#i spent a lot of time wondering if i should make any of my vns about my boys commercial even

[ebi-hime]

Rare text post without any VN screenshots but It makes me very happy when people show an interest in My Boys hehe ♡ Yuel and Tavi are very important characters to me, so it's reassuring to know the stuff I write about them isn't wholly self-indulgent (even though it is) and a few other people also like them! The stuff I write about My Boys doesn't have a big audience, and I've received some pretty Unpleasant comments about them over the last couple of years (though not as many as I expected haha), but! I love them a lot, so I'll keep writing about them! 💪 I'd probably keep writing about them even if there was zero external interest, because they soothe my heart, but the nice comments I receive about them really do make my day! I'll keep working hard to showcase just how cute my boys are!!! And I'll probably torture them a lot too, because that's also fun!!!

[generation1point5]

Your writings and analyses here are all pretty neat and I was wondering if you had ever made any fiction of your own or if you were considering doing that in the future?? Would be interesting to see how you write ^^

I've written lots over the years! The vast majority of it has been fanfiction for the things I was interested in, and roleplay threads between me and my friends for said fandoms. I actually prefer to express my admiration for various media and franchises through creative prose than analyses, though I formally studied the latter rather than the former. The writing I've put online has been scattered across many sites and platforms, and an even greater portion lays with local documents and saved records that I haven't really bothered to upload anywhere; that would be my roleplaying threads and a good deal of my purely original works.

Since junior high, I had been inspired to make sci fi and fantasy worlds that I've been slowly developing ever since. My first real foray into putting it all down on paper in a semi-professional capacity was through NaNoWriMo; I had used it as the occasion to finally put all my characters, and the plot they were involved in, down on paper way almost a decade ago. In recent years I've begun revisiting it and rewriting it to meet my current standards, but it remains as-of-yet incomplete. There's so much I want to put together that I've spent the past two NaNoWriMo's working on it, and am planning to complete it with a third this year. I've also spent a good deal of time on a sci-fi project from many years back that I'm thinking of redoing too, having come back to it with a vastly different perspective now compared to when I first committed it to words. Eventually, I hope both projects to be sufficiently passable to one day be worth submitting to a publishing firm, but that is yet a long way off.

My only publicly available work that closely resembles my current state is a work comprised of a series of scenes depicting one of the OCs I've made for Mass Effect, which you can find here! It is incomplete, but it hopefully nonetheless sheds some insight into my writing style, though as of this post it is still several years old. One of these days I should get back to finishing it.

That being said, my recent forays into VNs by the Echo Project has kickstarted my creative drive elsewhere, so for the past few months I've been hard at work for an Echo fanfiction that I'm hoping to wrap up and upload to AO3 soon! I'll be posting links to that work here when I feel like it's finished and polished to the point of being presentable. I hope all the people who have enjoyed my analysis of the game thus far will enjoy my prose for it as well!

[toskarin]

so re: urobu chi in madoka we are just replacing the "man/ghost" with a girl with grey hair, right? I buy that.

I think he has strayed away from these basic conventions a lot as of late, but he also has been working a lot less in general. I'm curious if you have a favorite of gen's work or if you feel you haven't absorbed enough of it to have an opinion (or maybe you just don't like any of it). while it does boil down to the basic framework you describe I feel like on the journey to that he explores some pretty interesting ideas. Just as well I also like the different ways he resolves his "everything sucks" narratives. at least I feel by the end usually there is more there than that basic idea but sometimes it takes too long to get there.

As far as zero is concerned, Nasu approved it basically all the way through its release and worked with gen on it so there is that. And when you consider Gen was basically given free reign there's no real reason for him to stick to the original concepts, I don't think (but I understand the argument for him to do just that). I guess my takeaway is if you find them incompatible (zero and stay) then that's fine because they were made by two completely different people, the same way I don't have Aliens in the same headspace as Aliens. They are different things that just happen to have the same characters.

I spent a lot of time just stating my own opinions rather than asking yours, sorry. Whatever you feel about Gen (I'm not a big fan but he's made some stuff I like), it's hard for me to say he did some interesting things that a lot of authors would be too afraid to do (or perhaps simply wouldn't be allowed to by their publishers).

anyway if you can/want to point me to where you've written more about these topics I'd be curious to see it!

I'm gonna apologize in advance because I'm using your ask to write my most comprehensive (and sympathetic) post on Urobuchi so far lmao

I should definitely open by clarifying that when I drop an opinion like that, I'm exaggerating my actual stance because I think it's funny to do it, so I'm not actually as anti-Urobuchi as I come off, it's just that I'm just not especially a fan (and at the end of the day, no matter what I say on here, I'm a pretty big Madoka fan who thinks Saya no Uta is a fantastic piece of horror and likes Nitroplus vns as a whole)

in general, when I sound overly negative about an author, it's usually because I don't feel the need to write out every time I find a piece of media okay or even good, so playing up some stronger opinions for a punchier line is always gonna result in what looks like a paradigm of blind praise and seething hatred. it can come off especially rough when preexisting connotations attach themselves to my rambles and rants

for example, me complaining about the misogynist tendencies of Urobuchi's writing is more of a ribbing than a hard moral judgment on whether it's got merit. I've got no idea what he's like outside of his work, besides that we like a lot of the same movies and he seems to get along with other people I hold in high regard. that's a big part of why I make a point of tending towards more tongue-in-cheek references to his choking fetish as opposed to anything with real substance

all that being said!

even though my stated opinions are oversimplifications of what I actually believe, I'm a little unfair to him, and I'm fully willing to acknowledge that. I disagree heavily with the way Zero was handled, especially in regards to how it handled preexisting characters, and it's one of those few situations where I wonder whether Nasu was actually right to lend so much creative freedom to a partner on a project he was (by all accounts) so closely involved with

Gen has a fantastic sense for horror and despair, and it's solely because he produces stories so close to what I'd consider amazing that I complain about the things holding them back. an example I'll point out is that I've never gone after the low hanging fruit of gun jokes because, while it is a recurring theme in his writing, I genuinely appreciate his fixation on the specifics of firearms

I haven't kept up with Urobuchi's stuff recently, largely because of time constraints, but I really do hope he's been working his way out of the boxes he worked himself into. if he were a purely mediocre writer who made consistently okay work, I don't think I'd have any opinions on him at all, after all

in the end, I really dislike Zero because of both what it tries to be and what it doesn't try to be. if it had been a more boring production, I'd have much less to say about it. I think that's a pretty good encapsulation of my feelings on him. I'm never bored, regardless of whether I'm having a good time

[meimae]

Language Learning Through Immersion: One Year Japanese Update

11/03/2021

I did it, you guys! I’ve successfully reached my very first year of Japanese language immersion! I honestly thought that I would have given up by now, but this really has been a fun and ultimately rewarding endeavor.

Studying the language has been at the back of my mind for years since elementary school, I just never really knew how to go about it before, and I always thought that I could learn it in a classroom setting someday. That someday for me was in two elective courses in university, and while those were fun as well, it did not give me the same gains that I have achieved in this past year.

It’s probably easier to quantify learning a language in a classroom setting, especially when going through a program to earn a language degree. Learning through immersion, however, I had to really consider what my goals should be on my own. Eventually, I stumbled upon an article saying that for an English speaker, Japanese was exceptionally difficult to learn and that at least 2,200 hours must be spent with the language to reach a certain level of proficiency. So I said to myself, “well okay internet, if you say so!”, and set that as my long term goal going forward.

Spoiler Alert: I did not hit that goal in my first year. I am not crazy and will never listen to Japanese in my sleep regardless of what Khatzumoto (the creator of All Japanese All the Time) says. 

I did, however, hit a total 1,226.65 active immersion hours in my first year, so I guess I’m still a bit nuts. That is 874.96 hours of active listening and 351.69 reading hours. I also did 270.59 hours of passive listening, also known as the time in the very beginning of my immersion where I was using Japanese subtitles (therefore not really concentrating on listening alone). That’s a cumulative 1,497.24 hours spent with Japanese. That’s more than halfway towards my goal! 

To further break that down for curious animanga fans out there, that’s 973 episodes from 109 anime, 765 episodes from 33 dramas, 7 movies, and 967 chapters from 107 volumes of manga (21 series). Here’s my anilist and mydramalist to see what I’ve read/watched.

During all this, I was also doing my daily Anki reps and now I have a 530 day SRS streak (includes the time prior starting immersion and only doing RTK and some vocabulary cards) and a total 8,857 sentence cards. I’ve been averaging 406 cards daily (because I’m trying to cure my leeches) and I spend about an hour per day doing reps and learning new cards. I don’t really track my time on Anki, but I do have a set timer that goes off after 1-1:30 hours.

What I haven’t touched upon at all is output. I have not gone out of my way to find a tutor or a language partner. There’s still plenty of input out there to immerse in before I even consider outputting.

Graphs, stats, and more thoughts:

Here's my current card count in my main deck (minus the cards in my new/learning queue and leeches I've been relearning which are in separate decks):

That one day in 2019 where I did not do my cards because I was seriously doubting whether I can actually stick with language learning this time around will forever haunt and inspire me to keep going everyday.

Workflow and Tips

You might be wondering, how do I have a lot of time? I started this whole endeavor in the middle of a pandemic, which eliminated the option of me going to a language school, and a slew of other things I were considering doing last year became impossible (and if anything, very scary to do in a pandemic). All I can say is that, things work out eventually if it is His will, and if I can learn a skill before everything properly settles back down again, then why not? 

I wake up at 5 in the morning everyday to either do my Anki reps or read until the time when I need to get up and I listen to compressed audio throughout the day. The biggest tip is to switch the time you spend watching/reading in your native language to your target language instead. Listen to a podcast during your commute, watch an episode during lunch break, read before going to bed, do your Anki reps in the bathroom if you have to. 

But, if you’re feeling burnt out, there is no reason for you to not take a break! I have been watching a lot of Among Us streams before bed, and I chat with my friends from time to time. Language learning is not a race.

More Stats

Here are a couple of grids of the kanji characters that I have encountered at least once in my immersion and how well I have answered them in my vocabulary/sentence cards.

It's interesting that after almost 9000 words, I have yet to encounter every single character from the Remembering the Kanji 1 (RTK 1) book by James Heisig, which teaches you the most common use characters that are part of the 常用漢字. Which brings me to the question, was writing down every single character being taught in RTK worth it every time it came up in my reviews for the first 3-ish months I was reviewing them? Maybe, maybe not. It certainly removed my anxiety whenever looking at blocks of text in Japanese, but the longer I think about it, the more I feel I should have switched to Recognition RTK earlier. Still, being able to write in proper stroke order is cool I guess, and it also helps me when looking things up in the dictionary.

Here’s the same grid but in JLPT order:

I clearly need to grind those N2 and N1 level cards! Speaking of which, I have apparently almost covered every single character that could possibly appear in the JLPT (except for the N1 which I have only covered half of) in just a year's time. If the JLPT word frequency lists I’m using are accurate, I have about 2,000 words more to go to to cover most vocabulary that could appear in the test. This makes the "10,000 sentences/words to fluency" argument a reasonable milestone to aim for for Japanese learners if said aim is only to pass the test. That said, 10,000 words is just that, a milestone. It's more akin to a comfortable level of comprehension, but not my own concept of fluency which is being able to read with ease, speak articulately, and write comfortably.

READING IMMERSION GRAPHS

My biggest motivation for tracking my stats is for the purpose of seeing whether my reading speed is improving over time. Reading speed is also easier to measure than listening comprehension which is kind of subjective, so I had a lot of fun making these. What I found is that for the first volume or chapter of whatever it is I’m reading, I always take the time to get used to the writing style of the author. My speed really improves whenever I keep reading the same topic over and over again. On the other hand and quite obviously, looking up many new words in a row and trying to parse sentences slows me down.

Manga: Reading Speed Progression per Volume

I clearly love ちはやふる and I am not ashamed to admit it.

I need to start reading longer manga. When I do, I’ll probably split this graph into less than and greater than 20 volumes. Imagine if I start reading something ridiculously long as 名探偵コナン or ワンピース, these graphs will start breaching the bounds of time and space.

Novels: Time Spent Reading per Chapter

#neverforget the time I read chapter six of Norwegian Wood for 9 hours when it took me less than half that time in English RIP. Also, my interest in Kitchen plummeted LOL. Still planning to finish it don’t worry. 

I also need to start branching away from manga and start reading more novels and light novels, too just so I can make more pretty graphs.

Visual Novels: Time Spent Reading and Daily Word Count

Also known as images that clearly show that I’ve already spent several days only reading the prologue of Island. I’m not sweating. 切那 needs to stop using words I don’t know in succession. More thoughts on this VN far into the future.

Thoughts on Immersion

I can’t really say anything else other that that it works for me, and needless to say if you’re considering this method, remember that the SRS is your friend but immersion should be your one true love.

Prior to all this, I couldn’t even read a sample paragraph from Genki without being confused to my very soul. Yes, I know, it’s embarrassing, but that’s the truth. I was way more scared of failing my Japanese classes than my actual thesis for my bachelors degree, I kid you not. I would quite literally spend all my free time in university trying to understand grammar, memorize vocabulary, and answer my workbook exercises with little to no success. 

I tried so hard to get all the grammar “formulas” into my head for 1.5 years and it only brought me more confusion. I’m never going back to traditional classroom study for language learning, but I will still refer to grammar books when I need to, and not because I feel like I need to answer 4783342 different workbook exercises like my life depended on it.

I still can’t believe it, but with immersion this statement is actually true to a point, don’t try shadowing anime/or calling your boss anime language slurs, use your common sense:

study anime to understand Japanese > study Japanese to understand anime 

Future Goals/Plans

2,200 immersion hours was my initial goal, but honestly I feel like that number could be much higher. There’s still a lot of stuff I don’t understand (news, politics, sciences, etc.), so I’ll make attempts to cover more of those things in my immersion. 

I’ll continue reading more, because that’s a natural SRS in itself. Try to read longer manga, more novels, visual novels, and light novels, and maybe news articles. 

I’ll try to mine as much “JLPT vocab” as I can before making any attempts at taking the JLPT. I noticed that a lot of the words I know don’t appear in the JLPT word lists as much, even though they appear a lot in media/daily conversation. 

Continue mining all words I don’t know because all words are useful anyway. There is no such thing as useless words. I never really understood mining only “interesting words” or words that “pop up” in your immersion. As I said in my previous blog post, 美人局 is an interesting word and I certainly caught it being said in my immersion, but in the three languages I know, I wouldn’t know when I would be able to use such a word, as compared to something like ジャガイモ which is a significantly less interesting word, but is certainly useful to know. 

_

I have managed to talk up a storm, but if you have any questions regarding my process or recommendations for new immersion material, please feel free to send an ask/reply to this post. I love hearing about other people’s language learning/immersion journeys. 

See you on my next post!

[mysticjupi]

Umineko: When They Cry Review - Episode 0

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Part 0: Notes

This post can't be as aesthetic as I would like due to only having a phone; however I'll make do with what I have. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to read this; assuming you read my info on the header of my blog page, you should also know my dream is to be an author...and that takes me here, to Umineko and the WTC series in general. I finished reading the Umineko Visual Novel, and have watched the Higurashi Anime, and I plan to read the Manga for Higurashi soon.

The following posts will be about my thoughts, experience, and love for WTC, however this post 0 will be about WTC in general, along with miscallenous things.

Needless to say, SPOILERS!!!

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Part 1: When They Cry

My first experience with the series was years ago, when I was a child; and coming across some of the more gorey scenes from Higurashi on youtube, I was curious yet I never persued more of this media. Years went by and it remained nothing more than a afterthought in the back of my head, however, a friendgroup who was big into Higurashi made me watch the anime, and I decided on my own to read the Umineko novel, and since then...I've been very into the fandom for a few months.

I took two months to finish the Umineko VN...

And as you can tell, some days I read very generously. That being said however, it was all time well spent.

Ryukishi's writing has become an inspiration and something I think about greatly, his ability for creating and characterizing his characters in both dynamic and subtle ways has stuck out to me, as well as how he handles abuse and sensitive topics authors usually avoid delving into. This aspect will be discussed more when I get around to talking about characters.

However, the thing that sticks out the most to me is his...lessons. How he makes you think about mortality and the negative and positive aspects of people and their situations. Higurashi and Umineko identify and share their themes strongly, while leaving some leeway for the reader to think about it themselves. God knows I've been rethinking and pondering a lot of Umineko's plot.

Without Love, it cannot be seen. Is a new philosophy I have started to use, for example.

That's where much of my love for WTC comes from, and before you ask, I know nothing about Ciconia but I plan to read it once my technology situation is sorted.

I think that's enough for my introduction, and now you know where I stand on this series that's wiggled it's way into my heart.

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Part 2: Music

Before I discuss the Episodes of Umineko, I'd like to dedicate some to discuss one of my other favorite aspects of the Visual Novel, which is of course the amazing soundtrack that I cannot get enough of.

I never knew a Visual Novel about victorian ladies fucking with people would carry such a banger OST. I'll link some of my favorites:

Patchwork Chimera

Death From Stupefaction

Golden Sneer

Haze

Dream End Discharger

Deep Blue Jeer

The Girls Witch Hunt

Kina no Kaori

Reflection Call

Last End Conducter

I never realized how big of an impact music had on your enjoyment of a story, but Umi's soundtrack compliments scenes extremely well. There isn't much to say here but it's an extremely good listen and one of the major perks of the visual novel. Kudos to the various composers who worked on the soundtrack.

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Part 3: Artstyle and Design

The last thing I should have to say for this post, and of course this section will be talking about the original novel Artstyle, however the others will be mentioned.

Umineko's designs are stand-out and very unique yet remain alluring. This goes both for the hair and face of the characters and their outfits...

And of course, the fact many of the outfits are taken from actual goth fashion being displayed at around the time or Umineko's original releases. Some of my favorite examples:

Wonderful, I think. I can easily tell these characters from their silhouettes which always means good design. Somewhat unrelated but Ryukishi seemed to really enjoy thigh gaps when designing, (Chiester Sisters, Dlanor's Group, Seven Stakes...) and whatever you would consider Gaap's Gap. However this isn't a negative by any means. Most of the men's outfits are suits, however I can appreciate a formal and crisp style and at least everyone has their own suit aesthetic. Original Battler is the best style btw.

To make mention of the other Artstyles Umineko has...

Pachinko: It's...good? Some characters look better like Lambadelta or George but some were...proportioned oddly? Kyrie and her immensely inflated chest definitely put me off. I had the Pachinko sprites option during my read so I swapped between this and original depending on who was onscreen.

PS3 Remake: Very good and faithful rendition while also modernizing and streamlining designs, though it didn't quite capture the rawness of Ryukishi's expressions in the original Artstyle at times.

Manga: Amazing. The Umineko manga expressions are absolutely amazing. Raw, detailed, the anount of time spent on those illustrations is obvious, up there with the original style.

Anime: It's alright.

That said, the expressions of Umi are stunning, which makes sense considering how gritty and fucked up the story can be at times, nothing beats the little laugh that accompanies these expressions in the visual novel.

(Original Novel) Finally, while the backgrounds in the novel can be pretty simple, Ryukishi truly does his best with what he has and works with, and I think the simple backgrounds work well to not detract focus from the characters and text, however I wish he made the glass shatter screen transition a bit less abrupt?

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That covers everything I feel like I should discuss, next I'll be taking a retrospective look at Episode 1 of Umineko...Legend of the Golden Witch.

I think one or two posts a day covering a episode will be how I'll write the rest of this review, I hope you enjoy!

- Jupiter.

As some last notes, feel free to interact with me in dms or asks or anything! I'd love to discuss this story with anyone because hearing differing opinions or just bonding over media is one of my favorite things! I'd love to make friends

This of course is all opinion and not objective! I love seeing different views and all opinions are valid to me!

Have a nice day!

[a-libra-writes]

who do you think would prefer an s/o who’s charming, more of a people person, using their words to get what they want vs an s/o who’s more quiet, strategic, and plans and schemes to get what they want? is it a case of opposites attract, or would they want someone to compliment them? 👀

.......so i ended up having a lot of thoughts about this LOL 

okay so i think this depends on the s/o’s morals! like you can be scheming to help others instead of hurting them. so let’s go with that bc i dont wanna brainstorm a low ethics/morality s/o (this makes me think of 7KPP, a fantastic visual novel that’s the only decent Court Drama Simulator vn i’ve come across). Also there’s a loooot of characters so imma just list the ones I have Strong Thoughts on and sort them by region oh lord what have you done my dork is showing

Northbois

So while I feel like Robb and Ned would prefer a more outgoing and charming sort of person ... I really can’t help but ship them with someone whose more cunning and can actually play the game of thrones. Like lord someone help these Starks because their intrigue score is 0 and they need someone protecting them from Tywin, Roose and Walder LOL. I can really see both father and son thinking their s/o is this sweet thing and not having a clue of how much scheming they’re actually doing to protect Winterfell... Ned would probs catch on after a while but Robb would just be blinded by love and devotion haha. 

Sansa would probs want the first ideally, but as she gets older she’d greatly appreciate someone who has that sort of cunning and uses it for good purposes. Also she’d like a calm and steady personality to rely on.

Jory is a straight up honest guy to a fault, kinda like Ned, so he’d also prefer the first type of person and appreciate them more.

OKAY SO you’d think Roose would go for the second type but HEAR ME OUT. I think he’d go for both equally, or a mix of the two. Listen. I have a strong HC that he would be very attracted to someone who is his opposite in many ways - outgoing, charming, sweet and kind. If that person also happens to be cunning as hell and willing to manipulate anyone - even him - to protect what’s their’s, oof. He’s gone. I think he’d really get off on the idea of having an s/o who everyone is shocked he’s involved with bc “omg they’re sooo nice” and only he really knows their “other side”, so to speak. Realtalk I don’t think he’d go for someone just as morally awful as him bc he’d see them more as a threat than a potential partner.

Ramsay is a little shit that would also be attracted to the first kind of person but honestly needs the second type to keep his ass in line. That’s the sort of person who would figure him out and manipulate him accordingly so he isn’t skinning the goddamn neighbors. Also he wouldn’t give a damn about their morals so go off i guess just dont start any revolts in the north

VERY Northbois

Jon really doesn’t care for schemes, even if he acknowledges they’re useful, and he’d be attracted to someone who knows just what to say and is charismatic bc lord knows he’s struggled w that for a bit.  Benjen really loves outgoing, charming and talkative peeps esp when they wiggle their way out of stuff or convince the upper command of the Watch to consider a different plan. He’ll be soooo attracted to that. Edd is kinda meh on both I’d feel? Like he’d prefer a quieter person but not a scheming sort, that’s too troublesome to deal with. I think he could come around to the first one eventually.

Mance super respects the second type, he finds it very attractive actually, especially when they start manipulating him into something and he catches them. Tormund is a dork and prefers outgoing people, totally doesn’t notice when he’s being taken in lol. He rlly hates the second sort of person, sees them as snakes.

Southbois

Edmure would absolutely be drawn to a gregarious and outgoing person! And if they can talk their way into or out of things thank god bc fishboy has a habit of putting his foot in his mouth. I really don’t think it’d work out with a schemer person bc of that Tully honor, and unlike Ned or Robb, Edmure would start to catch on (I don’t buy into the show characterization of Edmure like frack that he’s not an idiot). Brynden has a lot of experience and has seen a lot of BS, so he’d understand the risks and sacrifices his s/o would be making when they’re playing the game, and he’d really wish they wouldn’t!! Like yeah it’s to protect their family and friends but he wishes they didn’t have to do that. He wants to protect them on his own.

Brienne REALLY prefers someone whose honest and can talk their way in and out of things!! Like the Starks she’s very honorable and has no patience for lies and manipulating even if it’s for something good. It’d take a lot for her to trust and be attracted to that kind of person, they’d have to like... be very honest with her about what their plans are and why they’re doing them. 

Kingslanding bois

oh lord Stannis okay so INITIALLY he’d be put off by both personalities for diff reasons - outgoing because socializing and diplomacy is something he just sucks at and the second one because holy hell he hates dishonesty and scheming. Now, he can admire a strategic and collected mind, but as soon as dishonorable plots roll in he starts side-eyeing. I think it would take some time for that latter personality to gain his trust, and if this is like... his wife we’re talking about, she’d probs have to scheme behind his back, even if it’s for his own sake. For an outgoing person, he could eventually befriend or fall for them once some common ground is found. He wouldn’t be able to admit how much he admires their people skills haha.

Davos understands that sometimes manipulating and scheming is needed and can be used for good, but personally he prefers a more diplomatic, out in the open approach. So the first type is def his kinda person. He could still befriend the second type as long as they’re not assholes, though.

Tywin would honestly work with both sides of the spectrum and in between, but ultimately, you’d have to understand who you’re dealing with. There’s no honor or high ground being involved with Tywin Lannister, and the s/o should expect to get dragged into his schemes, esp when he trusts them ... and that’s no easy feat. Ultimately it’s less of how you get what you want and more of ... what are you willing to do to get it. Pesky morals and all that.

Tyrion has had enough of his dad’s bullshit that he’d only be romantically involved with the first type, someone who uses sass and flattery like he does. He can still respect and befriend a more cunning person, though. Jaime also prefers the first type, he thinks it’s just because “oh I like outgoing and forward people” and not...”i’ve spent years dealing with lies and schemes from father and cersei”, yanno that old chestnut. Bronn definitely prefers gregarious and cheeky peeps, schemes go over his head and bore him.

Sandor dislikes both sorts of personalities for different reasons ... He’s offput by someone who would be very talkative and outgoing with him (like why are they talking to him wtf), and he also hates scheming and lying and all that, he’s seen too much of it. The first type has a better chance of befriending and getting close to him, the second not so much. 

Petyr very much respects and admires both but like ... you know he’d prefer someone that he thinks he can outwit and manipulate, so probably more of the first type of personality because they seem less cunning and more of “just” a people person. Given his obsessive/yandere tendencies he probably wouldn’t notice he was being taken in by someone friendly and kind. 

like okay weird thing to think about but just consider this... I really wonder what it’d be like if Robert had an s/o like the first one you mentioned. Not Cersei, certainly not his beloved Lyanna - a third party, a gracious and likeable queen that kinda makes up for his faults and she’s TRYING hard as hell. like idk if they’d ever fall in love but like idk i feel like his depression would be slightly lessened to have a partner that’s very beloved and tries to help him and put him in a good light in his subject’s minds. Am I making sense? She’s not perfect but she wants what’s best for the realm and if she’s gotta do it herself she will. IDK sorry this is a tangent, i think about major change AUs and their political consequences a lot

Heckin south n east bois

Margaery is a Big Gay and you can’t fight me on this, you will lose. She’s super attracted to the first kind of gal bc that’s def how she is herself! So she’d love to play those little word games with them. The second personality type she’d just write off as “eh quiet person” but once she got closer and began to realize their cunning and wittiness she’d def take an interest, esp if she found out about some good things they did. Then it’d be a classic “outgoing babe dating more reserved babe” and yall both would be VERY well-known in court. absolute power couple

Oberyn likes both equally! Especially if your motives are to help others and/or save your friends and family. He loves that kinda loyalty and he really admires someone who has a way with words and schemes in equal measure. Hell he does both himself. He might lean more toward an outgoing person just because that’s how he is too.

idk where to put Beric but he rlly likes the first kind of people!! He’d probs ask you to get supplies or money on the Brotherhood’s behalf, and he actually kinda likes it when he finds himself doing something you wanted cause you asked so nicely or talked him into it ..... Thoros calls him a simp and it’s true ok don’t bully he can’t help it

& lastly Essosssss

So, I think Daenerys would be a lot more drawn to the second kinda person. First of all: Very mysterious, ooh. Secondly, she’d appreciate a cool head that will tell her the truth and is willing to do more unsavory things bc they believe in her so much. Obvs she would need someone with unquestionable loyalty, and once she tests and is reassured of that loyalty, then she could start some kinda romance. She’s def attracted to someone who can get shit done that way.

Jorah is a big opposite in that he’s kinda had to do that unsavory stuff himself and is still ashamed by it, and generally doesn’t trust people like Littlefinger and Varys and Illyrio, etc so he’d prefer someone who is just genuine and talks their way out of things. Also yall know him he can’t resist once he starts liking someone like cmon

Grey Worm is absolutely in the first camp too but for diff reasons! Scheming and all that shit just makes him nervous and he distrusts it, even if it’s for Daenerys’ sake. He just wouldn’t associate with the person ... Someone more outgoing would definitely fluster him more but at least he could feel like he could trust them. Missandei can go either way - she knows the power in both diplomacy and manipulation, and would likely admire and be pulled to someone who uses both to help people. 

sorry i got so wordy and a bit repetitive lol both are like, my fav kinda character archtypes, esp for court settings.

[carlatsukinamistolemyhamsandwich]

My Thoughts on Shin’s CL Route

So I wrote most of this post like 2 months ago but Uni work got in the way of me finishing it OTL

Also a big thank you to @bloody-croissant for discussing the route with me and helping me get my thoughts on it in order.

Small spoiler-free section: Did I enjoy this route? Yes, a lot. Is it my favorite out of all of Shin’s routes? No. Essentially if you like Shin, I think you’ll have a good time playing his CL route and I’d recommend going into it knowing as little as possible for the full effect.

Spoilers under the cut!

I think the best way to examine this route is to look at what I enjoyed and which parts of it I wasn’t a fan of so let’s get right into it.

Things I liked:

-The CGs: What more can I say other than that they’re beautiful? This game gave me the Shin kiss CG of my dreams and I will be forever grateful for it. (Also the collar one is really hot).

-The pacing/structure of the route: I feel like the route was just the right length for the story, I was never bored but it wasn’t rushed either. Personally I also thought the ratio of romantic Shin x Yui scenes to actual plot was just right.

-The Shin and Kino dynamic: Interactions between these two were the last thing I was expecting from this route but I found myself really enjoying them. After establishing that they’re the only ones aside from Yui with memories of the real world, Shin and Kino form an uneasy partnership to try and work out how to restore Carla’s memories. Aside from the general comedy of Kino causing chaos and Shin getting mad at him, I liked that they actually seemed to bond later in the route. The way Kino admits that Shin not leaving him behind when they had to run away from the other families made him happy and how he helps him in the final fight against Carla were great to see.

Kino (talking about how Shin didn’t leave him behind when Shin, Yui and Kino were escaping from the Violet mansion): I was really happy. Those are my true feelings.

-How Shin discovers his first blood abilities: Shin and Yui get kidnapped by the violet family early on in the story, and after convincing Azusa to let them out of the dungeon, they get caught by Carla as they try to escape from the violet mansion. After Carla corners them in one of the bedrooms, Shin, still without any of his real memories, turns into a wolf, much to the surprise of himself, and Carla, resulting in one of my absolute favorite scenes from this game. This allows him and Yui to escape and there’s then a very angsty scene where Shin questions whether he’s a monster because vampires can’t turn into wolves, which is just the sort of content I wanted from this game. 

-The route showed Shin’s character development: I was kind of surprised by how well Shin seemed to take the fact that Carla had no memories of him (or any of the founders) after he got his own memories back and after mulling it over for a bit, I think it shows that he’s matured (at least a little bit) since his Vibora murdering days. I said the same sort of thing when talking about Carla’s LE vampire ending where Shin willing works with the vampires to get rid of Kino so it was nice to see it translate over to this game too.

-The Labyrinth ending:  Okay this might be a weird one to include here BUT I like that the labyrinth ending is a “bad ending” because it adds weight to the choices you make throughout the route. Also I’m just an angst demon that loves bad endings.

Yui: Everyone… Was killed? That’s–!

Things I did not like:

-The lack of time spent with the orange family: Although I very much enjoyed the Shin and Kino dynamic, I would have liked to see a bit more of Shin interacting with other characters he doesn’t normally spend much time with (which is everyone except Carla really). Unfortunately because of the way the route played out, the number of scenes we got with Shin and the rest of the orange crew were limited (especially after he got his memories back). However we did get this one really nice line:

Shin (to Ruki): You were also a good older brother but, you weren’t my real brother...

-The fact that there are only 2 endings per route: I know that most LP routes only had 2 endings (and even the other DL games only have 3) but as the endings are the only thing you can really influence in VNs, I feel like the more endings the better. I understand that when you have 13 routes, that translates to a LOT of work but if I’m comparing this game to other otome titles then I think it’s worth mentioning.

-Shin’s final fight with Carla This one might just be me being petty but I’m including it anyway. At the very end of the route, Shin and Carla get into a fight, with Shin wanting to return Carla’s memories and Carla wanting to obtain Yui so that he can become the supreme ruler. Shin says earlier in the route that as Carla doesn’t remember he’s a founder, he shouldn’t be able to use any of his founder abilities, while in their final fight, Shin can. Now Carla and Shin go on and on about how the founders have superior abilities to vampires, SO HOW IS CARLA STILL ABLE TO NEARLY KILL SHIN (and he would have done so if Kino hadn’t intervened)?  Shin has lost to vampires in the past but generally it’s because he a) underestimated them, b) they’d inherited Karl’s power or c) he was caught by surprise. None of these are true in this case, and while I’m not necessarily arguing that Shin should have won, it shouldn’t have been as one-sided as it was.

-Kino just leaving at the end of Shin’s route After the aforementioned Carla versus Shin fight, in the Euphoria ending, Carla gets his memories back and Kino then just leaves??? And aside from Yui breifly wondering where he is, and one scene where Kino reflects that Shin and Yui will probably be okay from now on, he’s then not mentioned again. I understand why Rejet did this but it felt a bit unsatisfying, especially as you know that all of their interactions in this game will never be brought up again and I really like the idea of Shin having a friend.

-The volume of the Waltz music in the Euphoria ending:  This is such a minor point but I also feel like it’s a really good example of where sound design is important. For anyone who doesn’t know, at the very end of Shin’s Euphoria ending, Shin and Yui dance in Banmaden’s hall to Waltz music. It’s a very sweet scene and would have lovely were it not for the very loud music. I had the volume of the characters’ voices set as being very high compared to the background music, but even then it was overpowering. While I liked the scene, the romance feels slightly lost when it sounds like Shin is basically shouting at you over this Waltz music. So yeah, minor point but it affected my enjoyment of the ending enough that I felt it merited a mention.

-LE being completely ignored: Again, I understand why Rejet did this (as the plot of this game would not have worked if Shin knew who Kino was and obviously they couldn’t set it after Carla’s death) but as someone who really liked a lot of the scenes from Shin’s LE route, it did make me a little sad that the entire thing seems to have been thrown out the window.

In conclusion:

Even though there were some things I wasn’t super fond of, I did really enjoy this route, I think it’s a lot of fun and it’s made me eager to play more of CL (which is always a good sign). I definitely don’t like it as much as I did Shin’s LE route, or his DF route if I’m being entirely honest, because I feel like the things he went through in those routes really stretched his character and allowed us to explore different sides of him.

As CL presents a more mature version of Shin, you don’t get some of the angst you would have done had say Shin’s DF incarnation been dropped into the setup of CL. And while, as I mentioned, I like that the route shows Shin has developed as a character, I did find myself missing some of those really emotionally charged scenes.

That being said, I enjoyed this route significantly more than his LP route and I would definitely recommend it to fellow DL fans.

[37h4n0l]

It’s good that I watched Bandersnatch at this particular time because it really made me think

Right before it, I’ve had a period of sickness when I was confined to bed and couldn’t do much of anything so I spent it playing videogames. Anyone who knows me would be immediately able to tell that subversive, meta stuff is my main interest and I was reflecting on it since before Bandersnatch.

There’s been a tendency in game development lately to undermine the structure of choice-based multiple-ending games/VNs. It’s almost a competition between players and developers, a battle against our insatiable need to explore all possibilities — and a variety of narrative devices have been implemented to prevent us from doing so in any possible way, ranging from creating a lot of different endings through making your choices afflict irreversible change up to easter eggs so difficult to find that they remain unknown to the wider community. And people outsmart these time and time again, by reinstalling the game, modifying the code, but most importantly sharing walkthroughs that expose all the content regardless. With the latest hits it’s gone so far as to hiding easter eggs within the code, as a signal that this possibility was accounted for in advance. Undertale and DDLC both did this; Unknown Developer’s content is straight-up based on finding cryptograms in the code. It’s probably a result of the same people who used to try these things for fun creating their own content and putting themselves in the shoes of a very creative and persistent player.

I believe somebody (I don’t remember who, it might have been Dr Layman) made a video on a similar topic regarding Undertale and I now realize it was kind of spot-on. All of this makes you wonder about the purpose of these games and if being choice-based even means anything anymore. One would think that originally the point of the structure was to provide a unique path to every individual player and show them the results of their personal choices as something similar to a personality quiz. The ending you got said something about you and your behaviour within the story; but this is not quite possible anymore. If you don’t experience everything you’ll feel like you’re missing out and so you flock back to linear storytelling by playing every different timeline in a sequence. Just to be clear about it, I don’t think discouraging this will lead anywhere. It’s mathematical thinking that we’ll automatically tend towards either way as choices can be represented in a tree graph and all we’re really doing is a graph search (a depth-first one to be precise).

My biggest curiosity is always what’s going to be the next way to circumnavigate this. Developers will have to be more creative than ever since there’s ways around everything — DDLC tried to prevent you from walking back on your choices by making changes permanent, but all people did was reinstall the game. Hell, it’s what I did. At the moment the go-to solution seems to be making some timelines complicated and hard to find, like the easter egg one in Bandersnatch itself, but it’s becoming a tired tactic since these endings are found and shared anyway after some time. What would really be interesting is some fundamental change in the structure itself and it makes me inclined to think about it. Surely, it can’t be solved by auto-generating infinite timelines; there have been attempts and they’re pretty lackluster since a combination of small changes in variables doesn’t really produce anything surprising.

It makes me inclined to think about it and try to come up with a solution. I have very vague ideas, a feeling that the next step is targeting online sharing of walkthroughs and community interaction as the root problem. Involving more than one person in the game in a way that can’t be simulated by a single player could already lead somewhere but the absolute ideal would be a game that changes in accordance with how the community interacts with it. Developers need to ask themselves “What would happen if somebody made a full online walkthrough for this game and people followed it?” You can predict your own decisions, but you have no control over a wider mass of people. Obviously, something like this can’t be implemented in a fully downloadable offline file but making it directly playable on a site could tackle this in a non-clumsy way.

It leaves the philosophical question open — if a game is influenced by a mass statistic you can’t individually change, are you really choosing freely? But, on the other hand, the statistic is made up of many individual choices that include yours so you do make a contribution in a way. It could make a sarcastic point about democracy too, I feel like people would enjoy the edginess of the moral... Also, constant conflict and trying to come to a compromise over what choice everyone should make would be incredibly fun to watch. There could be special content available only if a certain amount of people make a specific choice. Or if literally everyone does — that’d make for a fantastic ultimatum game. For all I know some online games could already secretly function like this, but one that makes it obvious that it does? It’d be absolute peak.

There’d be still individual choices mixed in just to give you some power but now I want to experience the infuriating feeling of being literally unable to get an ending without a nearly impossible to reach online collaboration. It’d need a very compelling image and plot for this to work but I do think it could.

[thekuroiookami]

Otome Mania

This is no longer a secret, I have played, do play and will play a fair number of otome games. I’m weak to cliched romantic plotlines, okay?

Since I did promise @lethesomething a list, here it is. The summary is...I’ve played a lot of games.

Games organized by console, arranged from meh to great.

PS Vita

I pretty much got a Vita so I could play otomes. Don’t judge me too harshly. And while a lot of these are incomplete (i.e. I haven’t played through every route), I feel like I can give an opinion.

Norn 9: Var Commons - Admittedly I haven’t gotten far into this, but lord is the plot confusing. Like, what is happening? What is happening? So many pretty people, though...

Sweet Fuse - Cute, fun, though not high on replay value. The characters are really weird, but don’t let that stop you. They have charm, and the parody elements are worth it. Plus blowing your top has never been so satisfying.

Collar x Malice - I almost finished one route and I’m really enjoying it. The heroine has so much personality and she chews out the dude whose route I was doing, and the mystery is so intriguing, if a tad weirdly investigated...

Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth - By far the best otome game I’ve played on anything. A beautifully built world, excellent artwork, a heroine with backbone, massively diverging plotlines, and just about every love interest is actually interesting. I’d encourage everyone to play this when it comes out on PC. The Suwabe character is just the icing on the cake for once.

PS3

Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom - Hugely overrated, I think, though not many games can match the artwork. Incredibly long, painful storylines that made me yawn. Heroine has zero presence. I do love Saito though.

Mobile

Mystic Messenger - Is entertaining, but every love interest needs immediate help from a psychologist. The format works to the game’s advantage, and the voice acting is good, I spent a ton of money on it. But the romance doesn’t always feel like a romance.

Liar: Uncover the Truth - This is a surprisingly fun game, but I didn’t have the patience to wait for tickets, or spend money on the black hole. Sad but true.

PC

Games you should definitely never play:

Amnesia: Memories - out and out horror, that one. I don’t know why player character has a sprite, because her personality is non-existent.

Ozmafia - Theoretically very interesting, but in practice, suffers from a spineless heroine. I have a knack for finding the yandere route the second time I play any game, and...let’s say if you play the doctor’s route you’re in for some surprises. Yeah.

Men of Yoshiwara: Sigh. Terrible translation, first off, backed up by terrible writing. Just don’t.

Games that are okay to pass the time:

Seduce Me and Seduce Me 2: Demon War - It’s not like this one is bad, just not amazing. It’s decently voice acted, and the first one is a cute rom-com. The second game gets a lot more complex and weird, and it’s super easy to die. The first game is free.

The Lady’s Choice - A Regency romance otome game with only two choices, but it’s nice how much you can shape the MC’s personality. Free on itch.io.

Dandelion and Nameless - Both of these are Korean-origin, produced by the same company that did Mystic Messenger, and while they do have strong writing plus original concepts, somehow the games never keep my attention for long. Nameless is a bit dark in tone, if that appeals to you. Dandelion is a stat-raising sim, which I hate with a passion.

Loren the Amazon Princess - I think this was one of the first ones I played, and it was pretty ahead in the range of LGBTQ characters, but now that I think back on it, the RPG/romance combination was a tad strange. But I do recommend it.

Days of the Divine - Another of those free itch.io ones, I can barely remember this. It was passable.

How to Take Off Your Mask - Cute, but I can’t remember what the point was.

Games that are super cute and definitely need to be played at least once:

Cute Demon Crashers - It’s a pretty short game, but utterly wonderful in its simplicity and earnestness. An R-18 novel that is very high on sex positivity, I’d recommend this one a lot. Free on itch.io.

The Blind Griffin - An odd but good work set in the age of flapper dresses and speakeasies, following a Chinese heroine who accidentally stumbles upon a secret magician’s guild and trains as an apprentice. Great art, comes with a slang dictionary, and makes up for its abruptness with cuteness. Free on itch.io.

Heartbaked - Lots of aggressive pastry references in this one, and one guy who is? a sheep? Or something? I dunno, it’s adorable. Free on itch.io.

Hustle Cat - A cat cafe, only the staff are the cats. Light hearted fun, though it is easy to mess the game up and get a bad ending.

Autumn’s Journey - So cute. So much fluff. Dragon boys. A girl knight. Enough said. Free on itch.io.

Magical Otoge Ciel - If you want to simultaneously have your soul uplifted and go “WTF is this meta”, play this. It’s so irreverent and sweet, and the art grows on you. @batensan‘s Magical Otoge Anholly is a good read as well, though it is technically a linear novel. Free on itch.io.

Taarradhin - A beautiful fantasy short, but incredibly hard to figure out. The high probability of getting it wrong kind of put me off. Free on itch.io.

Lads in Distress - Exactly what it says on the tin. Overly competent princess with pink hair takes matters into her own hands and saves the princes. I only wish we also had the option to date the childhood fried cum fairy advisor.  Free on itch.io.

Re: Alistair - This one is really good, and honestly would have been included in the best games list if it had more LIs. There’s a cute mystery to sort of solve, and I don’t even mind the stat-raising elements. Free on itch.io.

Ristorante Amore - Gorgeous art, and a major plot twist once the story really gets started. I can’t give away anything for fear of ruining it, so just go play it.  Free on itch.io.

Yo-Jin-Bo - One of my guilty pleasures, honestly. Yes the MC is a wimp, but the absolute comedy that passes for dialogue is worth it.

Games that sink their claws in and don’t let go:

Cinders - I cannot recommend this enough. Sublime story-telling, the option to be Machiavellian, naively sweet or something in between. The LI’s are good, of course (guess who’s my favourite), but the real star of the show is female relationships - Cinders and her stepsisters, the daughters and the mother, the godmother in disguise. There’s so many possible outcomes as well. I wish the original fairytale were half as interesting.

Cinderella Phenomenon - A free game I backed on Kickstarter, and it’s looking pretty good. The heroine is unapologetically bitchy, but goes through some satisfying character development in the routse I played. Intrigue abounds, and even though I wish there was a little less blushing to go around, it’s pretty good overall.

Demonheart - I am a little torn about this, because it’s an ongoing game on Steam (released in chapters). On the one hand, I feel like romance things happened really abruptly in the last chapter. On the other, the concept is executed very well and there are so many choices. Plus, excellent worldbuilding.

Nachtigal - A really good shorter game about a spunky heroine trapped with two vampires. There’s a whole variety of ways to die in this one, so it’s extra satisfying when you do land the guy.

The Royal Trap - Say what you will about it, but as one of the first VNs I read, I still quite like this one. So many romance options, and so much intrigue. Each route reveals something different about the overall plot. Good stuff. 

The Second Reproduction - Starts off typical, but then it goes down some truly unexpected routes. Strong heroine, attractive demon king. Be sure to play it with a guide to get the whole story.

There are plenty I haven’t played at all, or not enough to comment, but this is the list I’d give out to anyone who wanted some recs.

[yoosungshoodie]

V HATE AND THE FACTS

📷 — receipts included!

So there’s been a lot of hate towards V lately for unfounded reasons that can’t be sourced. While it’s true that there are things we don’t know about Mint Eye or information we don’t have in full, there’s also some false accusations that I can invalidate with proof. People can dislike V, that’s fine, that’s their opinion, I can’t change that. I’m not here to argue about V’s likability. However, what I am here to do is find direct proof to rectify false information that’s used against V. Excuses and their receipts below, with several photos as proof. 

“V manipulated Rika into making Mint Eye, and V is the puppetmaster of Rika” alternative Uglier title: “V’s the real villain and Rika did nothing wrong”

This speaks for itself. V never advocated or supported Mint Eye’s beliefs. He was not involved in the conception/planning of it. He never agreed to any values of Mint Eye, and openly opposed it. Even though it’s said that V introduced her to new philosophical ideas, it wasn’t intended for Rika to come to these conclusions. She came up with this on her own. 

“V never tried to get her help” “V never helped her”

He directly told her that it’s good to keep going to the therapist. He supported her getting help and she’s the one who turned it down.

“V was heavily involved in Mint Eye and knew their operations”

It’s obvious that V wasn’t liked by Rika in Mint Eye so why would he be of high ranking there? How would he know all the workings of the cult? Rika doesn’t sound like she’s talking to her partner in cult crime here, so next.

Note the “without you” Rika says. Without you means by herself, Rika, the Rat. Again, these photos are all self explanatory.

If he was so high ranking in this cult to immediately know exactly what Rika was doing to Saeran, like drugging him, why would he have to earn Rika’s trust? Shouldn’t high ranking members have that already? Generally, low ranking members are the ones used to go fetch, not anyone who’s supposedly a crucial member of the cult. V wasn’t heavily involved in Mint Eye, and that’s the gospel truth for you. 

And since some people like to talk about bad ends as proof, in this deep route bad end (thanks to @fromthedeskofelizabeththird ty Elly, she also proofread this post for me so go check her out), V doesn’t recognize Saeran at all. If V supposedly was so involved in Mint Eye and knew about Saeran, why would he not know who he is?  There’s also this as well, said by Saeran. "It would have been nice if we teamed up earlier..." Which leads me to my next point.

“V knew about Saeran the whole time!”

Well, here’s your direct proof right here V didn’t, and still didn’t know all of what happened to Saeran until right then.

Note that the second party is the last party the RFA had with Rika in it. Also note that by this time, V would just begin get a vague notion of something being suspicious. It would have been impossible for V to immediately deduce that Saeran was behind all of this, and that Rika was drugging and brainwashing him. V didn’t even know Saeran could hack.

In fact, V wasn’t even there when Rika introduced Saeran into hacking:

So, V obviously wasn’t there.

These screenshots above (also thanks to Elly) show that 1) V didn’t know Saeran knew how to hack before, because Rika did it behind V’s back and 2) Rika directly lying to Saeyoung (and logically, likely lying to V too). So she covered Saeran up and lied about it.

So V didn’t just figure this out all in that moment. He acquired this information slowly throughout the last year or so.

Let’s also remember that after the second party is around the time Rika left V, and that means V didn’t know where Rika was for around six months. A logical timeline is:

The RFA party is two years ago, where the security breach occurs.

Six months after that, Rika "died".

V's eyes are injured by Rika one year before. We see this in a VN in Secret01 and she injures his eyes before leaving him.

V has no clue where Rika is and goes out to find her.

 (WARNING: this next part is slight speculation because nowhere in the game do they let us know what happened to V during that time exactly, but this is only a logical sequence of events)

V goes looking for Rika and uses her suicide as a front to find her (or he found just found Mint Eye and then used it as a front). 

She had already hinted before that she wanted to take the people in this world and “cleanse” them, especially the people she loved; so that could be how V found Mint Eye. 

He likely observes from the outside for some time.

//end spec. Then he became a mole for Mint Eye.

Good time to note: You can find most of this in Secret01, so there’s really no excuse here to hate V for reasons that don’t have any proof to it.

Anyways, V would start his investigation about a year ago before the plot of MM begins, since Rika died/disappeared around a year ago. V spent that time digging for information and slowly started piecing it together, but he definitely didn’t know all along. 

Hold him accountable for knowing for a couple months while still looking for more information, sure, you can hate him for not telling the RFA right away. Hold him accountable for not finding out earlier, sure. In fact, hold him accountable for his shady and evasive behavior to protect Rika, even. Could he have done things better? Absolutely. However, if you’re going to hate a character, you should hate a character for things they actually did; not things you made up in your head to fill in the blanks because you can’t be bothered to open up a couple VNs. 

And for the people who say V is just as bad as Rika, I really do wonder what makes you think creating a cult + brainwashing and drugging a child + physically abusing your fiance is as bad as withholding information for a couple of months. Just say you’re an abuse apologist already, we know you are and it’s very transparent.

[vieuxnoyesrp]

Wills. You’ve popped up on our OOC dash and in our inbox on the Main a couple of times over the past few months, and we’ve always been happy to catch up with you. We were happier still to see that you wanted to rejoin the group, and missed having your bubbly presence around on a consistent basis. As such, we were excited to receive an application for you, especially for a character as wanted by us (but generally overlooked in the fandom) as Josh Rosza. You nailed his personality throughout your application, and we loved how much insight you gave into his headspace (like his tendency to self-talk). Your headcanons offered a unique twist on what we were expecting with regards to his feelings on family, and we absolutely loved the amount of vivid imagery in your sample application as well as how clearly we could hear Josh’s ‘voice’ as a character. All in all, we’re stoked to have you back in the group and Josh in the roleplay!

Wills, thank you very much for applying. As for Josh…

                   ⚜ ~ WELCOME TO VIEUX NOYÉS!!! ~ ⚜

Wondering what to do next? Click here and let the good times roll!

⚜ Roleplayer:

⤜ Name/alias: Wills

⤜ Pronouns: He/Him

⤜ Age: 23

⤜ Timezone: BST

⤜ Activity: 5-7 Every now and then I may have bursts of activity higher than this, but as you guys know, I have two jobs and rarely get a day off. But, I never work mornings so I do stuff then as well as staying up after work :) Also, we just got a new staff member at my main job so my shifts are gonna calm down like a lot when he finishes his training at the end of next week.

⤜ Best form of contact: On the account I will make, should I be successful

⤜ Any Triggers?  Nope :)

⤜ How did you find Vieux Noyés? VN is my home, that’s how

⤜ What drew you to the RP?  Everything. From the incredible admins, to the amazing and well thought out plot, the brilliant players and every tiny aspect and detail.

⤜ What is one subplot/element from the Plot page that you are particularly looking forward to seeing in this roleplay? Vampires “riding high on a wave of species supremacy.” All waves break, be it softly against a sandy shore, or crashing on the rocks. Also “echoes of humans that are something more;” Gets me every time I read it. I NEED to know what this means

⚜ Desired Character: Joshua Rozsa

⤜ Why do you want this character?

I’ve always loved Josh and always fancied the idea of playing him. He’s such an underrated character and the cutest, most pure vamp ever IMO. I think the reason I haven’t applied for him before is that he is different to my go-to character type. Which is exactly what I need. I’d like to focus on the fact that even through homophobia, homelessness and death, he has managed to concentrate on what is going well for him.

⤜ What are your future plans for this character?

I’m really looking forward to developing Josh’s friendships. Yeah, he’s had a tough time in terms of his parents and y'know, dying and all. But he’s still a friendly young guy who wants to have a good time with good friends. Of course there are certain factors getting in the way of him having that good time, I’m hoping it’s not too late to play out the battle of the bosses between Klaus and Marcel. His connections are full of pot opportunities to play on and I love it. Also, not to be ship-oriented or anything, but I feel like one of Josh’s main attributes is his need for a family, for somewhere to belong and someone to belong to. So, I’d to at some point explore the possibility of relationships for Josh as a future plot. Though I stress, not ship oriented playing.

⤜ Put yourself in your character’s shoes. Give us a few lines to describe a day in the life of your character… Where do they live? Where and how do they spend their time?

Josh’s days have been turned on their head, literally. He can’t go out during the day, which does kind of bum him out, though he remains hopeful that he’ll get a daylight ring soon. IT wouldn’t be so bad if he at least had the night times to himself, that was his favorite time anyway, but of course, his nights are occupied by work.

His days aren’t so bad, most of the vampires that can tell him what to do are out, having lives or doing important vampire work, he didn’t know. So he’d spend his free time on his computer, trying to find his way into the New Orleans underground club scene, mixing sets that he’ll never play publicly, or messing with random coding. He has even found himself building an encrypted instant messaging service that he would never use. Though, spying on someone would be a lot easier if the person he was spying for wasn’t a thousand years old and could use such a system.

Around twilight would be when Marcel would usually find him, give him the ins and outs of what had happened that day and what he wanted Josh to do that night. There usually wasn’t a lot of information, he got the idea that Marcel trusted him, but everyone was always on a need to know basis. Josh apparently didn’t need to know a lot.

Luckily for Josh, his errands were never too time consuming and he was never put on duty to patrol the quarter, (Though he was more and more often finding excuses to be stationed to guard Davina) so his first few hours of darkness could be spent getting his work over with, before the labourious task of finding a way to get information to Klaus. Josh wasn’t obliged to do this every night, he didn’t get information every night anyway, but he figured the more often his puppeteer was updated, the less he’d start jerking on the strings.

⤜ Give us three headcanons regarding your character of choice. 

Something I mentioned in the previous section, I think Josh would have fairly large amount of the storage space on his laptop occupied by DJ sets that he has mixed himself but doubts he will ever get to pay. As well as accompanying light shows that he doesn’t have the equipment to play.

He sometimes thinks he is a bad person for not really missing his parents very much at all. He likes to focus on the fact that biological bonds aren’t everything they’re cracked up to be and that his parents abandoned him, not the other way around. He has accepted what happened, he knew that it would happen and was able to come to terms with it before it even did, so he doesn’t regret it. Just sometimes feels bad about not regretting it. Though, he is optimistic that he will find a family of his own. He has eternity to do so now.

Since he learned about the supernatural community, the idea of sex with a werewolf has been on his mind a lot. He has always liked rugged guys and though he didn’t want to generalize werewolves, most of them seemed to fit that stereotype. Josh knows he is supposed to hate them, but he can’t help thinking about how hot it would be.

⤜ What are some plots you’d like to explore with your characater?

One that’s a little bit unrelated to any of the current plots going on, but I really like the idea of: Josh finding what could possily be a secret comminity of supernatural techies on a forum in a deep corner of the dark web. He can’t be sure, because they’re all speaking in code, but he thinks he has cracked it. I mean, maybe that could tie in woth the hunters guild or the Arcane Society, who knows?

As stated previously, his connections are a world of opportunity, his reationship with davina and the play off between Marcel and Klaus are already gateways to somepretty big plots that can go on for a while. His suspicion of the eerie Sabine could lead to some sort of involvement or trouble with the Witches beyond his connection to Davina. I think Jeremy is an interesting and although at first unexpected connection, it makes complete sense considering what they’re both into, a great opportunity for some fun threads.

⤜ Para sample: (Retained for privacy).

⤜ Would you like to be considered for another character if not accepted as your primary choice? The Mikaelson brothers and Isaac are my other babies

⤜ Have you read the rules?: Damn Skippy I have

⤜ Anything else? (Retained for privacy). 

[animalloverdev]

Would you guys have any tips for aspiring indie visual novel developers working in very small teams like yours? Stuff that you didn't think would matter or things you didn't think would happen, but once they did, you thought 'oh man, I wish I had thought about this before/somebody had told me about this!' In case there aren't any: what do you guys think are the most difficult parts, and what are the best parts, of working in a small team?

I was originally going to go off in this one by saying that we’re definitely not successful enough to be giving out tips. But Animal Lover was well rated and we *did* actually release it. So screw it. I’ll pass this one to Maia for artist tips after I ramble on for a little bit.

Universal Tips:90% of the people who email you after you release a game on Steam are blowing smoke up your ass. Proceed with caution.

Making video games is hard. Even games with minimal gameplay like these. You’re not taking the easy route by doing a visual novel, you’re just taking a route that a small team can actually manage to make.

Small Team Tips:If you’re not paying them (whether at all or for a non-livable wage), be patient with them. This means planning out how long it will take, getting a rough estimate of how long the project SHOULD take, and then multiplying it by four.

Wear multiple hats. This is non-negotiable. There’s no room in game development for ‘idea guys’. Prepare to code, prepare to do SOME visual development, some sound design, some UI design, some writing, some whatever. If you have just barely enough money to make an indie visual novel instead of a full-fledged AAA release, then you don’t have enough money to make everyone else make your dreams come true.

Writing Tips:Write a book first.

No, seriously, write a book first. Maybe write a few.

Writing a visual novel was like writing a book, which I’ve done, but then when the book is done, you need to edit it, which is par for the course... but then with Animal Lover, no matter how done the script was, there was something to do, always. Like always. Always. If you’re not prepared to write a novel by itself, you’re certainly not prepared to write a novel that you have to code and potentially add branching paths for.

Visual novels are writing heavy, and even though writing standards are certainly not sky-high right now, you want to have good writing, because if you want to differentiate yourself from the pack even a little, you don’t want people saying “Yeah, the writing was okay” when 80% of your game is writing. This also means that visual-novel writing tips hew pretty close to regular writing tips. On that note:

Characters are key. I am a dude who loves a complex plot, but complex plots in mediums where you can’t rely on environmental storytelling and visual inference (it’s hard to implement in visual novels, though we tried with Kyle’s hair in the canon ending and with the different markings each character has based on their animals), complex plots mean lots of explanation. Which we didn’t even totally avoid in Animal Lover. Any more complex and it would have gotten boring.Thusly; focus on characters. Visual novel players (dating sim or otherwise) are there to interact with characters.

Learn to write in-code. It’ll save you time.

The only thing maybe more important than character in visual novels is pacing. In a dialogue-heavy medium, it is easy to forget how much time it’s been since the last big event happened. Keep an eye on where you’re spending the most time, what you’re interacting with at any given time and whether or not you enjoy reading it.

Comedy has value. Animal Lover is not the steamiest otome game out there, and steaminess is the general consensus for what games have the most value. Yet, somehow, people are drawn to Animal Lover. Comedy endears readers to characters, makes them remember their time spent fondly and actively engages readers. If you can make it funny, do make it funny. Animal Lover gets dark, but the moments spent laughing before that happened gave it value and made the dark stuff heavier.

Producer/Director Tips:Explore your engines. We did our game in Ren’Py, which worked and we managed, but we spent our time wondering if it would have been easier or more flexible in Game Maker or TyrannoBuilder. It’s not that we regret it, we just didn’t know.

Be as unique as you are. This is seriously only going to do good for your game. When I think that maybe Animal Lover isn’t selling as well as it ought to, I remember the other visual novels that have come out I haven’t even heard of because the art was standard or the writing was ‘meh’ and didn’t really capture anyone’s attention. As an indie, it’s just a good business move.

Dream big; settle for less. Not less as in lesser, but I had a few big studio songs and some really huge ideas to include in the game. Those big ideas led me to the small ones we found (like putting Bottom Over Top in the BIG SCENE or to having the multiple-faces thing for the characters) and they made the game better.

Maia’s Tips:

First off I disagree with Wil’s point about “writing a book first”. Plenty of people have made and posted vn’s on newgrounds and deviantart without having written an entire book before. Just understand that it takes more than just writing a story. A lot more.

Art wise, the biggest lesson I had to learn was that some of the super cool game stuff just wasn’t feasible for one artist. (I wanted a majority of the game to look more like first person illustrations with unique moving parts and body language. You can see why I didn’t do that).   The Second biggest lesson I learned was hire more artists. Or work with a buddy, I know people like to make these for fun. Video games require art in places you may not even have considered before. There’s characters and all they entail, including unique items (extra outfits, one-time items or expressions, backgrounds, every part of the UI and menus, any little details you want to add like the button changing color when you hover/click/idle etc. It goes on. 

Edits can really pile up, so it’s good to tackle a single aspect at a time. All the bases first then all the clothing, all the buttons on menu A, B then C. You get the point. It can waste time if you have to keep going back to fix or adjust something because a color didn’t match up, or you approached it differently than the 4 others you spent good time planning and executing (looking at you Miguel. Fuck your blinking I hate you.)

Art takes time and preparation. I used to work pretty quickly, but mostly that’s because I didn’t used to as much consideration into my drawings. But you also have to balance Quality and Speed so you can do good work while making deadlines.

Preparing for a game is incredibly important. Your first designs should not be your final designs. While it won’t always be the case, you need to keep in mind that the more you draw a character, the more small changes will occur causing your design to evolve and become inconsistent. Creating reference sheets and mock ups for each character, item/accessory, or icons is a very good way to keep tabs on consistency.

THe last thing I can think of for now is that it’s really *really* good to look up lega information, even if this isn’t a project you’re aiming to sell. I’ve found it extremely helpful to learn about contract creation, copyright information, business building etc etc. 

Oh, and you’re second question

Working in a team for me was pretty difficult and a lot of fun at the same time. I had a blast chiming in to tell my thoughts or ideas on whatever dialogue  we were discussing, or making design changes to something more interesting from the request of Travis or Wil. On the other hand, there’s a lot I wanted to do that I either had to defend or change at their behest. They also had to do this! And it was a big learning experience to have to compromise and discuss with these guys. It feels good to have gone through all this, because the game turned out really great, and I’ve never been prouder of something I’ve created.  It was tough at times, but the experience and growth I gained was genuinely worth it.

10/10 would do again.