aren't. I'm also not using the word "art" to say that a creative work is necessarily good. There's a lot of bad art out there, and a lot of it's lazy or empty, but a lot of it did involve effort/love/etc even if things didn't work out.
My reason for talking about the reaction I had to DDLC is just, harm is complicated! DDLC was actually really bad for my mental health. I'm not trying to be special, I played the game and then was triggered for days. It is a pretty clear-cut case of being harmed by exposure to a piece of media, and I'm not the only one who had this reaction. But a lot of other mentally ill people liked the game and found it meaningful, and they would be harmed if it was taken away for being harmful to others, and the writer would've been harmed by being prevented from or harassed for telling his story, and any mentally ill people who wanted to create works with similar elements would've been put in a position where they might feel like they had to choose between giving up or dealing with an amount of hostility they may not be equipped to handle, and that's definitely harmful, too. It's a mess, and there's no way to make sure nobody gets hurt. And it seems like you know this, because you're not writing DDLC off for having badly fucked with some people's heads. I don't think you should write it off, it clearly has value to people, but elsewhere in this conversation you're talking about harm as if it's very black and white and it really isn't.
I understand this a lot better and get your point completely, this cleared some stuff up and helped me get more clarity on what you meant. I wasn’t trying to invalidate your feelings about you not liking DDLC, it’s a reasonable reaction to not like something you don’t feel like represents you properly and I think people will have a different reaction to all sorts of things, depression or suicidal ideations or anything besides that everyone is going to have a difference of opinion and not share the exact same sentiments 24/7 and that much I completely understand. I’m going to have disagree with the harm thing however, I don’t think it’s all black and white and good and bad, I see both the bad and the good in both games and I’m not saying either are the most accurate portrayals and even if they were, to some, like you said, they couldn’t be to them. I’m not saying DDLC hasn’t hurt anyone but it’s just kinda rare that I see anyone say it did, which is why I had my initial reaction to what you had said. I’m just behind the standpoint that I don’t think you should be preaching how people should release bad games about suicidal ideation and bad representations of mental health to profit off of when we’re already a very stigmatized and misunderstood group of people, and I think that viewpoint is harmful. There is pros and cons to a lot of games that deal with this, but I don’t think you should have this mentality when we do not need more of this out in the world when we’ve been treated like monsters and freaks because of it historically for hundreds of years and I think reinforcing the stereotype that people should continue to make bad games about us and not doing any research to approach a sensitive topic is not a very good take.
Never said you weren’t. Just said this was a shitty thing to say and if you cared about what people are saying you’d acknowledge that people have different perspectives and points then you do and claiming people don’t understand art because of messy and shitty writing and plot points and treating it like it’s high art is actually just weird. Do not mince my words, I disagree with your point but I never once claimed you weren’t actually mentally ill and trying to throw in the “I like pancakes” “so you must hate waffles” point is petty and unneeded,I never once said anything like that and you saying that shows me you have not entered the conversation with an open mind and civil intentions. If your going to result to undermining my entire point by taking things extremely out of context, I'd rather just not even bother arguing with someone like you.
edit: grammar
Hi, you absolutely did say it to them though. You said, verbatim, "You are pushing a very harmful viewpoint and if you cared about other peoples experiences and other fellow "mental healthers" you would not be saying this as it benefits no one but rather pushes them back into regressive and stigmatized corner". (You also implied that the creator of the game, which does suck, by the way, don't get me wrong!, can't possibly be mentally ill because THEY are expressing themselves in a way YOU don't like. I don't like it either and I don't know whether that person is mentally ill, but unlike you, I live in a world where I can acknowledge that it's possibly that another mentally ill person might sometimes make stupid art, because of course that can happen.)
So! Considering that original post was very clearly coming from a perspective of caring about other "mental healthers", as it is very insane to imagine that someone saying they don't want to risk accidentally censoring the art of a person who might have mental health issues would mean it for any other reason, the only reasonable assumption is that you're implying that they don't have those issues at all. Or were you trying to say something that made even less sense and was even less relevant? Either way, you've declared that anyone who doesn't have your exact perspective must not care about other people, while brutally attacking anyone who makes art you dislike. This is ridiculous, fundamentally pro-censorship, and overall it's absolutely disgusting. You were trying to be hurtful and you know you were and the least you could do is not be a coward about it, but of course that won't happen, because you don't have a meaningful stance here, and you live life with such intensive cognitive dissonance that you're able to convince yourself that wanting to CENSOR ART THAT YOU PERSONALLY FELT WASN'T VERY GOOD is actually a very good stance that makes the world better. You've convinced yourself that CENSORING PEOPLE will lead to them being somehow more free to discuss sensitive topics, and that NOT CENSORING PEOPLE will lead to them being somehow less free. A child could tell you how little sense that makes.
You haven't taken responsibility for any of the awful things you said, you claim to be defending media literacy and critical thinking even though everything about your approach does nothing but further damage and disincentivize those things, your various posts about this consist of you pretty much refuse to engage honestly with a single point being by anyone you're talking to, and you still have the gall to act like it's OTHERS who aren't approaching this debate in good faith and can't be reasonably engaged with? Yeah, no. The game being criticized sucks, but there's no question whatsoever that you are the person here who should be ashamed.
Don't worry, though, I won't try to debate you. This post really isn't even for you, because you've already made it abundantly clear that you're a dishonest, vicious, pearl-clutching reactionary who has never once been willing to actually communicate. I'm just putting it here because this whole exchange left me searingly angry and I want there to be a record of someone refusing to swallow your crap.
*the one and only edit actually
Forgot about the stupid DDLC take you had in another comment. Not here to debate that with scum like you either, but WOW it sure was gross how you responded by basically saying "lol who cares that the game I liked more actually hurt you, because I liked it" and then deliberately implied that they secretly only disliked the game because it's popular, as if it's literally impossible for someone to have a different experience than yours and anyone who did must be lying. And please don't even bother trying to explain how actually when you said that you meant something else. You meant what you said and you know it. Alright, peace. I hope your life is really, really bad and it only ever gets worse.
You’re allowed to disagree with my point but WOW. It hurt you, someone who was not even involved in this exchange, THAT much, to where you have to harass and want someone’s life to be worse because they disagree with you, how am I pro censorship?? I’d argue that’s more pro censorship than my points could ever be and resulting to insulting someone and calling them names instead of having a discussion does not make you look like the superior one in the argument and instead makes you seem a lot worse, you sound extremely childish, immature and you sound like a sad, lonely, miserable person and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be around you because of the way you act. If your only argument is to verbally beat someone cuz they dare to not have the same opinion as you and get THIS heated about a conversation YOU aren’t even in, I think it shows just how cruel and hateful you are, how am I the reactionary one when your first thought is to harass someone and jump the gun because of a disagreement? This is literally against TOS. I comment on posts to give my perspective and communicate points I’m trying to make and I am actually willing to hear people out, if you look at the conversation I had with someone else in this thread. I am not for censorship, I legitimately just said we shouldn’t condone or support shitty representation of mental health issues because we are a minority as is and putting bad representation of us out there is not going to help us, that is literally the most basic, non-problematic, obvious opinion ever. If that’s pro censorship and I don’t want myself to be negatively represented in the media I consume and how people view my mental illness, then yeah I guess I am pro censorship in your eyes. I am also neurodivergent and I do actually fucking mean the stuff I say at the most face value, logical way possible and you implying that I can’t interpret stuff differently from you is actually incredibly ableist and hurtful. But yes let’s resort to calling a mentally ill autistic 16 year old on the internet scum and making false claims about me. You don’t know my situation and that is such a fucked up, HORRIBLE thing to say, outside of the primary argument. And claiming I’m dishonest when I’m very open about my opinion and what I mean.. and wanting my life ruined because I’m not allowed to disagree with you and have a good faith argument?? Yet I’m the pro censorship advocate in this conversation? You literally hope my life is awful and you don’t even KNOW me, literally all because YOU dislike MY opinion and determine that should be all it takes to completely hope to fuck up my life. And if I don’t agree with you then you berate me and call me a dishonest, horrible, disgusting person who’s pro censorship because I don’t want stuff that stigmatizes my mental illnesses more then it already is out into the world and instead want it to be understood. Think that actually speaks volumes on what type of person you are instead of me. I have not once insulted others for their opinion and I never once said I wanted their life ruined or hope their situation got worse merely from a difference of opinion. There is genuinely something wrong with you, this genuinely makes me sick. I honestly hope you let some kindness and empathy into your heart, and I wish you well, clearly life is not treating you well and I hope you get out of this dark time.
Reading it made me feel sick too and it wasn't even directed at me. I'm sorry they were so harsh. I can only imagine they're going through something right now and decided to take it out on you because... yeah, that was a lot.
Please don't take it to heart, you really didn't deserve such a nasty comment. I hope you have a great day and the days to come only get better for you. 🧡
Thank you so much for your kind comment and backing me up. 🤍 I’m trying not to be too bothered by what they said and be as civil as possible, I genuinely appreciate the concern. I reported their comment and blocked them after my response for my own well being. It’s really really messed up that they said that when I had good intentions with what I had said and had meant it at face value wholeheartedly, and it was that mental health should be taken seriously and with care, and I guess that made me a horrible person to them. I don’t understand what set them off, but I hope they feel better 🤍
OP also admitted to being, like us, someone who struggles with mental health issues. Your commentary also felt harsh to me and honestly triggering, probably because you were triggered yourself. Knowing you are young makes sense now, so I will say this: Don't swing your sword when you don't know how vulnerable your target is, nor if you can handle what may come back towards you. If you feel triggered, take a moment to pause and think before you type. Retype things if they feel like something you wouldn't want someone to say to you when you don't have the information you are trying to convey.I won't assume to know your therapy history, but these are DBT skills. The person who responded angrily to you gave you the exact same energy you gave to the comment you responded to in the first place. Some people don't like to watch other people get dog piled so relentlessly. From your point of view, you were being righteous. From other people's point of view, you came off as sanctimonious. This is from other people in your community, people with mental health issues. If you don't want to get hurt in the comment section, don't take a swing.I highly suggest setting boundaries for yourself and reading up on DBT techniques and emotional regulation for your own benefit if seeing a therapist for it is something you can't currently do. I'm saying this with warmth, from experience, and from dealing with mental health and the internet in particular. I'm not trying to be harsh towards you, I'm just trying to help you understand what happened here. It seems OP was trying to express themselves, you felt triggered, and then the commentary triggered the third commentator. So lets all just give each other room to experience emotions and realize that everyone has a story and a life outside of this comment section which leads us to feel the way that we do. That's why I'm commenting at least lol. I hope all of us has a good week and that we can focus on what is important to us.
Thank you for the comment and caring about me, sometimes emotional regulation is harder for me and I struggle to convey stuff in a way that doesn’t sound rude mostly because of my autism and how I come off to people (just being honest and blunt and that can equal being mean) but I meant no ill will in my original commentary really and I don’t like the implication that I may have meant something else when I’m usually so blunt there’s nothing more to look into, I wasn’t trying to imply that nobody actually suffered from mental issues but I don’t think that’s a valid reason to attack someone for their opinion and hope their life gets worse and call them names for something pretty service level and non problematic. I’m also of the opinion we shouldn’t censor art and I agree with them, but I did not call anyone names in my original comment and I do not think it’s justified to try and say “well you shouldn’t have said your opinion or commented at all if you didn’t want to get attacked” which I’m not sure is what your saying but that’s what I got from it. I appreciate the concern but honestly it’s none of your business what my history is and trying to tell me the original commenter was justified in being so rude to me to make harsh comments about my character is kinda eh. Your probably trying to help but I did not ask for your unsolicited advice when I already acknowledged I could be wrong, I was only ever triggered by the fact I got called names and dragged for disagreeing with someone, I do agree more when the OP re explained their point but I can still disagree with them for how insensitive it came off. This should not just apply to me, this should apply to the other people as well. I was never really triggered to be completely honest, I think I was probably just too blunt for people to handle and I guess they thought I was being rude and they probably don’t like my honesty. Same rule applies to op, if they didn’t want to be criticized they also shouldn’t have swung their sword, not sure why I’m being targeted in specific.
Oh, I agree with you that it should apply to everyone. And I don’t think you should have been called names, nor do I think that Apocalypsebeat should have been so harsh with the point they were trying to make (it makes me think they are probably young also)
But while you didn’t call OP names, you came at OP with some pretty serious implications that I can see being triggering to people who were raised or were immersed in certain environments. The way you initially raised your concern wasn’t kind and the way you spoke with them in your replies wasn’t conducive to actually getting your point across. I feel like if we are going to take it in good faith that the people in this comment section that have strong feelings about the game have mental health issues, we should be gentle with each other.
I understand where you are coming from with your autism. I don’t have autism but I do have CPTSD and tend to be blunt because of my upbringing. But when you type on the internet you are able to temper some of the rough edges by rereading your words and editing them.I don’t think being blunt is bad, nor do I think it’s bad to speak your mind (I’m here doing it, and I’m here giving my unsolicited advice as well) but I think in situations where people are not your enemy, or can be convinced to be your friend (in this case I mean “friend” as in “someone who understands and perhaps agrees with your opinion”) then maybe it’s not in your best interest to come in swinging at the very start, even if someone’s opinion makes you mad.
Saying things like “Shame on you” (this phrase specifically) is especially triggering. If we’re in mental health spaces, talking to other people who have mental health problems, we should lead with kindness.
I’m not singling you out because I think you did anything especially bad, or because I dislike you. It’s because you seemed the most open to discussion and dialogue, as well as the fact that I used to communicate in a similar way to how you are.
I don’t think your intentions are wrong, I just think your delivery is hurting your message. And that’s why I think so many people’s feathers got ruffled.
I know my advice is unsolicited but this is a public forum and I think you know about feeling a necessity to voice your feelings to somebody regardless of their opinion on the matter lol
hope you and anyone else here have had some water today. I’m drinking some right now.
rereading it now I can see what you mean but the insulting comments and such, personally I was very put off by the very original post because they said they’d rather have way more negative games surrounding us rather then games that would help us as an already stigmatized group of individuals and that’s probably where the initial reaction came from. The “shame on you” was more so not directed at their mental illness but because their opinion was just not the best and I understand the stance of “no pro censorship” but I didn’t think or will never think putting media out there that will further push us into a regressive corner is going to help us as it is and that mindset is very harmful and I’m not sure how else it’s supposed to be interpreted. I’m just a very big advocate for accurate representation in media that doesn’t further hurt groups of people and maybe that’s why I’m so passionate about it. I don’t think I did it on purpose or was trying to come off that way, but I feel like even if you do have a mental illness you can still have a bad take on how it should be handled and I don’t think it should excuse you from criticism, cuz what OP said can very very easily be taken the wrong way. I think most of the issue stems kinda more so that you can’t read tone as well through text as you can irl and it can make someone seem more aggressive then their trying to be. I’m very open to discussion as you’ve seen and I’m sorry to OP or anyone I offended because genuinely it was not my intent, even if I very much so disagree with them I don’t wish harm on them/don’t think they’re not entitled to their feelings and I think I did come off pretty mean in my first or second comment rereading it, I’m not sure if I was upset because usually the only time I am is like when Apocalypsebeast insulted me which I think is a more justified reason. Thank you for trying to talk it out with me and explain it, I think a lot of people here jump to conclusions about actual intent and it can lead to infighting, which was not purposeful on my part (not sure about everyone else). Hopefully you understand what I’m trying to say, I appreciate it because with autism you aren’t really sure what your doing wrong until someone explains it to you thoroughly.