Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.46.0] [Selebus]

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Discussion Reviews (318)
Bingoogus

Bingoogus

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Sep 5, 2021
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Dc345 said:
Wouldn't shota Akira be a warlock
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warlock/sorcerer are masculine titles, witch/sorceress are feminine titles, Wizard/mage stereotypically are masculine but they're mostly gender neutral in this day and age. It's honestly all a bit of a mess though, there are counter examples everywhere, both wizard and warlock have been the male counterpart to witch in the past, mage has almost never been gender specific, sorcerer and sorceress are as ubiquitous as actor and actress, it's normal and common to call a female a sorcerer or an actor but you never refer to a male by the 'ess' suffix. The 'ess' suffix is usually only used when someone intends to highlight gender in their statement, for common speech they're just the default masculine/neutral title. Heck, DnD treats warlock as a class so there's female warlocks too, it's a simple case of writewhateverthefuckyouwant and who cares, just be consistent.
 
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aramaug

aramaug

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Fire Lord Zuko said:
Omfg! I just had the craziest revelation just now! Remember that post that confirmed Tsubasa was more important than we give her credit for? Well I'm pretty sure she's literally the narrator at the end of the first Beach Vacation. Just look:

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The fact she repeats the same questions? The tree reference just a few sentences later (which may or may not be about the sakura at her manor)? At the very least, this is worth looking into. Assuming no one has already pointed this out.
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I went back through some more events to find additional evidence for narrator Tsubasa, and I think that there is a lot there.

Before I get to that, let me share my current theory on the narrators in Chapter 1.
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OK, on to why I think N2 is Tsubasa. I already talked about "Cursed Birds" and the beach events in a previous post, which I'll link here.
aramaug said:
Great catch. Given the identical wording, I think we have to assume that either Tsubasa is the narrator or is very closely connected to whoever is.

I actually think Tsubasa fits really well with what we know about the (first) beach narrator. As I posted previously, the stuff the narrator says about the tree indicates that they want to become a god or at least godlike.
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Earlier in the event, the narrator indicates that they are unhappy with the "God god" who made the world. They want their own world where they can do what they want, which includes helping their loved ones.
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The narrator also seems to have empathy for the girls, which I think rules out Sekai/Pareidolia/The World Itself.

All of that seems very consistent with what we know about Tsubasa's motivations, wanting to have the power to manipulate people for benevolent reasons. In "Playing God" she even states that she wants to fill the role of a god who isn't doing their job.
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Prior to the beach vacation, the "Cursded Birds" event opens with a monologue that I originally thought was just Sensei, but it actually makes a lot of sense that it's introducing Tsubasa as a new narrator. This is how the event opens:
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The opening line is exactly the same as the game's first event ("Every Day I Grow Some More"). However, this time there is a different "first thing" that the narrator doesn't understand, so it's almost certainly a different narrator. I think the repeat of Narrator #1's opening line is meant to indicate a Narrator #2 is now introducing themselves. Also note that the narrator is describing the difference between childhood and adulthood, which implies they have a fair bit of experience with being an adult.

After that, the narrator starts talking about manipulation, which they seem to view as something that helps people
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And the monologue closes with an indictment of "God god", which I think is the only time outside of the beach vacation that a narrator uses that term in Chapter 1.
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So in summary: possibly a new narrator, is/was an adult, views manipulation as a tool for good, and uses the same language as the beach narrator. Tsubasa seems like a perfect fit.


As for how Tsubasa is able to act as a narrator, I suspect it has something to do with the wishing well (or if Tsubasa isn't the narrator, that's how they're connected).
The beach narrator wants Sensei to throw himself into the wishing well.
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The last things that the Xoanon shows us in "Mother's Milk" is the Tsukioka manor sakura tree.
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The Xoanon calls Sensei a puppet and says that others want to use him for purposes that the Xoanon agrees with. This could just be the gods, but Tsubasa has explicitly referred to Sensei as her puppet.
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The beach narrator tells Sensei he can see more with his eyes closed, and the Xoanon says his eyes are closed to avoid being blinded.
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Makoto says the same thing about seeing with your eyes closed in "Bluejay", and there's a good chance that she enters the wishing well since she gets Sensei's eyes. She says it before the suicide, however. Maybe she already has a wishing well connection from doing the same thing in previous resets, I'm not sure.

Edit: Oh and I forgot to mention, the beach narrator talks a lot about ticking clocks (and Rin starts hearing them). The room with clocks might be in the wishing well.
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And here's her other Chapter 1 narration and additional evidence I've found.
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Ern The Skáld

Ern The Skáld

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Jan 24, 2023
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BlackDays said:
Wanted to ask something for mates here, since it came up with what Yasu would choose in karaoke.

For the love what ever deity, in my social environment maybe 2 of 100 people know what Soundgarden is, more often they know Audioslave, but that would at most double the amount, without probably even knowing who Chris Cornell was.
That said, i'm from Europe (Germany).

So how is that for you guys?
I saw that some people know, made my heart almost skip a beat.
Those of you who know, are you just older? and experienced that era?, or is Soundgarden/Chris Cornell better known in the states?
If you're in the younger department, how did you come to know?
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As a musician and a great vocals enjoyer it's hard to not know Chris Cornell. Maybe it's also cause I'm 30. And I'm not from the states.
 
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LessonsInDissonance

LessonsInDissonance

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Oct 1, 2023
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Why are you guys so fixated in there being narrators? there's no narrators, some "people" and "users" just get into Akira's head and start whispering words to him.
That is not a narrator.
 
Comiies

Comiies

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LessonsInDissonance said:
Why are you guys so fixated in there being narrators? there's no narrators, some "people" and "users" just get into Akira's head and start whispering words to him.
That is not a narrator.
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My take is that most of these "Narrators" are just products of Akiras psycosis.Him thinking this whole world is a game,his blackouts,him quite literally reffering to "Us" from the very beginning of the game.Textbook schizophrenia.But until we get some more proof ill keep my mouth shut.
 
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Comiies

Comiies

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You know lately ive been thinking about tsubasa(Yes i know shocker).Ignoring those funny little tit bits about her words matching the narrators from a previous event or the fact that she has an uncanny obsession with god and creating a perfect world and whatnot(Completely random but tsubasa is the only character-excluding Maya ofc-that talks about god this much.Quite weird).

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Moonflare

Moonflare

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Comiies said:
My take is that most of these "Narrators" are just products of Akiras psycosis.Him thinking this whole world is a game,his blackouts,him quite literally reffering to "Us" from the very beginning of the game.Textbook schizophrenia.But until we get some more proof ill keep my mouth shut.
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Everything in this game could be considered his psychosis, but then there'd be no point (in my personal taste regarding the narrative).
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Also, as you said (regarding most), Himawari is a confirmed narrator.
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And since she says she's "a" one, or "the" one, depending on your preferences, one could assume there is at least one more narrator other than Akira (she's definitely not "the" in terms of being the sole one because there are multiple examples of narrators acting in a way that's just not her - like using classic poetry).

We also know Pareidolia is a narrator, and one could say "well, he's literally a voice inside Akira's head", and they'd be correct, but Pareidolia has also been messing/saving Sana and her mom without Akira's presence. So to say Pareidolia is a product of his psychosis would be to say the entire game is a hallucination, and there's no one there besides Akira.

My take is that most likely other narrators aside from Himawari and Paredolia exist as actual entities. aramaug has been putting a strong case for Tsubasa, that I haven't really bought into, but I can't deny the evidence either.
 
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Comiies

Comiies

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Moonflare said:
Everything in this game could be considered his psychosis, but then there'd be no point (in my personal taste regarding the narrative).
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Also, as you said, Himawari is a confirmed narrator
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And since she says she's "a" one, or "the" one, depending on your preferences, one could assume there is at least one more narrator other than Akira.

We also know Pareidolia is a narrator, and one could say "well, he's literally a voice inside Akira's head", and they'd be correct, but Pareidolia has also been messing/saving Sana and her mom without Akira's presence. So to say Pareidolia is a product of his psychosis would be to say the entire game is a hallucination, and there's no one there besides Akira.

My take is that most likely other narrators other than Himawari and Paredolia exist as actual entities. aramaug has been putting a strong case for Tsubasa, that I haven't really bought into, but I can't deny the evidence either.
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Oh yea totally.I didnt mean to devalue the existance of my dear shapeshifter.I was just saying that most of the time when narrators change its just Akira being insane.That doesnt mean that other narrators dont exist,just that there arent as many as we previously thought.
 
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Moonflare

Moonflare

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A random thought I had today: I know there's a lot we love about this game. And if I asked for some favorite moments we'd overlap in a multitude of ways. So what I'm asking is not your favorite moment, but the most unexpected moment in which you realised how you love this game.

My example will make this clearer:
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It's one thing for a story to be great when you have complex and important moments, like Maya confessing her feelings, or Akira smiling at his daughter, or Chika's mom looking at her house full of life again from the portrait - there are countless of them.

But it's rare even among great stories to be able to pull off "THIS CHICKEN SAVED YOUR LIFE!" and have you so into it that you not only take it seriously, but find it a great moment. So that's one of mine, what is a random/silly/unexpected moment for you that you loved about LiL? (or realised just how much into the game you were?)
 
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BlackDays

BlackDays

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LessonsInDissonance said:
Why are you guys so fixated in there being narrators? there's no narrators, some "people" and "users" just get into Akira's head and start whispering words to him.
That is not a narrator.
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The thing is, that Sel is also a narrator.
Why would HE whisper into his own creations heads? Not that i think it's impossible but very unlikely.

Another thing is, that for ambiguous/unknown characters Sel uses a standard color for their name in renpy, which is a reddish tone.
Now, Sel uses for himself but interestingly also for Sekai an identical red color value different from the standard one.

/e

For refenrence: red in HexDec is #ff0000

Those get the standard reddish color:
define seven = Character("73 65 6b 61 69")

Different from, lets just take Maya:
define m = Character("Maya", color="#18b500", who_outlines=[(absolute(2.5), "#000", absolute(0), absolute(0))])

Now Sel and Sekai and a parrot?
define se = Character("Sekai", color="#96001B", who_outlines=[(absolute(2.5), "#000", absolute(0), absolute(0))])
define parrot = Character("Parrot the Parrot", color="#96001B", who_outlines=[(absolute(2.5), "#000", absolute(0), absolute(0))])
define red = Character("Red", color="#96001B", who_outlines=[(absolute(2.5), "#000", absolute(0), absolute(0))])
define sel = Character("Selebus", color="#96001B", who_outlines=[(absolute(2.5), "#000", absolute(0), absolute(0))])

/e2

So, i mentioned it some time ago, red moons in japanese culture are associated with, lets boil it down, desaster.
It fits for Sekai given the story so far.
Don't know what the parrot was about.
That Sel gives himself that specific color is interesting and i have to ask myself if he sees himself that way.
I know that he knows that he has his flaws and whatever.
I wonder if he's going introspective there.
 
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4.10 star(s) 318 Votes