Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.40.0] [Selebus]

[Xiondingens]

I think you're over analyzing the bit. You'll know when something is an important plot detail and when something is a joke.

Maybe i do. But there are still two important questions. Why is there a space war going on, coincidentally while the whole city is walled off and trapped in an eternal timeloop? And why do people never really talk about it? It is almost as if they all are in a perpetual state of been able to acknowledge there is a space war going on and most of the men are up there fighting and the city will be kept walled up for the war. But not really been able to think much beyond that.

I mean what do we know about those aliens? Aliens that i remind you wage a war seemingly against humanity that affects the life of everyone been traped in the city? Nothing. We dont know anything about them. We dont know anything about the war. I mean look at the world. Look at the city. It is not a futuristic world. The city looks normal. The year as we have been told is even in the past. I dont remember the exact year right now, but it is 201X iirc. So what sort of space war are they able to wage with aliens with that kind of technology? Like i said, it just makes sense if you dont think about it. And i am not sure if sel even want us to think about it, because he himself hasnt.

And that is why i have my doubts those aliens are even real, just like the war. And people just dont realise that, because they are prevented from thinking about it. Just like most of the girls still cant even paying attention when the timeloop is mentioned. If they are not aware, they cant acknowledge it was even mentioned.

 

[Duskreyn]

The answer is in the second event of the game, not much more to add.

 

[Xiondingens]

To disambiguate, I assume your "memory manipulation" means "further altering Maya's memories from the original time line in addition to the effects of removing all her experiences within the loop".

By memory manipulation i actually did mean that in general, memories of peoples have been manipulated by external forces all over the story. But yes, in the context of that conversation i did mean altering maya's memories.

In principle, what you suggest is possible. There are, however, a few things in this update that make me think the chance of additional memory manipulation happening here is low.

And sure, you make some strong points, but all those people wouldnt be really in to the more intimate details of the maya-akira relationship. So while some of them would be aware of that, they would have a hard time knowing well enough about the details, to know if this is actually still working out as it did before the timeloops. I mean someone did mention that it now feels more like some sort of toxic codependency. And i think it is a valid question if that would be actually the real maya, or if that part of her was rewritten for some reason.

I mean, it feels a bit like maya had to learn a lesson until she finally got a new sensei who would be able to turn into the real akira again. What if now that maya has been reset, it is his time of learning or maybe suffering? I mean i dont say that this is what happened. I just say that it is a valid question if this is really 100% the maya as she was before her personal reset.

 

[Bingoogus]

I feel the need to, again, point out this small but significant detail when discussing Makoto's dad dying. We never see him die, we never see him alive, we never see him at all, he could've been dead for a billion years, he could be in stasis in a tank in some alien's lab, we don't know shit about him. What we do know, all that we know, is that Maki got an automated phonecall informing her of his death that ended with, i think it was 'remember to smile', which was an obvious flag to it being god bullshit rather that it being 'real'. The phonecall is all that is 'real', the contents are entirely irrelevant as there is simply no way to know if it's real or god bullshit, the end result looks identical and thus should be discarded.

People always talk about Mashiro dying like it's a fact and it bugs me cause that part is not the important part and is completely unverified and unverifiable. But i'm beginning to ramble, even Makoto doesn't seem to have clicked to the phonecall being irrelevant to her father's actual status.

 

[Xiondingens]

People always talk about Mashiro dying like it's a fact and it bugs me cause that part is not the important part and is completely unverified and unverifiable. But i'm beginning to ramble, even Makoto doesn't seem to have clicked to the phonecall being irrelevant to her father's actual status.

Good point, everything related to the whole space war is dubious at best.

And no, i dont let a single statement in an event from years ago by now tell me "move on, there is nothing to see here". Especially because there isnt much comic relief with the space war at all when i think about it. It usually just causes people to suffer. So if you consider that "comic relief" welp...

So that statement doesnt has much weight, if any at all, in my book.

 

[Dc345]

Maybe i do. But there are still two important questions. Why is there a space war going on, coincidentally while the whole city is walled off and trapped in an eternal timeloop? And why do people never really talk about it? It is almost as if they all are in a perpetual state of been able to acknowledge there is a space war going on and most of the men are up there fighting and the city will be kept walled up for the war. But not really been able to think much beyond that.

I mean what do we know about those aliens? Aliens that i remind you wage a war seemingly against humanity that affects the life of everyone been traped in the city? Nothing. We dont know anything about them. We dont know anything about the war. I mean look at the world. Look at the city. It is not a futuristic world. The city looks normal. The year as we have been told is even in the past. I dont remember the exact year right now, but it is 201X iirc. So what sort of space war are they able to wage with aliens with that kind of technology? Like i said, it just makes sense if you dont think about it. And i am not sure if sel even want us to think about it, because he himself hasnt.

And that is why i have my doubts those aliens are even real, just like the war. And people just dont realise that, because they are prevented from thinking about it. Just like most of the girls still cant even paying attention when the timeloop is mentioned. If they are not aware, they cant acknowledge it was even mentioned.

I know this is late but it took me forever to figure out how to use this shitty photo editor I found online.

 

[barglenarglezous]

god bullshit

I prefer the term "divine fuckery"

If the war were a relevant thing, we'd get more news from the front than a pair of phone calls like that. It's a narrative convenience and nothing more.

 

[c8c3l]

Spoiler: 0.40 Preview

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I know i shouldn't but ami really hot in this look.

 

[Bingoogus]

Good point, everything related to the whole space war is dubious at best.

And no, i dont let a single statement in an event from years ago by now tell me "move on, there is nothing to see here". Especially because there isnt much comic relief with the space war at all when i think about it. It usually just causes people to suffer. So if you consider that "comic relief" welp...

So that statement doesnt has much weight, if any at all, in my book.

Is this whole post directed at what i said or just the first sentence? Cause i find it a bit confusing if it was the whole thing.

 

[Xiondingens]

Is this whole post directed at what i said or just the first sentence? Cause i find it a bit confusing if it was the whole thing.

Yeah, sorry, just the first part. Everything after is directed to what ami said in the second event about the space war and comic relief. I just was too lazy to make a quote and did hope it would be clear by itself.

 

[LessonsInDissonance]

Am I the only one that feels so out of place lately with this whole Maya thing?

As someone that isn't the biggest fan of Maya, it feels weird how Sensei is just so broken now, and how I am absolutely not emotionally impacted at all by her dissapareance, like I don't care that much?

It feels like this "potent" love for her appeared out of nowhere and it doesn't make sense to me. Like you knew he was always interested in her more than the others, but there was never something so deep that he would break mentally the way he did.

It feels weird that I used to be able to understand what Sensei is doing and thinking, and now I feel a total disconnect with the character. I used to understand his views and motives (understand is not the same as agreeing with them), and always wanted to see how else he would fuck up and if he would try to improve. I wanted to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

He always did what I wanted him to do. Build relations... be a horrible human being... slowly redeem himself... remember his past and understand the truth of his world... "COLLECT"...

Now he is different, I know why he is different, and it doesn't make a damned sense to me.

...

...

I don't like this Akira anymore.

 

[JelF547]

I don't like this Akira anymore.

LessonsInDissonance's affection reduced by 10. He doesn't like this Akira anymore

 

[Bingoogus]

It feels like this "potent" love for her appeared out of nowhere and it doesn't make sense to me. Like you knew he was always interested in her more than the others, but there was never something so deep that he would break mentally the way he did.

I'll freely admit to having a bit of the same feeling, we know more of the story than he does when it comes to her but i never really felt like he got to a level where watching her pop would shatter him, though i just chalked it up to my usual missing clues and subtext bullshit, my autistic ass does that all the time. I feel like a fully reactivated Akira with all his memories back would possibly shatter on Maya popping, but the Sensei we had at that moment... either i missed a few things or Selly jumped ahead for some reason.

 

[Skeltom]

So, what the fuck is a care package?

 

[LessonsInDissonance]

I feel like a fully reactivated Akira with all his memories back would possibly shatter on Maya popping

I thought about this too, but this Sensei DOESN'T REMEMBER THE PAST, so it still DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.
We never even got a moment that showed just how much he liked her if that was the case, he only told her that he loves her, but never, in any internal monologue or conversation, do you ever have the feeling that her dissappearing would do something like this.
Maybe we are being prepared for a big reveal, but this just stinks of bad writting right now, a case of tension without causation.

 

[Fire Lord Zuko]

I thought about this too, but this Sensei DOESN'T REMEMBER THE PAST, so it still DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.
We never even got a moment that showed just how much he liked her if that was the case, he only told her that he loves her, but never, in any internal monologue or conversation, do you ever have the feeling that her dissappearing would do something like this.
Maybe we are being prepared for a big reveal, but this just stinks of bad writting right now, a case of tension without causation.

While it’s true he doesn’t ‘remember his past’, keep in mind the important detail that he’s willingly suppressing it too. As such, it’s my belief that subconscious feelings are able to slip through the cracks without making themselves immediately presentable.

Akira still feels a deep connection with Sekai, Niki, Noriko, Ami, Ayane and Maya because technically that past still happened and is alluded to in story. Just because Akira is shielding himself from his past trauma by suppressing his memories, doesn’t mean he doesn’t love or care for certain people deep down.

Besides, what was he supposed to do when Maya popped on the roof?

“Oh, well that’s a bummer. Guess we’ll see how this plays out.”?

Nahhh man I’d feel guilty asf too.

 

[Xiondingens]

I thought about this too, but this Sensei DOESN'T REMEMBER THE PAST, so it still DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.
We never even got a moment that showed just how much he liked her if that was the case, he only told her that he loves her, but never, in any internal monologue or conversation, do you ever have the feeling that her dissappearing would do something like this.
Maybe we are being prepared for a big reveal, but this just stinks of bad writting right now, a case of tension without causation.

I think this actually works quite well. He took her for granted. That she would always be there. I mean she was from the start. And because he took her for granted and she would always be there, he never really payed much attention how much she actually ment to him. I mean akira is quite an ass who thinks more of himself as of others.

 

[Duskreyn]

Her past is still there, tangled up in the middle of all the happpy events, and in many of those happy events the most repeated character is Maya in a lot of ways proving that even today she is the most relevant character from her past.

I consider that without a doubt of all the ''Akiras'' in all the chapters this one is still the best.
After all, we're talking about a character, who; one, has traumas inflicted by Saki
traumas inflicted by Sekai, possibly by his brother Nozomu/Hope as well.
trauma inflicted by the car accident.
Being rendered totally useless and taken care of by Ami, and then carrying the burden of never being able to take good care of her.
Possibly inheriting all the craziness and weirdness that his father Yuu had.
The beginning that is possibly his past of suicide.
Her eyes which are basically an advanced suicidal state like Makoto post bluejay.

And then Akira/Maya are intertwined in an infinite cosmic reset, with Divine/Cursed intervention, maybe losing this Maya at the end could be the optimal step, even though she could have done thousands of resets, she could never find her way out of it.
The key point will be the next reset, Akira needs to use everything that has happened to find a turning point, supposedly this is the saddest chapter/ he is the collector, the same pareidollia among his possible traps has indicated him that on that path he will never see his ''Maya again'' , so it remains to be seen what he is heading for there.

But if you think about how many things are going to be from now on to finish the whole ''Harem Route'', it's going to be a lot of things in blackout or against his will, unless some resolution happens, because with the last thing that has happened with Karin, it has been shown that Akira doesn't want to do those things, even if he wants to change and move away, from that, the world/Gods/his trauma explodes towards him.

It also leads me to wonder how much control or sanity Akira has in the Dark Route, or if even there it's the perfect opportunity to fight something and be worthy of something in the Purity route, but there's not much information on that.

 

[NoIdealBalance]

Ha ha

 

[Not a Person]

Am I the only one that feels so out of place lately with this whole Maya thing?

As someone that isn't the biggest fan of Maya, it feels weird how Sensei is just so broken now, and how I am absolutely not emotionally impacted at all by her dissapareance, like I don't care that much?

It feels like this "potent" love for her appeared out of nowhere and it doesn't make sense to me. Like you knew he was always interested in her more than the others, but there was never something so deep that he would break mentally the way he did.

It feels weird that I used to be able to understand what Sensei is doing and thinking, and now I feel a total disconnect with the character. I used to understand his views and motives (understand is not the same as agreeing with them), and always wanted to see how else he would fuck up and if he would try to improve. I wanted to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

He always did what I wanted him to do. Build relations... be a horrible human being... slowly redeem himself... remember his past and understand the truth of his world... "COLLECT"...

Now he is different, I know why he is different, and it doesn't make a damned sense to me.

Well most of the latent feelings are going to be there, remember he chose Maya over Niki and it's likely he was with Maya before he actually broke up with Niki.

Not only that but Maya has been the one proper connection for him through all this, and even without his latent feelings from his past (which he partially remembers but are probably still shining through), she's the one he's always gone to to speak about the reset stuff and has been alongside him through this mess.

And as time grew through Chapter 3 and he learnt more about himself, he always returned to Maya, and would drop everything for Maya. Remember he chose just being close with Maya over having sex with Noriko, which is a pretty pivotal moment for this sex-crazed groomer. When he learnt his name? He called Maya.

It's also been shown that Sensei does not deal with loss well at all. After Sekai died he completely broke down (He broke up with Niki and shut almost everyone out, maybe except Maya?). He's still haunted by it, showing he definitely has some of his memories and is just repressing it. Now add that it's Maya into the mix and you've got a perfect recipe for someone breaking.

Because unless I'm recalling incorrectly, Sensei never actually knew what fully happened during Bluejay, he didn't actually know Makoto killed herself but the world reset it.

Hope that explains a bit.