Selebus posted today on the Discord: "Please be advised ahead of 23.0 Part 2 that all subscriptions are non-refundable"
This could mean he's been getting a lot of refund requests and is tired of having to explain this to people, but there is a possibility he put that out there because he anticipates this update being VERY unpopular.
BUt this is also the last update before the rework begins, and the rework is anticipated to take two months, during which time there will be no updates, so he could just be getting out in front of people upset at percieved inactivity.
There's also the possibility that something happens in this update that could provoke a fan riot (ilke Maya getting rebooted, which has been alluded to multiple times starting with the Dorm War events).
The release announcement said it will go live for patrons tomorrow night. So get your anxiety meds ready!
Entirely possible, I would also be getting annoyed at this. In fairness to anyone who may or may not be requesting refunds, you make an extremely good point. It is well known at this point that patron types don't usually like to be kept waiting, so it is understandable that, because they are not getting the monthly release they were told they would when they signed up, that they would not want to pay for it.
However, what is not understandable is that they have been given a good reason for this period of inactivity and yet are not acting like the reason for it is valid as if they think games don't go through reworks like this.
This is, of course, all speculation as I have no inside information from Selebus to go from. As for the update, I am finally well enough to play again and hopefully I won't get sick before I get through content I have gotten behind on plus new stuff. I am very anxious myself about the Maya possibility and what that might do to Sensei not to mention the possibility that any 'good' in him might also be reset, whether he gained it over the course of the story or had it already, but we'll see what happens.
#SaveTheChu~Scene!
But given the timing of when all this started, wouldn't her getting rebooted ... not be that bad? I mean it'd still be bad in the sense that the girl we grew to know would have been rewinded, but...
Also,
Honestly, there are a lot of unknowns going into this one, so there's not telling how bad the Maya reset may or may not be assuming it happens.
At the start of the game, we wake up with no understanding of where we are, who we are, or who anyone else is.
This is what Maya is afraid of happening to her. It's what the Angels alluded to in the dorm event. Everythiing that made Maya Maya will be gone and replaced with a completely blank slate. And it's possible that this could begin a who-knows-how-long process with Sensei and Maya's roles are reversed, and he's constantly watching Maya get rebooted, each time hoping that THIS time, she'll come back as her old self, and eventually losing all hope that it will ever happen.
While Ayane is often foolish and lives with her heads in the clouds, she has acknowledged more than once that she's not stupid. She knows that getting pregnant is a disaster. If she keeps the baby, Sensei is likely lost to her forever as he gets arrested or conscripted. If she tries to get an abortion, questions get asked, and the one man she's been seen out in public with regularly probably gets arrested or conscripted anyway. There isn't a win scenario if things play out the way they would for normal people.
But Ayane isn't a normal person. She's the daughter of the second wealthiest man in the city, a man who was able to dodge the war by virtue of his wealth, and a man who could, potentially, save Sensei from the same fate. I think Ayane knows this is a long shot. But it's literally the only path forward that allows her to maintain the fantasy of the life she wants to build with Sensei.
But Sensei shot that down before she could even tell him.
That would be a scary thought, it would essentially be giving her the same treatment as Sensei got at the beginning of the game. Next thing you know, she'll be waking up in his chair with Ami sitting at her desk after school.
"chu" as in a light kiss in manga.
There's a scene in the early game in which Ayane walks in on Sensei in the bathroom of his apartment, and she lightly kisses his penis.
That entire scene is getting yeeted in the rework.
Unfortunately, I still feel it sets up how she is up to the first beach event and is important to her character to that point as a result. She was shown to be kind of willing to do some pretty drastic stuff, nothing like murder, but things like basically throwing herself at him right out of the gate. She kind of settled down from that sort of behavior after the first beach event and I feel it was a result of the event with Kirin.
If Maya gets rebooted would sensei even care? Wouldn't he use the opportunity to manipulate her to fall in love with him? He can create whatever personality he wants her to have for his convenience.
Considering the implication is that nobody is safe, even he may be rebooted to some degree, we don't know.
There's definitely a part of Sensei that would do exactly that. Sensei might not care.
We, the players, are much more likely to, and she's a popular enough character that a player revolt might break out if it happens. And it's the kind of existential-horror scenario that I'd expect from this game.
The main reason I think it's going to happen, beyond just the foreshadowing we've seen, is that we've reached the point in the story where Sensei doesn't need her as a mentor to help him navigate this world anymore, and much like other stories with a mentor archetype, when the protagonist has learned all he needs to learn from his mentor, it's time for the mentor to be taken away so that the hero can learn to continue without their help.
I can see it, she is up there as far as popularity.
