Spoilers for OMORI are unmarked. You have been warned.
Friends By Your Side, Within And Without is a completed OMORI fanfiction on Ao3 written by Blueberry_Muffin_Massacre as part of the Headspace Over Time series. It takes place post-canon and is about Sunny's friends finding themselves in Headspace. The story can be read here
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This fic provides examples of:
- Arc Words: "I have to tell you something."
- Amazing Technicolor World: Headspace is this, with its purple sky, mint green grass, dark blue leaves and pink wood on trees. The third chapter spends a paragraph describing how colorful the Vast Forest is.
- Black Bug Room: The entirety of Black Space is this. At the start of the Black Space arc, Kel, Aubrey and Hero are separated and then broken down mentally by being sent through specific rooms and made to see specific things.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: In this fanfiction, Omori is characterized as this. He's not actively trying to hurt anyone, but he also was completely fine with actions such as pointing a knife at Basil.
- Botanical Abomination: Basil's Something is depicted as a dying, thorny plant with teeth and eyes that feeds off of negative emotions.
- But You Were There, and You, and You: Headspace and Black Space are shown to always be changing and evolving based on Sunny's mental state. For example, the presence of a swimming school is heavily implied to be related to the fact that he's learning to swim in real life.
- Catharsis Factor: In-Universe, when Aubrey finds herself in Headspace, she notices that her bat is no longer de-nailed, and then she proceeds to destroy almost everything around her, making her feel Ecstatic.
- Dead All Along: Dream Basil has been dead since the end of the game. That guy that looks like him? That's actually the real Basil.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Omori points a knife at Basil for barging into White Space without asking.
- Easily Forgiven: Kel immediately forgives Sunny and Basil for what happened four years ago. Downplayed with Aubrey, who actually is angry at first but doesn't take long to also forgive those two. Averted with Hero, who takes longer to forgive Sunny and doesn't understand why the others were so fast to forgive him.
- Eldritch Location: Black Space is depicted as this. Nothing in it makes sense, there's some very disturbing things in there, and staying there for too long messes with a person's emotional state. Justified as Black Space is part of Sunny's dream world.
- Eyepatch After Time Skip: The story starts with a time skip, and one of the first things established is that Sunny has an eyepatch.
- Fisher Kingdom: When Basil is in Headspace, he looks like his dream world counterpart.
- Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Hero takes a long time to forgive Basil for what happened, and takes even longer to forgive Sunny.
- Future Badass: Dream Kel and Dream Aubrey both hold this opinion of their older selves.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Aubrey has to watch her mouth around the younger counterparts of herself and her friends because they are twelve.
- Hair-Raising Hare: Downplayed. The forest bunnies aren't monstrous, but Kel is caught off-guard by how vicious the bunnies in Headspace are.
- His Name Is...: As usual, poor Basil can't have nice things trying to talk about Omori, as everyone but him is immediately teleported out of Black Space the instant he tries to talk about it.
- I Am Not Him: Dream Mari has to remind Aubrey that she isn't the real Mari when Aubrey tries to apologize to Dream Mari.
- I Hate Past Me: Inverted. Aubrey thinks her younger self is better than her because she was such a bully when she grew up. Later played straight when Aubrey gets annoyed by her younger self being blatantly in love with Omori.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Happens when Sunny's friends get lost in Black Space and lose control of their emotions.
- Invisible to Normals: Basil's Something looks like a dying flower crown to other people when it's worn as a flower crown.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: The entire plot could arguably be this, as Sunny himself takes a very long time to actually show up in Headspace even though it's his dream world.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Hero is not impressed by the existence of a zebra turkey fish.
- Martyr Without a Cause: Basil and Omori get into an argument over this late in the story, as both of them are trying to sacrifice themselves for Sunny and won't take no for an answer.
- Mood Whiplash:
- In Chapter 8, Aubrey's cheerful property destruction rampage on Sweetheart's Castle is brought to an abrupt end when she encounters a weird-feeling key and then the Boring Room, both of which creep her out immensely. Later at the end of the chapter the mood is reversed just as quickly when Dream Aubrey excitedly shouts about getting pink hair.
- At the end of Chapter 9, right after the amusing and embarrassing tale of how Hero got stuck on a dating show with Sweetheart, Aubrey is suddenly pushed into the Lost Library.
- Mundane Solution: Discussed. Real Aubrey handles the statue in Sweetheart's garden by just knocking it over instead of using the password, much to the amazement of the dream characters.Dream Kel: Why didn't we just do this earlier?!
- My God, You Are Serious!: Kel's initial reaction to the truth is to think that Sunny is joking, before realizing that Sunny isn't joking at all.
- Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Several times, characters take very long falls and don't die from it. Justified, as Headspace is a dream world.
- Offscreen Romance: Aubrey is dating Kim, something which happened offscreen and never becomes relevant to the actual story.
- Old Flame Fizzle: Sunny and Aubrey liked each other as kids, but they don't like each other like that anymore now.
- Ominous Message from the Future: Discussed. When the two Kels meet each other, Dream Kel questions whether the real Kel is here to warn him of some doomed future.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Dream Kel and Dream Aubrey tell Aubrey the embarrassing/hilarious story of how Hero got stuck on a weird dating show, and Sweetheart had a crush on him.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Inverted. HS Aubrey thinks her older self is cool, but real Aubrey disagrees because she was such a big bully.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The hangman puzzle solution, which readers easily guessed, is "I have to tell you something."
- Ret-Gone: Dream Basil isn't just dead, the other characters don't remember that he exists.
- Shared Dream: The entire plot hinges on Sunny's friends all somehow ending up in Headspace at the same time.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Dream Aubrey and Omori are so sappy with each other that it annoys real Aubrey to no end.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Aubrey doesn't swear a lot in canon, but in this fic she swears quite a bit more than the other characters.
- Skewed Priorities: When Kel starts talking about his weird dreams over a card game, causing Basil to drop his cards in surprise, Aubrey is more concerned with the fact that Basil had a winning hand.
- Something Only They Would Say: Aubrey is unconvinced that Basil is the real Basil upon meeting up in Headspace, so she teases Basil about having a crush on Sunny, causing him to sputter.
- Switching P.O.V.: Most of the story is in third person, but chapters focused on Basil are in first person.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Something is no more than an annoyance that watches the other characters. They don't like it, and it creeps them out, but it's no more threatening than a hairball.
- Uncanny Valley: In-Universe, the real-life characters think Omori is a little creepy.
- Unexplained Recovery: It's not explained how or why Omori exists even though he allegedly disappeared at the end of the game's True Ending. Not even the prequel explains it.
- Water Is Air: It is repeatedly noted by real characters In-Universe that Deep Well's logic makes no sense whatsoever; justified by the fact that it's a dream.
