Has Sel ever contradicted himself with what he writes in the game and in discord AMAs or elsewhere outside the text?
The lack of direct acknowledgement outside of sardonic remarks when dealing with a comparison he finds unsavory makes me hesitant to accept it as a true "Word Of God" confirmation. Accepting a suicide start to the plot removes some obfuscation in various ambiguous information, it is a strong enough clue that if valid removes quite a bit of complexity about both narrative structure and authorial intent, simplifying a story where one of the main draws is its complexity without too much filler or obfuscation for obfuscation's sake. While there are hints here and there about Sensei's situation, his actions and place of being, before the start of the game, something about suicide being the catalyst for his presence in Kumon-Mi seems not only relatively simple but also unsatisfying without confirmation of other related pre-start of story theories/theories on the nature of time and place in this story's setting. Having anything the text leaves up to interpretation confirmed would consequentially impact understandings of other unanswered or unclear aspects of the story, and Sensei entering the looping city due to suicide only really works if you accept theories that fit with it. Suicide start causes a cascading assortment of ambiguity to be removed from the story, impacting it's replayability. Discovering how or why the setting works the way it does isn't what would lead to reduced replayability or "writing quality", but rthe current convuleted framework being a facade for a far simpler story due to suicide start would.
Without that layer of complexity the story becomes retroactively weaker imo, it's the blend of complex trauma focused interactions between fleshed out characters within an equally complex setting that really makes this story work. Losing one half of that formula is enough for the resulting game to not work as well. People have called into questioned Sel's intentfulness these last few updates due to it being the midpoint of the overall story, far removed from the clear end he has in mind, as well as due to the influence of fanfest and potentially related "temporary" out of character statements or actions. Agreeing with some of those observations, and considering the prospect of it all starting with a suicide, for me a lot of how I look at this game as a whole hinges on the next update. I have no reason to not trust that Sel will return to form, but I hope that future revelations will resemble those of the past, further continuing the exploration of grief, trauma, and the world the story takes place in instead of simplifying all three by calling into question the fidelity of the narrative, characterization, and themactic intent due to arguably tone deaf or tone altering words and actions of characters caused by their influence from off-screen nebulous entities.
