Wednesday, March 16, 2022 — 5 Arts The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com This was supposed to be a piece about ‘Life is Strange: True Colors’ Empathy for the emotionless: Understanding OMORI ‘The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue’ is shelter from the storm Sitting with words: poetry to inspire empathy Content Warning: This piece includes allusions to anti- LGBTQ+ legislation, suicide and the invasion of Ukraine. Also, spoilers for “Life is Strange: True Colors.” I HAD PLANNED for this article to be about the video game “Life is Strange: True Colors.” Released in Septem- ber 2021, “True Colors” cen- ters on Alex Chen, a latchkey kid who’s re-entering society after finally learning to con- trol her superpowers. Alex is an empath — seriously, she can read other people’s emotions and hear their thoughts. Kinda a neat, if useless superpower, right? Except, Alex can also get overwhelmed by powerful emotions; for example, grow- ing enraged or depressed when someone around her does. What’s brilliant — and ter- rifying — about Alex’s power is that it doesn’t feel fiction- al: Everyone claims to be an empath, after all. And being an empath in our modern world is simply exhausting. It’s hard to talk about these imaginary exploits of Alex within the fictitious town of Haven, Colo. when in real- ity, Florida has made it dan- gerous to say the word gay. Queer folk around the country became targets the moment Florida’s House of Represen- tatives passed a law to keep schools from talking about LGBTQIA+ topics within the classroom. In a time when children are presented with more information than ever to help them answer difficult questions of identity and sexu- ality, the classroom has been turned into a warzone. Parents screech that they are “protect- ing their children,” that “the gay agenda must be stopped” as if education and compassion turn you queer. School, the one place that may have been a safe haven for students with these identities who have unsup- portive parents or dangerous living situations, is now off limits. Where can these kids go but back into the closet? Because the world shows every sign that it does not love them, that they are an aberration. A mistake. Who they are and who they love does not mat- ter to the Republican Party of Florida. How can you be for the children when, accord- ing to The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ youth between the ages of 13 and 24 will attempt suicide every 45 seconds? Everyone outside of the Sun- shine State with a heart imme- diately understood the panic, fury, hopelessness and fear that these children all felt, and that’s without Alex’s empathy superpower. My original article was going to say that “True Col- ors” makes it clear that Alex Chen has not had an easy life: Her mother died of can- cer, her father abandoned her and her brother Gabe and not long after, Gabe got sent to juvie which separating them for good. Alex was shuffled around the foster care system; her powers made her too vola- tile to stay with one family or group home for too long. One heartbreaking scene forces Alex to relive these moments, her tele-empathy allowing her to hear every judgmental thought from the rotating gal- lery of people who make up her teenage years. Alex has seen the absolute worst in people, and yet she still wants to live a happy life and use her powers to help others. Content Warning: Discussions of anxiety and depression Author’s Note: Many details of the plot of “OMORI” were with- held for the sake of preserving the impact of its story. Likewise, many details of my disorders were withheld for the sake of my privacy. Everything I have dis- cussed is material I’m comfort- able publishing because I have extensively unpacked it while getting the professional help I needed in therapy. If you empa- thize with any of what has been discussed in this piece, I would urge you to please use whatever resources are available to you to get the help you need. Thank you for reading. VIDEO GAMES HAVE always been an escape for me. It’s a medium I find more engaging than any other — the audiovisual stimulation of videos and music mix with an interactive story, allowing you to insert yourself into a narrative shaped by your actions. As a kid, I fell into a variety of deeply engrossing media, but video games would remain the most immersive. In my somewhat lonely childhood — a combination of overprotec- tive immigrant parents, a some- what childless neighborhood on the edge of town and my cul- tural disconnection being a Desi student in a school of white kids — I sought these immersions as escapes from a duller and dis- connected reality. Real life was where my numerous childhood fears sprouted: fear of the dark, heights, bugs, open water, the supernatural. The end result left me as a primary schooler refusing a solitary bedroom until middle school. It was at this point I found friends with similar backgrounds & inter- ests — video games being a focal point. The RPG “OMORI” opens with the following message upon booting up: “This game contains depictions of depres- sion, anxiety, suicide, and may not be suitable for all audi- ences.” Despite this warning, at first glance the game seems like a cheery, fun-filled romp. Wholesome hand-drawn art, pretty pixelated visuals and facetious Photoshops all mix together to create the won- drous, dreamlike world you play through. You play as Omori, a comically stoic child as he adventures with his much-more expressive friends: hard-headed Aubrey, enthusiastic Kel and his gentle older brother, Hero. They quest to save their bashful best friend Basil, helped along from the sidelines by Omori’s older sister, Mari. The characters’ expressive- ness is an extension of the game itself, the main fights operating on a rock-paper-scissors system of the emotions of characters and enemies: happy beats angry, angry beats sad, sad beats happy. Omori can be manipu- lated by the player to emotional depths that his friends cannot reach, giving him the potential to be more powerful or more vulnerable than any of his other friends. Together, they fight and befriend the most colorful of characters. Omori’s friends are the most engaging, the game’s length giving you a wealth of adorable interactions that flesh out how much they care for each other. There is never a still moment in the game, with cutscenes, sprites, backgrounds, battles and characters in con- stant animation. The frame-by- frame differences breathe life into the game, as change is a vital part of life. It’s that truth — and the truth of Omori’s story — that shatters your heart and shatters the leftover shards, leaving your friends to pick up the pieces but ultimately leav- ing you to put yourself back together. I spent much of my second- ary education entangled in my emotions. Throughout middle school I’d find myself kept up at night due to paranoia leftover from my childhood. Thank- fully, they’d transition from irrational phobias to elevated anxieties about going into high school and my future. This stress built in high school as I took on workloads so heavy I had to constantly isolate myself from friends — both new and old — to manage it all. The con- sequences of those couple years would manifest in the spring of my sophomore year, when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune disor- der that flares up with stress. I had to conquer my anxiety to put my disease into submis- sion, and I couldn’t rely on the aid of anti-anxiety medication that could potentially disturb the bodily homeostasis treat- ing Crohn’s needs — though I will emphasize that this was a personal choice on the behalf of my family and myself and that everyone is impacted by and treats Crohn’s differently. In meditation, in safe spaces, in detachment, in deep-breath- ing techniques, in every coping mechanism I could muster, I fought my fears and won time after time. But in that work was a wish I had since my childhood panics — a wish to stop feeling altogether. My wish was grant- ed when I started experiencing depressive episodes after my Crohn’s diagnosis. Little things seem off at the start of “OMORI”: an ominous shadow lurking in the distance, a distressing opening cutscene with the repeating assurance that everything is going to be okay, sketches colored by void- white, ink-black and blood-red. The player learns that Omori’s fantastical world is actually a fantasy — a dreamworld con- cocted by the true protagonist Sunny, Omori’s teenage coun- terpart. Sunny has been living as a hikikomori, a Japanese term for social recluse and Omori’s etymological origin, from child- hood into adolescence following a traumatic experience, escap- ing into his dreamworld when- ever possible. His childhood friends have been damaged by both this same trauma and Sunny’s aban- donment of them. Mari is gone, Kel smiles through the pain, Aubrey lashes out at her former friends and Hero struggles with overwhelming sadness. Basil is a nervous wreck always on the verge of panic attacks, and all five friends suffer in Mari’s absence. Sunny feels it the most, no longer having his older sister to protect him from his fears and the truth of his trauma, a truth that only Basil knows. Sunny and Omori are forced through terrifying sequences character- ized by horrifying hand-drawn art, unnerving pixelated visu- als and eerie Photoshops. More than that, however, Sunny has to confront the new people his friends have become and the truth of what split them apart. NOVEMBER 2020. COVID-19 had just booted me out of Ann Arbor and sent me home. As I finished up my first semester of college from my childhood bedroom, I felt it — the feeling I would come to label as “the storm.” It was the first time I felt my mental health truly dip, a loneliness that seeped through my entire body into my bones. So I did what I always do when I need to put my mind elsewhere: I picked up a book. This time, it was “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V. E. Schwab. Art has always been my medi- um of escapism. Whether it be books, television, movies or a trip to a museum, I have been using art to get outside my own head from a very young age. It’s why I spent the year between ages eight and nine imagin- ing myself at Hogwarts and why now, almost 11 years later, I undertake “Harry Potter” movie marathons biannually. It’s why I try to visit The Met- ropolitan Museum of Art when I come home to New York and I take a trip to the University of Michigan Museum of Art almost every Friday at school. Since my field of study is pure STEM, full of straightforward and rigid answers, I find it necessary to have an outlet for all that goes unexpressed. I expected “Invisible Life” to take me to a new world with magic, Faustian bargains and adventure. While those ele- ments were present, I was more shocked to find my own experi- ences reflected right back at me. A 323-year-old woman cursed with eternal youth and health, unable to leave a mark on the world, and a man cursed with a year of life in which everyone sees only what they want in him. Where do I fit in? Apparently, everywhere. Addie is a dreamer. In many ways she’s like Belle from “Beauty and the Beast,” dream- ing of adventure in the “great wide somewhere,” with a strong connection to art and a deep admiration of her father. Any- one who knows me well knows that “Beauty and the Beast” has always been my favorite fai- rytale, and so I was instantly drawn in. Addie’s story, how- ever, rips away that glimmering facade of the Disney princess and dives in deeper. Addie gets her wish for freedom by literally trading her soul, and from that point on, her world is turned upside down. She is unable to be wounded, fall sick or die. But she’s also unable to leave an impression or a memory of her- self. Everyone she meets forgets her; every mark she makes dis- appears. “Stories are a way to preserve oneself. To be remembered. And to forget.” Addie’s connec- tion with books is one I related to right off the bat. Schwab’s language captured the feeling of escapism through literature perfectly. Addie deems art as necessary to her survival in her infinitely long life. Her descrip- tions of watching movies and seeing the sea for the first time brought out the same emotions I felt while sitting in a theater or standing on the shore. Addie truly felt the beauty of the world, and I did too. Yet despite hav- ing access to so many beautiful experiences, Addie felt lonely in her life. And I did too. It was this empathy that I carried with me throughout the rest of the book. Just when I thought I couldn’t relate to a character more, Henry burst onto the scene. Henry was the second character in this novel to strike a deal with the devil, though for very different reasons and for much less time. As a bookseller, he had that same level of admiration and under- standing of good art. As a human, he had experiences that put everything I was feeling at the time into words. It was because of Henry that I labeled that peri- od in my life as “the storm.” As Schwab put it, “It would be years before Henry learned to think of those dark times as storms, to believe that they would pass, if he could simply hold on long enough.” Henry’s bouts of rain came about due to his feelings of loneliness, those feelings of not being enough that seem to be all too common among people my age. It didn’t take much for him to start feeling that way again. Anything could be a catalyst — a parent’s disapproval, a profes- sor’s admonishment, a lover’s rejection. Henry was so tired of battening down the hatches that he traded his soul to just be enough for everyone. Henry understood too late that you can’t make people love you, and if you’re really enough for everyone, then you’re doing something wrong. People aren’t meant for everyone — all you need is to be enough for your- self. As Henry spoke about talk- ing to his family who wouldn’t understand because they’ve “never had a day of rain,” I felt it in the pit of my stomach. I felt it because I did understand, because I was weathering my own storm. Addie and Henry’s time together was electric for both of them. Like all good things, however, it came to an end. Each went their own way understand- ing the importance of life and living it on your own terms. Both Henry and Addie left a piece of themselves with the other person, something that gave them the strength to keep going. Unbeknownst to them, they also left those pieces with me. As Addie and Henry taught me, I needed to find the beauty in life — in art — and understand that being alone is not the same as being lonely. Most of all, I had to believe with all my heart that at the end of the day, the storm always passes. I read “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” for the second time a few days before writ- ing this. On my second read- through, I found myself learning just as much as I did the first time around when I was in a completely different headspace. No matter how many times I return to this book, I think the message will always remain the same: There is no obstacle too large to overcome, and life’s wonders always make sur- mounting them worth it. POETRY HAS IMMENSE reverberating power. Verse has that ability: We keep snippets and sections of it in our minds, carry our favorite poem’s lines with us like pendants, thinking on them in our time of need. Poetry’s elasticity, the breadth of its expressiveness given the sparseness of its text, is immea- surably powerful. Poetry can pull us from fear and ground us in our reality, but perhaps — most remarkably — allows us to sit with someone, to feel their pain, their fear, their love and the wideness of their experi- ence. And poetry has always been a space for embodiment. This is something audaciously intrinsic to the medium: You, the reader, are involved in poetry’s inven- tion and intention, transfigured by the word and the chasms of the page. To me, empathy in the written word is all about this active practice of embodiment: When something is written so wholly to the nature of a thing, we get a true sense of its weight. Empathy, after all, is not some- thing that you are but something you do. We can all listen, we can all learn from one another — and here are three collections that will help you do just that. “Empathy” by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge Empathy, in Mei-mei Bers- senbrugge’s lauded collection “Empathy,” goes beyond human connection and asks: What does it take to become someone, something beyond human exis- tence? Empathy not only mani- fests humans in understanding and solidarity but is all-encom- passing — bringing forth wid- ened images of her speaker as a natural subject, of incorpo- real feelings and sensations. In the book, we are asked to look beyond humanity, to understand what it may be like to be unex- amined or animal. The poems feel more like fields of energy — Berssenbrugge so carefully cre- ated speculative worlds in lieu of poetry. By allowing us to sit in the discomfort of the world, she forces us to grapple with the subjects, and in turn, empathize with them. “Words Under the Words” by Naomi Shihab Nye If there is one thing celebrat- ed Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye is known for, it’s her sensitive approach to writing: Her poems are chaste in their verbiage. Her language is plain and simple as her metaphors concerning “bread,” “mountains” and “riv- ers” brim with the kindness and warmth of the human spirit. In “Words Under the Words,” Nye views the world with the utmost humanitarian spirit. In her work, every story, no matter how paltry, is one worth exam- ining. Every person she recalls is a site of great tenderness and love. If there is one thing Nye loves, it’s the little things — what she loves more is understanding those things with the tenderness her poetry provides to the world. The collection’s most regarded poem says it best: “Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore / only kindness that ties your shoes / and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, / only kindness that raises its head / from the crowd of the world to say / It is I you have been looking for, / and then goes with you everywhere / like a shadow or a friend.” Design by Tamara Turner Design by Tamara Turner M. 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