Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.53.0] [Selebus]

[crustlord12]

anyone who disagrees with this post lacks the mental capabilities of a 10 year old. And is Bingoogus's alt. And also his boyfriend. And also Selebus's alt trying to gaslight me.

Woo, 4/4! Perfect score, this one's going on the fridge.

 

[aramaug]

Ima be honest, this whole time I haven't even considered that other characters could have been narrating other than Sensei or one of his personalities, but after seeing your post I feel like I have the mental capabilities of a 10 year old. Because damn, it seems so obvious now that this is Tsubasa haha

Also somewhat intimidated now that my eyes have been opened and I'm gonna be overwhelmed trying to figure out who's narrating every given scene from now on.

I'm gonna have to really pay attention on my 2nd playthrough

View attachment 4588133

Also, I forget what we know about Rie. Did she go to a prestigious school as well and come from a wealthy background, or am I thinking of Wakana?

I should have linked the previous discussion on narrator Tsubasa - have a look at this post and the ones it links to. I no longer think the stuff about the other narrators is accurate, but it lays out the evidence for Tsubasa.

There are two other narrators we know for sure:

1. Himawari revealed herself as a narrator at the end of "Flowerchild" (ch3 beach event) when the narrated monologue transitioned to her speaking directly (I think this might be hidden on replay, though). There's a ton of other events that we're quite confident are her because of tone, references to sunflowers and blue eyes, implying Sensei is her dad, etc.

2. In "Wake Up (My Story)" (Maya event during last reset) the narrator revealed themselves to be "Ami". It's not quite clear who this is though - they are somehow connected to Ami Arakawa since they both went crazy at the same time, but they also seem to have the memories of someone who wasn't Akira's daughter.

Beyond that we also think that some version of Maya is a narrator, but that hasn't been confirmed yet.


As for Rie: I'm going off memory, but I think all we know is that she was raised to be quite conservative, both politically and morally, and she met Rika when they were on opposite sides of a protest. You're correct that Wakana's family was wealthy and she went to the same school as Tsubasa (much later) - revealed in Tsubasa's "Playing God" event.

 

[fdsasdf_p]

Woof. Strange heebee-geebees.

 

[SlidingSubject]

Spoiler: learning to swim

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

On the other hand, it'd be very trope-y for the christian mom to have had a wild youth AND to be naive with parenting "but it does work, why isn't she learning?".

 

[jclark1337]

1. Himawari revealed herself as a narrator at the end of "Flowerchild" (ch3 beach event) when the narrated monologue transitioned to her speaking directly (I think this might be hidden on replay, though). There's a ton of other events that we're quite confident are her because of tone, references to sunflowers and blue eyes, implying Sensei is her dad, etc.

2. In "Wake Up (My Story)" (Maya event during last reset) the narrator revealed themselves to be "Ami". It's not quite clear who this is though - they are somehow connected to Ami Arakawa since they both went crazy at the same time, but they also seem to have the memories of someone who wasn't Akira's daughter.

Beyond that we also think that some version of Maya is a narrator, but that hasn't been confirmed yet.

Ahh now that I think about it, I definitely remember Himawari's dialogue and recognizing her as the narrator of that scene. I just didn't think about the impact that had on the story. Fascinating.

Maya makes sense too and I definitely have a feeling I subconsiously had her voice in my head when narrating certain scenes.

I'll have to rewatch Wake Up (My Story) because I don't remember that one at all.

To be honest I'm not entirely certain if characters being narrators is even going to be a major story element, or if it's just a fun writing gimmick of Selebus. Seems very complicated to work something like that into the narrative in a way that will be satisfying, but either way it's very fun to think about. On the other hand, it almost seems like there's too much thought put into the these parallels to just be for extra flair. Hmm...

Anyways, thanks for linking me those posts. They were definitely thought-provoking and now I'm getting even more excited for a 2nd playthrough. Just gotta finish preparing myself... I'll be ready any day now XD

 

[canaan0128]

Does anyone know how to reduce brightness of flash screen? after playing last night my eyes were extremely sore. isit possible to manually adjust the visibility of the white flash screen in game folder? especially for those ultra-long continuous flashes lasting more than ten seconds? For people with nearsightedness, it feels like a critical hit.

anyone know it？

 

[shmurfer]

anyone know it？

What kind of compromise are you willing to accept? It's used for specific effects. You'd have to pick a different color, or accept slowing down the flash effect, which will make certain scenes drag on and maybe screw up music sync.

Or turn down the brightness of your monitor. If solid white hurts your eyes maybe make the screen stop doing that.

 

[VoidExile]

When you first started posting, the scene that upset you so much hadn’t been released. So there wasn’t anything for anyone to tell you.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

You've skipped through it so you should already know that in the next update Nodoka is back. Things get reset when resets happen, which is why shit can go down at reset time. We've seen Makoto try to kill herself, we've seen tons of Maya being hanged and crucified during happy events. Even Ami was basically crucified and flayed during the CH3 reset, and there's a chance that's why her personality's different.

So is your problem seeing murder? Seeing dead bodies? or the lasting death of a character? The last one hasn't happened yet, and realistically cannot happen. It's also what you asked about in my opinion.
Even if the dark route changes the rules of engagement and characters dying during that time stay dead (Like I imagine Makoto would be the first to try to kill herself in front of the others to prove you can't die, except it just happens this time, maybe a moment of her realising her mistake before she bleeds out), the mechanisms to bring them back after they do what they need to do during dark route exists. They can just reset people back to life.

The closest thing to a lasting death in the game is Maya's reset but even the game at this point has given lots of little hints that she's probably not entirely lost. And with the other points that the game is building up to with her, Prime is probably coming back before the ending of the game (like I wouldn't be surprised if CH4's ending is Maya Prime's return, the game still needs time to expand upon the history they shared when Maya was being tutored, and explaining why there's a ton of hints pointing at the fact Maya might not be real. Her purity routes / true ending being used to explain all of that would be a shit time I think.)



In the end, kinda yeah, for both questions. This VN can actually make you feel things other than horny or angry, and that's a serious achievement.
Like that Maya scene that never really got you. It's because you didn't notice Maya coming out of her shell before it, that entire chain is her wanting to spend time with the person she loves while being afraid of the fact that if she says she loves him he's gonna be deleted again. It already took her thousands of years to find him, even if she was prepared to do it again.

The next update is the christmas chain, and that ends with the two finally talking to each other, and even that brings up the happy moments they've shared which shows the fireworks and her eating the melon during the festival. There's even a convoluted theory that during 0.47 we get a moment of Prime saying "I love you" to Sensei. I imagine you didn't see Io's events either since I believe that's hidden behind Sana's invites and you probably gave up after the text skips stopped showing events.

Of course if we have to signal upcoming trauma in 0.47, Chika gets tricked into an orgy for 10 years or something with the Great Pareidolia Mall's denizens. Jury's still out on whether it was a physical event or just mental trauma and that's after her eating Rin out after Rin committed to moving on from Chika so she can't decide whether she's happy about it (and if you know about consent, it has to be enthusiastic)

0.46 just has a moment of emasculation for Sensei. Kirin is the one who gets traumatized if anything. Imani gets disrespected.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Really? I can't say it with a straight face, sounds like childish nonsense... like, try saying 'bubbles' as angrily as you can... just doesn't work...

It does, doesn't it? I think that's the point. Whatever that point is. It's like calling someone a goblin, gnome or orc, just with a... fancy sounding Irish, Scottish or German take on it? I don't know what inspired your name.

 

[shmurfer]

Would you feel worse about yourself hearing that someone you didn't particularly like but who did both good and bad things to you just died in a gruesome painful way? Would it put you at ease knowing they disappeared and may not even have technically "died" in the first place, just teleported elsewhere? The answer to two questions for most people would be yes. It's why Sana and Sara struggle to move on a bit. It's why families irl are haunted for many years knowing the killer is still out there and Ami will ALWAYS be out there, she may just not remember what she did but she can do it again.

Sana and Sara actually have a death that until Sana's TSS was very permanent, I wouldn't fault them for it. But as a relevant example, Masahiro's death doesn't quite feel as bad. As you saw for a moment the world is prepared to use it to squeeze emotions out of his daughter. Whenever there's an ending to the loops, there's a chance every death that's happened after the loops started is likely to be reset.

But as far as any of the main cast, any death that could happen just doesn't have stakes. Sensei's implied to have been reset an almost infinite amount of times so he's likely died before. The main cast has had an example of suicide being prevented so death isn't going to last. And the only other people who don't seem to follow the rules (Ami and Maya) have either died or reset while we've seen it, so death is no longer as huge a problem without the lasting consequences of it.
As the relevant example, when Nodoka died on update release day, no one here was mourning her death. It was a big oh shit moment, and then a lot of people honoring her and taking her off their shit lists. Back before the halloween updates came out, I started the idea that Chinami might be dying and that would be the catalyst for a maya-less reset. Gruesome thing that a lot of people didn't want to happen of course, but people seemed to understand it as something that could feasibly happen because those are the stakes with a world like this. (remember chika was going crazy here, she just saw sensei and yumi at the beach)

It sounds like you aren't giving the game up now that you've had a night to decompress. Everything else in the post is best forgotten until you read it then. If you were gonna drop the game until a lot of updates later, after 0.48's release would be a great time for it.

Spoiler: Oh look, missing futaba's christmas lust earns another nodoka lust point before her grinding is available

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Apollo259]

Its always the "T" we cant escape it here.

Ay, genious people. Have you discussed the schizo that Kaori asked Ami what's her favorite animal is and she says it is a cat. Kaori then tells that she will remember it *time-skip* we get Nyaori. With all of this Kaori possession and Ami supposedly is orchestrating things, seems fishy ay?

Spoiler: This type of fishy?

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Krestrike]

Spoiler: This type of fishy?

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Spoiler: This type of fishy?

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Budoop]

Yeah the new Maya doesn't hit any of the right boxes.
Never been so utterly disinterested in a LiL character.

 

[Moonflare]

Woof. Strange heebee-geebees.
View attachment 4588274
View attachment 4588275
View attachment 4588276

"T" is for Tiffany Miyahara, obviously.

Spoiler: a ghost

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

On a more serious note, I still wonder what name Pareidolia knew Yumi by in "Abyss".

 

[daagagsdgd]

I'm pretty sure we got a narrator Tsubasa appearance in 0.47, and for the second time she showed an unusual amount of interest in Rin, even speaking to her directly. This got me wondering if there is a link between Rin and actual Tsubasa.

Here's a speculative idea: one of Rin's moms (probably Rika) was friends with Tsubasa in their youth. In fact, I found a hint of this that's been in the game for a while: one of the very few pieces of information that we've been given about Tsubasa's friend(s) matches something we know about Rin's mom(s).

Spoiler: learning to swim

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Spoiler: 0.47 Rin and Narrator Tsubasa

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Preemptive warning: anyone who disagrees with this post lacks the mental capabilities of a 10 year old. And is Bingoogus's alt. And also his boyfriend. And also Selebus's alt trying to gaslight me. Basically I'm saying there's no other possible explanation for these clues.

Blimey, How could I miss that Rin said the same thing as Tsubasa?! I wonder how many details have I left out in early content (I only developed habit of screenshot every time after a while).
Or perhaps, I was focusing on another thing when they talked about swimming teaching...

Spoiler: Same again

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Back to Rika being old girlfriend of Tsubasa. I just do think it might be Rie that was her girlfriend.

Spoiler: Past

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Yeah Tsubasa did say that she and Wakana studied in Higashigaoka (東が丘? Hill of East. I wonder why Sel came up with a concrete name here) Girls' Academy. I don't think Sekai ever had chance to reach it since Arakawa family doesn't seem to be wealthy enough. And the way she described sneaking away with her girlfriend might indictate her girlfriend was a part of upper class like her (or not, it's too ambiguous and inconclusive to be honest). And as we know, Rie was suggested to have good upbringing.

Spoiler: Rie

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

If Tsubasa needed to sneak away with someone. They had to be together at some level and it's quite possible that they went to the same school and if that's so, Wakana would recognize Rika from the start, which didn't.

P.S. What's your opinion on "what happened in the hallway" I have recently posted? Do you think it could contribute anything to narrator theory?

 

[Detective Dc345]

Spoiler: Himawari if she was a good narrator

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Spoiler: Additional Info

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Rincon]

Sensei: I love you desk
Desk-chan: *is a desk*

Do I even want to know what I just read?

 

[Detective Dc345]

Do I even want to know what I just read?

The next Matt Reeves film is what you just read

 

[shmurfer]

Yeah the new Maya doesn't hit any of the right boxes.
Never been so utterly disinterested in a LiL character.

I would have agreed until the christmas update. Now that she stopped poo-pooing the idea of old Maya, she starts reflecting over it. Failing to Seduce Akira for sex with the same strategy that would have worked for anyone else, but naievely trying to emulate old Maya's determination. Selfishly asking Ayane for help and only thinking about how she can't help, proving the building blocks of prime is still in there. Talking to Yasu where Prime would have left and actually making the leap to the world being wrong and starting to care about other people. To finally slowing down and talking to Akira, and hearing how those selfish actions were actually pretty Maya Prime of her if she'd stop rubbing his trauma in his face.
Hopefully her new outfit is going to be poggers, and Sana is providing the crackpot trickle of Maya Prime hope in the meantime.

 

[Moonflare]

Spoiler: Himawari if she was a good narrator

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Spoiler: Additional Info

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

The Morgan Freeman bit broke me.

I used to watch the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and his sidekick used to make a Morgan Freeman voice to narrate stuff. Lots of good memories.

Regardless, Himawari is the best character hands down.

 

[combige]

Do I even want to know what I just read?

One of peak dialogues for me.