- Jul 11, 2022
- 14
- 10
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 !
! 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 !