Honestly I think your second analysis for which world is real is probably the closest to the truth. I have a feeling that it is especially with all of the memories popping up. The only thing that may be an in-congruency is the memories our mc has of the two always being really close in both school and college by the looks of it. But at the same time every time our mc says something along the lines of “someone close to me told me this” ml gets silent like he knows it’s him he’s talking about. And it makes me think the maybe our mc was so out of it from the previous trauma he had where that is why he feels like he needs to go back to his world even though he was already in the real world.
Lol sorry if this doesn’t make much sense.
yes :'( sadly I think it makes more sense that they both experienced tranferring world to world at the same time, and the only difference between ML & MC is when and how the past memories came in.
the only way i see their hints/clues making sense is:
1. omegaverse world
2. non omegaverse
3. back to omegaverse for both of them
and
1. both aware of current life/traumas
2. only ML is aware of 1, MC forgot
3. only MC is aware of 1 & 2, but treats 1 as a novel, ML forgot
3b. ML recalls 1 & 2 midway, but knows both timelines are real & did happen
so we have two worlds right. omegaverse & non omegaverse.
i think the crux here is deciding which world is real and which one is made up. for sure one is fake, dreams often utilize our subconscious to fill in gaps in our imagination by placing faces from reality in made up scenarios. which is definitely what MC's brain is doing, hence psychiatrist = auntie, doctor = grandpa etc.
(A) if non-omegaverse is real: less tragic. might imply that ML from the novel transmigrated into the real world (explains the cryptic talk about keeping secrets when they were camping, also him saying that thing about MC's wish not changing), then back into the novel. likely to have an ending where they go back to the 'real' world and they can start anew sans the messed up things that happened in the omegaverse world.
(B) if omegaverse is real: jesus christ it would totally flip the genre to tragedy.
because it would mean MC, after having suffered all that trauma and death, wished so bad to escape that he created a world to escape into. the trauma being so great he ends up spending more time there that it seemed like reality & he's completely disassociated that now that he's pulled back into the real world, he thinks it's a novel.
and ML in the omegaverse has regressed in time & eventually regained not just past memories but the knowledge of MC's made up world and is trying to prevent the past from happening.
honestly i hate to say it, but psychological tropes always use the face of a person that brought a patient comfort/ represents medical authority. and they are often cast as relatives and friends in said person's delusions... and MC's hypnosis therapy always pulls up incredibly vivid images with the source of trauma sketched out... while his 'real' world memories of his mom and sister and other stuff are extremely vague and dream-like except for scenes with ML... man. i'm terrified where this is headed besties