Sharing my experience with VNs, and asking for yours :)

[DudeLegend69]

Hey guys ! First of all, this message is probably going to be long, and English is not my native language. I'm confident I have a great level, but you might find some mistakes and I apologise for that. I've been thinking about this for very long, and I sometimes still can't really put words on it, so again I apologise if this makes no sense. This thread is, I guess, very different from the content I would normally seek and find on this website. I just wanted to share some thoughts I don't think I can share outside of this website. I'm not trying to say F95 is my safe zone or anything, but I've now been playing VNs for some years, and as of today I consider this website the only real or virtual place I can discuss about it.

I still remember exactly how I stumbled upon Halfway House, the first VN I ever played/read. I was randomly looking for some racing games on itch.io and I noticed there was this "Adult" tag. I did what had to be done and found myself in the middle of a gigantic rabbit hole. Before finding this game, I never thought of the possibility of erotic or sexual stories presented in this way.

Before developing further, I just want to go back to the term I used, "rabbit hole". I'll explain better later in this post, but I've had a hard time making up my mind on VNs. I mean Halfway House has a particular story, but when I played it, it wasn't as developed as it now is, and I just skipped the dialogues to go straight to lewd scenes. Anyway, I found other games and I slowly "learnt" how to properly enjoy a VN. To be short for those who won't have the courage to read me, I played a lot of VNs during difficult periods of my life, to me they were a sort of replacement for experiences I wasn't our would, well... experience. They had a very nefast influence on my mental health, and my dumbass played games like Leap of Faith when feeling terribly down (don't do this please, play this game when you are feeling silly). The point of this thread is to share my experience as a whole, and also ask for yours so we can openly discuss about it, and maybe share some advices.

So as I was saying, these games had a very nefast influence on my mental health. I was definitely too young when I started playing them, and I wasn't mentally prepared for what reading a VN triggers to me. I've never been a great reader, actually I never liked reading anything. Still, I had and still have a very powerful imagination. I like to invent stories, scenarios in my head to help me falling asleep. Outside of VNs, I played and still play a lot of games that lead me to developing an imagination, and like every single child in the world, I created fictional friends/brothers/sisters. The point I'm making here is that I often have the habit of leaving the "real" world and going straight where my imagination leads me. I never had trouble to differentiate the real life with the products of my imagination and fantasy, and this is where the VNs had a strong impact.
To be honest, I still feel shameful when writing this. The reason I downloaded my first ever VN was because I obviously had to satisfy some needs, and this whole situation went south very quickly for me.

The difference I found between these VNs and what I could imagine, were the outside and unknown factors. To be honest, I could write the same thing about a movie, a book , a series, a podcast or a video game. God knows I would have loved to be admitted in Hogwarts. Now back to what I was saying, VNs offered me what I was creating since years, and more realistically if I may say. I imagined friends, guess what, I can find some in VNs, I imagined girlfriends or siblings, well guess what ? They have it in VNs ! This is where what I called the outside and unknown factors apply. Basically, the characters the VNs display are not imagined, written and described by me, they are the product of someone else who then shared it with others. Now I want to remind that mainly played VNs during times where I was alone (vacations, pandemic...), so you could say they were a big part of my social interractions. It took me some time to realise this, actually too long. By nature, I am a very shy person and I grew up in an environment where I never was the center of attention (which I don't really mind), so I always have trouble when I find myself in a situation where I'm the one people are massively listening, watching or anything. I never talked with sexuality, porn or my very poor love life with my parents, or even any family members or friends, which is an explanation on why the VNs hit me so hard, and why I'm blabbering all this in this thread.

I knew VNs hurt me when I found myself crying alone in my room at like 5 in the morning when I had finished the then last version of Being a DIK. Again, I skipped a lot of the dialogues (don't do that as well, I mean you can but it nullifies the whole point of a VN to me) and concentrated only on SEX scenes. The thing with Being a DIK, maybe some will argue with me on that, but I consider it one of the best VNs ever written and made. Outside of the visual quality of the game, I find the story (even though very simple and not much original), the characters and the dialogue very "alive". I was really emotionally invested in the game (even though I skipped most of the dialogues during my first run), and particularly in Jill. She's smoking hot, depicted as caring, sensible and has a pretty cool background story/origin. Yeah it is very hard to admit, very shameful to share but I pretty much was in love with her. I made a lot of jokes about people worshipping anime characters or VTubers, and now I was literally one of them. I wasn't worshipping her or anything, and I'm not that sure I was specifically in love with the thousands or I don't know how many pixels composing Jill, but maybe to a fictive representation of the idea of Jill in the real life. Doesn't really matter because it fucked me u pretty hard, felt depressed for quite long actually. Also felt a strong disinterest in my real life for some time, and it still has some repercussions as of today.

I could never thank enough or mind, or at least my emotional sensibility to make it that I can't fall in love for too long with someone (or something in this case, I still feel disgust and shame ) to whom I don't interpret any feelings that could be a response to my attraction. When the game stopped, when I couldn't talk or meet with Jill anymore, it was very hard for me. I wasn't playing/reading the story of the MC of BaDIK, but I was playing myself in some way. I hope it makes sense to you, but I was't standing away from the story. I had the sensation it could my story. What happened for some months was pretty much me trying to make it possible to live the same experience as the MC of BaDIK lives. I even started working on a project to study abroad in an American university and join a frat (when I told you it went too far...). I never tried to contact a specialist, a psychologist to talk about it and find a solution. I was, and I still am too ashamed to share even 1/50 of what this post contains with anyone. I'm certain it would help me a lot, but I still literally can't.

I had the same kind of feelings (less hurtful) with other characters in other games, like Reina from Artemis or Valeria from Intertwined. Very recently, I also had with Kaija from The Neverwhere Tales (hence my pfp) but in a closer way with what I described earlier. This is what made me want to share this, I don't know if someone will find this thread, and if someone will want to reply or read everything. This is all I have to share for now.

I'd like to know if people had the same experience, or if they feel similar things, if they have similar difficulties with VNs. I really don't want anyone to pretend to be a psychologist or anything and try to heal or to tell me exactly what I have to do or anything, I just want to discuss it with some folks that have a good heart. I also don't need people making fun of me or trying to teach me any lesson. I hope this will reach the target audience!!

P.S : I also included a very dumb poll, but I'm just curious haha !

 

[Saint Blackmoor]

First of all, thank you for sharing your personal thoughts with us. It's not easy, but it can also be cathartic.

I see AVNs differently, I'm an old-timer and have read thousands of real books in my life.

I know that reading forced me to visualize the story in my head. Then came along AVNs. I just don't get excited about the visuals in the majority of them. One big problem is that the art in most games is way better than the story, and not just a boring or nonsensical story, a story full of typos, bad grammar, misspelled pronouns, convoluted family arrangements (thanks, Patreon), the list goes on. That's why I took up proofreading here, to help make those games a little better.

These games don't affect my personal emotions unless I come across an exceptional story that shows someone's great talent in writing. Then it makes me feel good to know that someone took the immense time to produce a work like that.

 

[Semetrika]

Currently only think how VN affect me is how much braincells i lost during reading some shit. But i remember how much time i invest on BaDIK and i love it. Yet i know story and characters are awful, but i take it as parody of American Pie, so it's my guilty pleasure.

 

[desmosome]

I just fap to fucked up shit like NTR mostly. I'm way too critical about stories that try to be something more than porn (especially the vanilla stuff that don't hit my kinks), because my metric shifts from whether it gets me hard to whether it is legitimately a piece of media I would read/watch without the porn.

Yes, most of the games you listed and the many others in similar style don't really cut it. Most are amateur soap opera with poor structure and prose if we compare it to professionally written material.

If I'm feeling particularly sappy, I might get into the mood for some drama with sexy DAZ chicks, but I don't self insert. My appreciation would be on how much depth or nuance a character brings to the table, not whether I can fall in love with pixels through the MC or sonething. But again, many of the popular harem/romance stuff are just very basic wish fulfillment stories.

That said, I was less cynical at some point. For example, I did enjoy Acting Lessons back when I was a padawan of porn gaming.

 

[zARRR]

when I was a padawan of porn gaming.

Cute euphemism for saying “before I was completely addicted”

 

[woody554]

I don't see anything wrong with you loving the characters so much you feel real feelings for them. that's the aim of every writer when they write those stories. it just means you have good skills at empathy and you're good at getting immersed. good at being human. these same things have always happened to people who love stories, regardless of media used.

are you sure you're not just beating youself up because you've been taught to be ashamed of sex and told that people liking this stuff are bad people? most of us were, and it only made us feel like shit until we understood there's nothing wrong with sex.

but if you feel trapped by the compulsion to spend your time in games, if it's making you hurt instead of enjoying yourself, then sure you might have an addiction problem. but even then it's probably not caused by the substance you abuse, but instead you have some prior pain (like loneliness? lack of love? cold parents?) that you're trying to 'medicate' by using something that's temporarily making you feel better.

people don't become heroin addicts because it's difficult to kick heroin (it's not), they become addicts because their step-dad raped them through their childhood, and even 20 or 40 years later the only thing that numbs the pain for a short moment is heroin. or food. or sex. or whatever you do that gives you temporary pleasure, or even just numbness instead of the constant pain.

 

[DudeLegend69]

I just fap to fucked up shit like NTR mostly. I'm way too critical about stories that try to be something more than porn (especially the vanilla stuff that don't hit my kinks), because my metric shifts from whether it gets me hard to whether it is legitimately a piece of media I would read/watch without the porn.

Yes, most of the games you listed and the many others in similar style don't really cut it. Most are amateur soap opera with poor structure and prose if we compare it to professionally written material.

If I'm feeling particularly sappy, I might get into the mood for some drama with sexy DAZ chicks, but I don't self insert. My appreciation would be on how much depth or nuance a character brings to the table, not whether I can fall in love with pixels through the MC or sonething. But again, many of the popular harem/romance stuff are just very basic wish fulfillment stories.

That said, I was less cynical at some point. For example, I did enjoy Acting Lessons back when I was a padawan of porn gaming.

I know it still is porn and well, things on F95 are not litterature masterpieces, but I still can anchor myselft pretty esily to a story. I genuinely hate effortless plots, I prefer more "mature" stories and developments but I'm not expecting a revolutionnary creation as well.

I don't think something has to be perfect to be enjoyed and to procure strong emotions. I'm not a book worm at all, so in my opinion I find a good story written by an amateur as enjoyable as a masterpieces, mainly because I don't click with all the techniques that exist.

Yet again it's very confusing because well it's porn. I'm not trying to hide the fact from myself that I'm consuming porn (which I think is not a bad thing until a certain point) but it still feels very shameful for me, can't really free myself from that thought right now. I don't know if I've mentionned in my original post, but I kind of portray myself into these VNs, not having any sexual relationships but just experiencing something different from my everyday life, things I will likely never experience.