Oct 1, 2023
353
802
Like Moonflare, I heavily disagree with this take on their relationship. Prior to Maya "revealing" the psycho Ami stuff to Ayane, Ami had spent a whole chapter deliberately cultivating a psycho Ami persona in order to try and scare everyone else away from Sensei. The extended psychic manipulation that Ami used against Ayane is much worse than a single event of "bullying" where the whole point was to stop the manipulation and hopefully return them to a more normal relationship.

As you point out, Ayane hasn't been completely alone because she's had Ami, Sensei, and (to a lesser extent) Maya to rely on. Sensei has become a shell of the man who first became her father figure, and is inconsistent at best in how much he supports Ayane now. After Ayane joined the RAS, Maya started treating her less like a friend and more like a hindrance, and was completely fine with Ayane being factory reset, maybe even hoping for it. And so Ami, who had been her strongest source of support, starts pushing Ayane away with the psycho Ami act, she really is finding herself alone now.

It's very clear that if there is a power imbalance after Ayane stands up to Ami on the beach, it's still not in Ayane's favor. In Chapter 4, Ayane is really worried about Ami as well as Sensei, while Ami continues to be an absolute shit friend (and also confirms that she was deliberately manipulating Ayane earlier).
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
Also, I don't know where this Ayane hate came from.

If anything, Ami has been a horrible friend and very abusive to her, but we let it slide because we like Ami while we call Otoha a bitch when her crimes on a "bad person scale" are genuinely lower, we are all hipocrites.

Ayane is an angel for putting up with it and forgiving Ami, that slap that she gave her is what a true friend would've done, she brought Ami down to earth and told her she wouldn't stand for it and would love her regardless.
 

Thatguy125Ab

Newbie
Aug 2, 2023
32
51
another noob question, i forgot to get my ayane lust up to 10 for the beach vacation, will i be locked out of her path if i get to Prisoner without it?
 

barglenarglezous

Engaged Member
Sep 5, 2020
2,379
4,413
another noob question, i forgot to get my ayane lust up to 10 for the beach vacation, will i be locked out of her path if i get to Prisoner without it?
You'll miss Prisoner, and you'll miss a few scenes that only trigger if you have Prisoner, but that's a side strand of Ayane's path, not the main part of it.
 

DeSkel15

Engaged Member
Sep 29, 2019
2,373
7,255
Like Moonflare, I heavily disagree with this take on their relationship. Prior to Maya "revealing" the psycho Ami stuff to Ayane, Ami had spent a whole chapter deliberately cultivating a psycho Ami persona in order to try and scare everyone else away from Sensei. The extended psychic manipulation that Ami used against Ayane is much worse than a single event of "bullying" where the whole point was to stop the manipulation and hopefully return them to a more normal relationship.

As you point out, Ayane hasn't been completely alone because she's had Ami, Sensei, and (to a lesser extent) Maya to rely on. Sensei has become a shell of the man who first became her father figure, and is inconsistent at best in how much he supports Ayane now. After Ayane joined the RAS, Maya started treating her less like a friend and more like a hindrance, and was completely fine with Ayane being factory reset, maybe even hoping for it. And so Ami, who had been her strongest source of support, starts pushing Ayane away with the psycho Ami act, she really is finding herself alone now.

It's very clear that if there is a power imbalance after Ayane stands up to Ami on the beach, it's still not in Ayane's favor. In Chapter 4, Ayane is really worried about Ami as well as Sensei, while Ami continues to be an absolute shit friend (and also confirms that she was deliberately manipulating Ayane earlier).
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
I guess I heavily disagree with both of your takes on this.

Ami wasn't pushing Ayane away. Ayane pushed Ami away by not only sleeping with Ami's uncle behind her back, but also with the reset stuff, and then pushed Ami away even more after Maya scared her.

Even before all of that, Ayane said crap like this on Ami's birthday:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
Ami and Ayane literally formed the Sensei Love Squad, and Ami being Ami isn't anything new. She didn't seem to do anything to change their friendship. Ayane did (and Maya). I'm not sure where Ami pushing Ayane away in chapter 3 comes from, tbh. She was trying to rekindle their friendship.

Frankly, even Ayane's problems with Maya and Sensei are her own fault. She treated Maya as a threat before making it to the roof, and basically spent years harassing Sensei while Maya had to hide their relationship. Ayane was even the one who pushed for a sexual relationship with Sensei, surely knowing it'd at least change her relationships with Ami and Sensei. It, of course, is also something Maya likely hated, like how she hated Ayane flaunting her relationship with Sensei during the resets:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
Ayane's actions are a large part of why her relationships are the way they are. I'm curious if she may have even played a part in why her father neglects her and her mother abandoned her, but I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, all that you showed of Ami is after Ayane messed up their friendship, slept with her uncle, acted way different than usual, bullied her, and was just implying that she was somehow involved in Sensei breaking and being incapacitated for 2 months. On top of this, Ami was apparently finally breaking after all of the years of crap she's been put through by everyone around her. Hence why Ami has short hair now.

But the power imbalance I'm referring to was shown blatantly in Ayane's Chapter 3 'Double Jeopardy' Event:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
How someone could consider this as them being "equal" is beyond me.

Ayane definitely played a part in Ami's recent breaking, and it's likely why she wishes she had a friend she could trust:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

I'd be curious how Ami is going to react to Ayane now, but it'd probably be more of the same. Ami seems even more submissive now.
 
Last edited:

aramaug

Member
Jun 28, 2019
131
670
another noob question, i forgot to get my ayane lust up to 10 for the beach vacation, will i be locked out of her path if i get to Prisoner without it?
I highly recommend you download URM and use it to set ayane_lust to 10. Without seeing Prisoner and the other events that rely on it, Ayane's arc will make a lot less sense.

In general, you shouldn't think of this as a traditional VN with a branching narrative and different paths for different girls. There is one linear story that contains arcs for all of the girls. You can never totally lock yourself out from anyone, but the story will be the most cohesive if you make choices and meet lust thresholds so see all of the events.
 

Thatguy125Ab

Newbie
Aug 2, 2023
32
51
s'all good in the hood, i fortunately i had a save backed up to before What's Done Is Done, so i can get the prep work taken care of and then just skip all the stuff ive already seen up to prisoner, i dont mind taking the long way. Like i originally said, this here's a placeholder for Wvm, so the longer that takes the longer i can tunnel vision all these goodies
 

PhiloPhilo

Member
Jan 24, 2022
254
719
Ayane's kind of a bitch. At the very least, for the way she's all over her friend's uncle in a very purposefully public and provocative way. (I think people ignore that because they have context/it's funny/it's a porn* game.) Arguably for other reasons based on actions/demeanor, even if she doesn't necessarily mean it. Ami takes it especially hard because she's genuinely ass shit insane, through no fault of her own or otherwise. That being said, Ami absolutely deserved to get slapped. In no world is taking a scared (quivering,) blindfolded teen with no survival training deep into a random forest justifiable. At best it's a short-sighted and dangerous decision made out of anger (being mad isn't an excuse for 'oops killed my friend lmao.' That's how I ended up in juvenile hall.) I would have slapped the fuck out of Ami if she was my daughter/friend or whatever.

All of this is to say that Ayane and Ami are C tier LiL characters and fell off during the Namek saga. We should be focusing more on sweethearts that wouldn't hurt a fly like Sana, Miku and Yasu. This is now a "nice girl with severe mental issues" appreciate thread.
 

aramaug

Member
Jun 28, 2019
131
670
I guess I heavily disagree with both of your takes on this.

Ami wasn't pushing Ayane away. Ayane pushed Ami away by not only sleeping with Ami's uncle behind her back, but also with the reset stuff, and then pushed Ami away even more after Maya scared her.

Even before all of that, Ayane said crap like this on Ami's birthday:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
Ami and Ayane literally formed the Sensei Love Squad, and Ami being Ami isn't anything new. She didn't seem to do anything to change their friendship. Ayane did (and Maya). I'm not sure where Ami pushing Ayane away in chapter 3 comes from, tbh. She was trying to rekindle their friendship.

Frankly, even Ayane's problems with Maya and Sensei are her own fault. She treated Maya as a threat before making it to the roof, and basically spent years harassing Sensei while Maya had to hide their relationship. Ayane was even the one who pushed for a sexual relationship with Sensei, surely knowing it'd at least change her relationships with Ami and Sensei. It, of course, is also something Maya likely hated, like how she hated Ayane flaunting her relationship with Sensei during the resets:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
Ayane's actions are a large part of why her relationships are the way they are. I'm curious if she may have even played a part in why her father neglects her and her mother abandoned her, but I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, all that you showed of Ami is after Ayane messed up their friendship, slept with her uncle, acted way different than usual, bullied her, and was just implying that she was somehow involved in Sensei breaking and being incapacitated for 2 months. On top of this, Ami was apparently finally breaking after all of the years of crap she's been put through by everyone around her. Hence why Ami has short hair now.

But the power imbalance I'm referring to was shown blatantly in Ayane's Chapter 3 'Double Jeopardy' Event:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
How someone could consider this as them being "equal" is beyond me.

Ayane definitely played a part in Ami's recent breaking, and it's likely why she wishes she had a friend she could trust:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

I'd be curious how Ami is going to react to Ayane now, but it'd probably be more of the same. Ami seems even more submissive now.
Yes, there have been times when Ayane has made mistakes or not necessarily been the best friend. She's a teenage girl after all. Obviously she's hurt Maya by constantly talking about Sensei around him, but that was never intentional. Sleeping with Sensei behind Ami's back is bad, but I'd argue that Ami sleeping with him behind Ayane's back is just as bad, knowing how Ayane feels about him. Admittedly, it was pretty shitty of Ayane (as well as a questionable decision) to reveal to Ami that she knows about Ami+Sensei and to not reveal her own relationship at the same time, but that's a later event.

I think what happens in "Double Jeopardy" has a lot less to do with Ami "obeying" Ayane than it does with Sensei asking her to be less clingy. And in any case it seems pretty reasonable to me for Ayane to want Ami to allow her to be alone with Sensei on ocassion; that's not something she should have to force a friend to allow.

I do want to be clear that while I think Ami has been a bad friend to Ayane, I also sympathize with her and recognize that a lot of it is because she's just as broken as her uncle. I suspect she wasn't being truthful in "...But Home is Nowhere" and does actually care about Ayane, but at the time she was broken from Sensei breaking and wanted to lash out at Ayane and push her away so that she could be alone with Sensei.

My memory of what happens in Chapter 3 admittedly might be faulty, I've only played it once and it's been a little while. I just remember that by the time we got to Maya's psycho Ami "reveal", I was already getting exasperated with how Selebus seemed to be turning Ami into a stock yandere, and then was very pleasantly surprised when we found out it was (at least mostly) an act. I'm really looking forward to tracking how Ami acts with that added context during my replay, and will report back with what I find.

In any case, I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree, given how drastically different our views on the matter are.
 

Moonflare

Active Member
Aug 23, 2023
980
3,435
Like i originally said, this here's a placeholder for Wvm, so the longer that takes the longer i can tunnel vision all these goodies
This is how I imagine your brain after some things that are going to happen in this game:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
Oh man, you'll see such beautiful things that maybe you'll wish you hadn't. Having LiL as a placeholder for a normal story sounds to me like playing emotional russian roulette while waiting for your turn to buy bread.

You're past "this town has two halves", right?
 
Last edited:

Antosha

Member
Feb 28, 2018
422
443
This is now a "nice girl with severe mental issues" appreciate thread.
I mean, I’m all for talking about Sana, Yasu, et al. And I don’t wanna get serious or anything….

But is there a single character in this game who doesn’t have “severe mental issues”?

Granted, not many of them are nice, but Sel has worked hard to make sure that they all have a redeeming human side.

Except Nodoka. She’s just flat-out evil.
 

Riolol

Active Member
Jan 14, 2021
656
1,693
I mean, I’m all for talking about Sana, Yasu, et al. And I don’t wanna get serious or anything….

But is there a single character in this game who doesn’t have “severe mental issues”?

Granted, not many of them are nice, but Sel has worked hard to make sure that they all have a redeeming human side.

Except Nodoka. She’s just flat-out evil.
I have often thought this story would work in an asylum rather than a school. Wakana would make a very hot doctor.
 

Moonflare

Active Member
Aug 23, 2023
980
3,435
But is there a single character in this game who doesn’t have “severe mental issues”?
No, and probably by design. Excellent narratives will have their central theme reflected in all its characters (or at least the central ones). In fact, that tends to be a strategy for determining the central theme of a story: what is the question/struggle shared by everyone in it?

The in-universe explanation could just be that all those in the simulation had to be somewhat broken. It would be kind of funny if the whole simulation is an extreme kind of therapy, in which the patient repeats their life until they're able to finally break through from their trauma lol (kind of an anti/weird cousin to No Exit, by Sartre, for those that like those references).
 

Thatguy125Ab

Newbie
Aug 2, 2023
32
51
This is how I imagine your brain after some things that are going to happen in this game:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
Oh man, you'll see such beautiful things that maybe you'll wish you hadn't. Having LiL as a placeholder for a normal story sound to me like playing emotional russian roulette while waiting for your turn to buy bread.

You're past "this town has two halves", right?
yeah, is that the one where Sens steals Yumi's first kiss? that felt a little whiplash-y
 

PhiloPhilo

Member
Jan 24, 2022
254
719
I mean, I’m all for talking about Sana, Yasu, et al. And I don’t wanna get serious or anything….

But is there a single character in this game who doesn’t have “severe mental issues”?

Granted, not many of them are nice, but Sel has worked hard to make sure that they all have a redeeming human side.

Except Nodoka. She’s just flat-out evil.
Genuinely, I think it depends what you mean by mental issues and by "severe". I wouldn't classify a lot of the main cast as having 'severe mental issues' honestly, maybe just issues or disorders. But a lot of them just have personality quirks, shitty aspects, or are dumb teens. Things like Noriko's obsessiveness might be due to abandonment issues and not necessarily seen as something as "severe" or crippling long-term.

I sympathize with Yumi a lot. She grew up around crime and hard drugs before presumably (iffy on it) being homeless for a good chunk of time. She's an ass hole, but is that not to be expected? And it's shown that she can change somewhat/slowly. She's not psychopathic or psychotic or anything, just an angry kid with a fucked up perspective and rearing. I've beat the shit out of kids for less than what Nodoka did. Deserved, honestly.

Chika's just an obsessive teen mostly, to a high degree. Kirin's literally just a walking vagina monster. Otoha might have mood swings/behavioral issues or something I guess(?) but otherwise is just another (kind of a bitch?) teenage girl. Tsuneyo... She's probably high functioning if we're being honest, but she's mostly fine. Molly and Maya probably don't have serious mental health issues/disorders either. And Makoto had a major depressive episode or two, but that might be over, and she may not suffer from any type of depression going forward. Knock on wood. And Touka is actually just some spoiled rich girl with a lot on her shoulders, albeit extremely level-headed and well adjusted considering her posh lifestyle.

Okay, so it's a smaller slice of the cast than I thought, but still. We have a few relatively normal main cast members without any major mental health or personality disorders. And some of the ones that do may owe theirs in part at least to 'supernatural' causes, like Sana (If you count her visions as "issues" and speculate how they may/may not affect her behavior, mood, etc.,) Yasu, and maybe Nodoka if there is weird shit going on with her.

*Took out the part about Futaba's body dysmorphia. I'm not sure how it's classified medically speaking, and don't want to downplay it unintentionally. Her possible depression linked to that is another concern I didn't mention or factor in. I'm not qualified to speak on it. Acknowledging my ignorance for transparency.
 
Last edited:

Moonflare

Active Member
Aug 23, 2023
980
3,435
Genuinely, I think it depends what you mean by mental issues and by "severe". I wouldn't classify a lot of the main cast as having 'severe mental issues' honestly, maybe just issues or disorders. But a lot of them just have personality quirks, shitty aspects, or are dumb teens. Things like Futaba's body dysmorphia might be arguable under what you consider 'extreme' unless she really goes down a dark place in the future. (I don't want to downplay that condition at all, I respect how serious it is and how it affects people, I guess I just don't know how it's labeled medically or seen.) And Noriko's obsessiveness might be due to abandonment issues and not necessarily seen as something as "severe" or crippling long-term.

I sympathize with Yumi a lot. She grew up around crime and hard drugs before presumably (iffy on it) being homeless for a good chunk of time. She's an ass hole, but is that not to be expected? And it's shown that she can change somewhat/slowly. She's not psychopathic or psychotic or anything, just an angry kid with a fucked up perspective and rearing. I've beat the shit out of kids for less than what Nodoka did. Deserved, honestly.

Chika's just an obsessive teen mostly, to a high degree. Kirin's literally just a walking vagina monster. Otoha might have mood swings/behavioral issues or something I guess(?) but otherwise is just another (kind of a bitch?) teenage girl. Tsuneyo... She's probably high functioning if we're being honest, but she's mostly fine. Molly and Maya probably don't have serious mental health issues/disorders either. And Makoto had a major depressive episode or two, but that might be over, and she may not suffer from any type of depression going forward. Knock on wood. And Touka is actually just some spoiled rich girl with a lot on her shoulders, albeit extremely level-headed and well adjusted considering her posh lifestyle.

Okay, so it's a smaller slice of the cast than I thought, but still. We have a few relatively normal main cast members without any major mental health or personality disorders. And some of the ones that do may owe theirs in part at least to 'supernatural' causes, like Sana (If you count her visions as "issues" and speculate how they may/may not affect her behavior, mood, etc.,) Yasu, and maybe Nodoka if there is weird shit going on with her.

*A lot of grammar edits.
Counterpoint: the severe mental issue is that they're all attracted to Akira.
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
 
4.20 star(s) 297 Votes