Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.48.0] [Selebus]

[DeanNoriko]

Do any of you think we may have reached a Death of the Author situation already with this game?

Have we/you, constantly crafting theories by trying to guess where Sel is taking the story, possibly created an interpretation we consider to be superior than Sel's original intent? I think it's important to note that while Sel writes with good prose, it's not necessarily given that he's a great author nor story creator. I'm not saying he isn't, but I think it's important to remember he's just one person, who is fallible, and is literally writing a story on a month-to-month basis, where any number of decisions can be made that change the plot trajectory based on his whims.

I'm just curious to see if anyone else thinks we may have reached a point where our interpretation of the story and its symbolism exceeds that which Sel wrote it with.

That's a very interesting point that you are making and something I have been thinking about a few times.

First off, I very highly doubt that Sel is really taking into consideration fan theories, neither on Lilcord nor (and especially so) here. Anyone reading his responses in the Ask-Selebus channel will notice that he has near zero concern about what kind of ideas and suggestions the community has in terms of the overall story. He is very confident in his abilities and will follow his own guidance, rather than find inspiration from his "subjects/patrons".

Secondly, he repeatedly said that the general plot is already set in stone, and only details are up to discussion. For example, the general ending is decided as well as the overall theme for the dark path, but the individual purity paths he has not thought out yet for every character, which is understandable to be honest.
I also have the feeling, especially now that I am replaying this game for the first time, that he did have a vision from the very start, certain elements he had in mind that would come into action much later on, being hinted at subtly throughout the game. So I do have faith in him that he is able to connect all of the dots and have answers for most, if not all, of the open questions within the story.

That being said, there is always the danger that some of those decisions may backfire or turn out not as well thought through as he initially anticipated. He is a human after all, he is not immune to mistakes. For example, I am still not 100% sure whether this whole Noriko age thing from Kyoto is intended and another mystery in itself or just a brain fart from his side (this has been discussed already, so I'm not intending to re-heat this point, just giving it as an example).

Many giga brain chads on here have given very plausible and interesting theories that might realistically be even better than what Sel initially thought of, sure. A hivemind of creative and intelligent people can probably come up with a few very good ideas that might surpass the original vision. However, I trust the author to follow his vision, to fit everything as they intended it to. And even if it does not turn out to be perfect, Sel has not given me enough reason to doubt him to deliver a satisfying wrap-up of the general story points.

It's probably just good advice in general to not get expectation unreasonably high, you can't satisfy everyone and there will be certain aspects that some might find more problematic than others (e.g. that whole NTR thing). But I personally think that his track record so far shows that he is a capable enough writer to not disappoint us too much in the end. Or so I hope.

 

[Moonflare]

Too many posts to reply to, so I won't quote anyone - just feel as if I have. This is about the death of the author.

I agree that it is hard to apply the concept of the death of the author (basically the idea that after a piece of work is done, no longer the say of what it means lies with the author, but rather with the reader - as it assumes that the meaning of a piece of literature is built through the collaboration of both author and reader, and that any author will touch unforeseen themes with their work that are still valid despite their intentions) to an ongoing story.

The second issue is that the death of the author isn't really meant to be used (or rather often used) for objective things within a narrative. Rather, it is used to discuss interpretations of the evidence presented, or of things left unexplained. In LiL's case, we just haven't been presented with the full picture yet. Which, again, is why formal literature guidelines aren't supportive of the publishing (and even less of the reviews) of ongoing works.

What I think we're doing, and similar to the criticism of Rowling's 6th book, is that as LiL continues, we become able to pinpoint, with increasing substance, areas where Selebus fell short (or rather seems to have fallen short). I, myself, have often wondered if by the end of all of this a substantial amount of lore wouldn't be just derivative misdirection made on the fly.

Back to Rowling, I do think she's a wonderful writer, it's just that being a wonderful writer can mean a number of things. She was able to capitalize on so much of actual myths, traditions and essence (and frustration) of the coming of age narrative and turn it into an astounding success. To not call that wonderful writing (at the very least in worldbuilding/and or understanding her target audience) would be unfair.

Both My Hero Academia and Dragonball are part of generational shounen, though dragon ball is two times removed from the current (?) generation (which includes My Hero). I don't know that I'd call anything there genius, but they're the big names within their own genre. I wouldn't go looking for "high" literature in a shonen in the first place, it follows that we would judge the literature within a genre by their own indicators - unless it somehow subverts or escapes it, like, it could be said, of Attack on Titan.

All in all, I think we have to wait for Selebus to release the equivalent of his "6th book", which would likely be the first purity route, to have proper early conclusions. If Himawari's name isn't Ami/Amy it's all obviously a piece of shit and he changed it just to spite me though.

 

[barglenarglezous]

The Harry Potter fanfic community started to Death of the Author J K Rowling after Half-Blood Prince came out and they realized they were all better writers than her.

Going to risk looking like I've got my head up my ass by commenting to my own post, but I love that people are laugh-emoting at this like I made a joke, and not describing a long series of rants actual fanfic writers made back in the day. I dated a Potter fanfic writer at the time, and she made me read a lot of it, and it WAS better written than most of what Rowling's done.

It was still shit, but it was better-written shit.

 

[fdsasdf_p]

I still have faith that there's something more interesting going on with the boxes, even though journals/notes make sense.

• Selebus has been building up the boxes for a long time, including teasing them repeatedly in every recent update. I can't see him doing a "reveal" where we never see a box and the only thing we're told about the contents is that Ayane didn't learn a single useful/interesting thing from them.
• The alt timeline Maya says that she keeps her notes in the basement, but Maya Prime always had Sensei deliver the boxes to one particular room on the third floor, which we still have never seen inside of. The room has to be important somehow.

To digress a bit, I'm a bit annoyed by Ayane's timeline because it just feels kind of pointless. Sel effectively brings Maya Prime back from the dead and then doesn't have her say or do anything interesting. We learn she keeps notes, but they're useless. Maya and Ayane spend a lot of time talking about their feelings for each other, but that was just putting into words what was effectively shown by their interactions in Chapter 3; and in the end, Ayane forgets everything, so it's not like her own understanding of their relationship progressed at all. They conspicuously don't talk about anything actually important - is it really plausible that Ayane never asks Maya how she resets the world? How about anything about Maya's past - she gives Ayane the scarf to gain New Maya's trust, but wouldn't information be a lot more effective?

Agree; the characters side-profilings in that alt timeline feel more like for viewers to savor and less for being integrated into the story if Ayane or Yumi couldn't manage to remember anything. I am also a little upset that Ayane didn't try to pry more information, but I'd say it's excusable when finding her way back was rightfully her utmost priority.

Perhaps the most important meaning of visiting this timeline to me is that, even if we are unsure of how the scarf would function later in the story, this item alone is a proof that this alt timeline, to a certain extent, is real and bringing items across timelines is possible. Knowing how real this timeline is important because this implies that whatever we see in this timeline (and perhaps by extension the surreal timeline Sense and Makoto went) is something worth contemplating and not some nightmare/hallucination purely induced by resets, or something whose realness still cannot be verified (like Ayane's rooftop camping in reset6).

7. Also confused about that. Maybe she was losing those memories because they weren't coherent with the timeline she was in? When she comes back to our timeline she has issues with it being Spring, instead calling it Winter (spring is the opposite in this case, a thing that wouldn't have existed in Alt Maya's timeline).

I was thinking that the same effect of resets on accumulating memories that happened to Maya Prime is also happening on Ayane as well, even if that isn't really too many resets ago. Losing incoherent memory is very possible, but I feel like in that case Ayane should've lost a lot more memories that just how she knew Yumi is virgin, and Yumi shouldn't be an exception to that. Yea this part is weird.

 

[Moonflare]

Going to risk looking like I've got my head up my ass by commenting to my own post, but I love that people are laugh-emoting at this like I made a joke, and not describing a long series of rants actual fanfic writers made back in the day. I dated a Potter fanfic writer at the time, and she made me read a lot of it, and it WAS better written than most of what Rowling's done.

It was still shit, but it was better-written shit.

If your ex was the one that wrote the one potter fanfic I read, where Ginny chose to take judo classes in order to complement her wizardry, that would be one of the big plot twists of my year

Also, where is the LiL fanfiction? I want my Yumi romance.

 

[barglenarglezous]

If your ex was the one that wrote the one potter fanfic I read, where Ginny chose to take judo classes in order to complement her wizardry, that would be one of the big plot twists of my year

Also, where is the LiL fanfiction? I want my Yumi romance.

All the fanfic blurred together in my brain because I hated all of it, but I don't remember that one.

 

[Budoop]

Going to risk looking like I've got my head up my ass by commenting to my own post, but I love that people are laugh-emoting at this like I made a joke, and not describing a long series of rants actual fanfic writers made back in the day. I dated a Potter fanfic writer at the time, and she made me read a lot of it, and it WAS better written than most of what Rowling's done.

It was still shit, but it was better-written shit.

Unpopular opinion that slowly gained more traction over time:
Her writing always sucked ass, it gained a foothold cause it was mostly read by kids or people who just wanted a fantasy world.

Her character names are a good example, as is the tacked on lore over time from her twitter.

 

[LessonsInDissonance]

Her character names are a good example, as is the tacked on lore over time from her twitter.

Me when I make a chinese character and call her Ching Chong

 

[shmurfer]

Her character names are a good example

goddammit preview

 

[joryuken]

View attachment 4223509

So you are telling me there is a chance to make her dissappear ?

 

[Detective Dc345]

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[joryuken]

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and for some reason ayane has been put on the top 3 rank of my favorite girls now

 

[DeSkel15]

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I'm still waiting for Ayane to try shooting some supernatural thing, which turns out to be Sana or Sensei, then they get Reset while she doesn't, and then she pretends it never happened...

That sounds like fun. Bonus points if she shoots Sensei in the dick:

Spoiler

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[JelF547]

Have we/you, constantly crafting theories by trying to guess where Sel is taking the story, possibly created an interpretation we consider to be superior than Sel's original intent?

Sure Sel had no intent to make most of characters bad persons, he just added a bit of self-insert

 

[fdsasdf_p]

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I suddenly remembered you wanting Ayane to run for president; a gun enthusiast blonde that makes pasta and silly T-shirt, and this kiiiiinda looks great on the billboard.
(also all hail Joshua Graham for all his badass lines)

 

[GSwole]

Sure Sel had no intent to make most of characters bad persons, he just added a bit of self-insert

I just wanna self-insert into Uta yo.

 

[SlidingSubject]

I'm still waiting for Ayane to try shooting some supernatural thing, which turns out to be Sana or Sensei, then they get Reset while she doesn't, and then she pretends it never happened...

That sounds like fun.

That sure sounds like a lot of fun with new friends!

Spoiler: You are GOING to be my FRIEND, yes?

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[Antosha]

Guys my understanding is that Death of the Author (DoA) is about ignoring the author's "original intent" when analyzing a work's themes:

• DoA is not about going off and writing your own fanfic/ending/continuation because that has nothing to do with the literary/thematic analysis of a work
• DoA is totally orthogonal to the lore of the world because that lore is for the most part just a matter of facts, e.g. there's not much room for subjective interpretation on the matter of "is Nozomu Akira's brother?" And although we can spend lots of time arguing about whether Yuu is Akira's dad or grandpa, it is mostly inconsequential from the perspective of analysis
• DoA is totally orthogonal to the completion state of the work because that has no bearing on the themes present within the work as it is available for consumption right now, today
  • You could say that the themes may not be explored as fully as the author had intended. But DoA is about disregarding the author's intent so whether a given theme has been fleshed out and conveyed as the author had intended is irrelevant

You’re absolutely correct re: DOA as a… (See below)

Going to risk looking like I've got my head up my ass by commenting to my own post, but I love that people are laugh-emoting at this like I made a joke, and not describing a long series of rants actual fanfic writers made back in the day. I dated a Potter fanfic writer at the time, and she made me read a lot of it, and it WAS better written than most of what Rowling's done.

It was still shit, but it was better-written shit.

Yeah. As an HP fic author back in the day… Yeah. And “death of the author” was a constant rant—usually in support of whatever crackpot pairing they wanted to write (says the guy who wrote a bunch of Harry/Ginny/Luna threesomes).

And yes, as a one-time English lit grad student, I constantly had to bite my tongue and not launch into discussions/lectures on Deconstruction and Post-Modernism.

ETA: I think one of the things that I appreciate about LiL is that it invites this level of textual and meta-textual inquiry. That’s not typical of most of the games on here.

 

[Moonflare]

(also all hail Joshua Graham for all his badass lines)

single-handedly making players everywhere discover respect for a man of faith.

Please don't. There is nothing more boring on the planet than Mary Sue and her events.

I have to agree that everything Karin, while endearing, is quite boring before Akira assaults her. Her event where she reflects on a day-to-day of being perfect and just wanting Kirin's attention is the most boring event of the game.

On another note, but one that sort of relates to this, I've seen a lot of backlash towards the Ami and Maya rape scene in the latest update. People are even calling it NTR, which... I mean is it, though? New Maya certainly comes to enjoy it towards the end, but as someone else pointed out, I believe it was more of a defense mechanism, given her situation.

Maybe I'm just not seeing it... I agree it was an uncomfortable scene, but I dunno if I'd call it NTR.

If anything, the porn you can watch on your computer during the "Times New Roman" reset puzzle was much worse, since it involved random men. That's some AU cucking if I've ever seen it.

It is NTR because of the scene's effect on the reader. You're watching a girl cumming and mindbreaking to pleasure while being raped by someone that isn't Akira, that intends to convince her that she doesn't really love him. While one can discuss the specifics of who did what and why and what the result was, this isn't necessary for someone to classify the scene itself. Not even if it was real or not. Point is: you have been shown an NTR scene. It is undistinguishable in its presentation from a classic NTR scene.

We can go towards conclusions of "but it wasn't real", or "but actually Maya and Ami are just parts of Akira's brain", or "but it was a what if scenario", or "but I don't consider it so since" - however all of these cannot begin in any other way than "it was an NTR scene (in form)", the "but" can only come after that initial statement. Selebus intended to present an NTR scene and to create a discussion around it, that a lot of us seem unaffected by it is a more interesting discussion altogether imo.

(says the guy who wrote a bunch of Harry/Ginny/Luna threesomes).

And yes, as a one-time English lit grad student, I constantly had to bite my tongue and not launch into discussions/lectures on Deconstruction and Post-Modernism.

ETA: I think one of the things that I appreciate about LiL is that it invites this level of textual and meta-textual inquiry. That’s not typical of most of the games on here.

Reminded me of how much I liked Luna. And yeah, LiL finally giving us a reason to have picked up so much literature knowledge.

 

[somepersonoutofnowhere]

There really is nothing fair about that. Oh man, I do hope dragon age defies all expectations and turns out to be a great game cause whatever shall I do without LiL for so long.

End up in a friend group that takes up your free time with friend time (pretty alright/nice excluding drama here and there) to the point you forget about checking up on F95zone LiL thread until it's the first of any month.

Anyways unfortunately as much as I wish I could've been here once I finished with the last thing that had me busy, that I would now be spending some time back here since all of you are pretty alright ( shoutout to Bingoogus assuming he's still bingo'ing and around) and so I could read the essays upon essays of how Ami is actually Himawari.

I'm gonna be here and there reacting rarely and mainly to previews and shit, been amazing being around here, this isn't a farewell, just an update on if I'm still alive or not and if I might be returning, which the part about returning is quite rare but I can see it having a very slim chance of happening. Hope everything around here is still going good!