- Nov 22, 2021
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Of all the English Ren'py games I played after LiL in search of something which captured a modicum of its greatness, Eternum probably faired the best. By the point I reached it I was happy just to see something written in what felt like native English, and it has nice production values to boot. The problem for me was that (as is so often the case), the character psychology ended up just a bit too underbaked to be engaging for a long period of time. The protagonist himself being a nothingburger was a big negative, but the heroines getting blander over time (or perhaps - not introducing any freshness after their introduction) was of course the real killer. A cloud of grimness fell over me as I trudged further and further into the game realizing that, far from learning more about the characters, I was simply observing the author shift gears into romance and sex mode dot exe. The clearest demonstration of this shallow writing, though, is best observed in the side characters rather than the main characters; there we consistently see cruel, bully-ish depictions of cardboard cutouts meant to be nothing more than stepping stones for the protagonist to grind the heels of his feet into. You can tell a lot about an author by how they treat side characters: are they jokes or do they feel like believable parts of the world? (With some consideration given to parodies and one-offs and so on). It is only with a roll of my eyes I point to Sara in Lessons in Love here, although I really do not want to fellate Selebus on this matter in particular: imagine a world where Sara is like a comical milf stereotype and then over 3 million words she is basically only used for sexo if not immediately forgotten.
All of the above is merely a preface for what I find a fairly funny happenstance, though. As it happens I was detailing my English VN journey to my fellow Japanese VN fans as a sort of farcical, ahem, 'kino journey' as the lads may call it on Discord (though far be it from me to spam such an uncouth word). And remarkably, almost every Japanese chad was FAR MORE intrigued by Eternum than Lessons in love. In the end, by brokering points (a sort of trade system where you offer X amounts of points for completing a game, and then those points can be brokered to force you to play a game), I was successful in coercing three Japanese gamers to play Lessons in Love (thereby, I might add, securing Selebus a smooth $15 extra in revenue a month, though he would thank me for that with a swift banhammer if we ever met eye-to-eye as men), but that is another matter entirely.
For some extremely thought-provoking reason, almost every screenshot or clip of Lessons in Love I sent inspired ire and mockery. I am no amateur when it comes to live-blogging; I knew to pick the best angles and best lines to give a biased picture of the game. I even have 10 VNDB screenshots lined up which would be sure to triple the turnover rate from the VNDB page, but at the last moment I saw that Selebus had hand-selected the existing screenshots, and although I have implied this in the past I would like to re-emphasize that the selection is totally garbage in what I can only imagine to be an intentional effort to filter out potentially judgmental players, but I'm getting ahead of myself again. The point is, almost every positive aspect of Lessons in Love is something that seems to exist only in context; as a base example, to laugh at spaghetti jokes one has to go through Sana's events and spend like 50 hours in the ambient mind space of 'the spaghetti incident' to finally laugh when the food competition happens and she cries at spaghetti. You can't just link the spaghetti incident. Similarly, perhaps we can say that Maya events in Chapter 2 are "high cinema" that belong in a museum along other works of art, but they have of course NO IMPACT out side of context - without having played LiL for 70+ hours, it will really mean nothing when Maya tears up and says, 'Even though you're the most disgusting person in the world,' positioned in front of lights in a very meaningful location. This is to say that it is an EXCRUCIATING EFFORT to convey to Japanese chads the quality of Lessons in Love, especially with little aid from the big man himself. Everything comes off as "cringe" or "meme humor" (to say nothing of how they have 0 exposure to Koikatsu graphics used in this manner, although big leaps were made when the comic 愚かで勤勉な私たちは blew up in Japanese twitter). That's why I ended up brokering points; there's almost no other way to convince them but by physical force.
Eternum, on the other hand, caught on like fire. Everybody fucked loved it. I couldn't believe it. From my perspective I had just shot blood from every pore as I strained to hold up the world like Atlas, then in the next moment had a horde of duders offering to share the burden. Every single clip I posted engendered mass attention and laughs. Every single screenshot had at least one person asking 'source?'. Humiliatingly enough, some would even make comments like, 'Why did you have that whole Lessons in Love arc for a month if you could have been playing this.' I like to think that if Selebus were present to witness it he would have tightened his hand into a fist and trembled for at least three seconds. It was that distinct, and in fact one guy even came from the woodworks to say he was a long-term fan of Eternum, which was crazy since of course Lessons in Love had existed in beyond obscurity; some still doubt its existence.
This proved to be a matter of deep contemplation to me. What exactly was the difference here? I could remove myself as a variable since I came to this with the same expertise and methods to the same audience in the same climate. The difference had to be the games. So I thought and thought and... honestly, it's not that complicated. Eternum's own shallowness is what made it so much more universally appealing at a glance, and while that seems like a salty or backhanded insult, that is not my intention. Rather, there are basically no jokes like the spaghetti, and there are minimal long-running contextual sources of humor or pog that you have to be immersed in the game to understand. Everything is immediate, direct, in-your-face, and so on. Alas, I do not believe F95 handles clips well, but I will attempt to link 3 streamable examples.
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What we see here are instances of what in the Japanese community we refer to as "high quality 演出," with 演出 being like a mix of 'scene direction' and 'production value.' Essentially a scene that looks high-effort and good will be said to have good 演出. Anyway, what Eternum lacks in deep or meaningful characterization it has in spades in 演出, and an outside observer will need little understanding of any lore or contextual humor to appreciate this. Link a picture of an artful discussion between Nodoka and Sensei, you run a fine line of people rolling their eyes. Link a clip of the camera spinning like crazy as dark souls music plays, people pog. This is somewhat of an oversimplification on all sides, but I think the point is clear.
It sticks with me so much, though, because by my own measure (and forgive me for the arrogance with which this will come of), I think Lessons in Love is way better than Eternum, but hereby I am bound by the fact I can effortlessly sell people on Eternum while it's an immense struggle to even get someone to acknowledge that Lessons in Love isn't EOP trash. An easy jab here is something like 'where there's smoke there's fire' but it really goes to show the value in marketing that animated sequences and so on has. It's come to the point that when shilling Lessons in Love I link that one youtube video of the Room with Clocks somewhat begrudgingly because I've found it to be the most effective way at cracking that outer layer of doubt and mockery.
As a final word I will post a (somewhat erotically charged) screenshot of Eternum to discuss one interesting exchange I had.
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There is exactly one individual whom I know who recognized LiL's quality without any artful deception and was offput by anything I shared of Eternum. This one individual is someone I respect above almost all others for his sharp mind and cutting insight, though I say this now only for performative purposes. Upon seeing the above screenshot of Eternum, they were offput because there was no physical interaction between the heroines; despite living together and mostly being a family, they were visibly posed separately and placed separately. They stare at the protagonist with ghoulish eyes and slack jaws while totally lacking cognizance for any of their family nearby. There is no sense of place or family or character here; there is only dolled-up and posed Honey Select models. Contrast this with say the former title screen and oft-referenced class photo in Lessons in Love, where Ayane hugs Sana, sana looks back at Ayane, Maya averts her eyes, Makoto has a hand on Miku, Ami has a hand placed on Makoto, and the one portion of the photo palpably unblemished, noticeably uncovered by dust, is the indeed the face of Ami looking directly at the camera, ghoulish smile on her face... That, I would say, is the level of insight it takes to appreciate Lessons in Love at a glance over Eternum. Isn't that a funny thing?
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The answer is really simple. Peeps just wanna self-insert. You don't need high-artistic value if you have enough sex and a self-insertable character. Sex sells, and regardless of anything, the great majority will only be moved by their first impressions.
BTW, what Room with Clocks video are you talking about?
To be fair, that is the correct reaction to seeing anybody eat while sitting on the toilet.
- Nov 22, 2021
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As a spoiler-averse person I don't really like linking it since I think it lessens the impact of seeing shota Sensei for the first time in-game among other things but people unfamiliar with the game respond better to this than anything else I've tried by far.
Might be the first time I read one of your long posts. Cant say more, than that I agree. Also based. BTW, what was the reaction of the three japanese GAMERS who actually played Lil, to the game?
- Jan 1, 2024
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Because it's absolute cinema. Shock value works, and it leaves you guessing what's happening and what will happen.
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- Nov 22, 2021
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One loved it so much he declared he liked it more than Subahibi despite the immense social cost that came with that (lol). He's in the process of writing a massive, artful post which I will share when he is done. He would have finished by now but he hated 0.45 and didn't want to write with seethe in his heart. (By the way, by Japanese VN readers I mean bilingual Westerners often living in Japan who mainly read Japanese VNs. Basically the opposite of WEG gamers who found LiL on itch.io and played it as their first VN. Unsurprisingly, Japanese people don't know English very well and are not interested in English-only VNs.)
One is fascinated by the denpa/plot but has a strong revulsion for all the slice of life. He considers LiL a valuable experience and is glad it was forced upon him but has little enthusiasm from the heart for it as a result. One interesting thing in his evaluation is that he hates the so-called "hivemind" of the heroines in how they are all drawn to Sensei and talk about his dick. It was comments like this that made me start thinking about the possibility of an 'actual' hivemind or 'actual' brainwashing going on of some sort, as one theory among many, which lately has gained weight due to all this rabies stuff.
One is mixed in that, let's say, he likes 50% of characters but dislikes the other 50% of characters, such that he enjoys the game and every scene with Niki etc etc but immediately wants to shoot his brains out for any scene with Miku. He is strongly a proponent that the cast should have been halved, and it's due to him that I came up with the concept of "favorite character RNG" which is the idea that one's LiL experience greatly depends on the pseudorandom chance of how much they like each member of the cast. If you like 5 and dislike 15 you're in for a bad time, if you like 15 and dislike 5 it'll be better, etc etc. He also wrote a very long essay of constructive criticism for Selebus but tossed it into the trash after determining Selebus was not someone who listens fairly to criticism (lol).
There is also a highly intellectual person who doesn't read many VNs who started not due to me brokering points but simply because they have a keen insight for literature and noticed from my screenshots the game was something special. He by far has responded to LiL the best and made it his mission for all his close friends and family to play the game. If Selebus knew this person he would probably be overjoyed, there really is no better model of a player: someone who solves puzzles entirely on their own no matter how many hours it takes, someone who sincerely considers the writing specifically to be among America's greatest (he humorously has called LiL 'the latest great American novel' or something), someone who shills the game, etc etc. Sadly, he will hear of him only indirectly in this post.
Overall not so bad considering how tough the crowd was.
- Feb 28, 2018
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Btw, pretty sure that account is an AI-written bot. Looong posts that don’t quite hold together. “Responses” that aren’t actually responses. That kind of thing.
I mean, if something it said sparked a thought, go for it. But don’t expect a rich exchange of views.
ETA: 2400 pages on 12/24/24. Heh. (Or 24.12.24 if you’re not from these Benighted States.)
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- Aug 20, 2022
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I'm at my Mom's so trying to keep the degeneracy to a minimum, but still had to at least log in here and wish you all a Merry Christmas and delicious food and a hopefully equally nice and wholesome Christmas event coming in January.
- Nov 22, 2021
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Yeah, I'm not surprised at why it works, so I just roll with it. A picture is worth a thousand words, and leaving mysteries to the imagination allows someone to imagine greater things, as opposed to linking Uta dabbing or something like that. It would be nice if something like it existed within the work itself. There is exactly ONE time where I decided to dip my toes into spoiler territory and link a clip of Ad Infinitum, but that went horribly since the person I showed it to wasn't inoculated to HOPE and mostly just found their dialogue hilariously immersion-breaking, which to be fair I should have seen coming. But yeah. LiL is all about the text, after all...
Nah, I just spent an hour+ writing the post. I'm not sure what you mean by 'don't quite hold together' but perhaps I do end up scatterbrained by the end of them. I also don't know what you mean by responses that aren't actually responses. I'm making an effort to not argue or belittle others so that one day F95 will accept me and I can hold hands with everyone here as brothers again, so perhaps you are interpreting my evasive lack of hostility as empty responses.
Holy based. Merry Christmas, my friend Dean.
Eh, I don't really mind it even if it's true or not. I enjoyed the pre-Parahumans 2 scene of the AIs simulating a forum discussion.
- Oct 1, 2023
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Merry christmas to everybody and happy holidays.
May you all find the Ayane to your despacito.
May you all find the Ayane to your despacito.
good god why did the lust requirements just fucking double. it's almost like the game doesn't want me to do them. HMMMM
and why is.. Futaba's 49 specifically? I don't know if there's an actual spoiler reason for that so I'm doing the spoiler thing just in case and if it is a spoiler thing I'm not sure I want the answer
and why is.. Futaba's 49 specifically? I don't know if there's an actual spoiler reason for that so I'm doing the spoiler thing just in case and if it is a spoiler thing I'm not sure I want the answer
100% Not a bot. You might be able to convince me that its artificially lengthened but I doubt even that.
One of the many phases I went through playing this game.
Found the game on itch and the first thing I did was skip through all the text to get to the first h-scene ofc :D and damnn, was it a lot of text. Wasnt even sure I would be able to read it.
I got around to reading from the beginning and the things I remember the most from that time are how weird Senseis model looked and I found the "happy scenes" with all the flashing pretentious, cringe and nothing burgers.
After that I got hooked on the plot of the whole world resetting and all that, so I greatly preferred Maya events, since her events moved the plot the most. I felt like the plot was absolute drip-feed with how slow it was moving. But slowly I realized that even the "slice of life" events were very entertaining and the character writing was absolute fire, so I got to liking pretty much anything the game offered.
I would guess that around chapter 2 I realized that this game was absolute cinema and that I wont be able to ever find something similar to this. Got myself completely swallowed by the story and characters.
Then I guess the final stage would be when I started to like every character around the end of chapter 3. Till that point I still had some that I found at least boring (Tsuneyo).
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- Aug 24, 2019
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Merry christmas nerds,
This hat fits my pfp so fucken well.
This hat fits my pfp so fucken well.
- May 9, 2019
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Well who could guess that there are really Japanese reading LiL lol. Despite being fully American novel and writing style, I could argue some thinking and ideas in LiL is quite oriental thus it didn't come that much of a surprise. Though rather than Subahibi with which each Denpa visual novel seems inevitably have to compare. Some of the ramblings and reminds me of Kyojin-tachi which experiences more on language and subjectivity of fictional characters and authenticity of game or any medium themselves while ruthlessly unveiling intrusion of author to every visible pore of the game.
I would call LiL as the greatest post-modernism American novel had it not been such a conceitful and self-righteous author. Let's not concern my congenial prejudice on English novels and favor on classical Russian ones here first.
Uh ok, I need actual real help making a decision because I'm scared of it.
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- Feb 28, 2018
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Well, in all fairness, the author of the greatest modernist novel was certainly conceited and self-righteous. If it’s good enough for James Joyce…
