YMMV / It Lives Within

• Funny Moments:
  • The entirety of Rowan and Abel's pretend breakup in Chapter 6. Here's a segment of it:
  Rowan: (after accusing Abel of cheating on them with the girl who works at the flower shop) Well, that's your loss because I bet she smells like dirt!
  Abel: She doesn't smell like dirt! And at least she has a job!
  Rowan: Oh my God, seriously?! I HAVE a job!
  Abel: Having an OnlyStans is not a real job!
  Rowan: IT IS TOO!
  Abel: What are you, five?!
  Rowan: What are you, four?!
  Abel: What are you, three?!
  • In Chapter 20, Rowan's love interest (if they have one) shoots Sheriff Cunningham (who has turned into a Horror) to protect Rowan, after which they react with shock at what they've done. However, if Rowan's personality is "sarcastic", they make light of the situation by Waxing Lyrical, with Lincoln's reaction being the best:
  Lincoln: I shot him...I shot the freaking sheriff!
  Rowan: But you did not shoot the deputy.
  Lincoln: ...Seriously?
  Rowan: What? This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! I couldn't not say it.
• Game-Breaker: Of all the collectibles Rowan can get, Lincoln's clock is easily the most overpowered. While the other collectibles help in combat and/or boost Nerve, the clock boosts Nerve multiple times and has the power to rewind time and save one of Rowan's companions if they died in Chapter 21 or even Rowan themselves in Chapter 22 (if they died). Better yet, being revived thanks to the clock is the only way Rowan can successfully go against their Blood and Shadow path, so if you've been leaning towards one path and have a last-minute change of heart, this collectible will allow you to change path and survive, something that isn't possible in any other circumstance.
• Informed Wrongness: While most of the bad things that Rowan's ghost calls Rowan out for in Chapter 22 are indeed horrible, a couple of them fall into this trope for Rowan.
  • The first one is Rowan accidentally killing Connor in Chapter 21, with Rowan's ghost saying they "panicked and killed a good person". There are several issues with this, Rowan killing Connor was a complete accident, they only did it to save Devon and Noah (who Connor was seconds away from killing otherwise), they can still regret it immediately afterwards, and Connor doesn't exactly qualify as a good person at this point in the story, not after all the horrible things he said to Rowan and their friends, corrupted and turned into a Horror, or not. Furthermore, Rowan accidentally killing Connor only happens if the latter's Nerve score is below 50, something that Rowan's actions have very little (if any) control over, as opposed to driving Amalia away (which requires Rowan to go out of their way to be mean to her), and the other horrible actions which have at least one associated choice that Rowan can opt not to choose.
  • The second one is Rowan refusing to use Lincoln's watch to turn back time and save one of their friends (if they died) because they need it if they fail to defeat Matthias. Though Rowan's ghost accuses Rowan of "putting their own fear above their friends' lives" (and calls it a selfish decision), it is more of a necessary evil from Rowan's perspective. If they lose against Matthias and don't have a second chance, not only do they die, but everyone at the carnival dies as well, and Matthias gets away with everything, complete with him gaining unlimited power and immortality. With this in mind, Rowan was only doing what they had to do to protect the most people.
    • This also applies to a lesser extent if Rowan destroys the watch (which is supposed to automatically trigger the "horrible psychopath" dialogue, but due to a bug, triggers the same dialogue as simply choosing not to use it), claiming that they didn't trust it, not wanting to end up like Matthias, who thinks he can play God and use the power to mess with people's lives.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Matthias crossed it before the series even began. He killed his own brother in a fit of rage, then used Loha as an anchor to the Power to retain his immortality. He killed his wife after she wouldn't let him corrupt Lincoln, then used Adrian as a scapegoat. This is just in the past. In the present, he had Jessica killed for a sacrifice, orchestrated a ritual that would result in mass death, manipulated Jocelyn into luring Rowan to the caves to use them as a replacement anchor, and shows zero remorse for any of this. Fortunately, Rowan can have the Power kill him and use him as a replacement anchor.
  • Despite being the protagonist, Rowan themself can cross it, if the player chooses for them to, in several different ways.
    • One ending has them join Matthias, despite knowing all he's done, betray their friends, use Noah or Devon (who spent years as a ghost and only just came Back from the Dead) as a replacement anchor, and either walk away with Matthias or kill him for more Power. Tellingly, in this ending, the relationship score of every character drops to 0.
    • Rowan can choose to beat Jocelyn to death (potentially without any remorse) for her misguided betrayal, even though she only did it because she was trying to protect the town and thought Rowan was dangerous. Doing this causes everyone else's relationship scores to drop by 75 points (or in Abel's case, his relationship score will drop to 0), and Abel or Lincoln will break up with Rowan, telling them that they can't be with someone so dangerous and volatile.
    • Rowan sleeping with both Lincoln and his father (even though they didn't know that the latter was evil at the time) causes the former's relationship score to drop to 0 and them to break up with Rowan out of disgust.
  Lincoln: (to Rowan) God, what is wrong with you?!
• Older Than They Think:
  • This is not the first Choices story (or Fan Sequel of one) in which the main character's personality can be decided through designated choices, with certain lines of dialogue being based on their current main personality. Slow Burn also had this; even the three main personalities in this game (Genuine, Sarcastic, Aggressive) are very similar to the ones in Slow Burn (Kind, Sassy, and Tough, respectively).
  • It's also not the first story with a "death sprite" that shows a character's dead body and the damage done to it (as opposed to the character just having their eyes closed). Across the Void had a death sprite for Vee◊ (or rather, the equivalent for a robotic droid).
• Scrappy Mechanic: Rowan cannot date multiple love interests without losing relationship points with at least one of them, so if you flirt with, say, Amalia in the first chapter, then flirt with Jocelyn in Chapter 3, you lose relationship points with Amalia, despite only flirting with her before Jocelyn was even introduced. Flirting with more than one love interest at any point in the story (even once) also triggers a line of dialogue in Chapter 19 in which Connor calls Rowan a slut, meaning that hooking up with every love interest (some of them within hours of each other) gets the same reaction from Connor as harmlessly flirting with two love interests once each.
• Unintentional Period Piece: In Chapter 16, Harper reunites with their love interest at the hospital if both of them are alive. If their love interest is Imogen, she will give Harper her Webflix (the in-universe counterpart of Netflix) password so they can watch it while they recover. Starting from Spring 2023, Netflix began cracking down on password sharing such that using the password of someone who doesn't live in the same household as you will lock you out of it. This dates the story to sometime before the second quarter of 2023.