not usually a fan of stories centering men but this is 100% smth special and worth checking, finding out what happened between the past scenes and the present scenes is a joy, especially when you use the bad endings' conclusions to piece together the goals of certain characters, as they feel purposefully written to take you closer to the truth, even if it's done in a cryptic way.
spoilers below this line. the game is best played with minimal knowledge!!
the true endings were all pretty great, at some point the game splits into two 'paths', the C endings were all generally quite macabre in different ways, out of them all (including bad endings) the aran ending is my favorite, since it portrays the utter hopelessness of the project for everyone involved (save for frida. she's always winning lol), after the events of the game caleb is incredibly traumatized and seemingly doesnt seem happy even with a successfully recreated aran, 07 had absolutely no means of escape and even if he did, he'd never be able to stop the project successfully and iirc julia's fate is completely unknown. 06 also isnt particularly happy considering he's stuck with an insanely abusive caleb. it's an inherently unsatisfying ending despite it having the least amount of fatalities (afaik only 07 and 05 die) because the project was never meant to improve people's lives, and with caleb never coming to grips with that fact, he would never find true happiness.
out of the S endings, of course ending 1 is the happiest of them all, with seven and caleb both coming out of the project with minimal damage, and their relationship being born sturdy and unshakeable after coming out of the hell that was the hospital. but i honestly really really love ending 2. seven is still happy as he has roy's and caleb's posthumous funds and a nice community in idaho to live out the rest of his life in with a relative amount of peace. but even with seven settling into a calm and peaceful place, the ending isn't quite satisfactory. caleb was never able to let go of the past, the project will ultimately succeed as we see in ending 4, and seven will have to live with the guilt of abandoning it all for his own sake. all this to say that i think ending 2 does a great job at portraying one of the main themes of wttfm: letting go of the past, in nearly every single ending caleb ends up killing himself, and with the sole exception of ending 1 in the other endings he lives in a hell of his own design all because of his maniacal obsession with keeping the past alive. only through understanding he has a future beyond resurrecting the past does caleb find true happiness, which to me is a perfect summation of everything the game has to offer. now i only hope caleb can properly acknowledge his fate as a beautiful butch woman.
as for things to criticize, i would've loved to see more from julia in the C endings. or more julia in general, seeing her in the flashbacks would've helped expand her relationship with caleb. the action scene in both of the S path was a little jarring but i feel it was still written well and adds a much-needed bonding moment between 07 and caleb, even if it's on top of the bodies of several innocent guards. lastly, it would've been nice if frida's nature as a clone would've gotten a little bit more clarification, but that's ultimately not necessary considering it doesn't have much to do with any of the games themes and serves more of a worldbuilding purpose than anything.
ultimately i really liked wttfm, it's a great blend of horror and character-focused drama that does a great job at making you wonder what exactly happened in between those 11 years of memory loss while dangling almost every single answer directly in your face without telling you. the small details that are easily missed solidify the games events as real mysteries that could be solved by an astute reader, such as 07's scars not matching the kind of scars you'd get from jumping off a building, his hair being black despite aran's being blue and the first bad ending showing caleb's unreasonable and emotion-driven behaviour. an absolute joy to read from start to end <3
ps. hi ev