/flow/ - .flow

Great pic, nice text (rotting scalp >_> ) but I didn't totally get what was the objective of the thread. Is it to try and recreate in a more detailed way, the world of .flow? Or simply talk about the world?

Recreate. Sorry, it's vague, I know. xD But basically, since the theories thread is all about the plot and has no time for discussing this kind of thing, that's what I'm going for, to build off of things based on the relatively small amount of visual details we're given. Though I guess talking about it and shooting ideas back and forth works too. :v

Another example, spoiler warning~

Relating to the bloody room event; this is kind of a precursor to the True End, in that the hospital's walls are turning organic. The blood stains are not actually stains, but are indeed, alive. From within the room is some incredible source of "the disease" that Sabi is sick with. It is so strong, in fact, that it grows across the walls, spreading outwards and making the walls it's on almost appear alive as veins weave across them and take hold over their environment. Inside the room is something similar to Body World; the walls are entirely covered in pulsating flesh, producing an audible pulse and dripping with some kind of bloody slime, whatever it is that guts are covered in. The disease itself is almost somewhat sentient, and is aware of Sabi's presence during the event. It mocks her by forming images of mouths on parts of the wall, and waits for her to approach it. As she does, it immediately starts to overpower her by disabling any effect she has on, and then worsening as she gets closer to the room. She knows she'll die if she goes any closer, and refuses to enter, but simply breathing in the awful, bloody metallic stench makes her head pound and her vision go fuzzy. (As is indicated by the red static that plays.) Despite her caution, by just breathing in the contaminated air, she's already condemned herself to an awful fate, and it starts to take over her entire body in a similar way to the red demons, by eating away at her from the inside out and giving her one last violent cough of blood before she collapses and dies. The difference between this and the True Ending is that in the ending, Sabi is Rust, and is able to withstand the effects of the disease for whatever reason that I don't feel like going into right now. As such, the hospital in the True Ending is basically what the inside of the room would look like. The Bloody Room event is basically Sabi trying to get to that point before she's physically able to withstand it.

Note that since this is also all a dream, the disease is like some nightmare disease, and does all the things that would terrify Sabi to the utmost extent, not really scientific by any sense. :P

So, let me try:
You can hear the sound of snow being stepped while you walk around, trying to figure out the reason as to why you keep getting to the same place over and over. There's nothing to much to see or ear, as you end up seeing white snow and indistinguishable factory like buildings, calmly releasing soothing white smoke. Eventually you find a room with a flower pulsating with life. As you touch the flower, as if enticed by its existence, all the man-made structures around you begin being covered by roots and flowers. The world once silent and foggy, is now filled with the sound of life, as the roots spread at an abnormal speed. You are unsure if the roots could even envelope you suddenly until you notice that it only spreads through artificial materials. You leave the now greenery filled room as soon as you are able, to be perplexed by the sudden change in the world. You're not sure if it's snow that's falling, or if it's something akin to smog, like parts of a dream that you gradually forget. This once dead like world is now brimming with life, filled with green roots that spread like a disease. They don't seem to poise a threat, but the feeling of stepping the vein like fleshy roots, is both disturbing as it gives a feeling of uneasiness. Feeling as if this new life is guiding you, you reach a stairway. Cautiously making way, you are suddenly alarmed. This new life suddenly blocks the entrance from where you came. You can hear the roots growing at an insane rate behind you, as you paranoiacally descend further in order to save your life. Your dazed run is suddenly stopped, Flowers and root surround you leaving only an entrance, full of light, for you to take refuge in. With all the metallic like surfaces being overrun by this lush green force, and afraid of being consumed by it, Sabi enters the only safe place available, not knowing that inside she'll have to make a choice.

Is it like this? I think I did it wrong and i have the idea that each one of us creates this idea as we play along the way. I think it's still a good idea, albeit unnecessary perhaps.

No, no, that's exactly it! That was interesting, it put the Snowy World into a more detailed context that I hadn't exactly thought of before. It's certainly unnecessary, but I can't think of much I do involving .flow that's for any reason other than my own entertainment.

Though I guess Sabi didn't do such a good job of avoiding being consumed by the flowers. :p

Now, for the Kaibutsu, this is one I've thought of for a while now. (I've drawn the Kaibutsus like five times by now.)

At first, they appear like very clean, preppy school children. Their hair is neat, their uniforms are precise, and they seem all around perfect, save for some strange birthmark like blotches present on their bodies, noticable around their faces in particular. They say nothing, and hardly even make a sound as they walk with clear attention paid to their posture, making their mere existence seem almost ethereal, like a ghost. Upon hitting a neutral Kaibtsu with Sabi's pipe, square in the head, they seem unusually sturdy. While other characters fall to the ground in a bloody puddle, the Kaibutsus hardly move from their perfectly straight standing position, their head simply giving way as the blood splatter out and they let out a scream. Their scream, however, morphs into a strange giggle as they grin vividly and their heads start to shake. The bloody spot on their head from where they were struck begins to bleed more profusely, and the blotches on their body begin to rot and peel away on their own. As the blood from these patches streaks down and covers their faces, all that can be seen is their grins, which begin to stretch across their face beyond what would be thought humanly possible. At this point, it differs from which type of Kaibutsu it is, but the Pigtail Kaibutsu, for example, has her lips begin to peel away, and as the rest of her facial features begin to atrophy and disappear, her grin opens into a mouth that takes up her entire face, making some of her corroding flesh rip and tear from the sudden force. At this point, she lets out one last shriek as her laughing comes to an end, and takes chase after Sabitsuki. The others would have something similar happen, but to their eyes/entire face, something like the photo I attached. (From "Uzumaki".)

>>2232
I like your sketches.

…sorry. That's all I have.
Though, I like the topic for this thread. It's pretty interesting.

I hate to use this like an artistry thread, but this is the complete page that I drew those first images on, and it just reminded me that I made this thread in the first place. Not all the sketches there are finished, but I hope people can tell what most of those things are supposed to be. :B

So I figure I'll make another little post related to this. In the middle of the page, I think it's apparent that I really like all these mouth things. (Even though some people don't think the game is very good or original, I think these things are pretty much one of a kind in .flow.) One of the places where the mouths really caught my attention was in the school, because while they show up in other areas that distinctly have themes of the human body (The hospital, Eye World, and of course, the Womb.) the school seems like a place where they really don't fit in. The way that the cloth images of them are hung on the walls is almost like the way schools tend to hang up art made by its students; they look like crude drawings made with some nasty, oily liquid that wasn't very controlled, on top of a cheesy, brown cloth that they nailed into the wall. Yet, a rare few of them are clearly more than just drawings. After a period of time, blood stains start to appear around the mouths, gradual and faint at first, but always distinctly fresh and wet enough to rub off if you touched it. Over time, the blood continues to leak and eventually runs down the drawing in thick streaks that soak the cloth so much that it runs off onto the wall. If you get close enough to one of them, you can almost feel a slight draft coming from them in waves, as if they were breathing. Some of them become so real that when no one's looking, the mouth will open, revealing horrendous jagged teeth and a plump red tongue inside. (For me, personally, this would scare the shit out of me, to look away from a drawing I made and then come back to it later to find that it had changed in some grotesquely real way, like drawing a mouth and later finding that it had opened while I wasn't looking.)

And of course, in the Rust chapter, there's the massive, apparently real mouth in the basement. Kind of funny, when I entered the room and the screen went all red and static, the first thing I thought was that it had really bad breath that filled the room. Like, though it appears to be completely still at first, getting close to it will make it come to life and let out a big sigh of dizzying red smog that makes Rust's head pound. It never moves, but anyone in the room can hear it breathing and feel the warm, wet air humidify the room. It's teeth, at first appearing dirty and bloody, are covered in a crusty layer of rust that continues onto its tongue and into the back of its throat, making it look very sick and irritated. Interacting with it makes all of the other bloody drawings on the walls in that room start to giggle at Rust, and the large mouth in the center does as well, but with a deeper, more masculine voice; Smile's voice.

Say PurpleMangoes, is it just me or your way of writing is more like you're describing something? At the time i wrote it seemed like that, but i wasn't totally sure.

3 month hiatus >_>

>>2312
That's what he's shooting for I believe. This thread was made to "speculate about [the] specifics," as PurpleMangoes put it. So just describing the looks, sounds and smells of the surroundings or even a general feeling a person gets from them are all part of this. He said all this in the OP, so I don't want to describe it any further. =p
He also said that all this stuff "makes the game more immersive," a statement which I agree with.

I myself would love to speculate on the appearances and such of things in .flow, but I can't seem to make time for it. (blaaah)
At least I can read PurpleMangoes' stuff, which has been pretty interesting thus far. The same goes for everyone else's stuff; it's all very immersful.

In all honesty, though, whenever I write stuff for fun, it typically just degrades into a mess of third person statements about the event. Maybe cuz' I'm a visual thinker and just like to focus on the image. (Hence why I keep doodling things to go with it.) But I'm really not concerned about people breaking the "rules" of this thread. Like N !IKlc0w/AJw, I'm personally fine with it as long as people find things to be more "immersive". :p

Trying to do at least one of these per post, so here I go. I'd like to brush up on one really important on that I can't believe I didn't think of before, but I'd like to know just what it is that happens when Sabi goes to her computer and enters .flow. My thought is that the very term ".flow" is like part of an Internet address, that Sabi is literally connecting to some vague Internet server that starts the process. More particularly, I think the "process" in and of itself is like a mixture of hypnotism and virtual reality. Sabi sits down at her computer chair, initiates whatever program it is that .flow consists of, and something appears on the screen for her to focus or cause her to lose consciousness and enter this dream world. The way that the room goes dark around her computer desk is representing this; Sabi is entering this virtual world, and forgetting everything about where she is. The real world does not even occur to her why she's in .flow, nothing outside of her computer desk, for she uses the computer to control her "avatar" in .flow, if you will.

Shortly after the world around her goes dark, she enters .flow, and wakes up in control of her avatar, starting out in the sort of "Spawn" area of her balcony. However, this is when things become very personal for whoever uses the program. This program doesn't just let Sabi enter a virtual reality, it can connect to her memories, and her very personality, to create the virtual reality that she travels through. If she thinks of a place, she will be there. In this way, it becomes a form of psycho-analysis, which allows Sabi to travel through her mind in a pseudo-physical way through the use of something like a computer game. Even though she isn't risking actually harming herself, it's still very stressful because the world builds itself off of all the major points of contention that are in her life. When something frightening happens, like when she gets killed, or she feels pain, like when she pinches herself, she rapidly snaps out of the trance and comes to her senses back in the real world, sitting in her office chair and trembling in fear.

>>2314
But then how the infection counter that goes up based on events in the virtual world matchs with Sabi's state IRL? (the blood that keeps appearing)

>>2314
Oh, I see. When I try to write I can only understand something if I'm present or/and if something conveys to me some feeling or idea. Let me try once more.

After touching the weird symbol there was suddenly a different world all around. The speed at which the world changed made Madotsuki's inwards feel weird but at the same time she became relieved. No weird symbols were within reach this time, nor was she stranded on an island of invisible walls. Surrounded by walls of blue that define a path looks better than the previous place where if you weren't blocked you'd have to wander aimlessly in a white world, trying to search weird symbols to just be able to escape from there. Not only that, but this air, it's easily breathable making for possible a small moment of relaxation, trying to forget that strange particle filled white world. Thinking about it still makes Madotsuki feel weirdly sick, so she begins to stroll through this light brimmed world. For a while there was an apathetic sense of peacefulness, there was nothing in sight, it wasn't cold but it wasn't hot either and no one was trying to chase her, but a maze stops being fun after some time. Madotsuki felt the desperation of the peace that reigned over this world. Not a sound could be heard, but strangely enough she couldn't hear herself breath. She felt that her time could be running out, trapped inside these walls, making her first leisurely walk gradually become a frantic run, stopping some times to try and check if she had passed those walls before. Suddenly there was a sun like symbol standing in front of her. Madotsuki rejoiced, not knowing how much time had passed since she had arrived there nor knowing how she stumbled upon this seemingly new section of the maze. She eagerly reached that faintly glowing symbol, Madotsuki felt that this symbol would take her to somewhere good, somewhere better. The blue wall maze was no more. The joy Madotsuki felt was abruptly sucked away. Uninterrupted machine noises could be heard everywhere but no machines could be seen. The metal like floor matched the cold metal walls, sometimes only covered by grated plates that would leak nothing but a faint molten metal like light. Not knowing if she was alone, the now uneasy Madotsuki set forth to explore what laid in front of her.


Tried to create a difference between we and Madotsuki but I still think I'm not doing it right.

>>2315

BLUH. Yeah that one became much more of a theories thing than I wanted it to. I'll just stick by what I said about when she goes in and comes out. She sits down at her computer, spaces out, and comes back all like "Bwaoshit". I don't think that's too much of a stretch. I hope.

>>2318

I think you're doing it exactly right, though you mixed up some protagonists there. c: The area you reach after Microscopic world really is eerie, isn't it? It strangely reminds me of heaven, with how it's so etherial and mysterious with the faint piano music in the background, but it still strikes me as being some place that you don't want to be. And of course, the Rust Maze is NEVER a place you want to be. xD

Even though I've talked about some of the aspects related to it, I'll go over the "True" ending.

Sabi tries to enter .flow, but something goes wrong. She doesn't wake up on her porch like usual, she instead, wakes up right at her computer desk. Assuming that she made some sort of a mistake, she carelessly re-enters .flow, not realizing that she's entering a layer of .flow that she was previously unable to reach. When Sabi enters .flow this time, she finds that something is *very* wrong indeed. It doesn't feel as calm as usual. Not that her balcony was ever particularly welcoming, but this time is different. Without a doubt, there's something here that's very much a threat to her. (The music in this ending makes me think this is the case.) Upon looking out from her porch, she can't see the usual ambient lighting off in the distance; instead, there is nothing. She has absolutely no sense of there being anything beyond the edge of her balcony. If she were to jump, she just might never hit the ground. Instead of leaving her room like usual, she warily enters the elevator door that is suddenly present, and soon recognizes the pristine white color, telling her that this elevator leads to the hospital that she dreads so much. Before she can leave, the door slams shut behind her, and the elevator starts a shaky descent downwards. Her visit to the hospital goes horribly awry before she even arrives as the elevator starts to shake and plummet downwards due to a detached cable, and upon hitting the ground, she is knocked unconscious.

Upon waking up, Rust finds the elevator to be distinctly more bloody than before, and sees her name inscribed above the door in blood to tell her that she has reached her destination, calling her to walk out and suffer what lies ahead.

Walking out into the hospital corridors, the feeling of dread and danger that she felt upon waking on her balcony has returned. The walls of the hospital are familiar, yet different. They leak fresh blood at the corners, seeming to be pieced together haphazardly and strangely organic. Knocking on the walls with her knuckles reveals that they are, in fact, made of bone. The demons are, of course, present in here as in the rest of the world, but become strangely more prevalent as she progresses. Similarly, the air becomes rotten and humid, and the bone walls gradually grow a thick layer of tissue that pulsates and feels moist to the touch. As Sabi's headache worsens and her flesh deteriorates, she realizes that going further will nearly cause her to expire, as the disease and demons present eat away at her ability to survive. This is not just a coincidence, this is the nightmare-hospital's defense against Rust. They are trying to keep her away from what she is rapidly approaching, and crush her before she gets there. Mutated growths start to grow from the floor, taking on increasingly complex shapes as they start as mouths that form heads and eventually branch out into monstrous trees of heads that gnash their teeth together or decay under their own instability. Staring at one of them makes Rust notice that they begin to look similar to herself. Entering the final room, she confronts the thing at the heart of the disease, the thing that has grown all of the monstrous growths, and created this nightmarish hospital; herself.

Rust's splitting headache worsens and her vision blurs as she realizes that Sabitsuki is the cause of all of this. Infuriated but unequipped, Rust starts to bludgeon this clone to death with her bare fists. This Sabitsuki is a weak and defenseless abomination; her body gives as if her bones were made of eggshell, and her blood splatters over Rust with each hit. The walls of the hospital bulge and pulsate frantically as Rust destroys the heart of the entire facility, and with one last punch that plunges into Sabitsuki's soft, jelly-like head, the walls give out and the building collapses on top of Rust, killing her instantly.

Then she wakes up and I think it's pretty apparent where it goes from there.

>>2319
Edited/deleted because that was a real huge fail. I'll read yours later because I can't atm… Thanks a lot for pointing that mistake out.

>>2314
Oh, I see. When I try to write I can only understand something if I'm present or/and if something conveys to me some feeling or idea. Let me try once more.

After touching the weird symbol there was suddenly a different world all around. The speed at which the world changed made Sabitsuki's inwards feel weird but at the same time she became relieved. No weird symbols were within reach this time, nor was she stranded on an island of invisible walls. Surrounded by walls of blue that define a path looks better than the previous place where if you weren't blocked you'd have to wander aimlessly in a white world, trying to search weird symbols to just be able to escape from there. Not only that, but this air, it's easily breathable making for possible a small moment of relaxation, trying to forget that strange particle filled white world. Thinking about it still makes Sabitsuki feel weirdly sick, so she begins to stroll through this light brimmed world. For a while there was an apathetic sense of peacefulness, there was nothing in sight, it wasn't cold but it wasn't hot either and no one was trying to chase her, but a maze stops being fun after some time. Sabitsuki felt the desperation of the peace that reigned over this world. Not a sound could be heard, but strangely enough she couldn't hear herself breath. She felt that her time could be running out, trapped inside these walls, making her first leisurely walk gradually become a frantic run, stopping some times to try and check if she had passed those walls before. Suddenly there was a sun like symbol standing in front of her. Sabitsuki, not knowing how much time had passed since she had arrived there nor knowing how she stumbled upon this seemingly new section of the maze. She eagerly reached that faintly glowing symbol, Sabitsuki felt that this symbol would take her to somewhere good, somewhere better. The blue wall maze was no more. The joy Sabitsuki felt was abruptly sucked away. Uninterrupted machine noises could be heard everywhere but no machines could be seen. The metal like floor matched the cold metal walls, sometimes only covered by grated plates that would leak nothing but a faint molten metal like light. Not knowing if she was alone, the now uneasy Sabitsuki set forth to explore what laid in front of her.


Tried to create a difference between we and Sabitsuki but I still think I'm not doing it right.

>>2319
There was just one awkward thing about your text that really threw me out: "the walls give out and the building collapses on top of Rust"
After reading that part i started imagining one of those mainstream hollywood movies… You're texts are always cute though ^^