Mental Health Portrayal and My Journey into a Bag of Milk
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- I keep referring to the games as "A Bag of Milk (Outside or Inside)" but it's actually just 'Milk Inside a Bag of Milk' or 'Milk Outside a Bag of Milk'. I think in a way this mispronunciation is also tonally relevant.
Resources:
Canadian government Mental Health support page:
www.canada.ca/...
Canadian Mental Health Association:
cmha.ca/
Checkpoint Global Support (contains support and links for various countries around the world, also a cool organization!):
checkpointorg....
Music used:
Spaces In-Between (Omori), In a Snow-Bound Land (Donkey Kong Country 2), Neon Night (Halo 3 ODST), Water Music (Milk Outside a Bag of Milk), Eulenlieder (Signalis), Hunter's Dream (Bloodborne), VISUAL NOVEL! (Milk Inside a Bag of Milk), By Your Side Cemetery Version (Omori), City of Tears (Hollow Knight), Train Ride (Signalis), 8 (Milk Inside a Bag of Milk), Prayer (Shadow of the Colossus) Thinking... (Milk Outside a Bag of Milk), Die Toteninsel 'Emptiness' (Signalis), Firefly Music (Milk Outside a Bag of Milk), I'll Be Here For Awhile (Milk Outside a Bag of Milk), Sleepy (Milk Outside a Bag of Milk), Ariane's Theme (Signalis), Death Music? (Milk Outside a Bag of Milk), Warm Light (Signalis), The Promise (Signalis), Trees (Omori)
Thank you so much for the video!
Woah. Thank you so much for making the thing that even made this video exist. Myself and so many others appreciate your work so much. You've made me a lifelong fan of all of the stuff you make. And thank you for taking the time to comment on my lil' video, it means the world.
played through the entirety of both visual novels in one day, definitely one of my favorite visual novels
I think personally I've come to think that milk might be alcohol-the father gets it on the way home, and she gets it at the store, and often when on many psychiatric medications alcohol can be dangerous and even deadly.
There's also my personal interpretation that her room is empty, or at least almost empty, and that she can only hold one image of where things are supposed to be in her head and once you move things it all falls apart for her, as she says. This interpretation came from the trailer for Milk2's Switch trailer, where in her room she has nothing in her room, it's entirely empty.
Every time I play the game I see more I relate to, more possible interpretations, it's a very dense game to me, and I love it dearly.
I have no clue why UA-cam decided to recommend me this video, or even why I decided to click on it, but this is amazing, and such a well written and well structured video essay for such a small channel. It also got me to play both milk games, both of which are experiences I won’t be forgetting any time soon, and this analysis is a great continuation of that.
I am so happy to hear you enjoyed the Milk Games. If people get anything from this video, I'd hope it would be an awareness of these great games.
Love the sudden explosion in coverage of this duology. There's just something so great about consuming a piece of art that isn't just strange and subversive for the sake of being such (not that that's a bad thing imo), but uses it's surreal presentation and narrative as way of portraying and empathetically exploring a different worldview that most of us could never even imagine.
I know both games have definitely given me a newfound understanding for mental illness and how it isn't something that is meant to be fixed or overcame, it's just a different life altogether. Such a deeply empathetic approach is genuinely hard to replicate to this level of sincerity.
I love the fact that the endings are dreams yet milk girl had stated ever since she had gotten ill she hasn’t been able to dream I like to believe that she is recovering some dreams are even in colour
This game means so much to me and you've made such a perfect essay about it.
Hearing this from someone who cherishes the game means a whole lot. Thanks for being here.
i love games that portray mental illnesses. for me personally, i have truly loved the games milk inside and outside of a bag, omori, and looking up i only see a ceiling. i cherish these games close to my heart, and some of them i have a very close relation to. games like these have made me feel like "hey, maybe im not truly alone." and the games bring much comfort to me, as well as because it isn't just so dehumanizing to be a person suffering from multiple mental illnesses. nevertheless, thank you for this video. its very well written. have a wonderful day, person i have founded on the internet.
i also apologize if what i said didnt make any sense, i'm not very good at words.
The omori music 🥹💕
You came to a wondeful conclusion in your analysis. I'm glad to know that most people who make these types of videos about the milk games come more or less to same conclusions. I guess that means Nikita did a really good job getting his message across even in this abstract form. Seeing my friend being understood through his art always feels the best, haha.
Do you know Nikita? I follow him on all of the social medias and he seems like a cool guy who is very passionate about the art he creates. Safe to say I'm a fan haha. It's cool to hear that other youtubers are coming to similar conclusions too, it's corny but it connects us in some way. It also shows how universal the themes he explored really are.
Ah, yeah, not to brag, but my name is in the credits for the English version of the game... And yeah, Nikita is a cool guy who's very passionate about his works, I can attest to the fact that nothing in both of the milk games was intentionally put there for marketability reasons, Nikita just realized his vision to the best of his abilities and that was it.
Hey man that's some wicked cool art to be associated with, all bragging is justified. Thank you so much for this insight by the way, him and his works always seemed so earnest and it's just so cool to hear that he really is as genuine as he seemed. I appreciate this so much.
UA-cam randomly put this on my front page, and I'm glad it did. This is one of the better takes on this particular work - It's not just about getting over it, but goin through it.
About the second "death sequence" - in the original, Russian text of the game, the line used for "I imagine myself falling into the abyss" goes more along the lines of "I take a mental (as in, imaginary) leap into the abyss" so its quite direct in the way that the scene is just her visualizing it.
thank you so much for a really respectful way to talk about the game! i feel like many analyses i see about this game are solution/diagnosis oriented, trying to figure out exactly what’s going on, instead of thinking about why it’s important that we don’t really know! one of my favorite games ever and im so glad to see it get the thoughtful commentary it deserves
Mandatory reminder that never in darkest dungeon does stress make you "insane". The afflictions are very appropriately named in order to avoid medicalising the breakdowns the characters experience
I'm so glad I stumbled on this amazing video about some deeply impactful games close to my heart, Thank you for discussing so many aspects to mental health in how they pertain to the games & overall culture as its easy to see how thoroughly you interface with the topic
Beautiful analysis of a game that has really stuck with me
the moment i heard the signalis ost start playing i knew you were a goat
bro casually drops signalis' Die toteninsel, causing all sad neurons to fire up all at once
i discovered your channel through ur joe pera video, and i absolutely love your content :) this video really hit the spot for me (horror games and mental health) and i can’t wait to see what u upload next ^_^
Well thanks for sticking around! Sorry my upload schedule is so random haha.
It's always great to see someone else cover this phenomenonal game. Haven't watched the entire video yet, but I'm excited to dive in!
Loving the OMORI music btw ;)
What song is playing at 9:46?
That's City of Tears from Hollow Knight. Thanks for the love, I've tried to get a video out on Omori but I couldn't get over my own emotions about it enough to do so. I love that game so much, and I see you do too - so I'll be sure to check out your video on it when I can find some time. :)
@@sadblanket3481 OMORI is such a great game, it definitely is hard to find the right words to describe how emotional it is. I'll be looking forward to the video if it eventually comes out!
I'm surprised this doesn't have more views.
This video is amazing
Sigh... I haven't been feeling good lately and I swear, stuff like this is the only thing that's therapeutic to me...
Depending on the moment in the series, stuff like this rather, rather than harmful with trigger warnings, I find them healing. :p I mean, what else am I supposed to be healed with when I'm feeling bad? I mean sure sometimes regular cute wholesome stuff can help, but sometimes, seeing a person with issues of some kind get help whether or not I can relate to those particular ones or their life situation that literally can help so much more...
Sigh... at the very least, if there's at least one objective thing I can say is a problem for me, it's being a rather old hikikomori/neet with no help, and continuing to get older and older with a really empty, lonely and boring life... Sigh... at the moment, it is literally driving me mad... :( Something like this is the only thing helping me calm down...
For example, a part that's healing rather than hurting, other than the cute tsundere relationship with her and the "imaginary friend" are songs like "I'll be here for a while". :p I was just listening to that before coming here, it was the one and only song I can think of at the moment that helped me relax... :?
... And lastly, I think... every character with "issues", girls like Milk-chan as one person put it and hikikomori characters like Madotsuki from Yume Nikki, Russel from End Roll, Sunny from Omori, even more than some other morally ambiguous character or other, is literally the number 1 most relatable thing to me, especially if they still have both happy and sad moments for them and other similar moments, and react accordingly. :p (As opposed to someone who arguably has only one emotion or personality trait or so most of the time. :?). They really feel like I'm looking at myself... it doesn't matter what age or gender they technically actually are, they still feel like me from another universe or something... I just... sigh... I really want to meet people like them and become friends with them for life. :( I'm just... sigh... I'm really tired of this world... most of the world just seems so boring and unrelatable or terrible like this girl's mom and stuff... I mean, who else am I supposed to relate to and like or feel bad for and stuff...? Exactly. :p Not much else really...
... I want to stop being so fucking alone and I don't want to climb a metaphorical mountain just to get that... God, everything is so fucking hypocritically social darwanist on some kind of academical and social level or something... If you don't do well, you'll "die". :( Maybe not literally, but spiritually or something... I feel dead inside from failing to understand this stupid "game" called life... Sigh...
... LOL, I wonder if my posts also count as a trigger warning... ha ha... Am I the devil? :( Sigh... I swear, I feel like everyone just ignores me or hates me or just doesn't understand me much and so on... Everything just feels like one big fake simulation full of fake people or something and I'm one of the only real living people in it... Sigh...
Honestly, I don't think I can always control my "dark powers"... I... had to say all of this whether or not to or not... Because if I hold all this negativity in, I think I'll fucking explode... So here you'll go, here's my really depressing giant comment... Sigh... But if you like it for some reason or other, than... you're welcome, I guess. :p
Glad you were able to get that out
once in a while, i find a small channel with an amazing video essay about something i havent heard about. thank you for making this video
I feel like it's also important to distinguish between "mental health" and "insanity" as themes/motives in art. Bloodborne plays into the ancient concept of "madmen" being able to access forbidden knowledge that is unattainable to normal people, mental health is a comparatively modern concept that coincides with the "medicalization" of the mind. The difference is pretty apparent imo when you consider that in bloodborne, darkest dungeon, dead space etc. the "mental health issues" are caused by contact with the supernatural, with things that cannot be understood by humans, meanwhile depression is not cause by reality bending experiences but by very real things that people deal with all over the world.
Those 2 things are connected and it is definitively interesting to see how over time the mind became seen more from a medical than from a immaterial or even spiritual perspective but i feel like you conflate the 2 somewhat at the beginning when you talk about bloodborne so i wanted to bring this up
beautiful
oooh, that was a wonderful video, thanks for making it 🩷 I've played milk outside earlier today and I really enjoyed/appreciated it, but I had a feeling that I was missing something. this video helped me organize some of my thoughts (after they spread out around my mind's room like fireflies) and made me appreciate this game even more. i love your take on mental health representation, that it doesn't always have to fit nicely into a resolution of some kind. it can be just a glimpse into someone's world, maybe short and brief, but extremely valuable. pieces like this can both help vent those that struggle with these issues already, and maybe serve as an introduction for those that haven't experienced it. and it's amazing! i myself am somewhere in between, experiencing mental issues a bit different to those portayed here. so, it made me even more empathetic for all these different people. i hope they'll be able to feel better with time
by the way, you've discussed searching for games etc. that portray mental issues - I'd like to recommend one to you. Doki Doki Blue Skies, if you haven't heard of it, is a Doki Doki mod. and I know it may sound silly, but it's representation of depression (Sayori route) and self-harm (Yuri route) are genuinely fantastic. it's a slice of life, where you get to know one of the girls from Literature Club more and form a relationship with them, getting to know their mental health issues. especially while playing Yuri's route, I felt like I was reading my own mind, it was crazy how similar my struggles were to hers. uhm, my only gripe with it can be the structure, because it's still a visual novel with choices and endings, and that kind of comes back to the point that you've made about resolutions. but I feel like in this game it's realistic. I'm not spoiling anything, but trust me, even the most optimistic endings stay realistic!
this really hit home.
I don’t know why specifically but I want to thank you for making this video. Your voice is so comforting, and, I’m not joking, I cried as you concluded your video. This is beautiful.
Woah this was a lot to hear. Sorry I made you cry! Tbh recording and hearing my voice over and over is probably my least favourite part of these videos, so this was really nice to hear. I'm not super fond of my voice and I hope at some point I can get a better mic to make it all more bearable. Thanks for this regardless, it means a whole lot.
👏 deep and thought provoking!
I love sleeping to this vid every night thanks man love the work
Great video but as an extreme Bloodborne fan i gotta point out
Madman's knowledge (the item you showed when mentioning Bloodborne) isn't an item that even implies that the insane are more inclined to see eldritch horrors. it's from the idea that eldritch horrors *break your brain* the reason it gives insight is its the explicit eldritch knowledge
Madness and insanity has been a side effect of seeing things we as humans cannot comprehend but is not meant to be portrayed as actual insanity but as your brain being broken by them
Now i know i probably completely missed what you were saying, and if so, i apologize
You know its gonna be good when it starts with spaces inbetween
I love that whole soundtrack so much, particularly spaces inbetween.
@@sadblanket3481 daily whole ost listen when im working
Great video. I really liked your thoughtful analysis coupled with your own life experience. I’m very excited to see what else you make ❤
I don't know about other people but I found the games comforting.
Thank you. The milk game doesn't get enough love.
late to seeing this (sorry), but... this is a really good video so far :D as someone who relates a lot to the main character (probably a bit too... concerningly), i think this is extremely well done :) deserves a lot more views and attention, i think!
Hey no problem, sorry I'm so late to reply! I keep my real life pretty small socially which makes me kind of dismissive of reaching out digitally (which I hope to work on). Thanks for the words and for checking out the video! It's great to hear others relating to the Milk girl. I also felt a real kinship with her and I think a lot of us are connected by that, you know?
Thank you for this great video. I think it's really well writen and represents well the game from a new perspective. I'm really curious to see what you'll do next have a great day!
Good analysis, very well-meaning.
On a somewhat unrelated note, youve mentioned that youve been "chasing" media that portrays mental health issues. if you still do, i'd recommend "Hello Charlotte" series, even thought it is explicably disturbing in almost every aspect.
What i think is interesting (and frankly bold) about the series, is that not only does it portray the aforementioned struggles, but spends a lot of effort to find out what does it mean to the author and the audience, commenting on almost voyeristic nature of modern day media. "Death of entertainment" as the game puts it.
I effing love "Death of entertainment", that sounds exactly like the stuff I like to explore. Another commenter also mentioned Hello Charlotte and you both have really sold me on it. I think I'll play it in the next couple of weeks. :)
Such a great video on the milk series.
You deserve more subs and views
you would love doki doki literature club.
Please make a video about Alice madness returns!
I really do want to do a deeper dive on those games, haven't played them for a real long time. However I think Ragnarrox and eurothug4000 have kind of nailed the appropriate video essays on them. Check them out if you haven't already!
whats the song at 10:00?
just like me fr
The sanity meter discussion left me with a really bad taste in my mouth. You act like sanity is anything other than just a nod to the lovecraftian idea of horrors beyond our comprehension. For the games you mentioned nobody ever claimed that it was in any way supposed to be an accurate representation of mental illness and I've *never* seen anyone think it's actually realistic. If you read lovecraft you would get why it's so cool - especially in Bloodborne and Darkest Dungeon with insight and stress respectively. This is just virtue signalling and an argument in bad faith
If you still wanna "chase that dragon" of a good game about mental illness, check out the cat lady. It has its flaws, but I love its portrayal of anxiety.
A lot if the visual and audio design reminds me of Saya no Uta, another *very* distressing visual novel featuring a character whose perception of the world is altered by a trauma.
I dont think Saya has much to say about mental health, but if you... enjoyed(?) those aspects of Bag of Milk you may appreciate seeing them turned up to 11. It comes with a *hefty* content warning though, should you be interested.
Hahaha oh I am familiar with Saya no Uta, played it a few years back. It's one of the most unique horror experiences I've had I think but considering those content warnings and what they entail exactly, it's kind of difficult to talk about that game much. I recall thinking 'This so cool but how do I recommend it to anyone?'
I was thinking of replaying it sometime because I think it would be cool to revisit now with some life experience and a better understanding of media literacy. It's pretty edgy but you can't deny how conceptually unique it is, thanks for reminding me of it!
It's heartening to see video games talk about mental illness in ways that are humanizing since for the longest time it's just been a shallow gameplay mechanic or a game over screen. I love how the second game expanded on the protagonist's personality, it really highlights how she's more than her struggles with mental health.
btw this video was really professional and considerate! I hope your channel grows by an order of magnitude or two
Thanks for the kind words. :)
I see you like Omori and Milk games, maybe you should check out the Hello Charlotte games they're also pretty good.
Never heard of these games but they look really cool! I'm a bit confused by the steam page though, The first two episodes are free and the third one is a paid game, right?
@@sadblanket3481yeah, although the 1st one is shown as a demo of the 2nd game and isnt as good as the other games imo.
If you want to see all the games you can check out etherane's itchio where she has them all available, the order of the games is:
HC 1
HC 2
HC: Delirium
HC 3
HC 3: Heaven's Gate
Hope this helps !
Imagine this;
You’re a hamster living underground. You have everything for comfortable living.
What happens next?
Okay so imagine you’re a hamster living underground. You have everything you need for comfortable living.
(I love these games xD)
Bro this game is going to blow up soon and then this masterpiece of a video will too
Nice video 👍
She’s just like me fr
i like cars they're cute
I sometimes think of the future of mental health like in the Cyberpunk world, a world where machinery enhances and diminishes of mental health. Only in an extreme form, no in-between.
But seeing mental health portrayed in the modern age really makes me think if it'll be improvise for the better in the future...?
I thought (maybe i read somewhere) that it was kind of implied in the games that her mom might’ve pushed her dad out the window, but maybe i’m completely misremembering things
i played both games today and they for the most part were more comforting than terrifying
I have never been clinically depressed but i have definitively had a lot of tough moments in my life and i can relate a lot to the online friends scene and to the insomnia
Such a great essay on these games, loved it! ❤
This game hits me hard in so many ways
omor
i