Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.47.0] [Selebus]

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hopeisdead6969

hopeisdead6969

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Fire Lord Zuko said:
Man, just imagine the implications if it is Himawari shapeshifted into Nodoka. Seeing her and Ami interact with one another would actually be so interesting.
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My gut tells me Himawari is anti-Ami. So it would be like the dress down Ayane gives Kirin after beach SA event.
I do have to wonder now that I think about it: what is the power level difference between Mega-Ami and Himawari? Like, DBZ style. :p
 
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Moonflare

Moonflare

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Fire Lord Zuko said:
Man, just imagine the implications if it is Himawari shapeshifted into Nodoka. Seeing her and Ami interact with one another would actually be so interesting.
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It would definitely be interesting for Akira to say Ami, and both of them to answer.

But even if they do that, many will say that it's because they're both dressed as Ami rather than both of their names being so. So the prophet will remain uncredited once more :/
 
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aramaug

aramaug

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fdsasdf_p said:
One possible exception to this that I can find is that Tsuneyo of all people has said those words too, in front of Yumi.
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In cases like these, it is more straightforward to assume that "seeing with your eyes closed" is an on-brand eerie LiL gibberish instead of trying to define what kind of connection Tsuneyo could've had with Pareidolia.
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The context of the conversation is that Tsuneyo is trying to remember what happened during the fifth reset. The initial questions are about the slumber party, and then the rest are about whatever supernatural experience she had after leaving the party. Sensei underwent a trial created by Pareidolia ("Untitled") and at least some of his companions also had trials, so it's plausible these questions come from Tsuneyo's own Pareidolia trial.

Also, immediately after the passage you quoted, we're shown red eye SeKaori arrive at the ramen shop.
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And then the next event in the ramen shop, Wires claws his way out which causes Pareidolia to panic and quite literally piss himself.
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I think Sekai/Pareidolia were taking advantage of Wires's absence to do something naughty with the ramen shop and/or Tsuneyo.

I'm not saying this is evidence for a Pareidolia connection, but it's certainly not inconsistent with one.
Fire Lord Zuko said:
Man, just imagine the implications if it is Himawari shapeshifted into Nodoka. Seeing her and Ami interact with one another would actually be so interesting.
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I can't imagine it's Himawari. We've seen her transform her clothes in front of us ("Beyond the Reach of God" and "Ad Meliora") so she shouldn't have to physically change outfits. Her shapeshifting powers are also pretty limited, relying on suggestion and the observer's mental state (Sensei when blacked out or slipping, Nodoka in her manic state), so it's pretty unlikely that Sensei and Ami would see her as Nodoka while she's wearing Ami's clothes.

I'm guessing the skirt is just a red herring and part of some random cosplay outfit, but here's a tinfoil idea that is almost certainly wrong: Himawari's outfit looks like a school uniform, in which case Ami could have the same skirt because she has the old uniform of someone else (Sekai?) who went to the same school.
Moonflare said:
It would definitely be interesting for Akira to say Ami, and both of them to answer.

But even if they do that, many will say that it's because they're both dressed as Ami rather than both of their names being so. So the prophet will remain uncredited once more :/
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We really need an eye roll reaction just for all the posts that Moonflare manages to shoehorn "Himawari's name is Ami" into :ROFLMAO:. And I'm saying that as the theory's second-biggest proponent!
 
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daagagsdgd

daagagsdgd

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May 9, 2019
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Yggdrasil_Frahma said:
I was about to make a kind of a masterful troll post to the tune of like

"Yeah, I'm kinda fucked up. I hear phantom sounds and talk to inanimate objects in my room. I beat someone up in daycare, too. Using my middle finger on the mousewheel is nothing to me."

Then it struck me that Selebus based Yumi beating someone up in daycare on a real event from his life. Nothing new there; that was an intuition I had a while ago, as well as the obligatory connections. But what's new is the potential humor value. What better troll and grand finale would it be for Selebus to reveal that every single heroine is actually himself? Like, I say this on two levels. First is the meta revelation that every author goes through that all characters are fragments of themselves. A famous quip is that you can't write a character smarter than yourself (though you can give the impression you have (see: Nodoka)), and on top of that, the process of modeling characters in your mind often ends up in a kind of ghost chorus of said characters taking on tulpa-like lives of their own in your mind. Writers talk about how characters 'wont shut up' until a scene is written. Basic stuff - I've touched on it before and it's something we all subconsciously accept. But it just so happens that this aligns incredibly well with the SECOND level, which is the narrative of Lessons in Love being self-insert fiction. What do we know? We know that the world was made for someone, we know that perception is dubious, we know that it's a 'game,' we know the purpose is to be happy, we know Sensei is being seemingly controlled by unknown force(s), we know we players were given Options so that we can Communicate with the Narrator and interface with the game, we know there are explicit/obvious hints of Sensei/others being American rather than Japanese... all of this has led me to think for some time that Selebus (most likely Pareidolia (and therefore the whole trinity) for obvious reasons) has been acting as that external force on Sensei and pushing himself into Sensei as the Game Developer. It's no surprise that Sensei would often be suffering the ailments Selebus complains about 1:1 (and after Selebus already wrote an explicit self-insert with Yuu in NiB who goes through the same shit again). Again, basic stuff. The problem I have had is where the students of LiL fit into this: are they really Sensei's students? Did they fall into the well with him? Are they unerring evidence of an external reality? How many of them are Subahibi ghosts? And so on.

(Selebus's refusal to acknowledge Himawari is as profound as people imagine it to be; I imagine it means she is a force outside of the Game Developer / Writer's awareness. I don't really want to speculate on this too much, though, since it gets out of the meta of the game to speculate on an external existence Selebus would let work on the game. I only ever speak of Lessons in Love Selebus, never of any real life being. And it may be nonsense anyway.)

The comedy intuition, which I just had, and which to share enthusiastically, is the moment where all of this could theoretically coalesce into the most hilarious narrative twist of all time. Conceive of a being of pure white. Then conceive of Molly popping out of existence and the White being turning more green. Conceive of Yumi popping out of existence and the Greenish-white thing turning more aggressive. Imagine Ayane popping out of existence and the thing suddenly having more of a moral backbone or something. Imagine Karin popping out of existence and the thing's thighs get thicker. And then, when EVERY SINGLE heroine has popped out of existence... the being turns into Selebus. And Selebus looks at the screen like "Thank you for putting me back together." Or something.

Basically. The absolute funniest interpretation I can think of, and I apologize for taking so long to set up the scene here, is the twist that every single heroine is actually Selebus. (Except Maya, who is Selebus's cat or something.*). And then like, imagine the seething. All the people who have busted loads to Sana were actually busting loads to Selebus in disguise. Everyone who wore a like Yumi avatar while dunking on Selebus were unwittingly singing his praises. Man, imagine. This is completely schizo but it's so funny I have to convey it.

*The only reason I'm hesitant about the 'heroine(s) are actually cats' theory is that I don't think Selebus wants to fuck his cats even if they are in anime girl form. However, it is a common anime trope for cats to take human shape and, as they say, to flock to their master when they are miserable to cheer them up. Perhaps Sensei is thinking 'a cat is fine too' at this point but even for LiL that would be extremely bizarre. I'm kind of convincing myself as I type this though... Sensei is probably fucking a desk or that fleshlight instead of the cat anyway.

(P.S.: All too easily forgotten is that LiL starts with a suicide. It would naturally follow from that that someone would be tied into bed/chair in a hospital room listening to the ticking of a clock. The question for me is whether that person, Sensei, is a wholly independent being, or if that person is an abstraction of Selebus. Is that where Sensei is being forced to observe this, or is that where Selebus is writing this? Whatever LiL is, it must follow from suicide.)
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Any character in fiction (or literature in general) would inevitably bear resemblance to its own author due to aesthetic contextualization. Just think about how drama started from mimesis of rituals. Though the artificiality and self-insertness, which were intendedly and tirelessly emphasised throughout LiL, did separate LiL from other non-Japanese VNs. All of intense overflow of self-consciousness and mockery constantly reminds me of Nabokov who in an interview, seemed to be spitefully and consciously polemical against Bakhtin's famous theory on polyphonic nature of Dostoevsky's novels, said that idea that "characters getting out of hand is nothing but a trite little whimsy" and his characters under disposal are "galley slaves". It wouldn't surprise me even a bit if those words came from mouth of Selebus.

Perhaps Nodoka's obsession with Lolita has more to do than incest impulse? After all, there is hardly any better novel in representing monological narrator and ethical and inter-characterological despotism under one protagonist. Well that certainly draws an interesting parallel with LiL. And all the theocraft and Denpa stuffs in LiL can be seen as visualization of Nabokov's literacy tools and manipulation.

I don't think Selebus will ever reveal in blatant that every single heroine is actually reflection of Selebus solely due to his financial dependence on patronage. But again everything from him comes as surprise no more. It might be interesting but never unattemped by others. Hell, just read the ending of Invitation to a Beheading of Nabkov in where protagonist realised false existence of world dissolving and characters around blending into one unrecognizable entity as he "joined beings akin to him, judged by their voices and laughing".

(P.S. Maya to me is an embodiment and receptacle of Selebus' sheer malice. Just think how many times she was derided by us and characters and how it made her more and more beautiful as a victim.)
 
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Dc345

Dc345

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The next update 0.47 is looking very similar to 0.13 part 1 with it being an "invite event" update. 0.13 part 1 happened at the beginning of Chapter 2 and going off that that makes me believe Chapter 4 is still in its early to late early stage. We don't have any lore progressing, story driving event chains up until the break. Unless Sel has plans of making the post break updates super lore heavy to progress the story, to close out the chapter which I doubt because there is no December break, we might be bringing in 2026 with more Chapter 4.
 
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Snakk

Snakk

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May 11, 2021
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Since I have a 4K screen and when I play the game it looks blurry and kind of bad, I decided to try and upscale it
The results were pretty good I'd say
best girl originally
View attachment yumiroof12.webp
best girl 4K upscaled
View attachment yumiroof12_4k.webp
I also did some quick math:
It would take my computer roughly 3-4 days to upscale all current images except for things a like menus thumbnails etc - events and miscellaneous basically, animations not included
It would also bring the total size up to ~130GB if I do not compress it in any way

I might actually do it once the game is finished (ha!) or when I get some more time and decide to play it from the beginning again, though probably not within the next several years due to my current life situation.
Either way, have a nice day.
 
Apollo259

Apollo259

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DeanNoriko said:
When you are just chilling and finally getting to play Balatro, and then suddenly, your arch nemesis appears:
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I had a similar thing while playing Signalis. There is a puzzle in which you need to know what Pareidolia is. When I got to it I thought to myself "All the talk of perception and pareidolia in LiL has trained me for this very moment".

I actually highly recommend that game. Its a bit hard to explain why, but If you like LiL for a lot of the same reasons I do, mainly to do with the way things are presented to you I guess. Perhaps you would also like Signalis as much as I do. It's really a masterpiece in my opinion. Out of everything I have ever played I am tempted to call it my favourite, but the nostalgia buff some other games have makes that hard to do.
 
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Yarazin

Yarazin

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Moonflare said:
Also, I'm confused as to how Himawari's showtime is coming without any main events until the dormwars, then again maybe she'll make an appearance at Nodoka and Sana's as per usual?

Or we'll just have to wait forever until 0.50, because that's apparently when the Maya date is, considering the number of events for her.
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In post nut clarity event Akira says the shopping doesn't have to be on her bday. That's what leads me to think it'll be a main or her events in several months.
Moonflare said:
It would definitely be interesting for Akira to say Ami, and both of them to answer.

But even if they do that, many will say that it's because they're both dressed as Ami rather than both of their names being so. So the prophet will remain uncredited once more :/
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I think even Nodoka would answer to the name Ami just to be annoying.
 
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hopeisdead6969

hopeisdead6969

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Apollo259 said:
I had a similar thing while playing Signalis. There is a puzzle in which you need to know what Pareidolia is. When I got to it I thought to myself "All the talk of perception and pareidolia in LiL has trained me for this very moment".

I actually highly recommend that game. Its a bit hard to explain why, but If you like LiL for a lot of the same reasons I do, mainly to do with the way things are presented to you I guess. Perhaps you would also like Signalis as much as I do. It's really a masterpiece in my opinion. Out of everything I have ever played I am tempted to call it my favourite, but the nostalgia buff some other games have makes that hard to do.
Click to expand...
Bro, Signalis is a masterpiece. The soundscape, graphics, ambient storytelling, deep themes. 10/10, loved every minute of it. That three tone “boop, boop, beep” just pops up in my head from time to time out of nowhere, and I feel nostalgic every time.
 
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4.10 star(s) 323 Votes