Goodbye My Love

_{warning for mental illness}

Hey! Ommatophilia is out and released! Imagine telling past me I'd be horrible sick releasing Ommatophilia, then right after I'd get the flu then a killer sinus infection. Pretty awesome. And cool. Right? Right. Yeah. Haha.

I guess I'm pretty happy with how Ommatophilia turned out. Part of me wants to do more to it and the other part of me never wants to look at it again. Spending such a long amount of time on a game is pretty exhausting haha, then getting sick and being unable to advertise the way you want to sucks as well. It is unfortunate but what can you do really? It feels weird now that it's done. I don't know if this will sound normal, but.. Ommatophilia for the past 4 years has honestly been my… everything? When I had my shitty roommates, I was still working on Omma. When I had my shitty job at PF Chang's, I doodled the characters' in my notebook and wrote down notes for the story while I worked. I'd stay up late after my shift getting game dev done because I knew I needed to make some progress or the story would never be done.

I took breaks from it, sure, but it never really left my mind. I was always rotating it around- talking about it with friends, writing about it in my notebook, thinking about things I didn't like in it, problems I'd fix, if I'd ever finish, if I'd abandon it.. The fact that I couldn't allow myself to commit suicide until Ommatophilia was finished. Honestly that's the really big one.

I've finished Ommatophilia, and like, I had all of these projects I told myself I'd tackle afterwards, but I just feel weird. It's like I can't start any of them. Usually I view smaller projects as a break from Ommatophilia or some random thing I may not finish- then I go back to Ommatophilia to fill my time, but now I'm just floating in space.

I know I can still make projects. It's fine. Meat Girl released and it's the most successful thing I've released in probably ever? I'm kinda sitting here wondering if it'll be the most successful thing I ever release? I mean, it doesn't matter, I'm so happy people resonated with Meat Girl! I literally just made that because I was miserable and needed to take a break from Ommatophilia and just had some concepts kicking around in my head.

I actually had a feeling it'd garner popularity because of the aesthetics and game jams it was in though it still exceeded my expectations. I thought I was hyping myself up a bit. It's hard having one thing be popular because you're just kinda tempted to keep doing the same stuff over and over, but logically I know that wouldn't work and also I'd rather die than let the other stories in my head die in hopes of holding on to the smallest bit of popularity Meat Girl had.. It would be shameful, and if I did that, I hope I'd wake up in some kind of hell where my characters torture me forever.

That is to say I never really expected Ommatophilia to have a fraction of the popularity of Meat Girl and the fact that I got any feedback at all is shocking. I'm very happy I could make a few people cry. That's really all I wanted. For some reason though, I think about my time with Ommatophilia and I find myself crying too.

I'm crying now actually. I hadn't realized it. When I was 17 or 18 I think.. I don't know, sometime during Covid, Adventure Time ended, and I cried so much. I didn't even like the finale that much, but I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Like I'm sobbing now. I don't know.

I'm listening to the Ommatophilia playlist and there's a song my abuser put on it for me. And this song is really important to me despite the worst person in my life showing it to me. It's the Reeling by Passion Pit. I don't know. I never really told anyone who showed it to me. I just always told people I really liked the song. Listening to it while writing Ommatophilia's post mortem hurts. It really feels like I'm leaving so much in my life behind you know.

And I mean like, I know these characters can appear in my stories forever and they will. It's just.. Ommatophilia itself.. With its character sheets I always felt frustrated with, my constant anxieties about the writing, waking up at night feeling so anxious and thinking “I guess I'll develop Ommatophilia since I can't sleep..”

What do I do now? I mean I know what I do? But. This was it. All my childhood dogs have died. My childhood best friends aren't in my life anymore. Music doesn't sound the same. Food doesn't taste the same. Adventure Time is over. I always had Omma. I could always go back to it. But now it's over. I didn't realize what Ommatophilia being over would be like. I always knew relief would come but.. I've just been lying in bed. I crave to open my laptop and write the characters interacting. I want to see Black and Mercy banter. I want to watch Blue struggle to speak. I want to think about Angel's inner thoughts. I want to think about the snow and the decaying small town.

It's like my old home that I can't go back to.

I have new stories. I'll be making new things forever. It just feels weird. I miss everyone. I miss the past. I miss when everything was easier. It'll be fine. The future will be fun. It's just hard right now. I didn't really realize how I felt.

But we're good. We keep going. It's fine. We've got milfs, murderers, dykes, and various other women to write now. I mean I made a story about a meat fungus in October and Ommatophilia was basically finished by then, so clearly my brain still has stuff going on. The pity part has to end. We roll.

I love everyone who plays Ommatophilia, even if you dislike it. I love Ommatophilia, and I'm happy I spent my last four years working on it, even with all of its jank. It's dear to me. I'll miss everyone. I'm so happy I could tell the story I wanted to tell, no matter how badly it hurts. I've never finished a story and had it hurt this bad. It must've really been worth it in the end.

I love you! I love you! You were my everything! Goodbye!