Yukiru

Hi, I'm basically new to the forums as they are so I might as well introduce myself.
Hobbies are reading manga, watching vtuber streams and sometimes even anime or playing eroge. 
I'm mostly a manga otaku lately, I like series like uhhh.... Houseki no Kuni and Yuru Camp, so both thought provoking stories or healing fluffs are good for me.
Last VN I played was FLOWERS 3, and before that I tried some Umineko chapters... quite a mystery fanboy aren't I? Before those two there was probably some weird lewd game.
Last manga I read was this one called "An easy introduction to love triangles," the last anime I watched was Kabaneri and last LN I read was this one called "Wandering Witch" kinda like Kino no Tabi but with a very different MC to give it a different kind of spice.
As you may notice I like talking about myself without actually talking about myself, so to do some actual self-introducing, I like yuri, mahou shoujo, idols, mecha and mystery, but I'll take any kind of story if it's interesting. I can kinda understand Japanese but dlsite won't take my credit card so it doesn't do much for the eroge hobby.
Oh right, I almost forgot, VNs I like are liar-soft's WAB series, Innocent Grey's FLOWERS, Leaf's Utawarerumono and Kogado's Symphonic Rain.
Well, that should be it, gimme a shout if you wanna talk.

There's an absurd amount of type-moon emotes now, I wonder who's to blame.

Hi, I'm basically new to the forums as they are so I might as well introduce myself.
Hobbies are reading manga, watching vtuber streams and sometimes even anime or playing eroge. 
I'm mostly a manga otaku lately, I like series like uhhh.... Houseki no Kuni and Yuru Camp, so both thought provoking stories or healing fluffs are good for me.
Last VN I played was FLOWERS 3, and before that I tried some Umineko chapters... quite a mystery fanboy aren't I? Before those two there was probably some weird lewd game.
Last manga I read was this one called "An easy introduction to love triangles," the last anime I watched was Kabaneri and last LN I read was this one called "Wandering Witch" kinda like Kino no Tabi but with a very different MC to give it a different kind of spice.
As you may notice I like talking about myself without actually talking about myself, so to do some actual self-introducing, I like yuri, mahou shoujo, idols, mecha and mystery, but I'll take any kind of story if it's interesting. I can kinda understand Japanese but dlsite won't take my credit card so it doesn't do much for the eroge hobby.
Oh right, I almost forgot, VNs I like are liar-soft's WAB series, Innocent Grey's FLOWERS, Leaf's Utawarerumono and Kogado's Symphonic Rain.
Well, that should be it, gimme a shout if you wanna talk.

There's an absurd amount of type-moon emotes now, I wonder who's to blame.

Hi, I'm basically new to the forums as they are so I might as well introduce myself.
Hobbies are reading manga, watching vtuber streams and sometimes even anime or playing eroge. 
I'm mostly a manga otaku lately, I like series like uhhh.... Houseki no Kuni and Yuru Camp, so both thought provoking stories or healing fluffs are good for me.
Last VN I played was FLOWERS 3, and before that I tried some Umineko chapters... quite a mystery fanboy aren't I? Before those two there was probably some weird lewd game.
Last manga I read was this one called "An easy introduction to love triangles," the last anime I watched was Kabaneri and last LN I read was this one called "Wandering Witch" kinda like Kino no Tabi but with a very different MC to give it a different kind of spice.
As you may notice I like talking about myself without actually talking about myself, so to do some actual self-introducing, I like yuri, mahou shoujo, idols, mecha and mystery, but I'll take any kind of story if it's interesting. I can kinda understand Japanese but dlsite won't take my credit card so it doesn't do much for the eroge hobby.
Oh right, I almost forgot, VNs I like are liar-soft's WAB series, Innocent Grey's FLOWERS, Leaf's Utawarerumono and Kogado's Symphonic Rain.
Well, that should be it, gimme a shout if you wanna talk.

There's an absurd amount of type-moon emotes now, I wonder who's to blame.

Anything by liar-soft, also Utawarerumono.

I don't think you in particular will enjoy what Fuuka has in store.

Catgirls (and anthropomorphic humans in general) are a big fetish in the otaku media. The cat ears have become a staple of moe culture, a status symbol of what defines cuteness. Yet, whenever I play an eroge featuring such creatures, I often times find myself not enjoying a lot of the cutesy physical attributes of these specimen. Why is that?
As I delved into my thoughts, I finally pieced together the reason for these feelings: catgirl discrimination
What do I mean by this? It's simple. Catgirl discrimination is a common phenomenom in eroge (and even non-erotic titles) whereby catgirls are introduced as being an important part of a fictional setting, yet they are treated as less than humans throughout the story. Through my hours of research, I  found that often times, animal girls in eroge are introduced as mere plot devices for sexual activity rather than fleshed out characters you can emphasize and form bonds with.
Now this by itself isn't too surprising. After all, even when there's no catgirls involved, a lot of these games tend to focus on achieving a relationship status with another female human character. However, the difference between the latter and the former is that when humans are involved, they are treated as beings with intelligence. They are equal to the protagonist who wants to romance them. Yes, one can argue about the inherent misogyny in a lot of these titles, but that's beyond the point I'm making. The fact is, human girls are treated, well, like humans (as they should). But when it comes to catgirls, they are typically treated as less than human. They are dehumanized and turned into a creature akin to a pet.
"What's the problem with that? They aren't humans, so of course they're not treated as such" you say.
Ah yes, a fair point my dear reader, but let me ask you this then: Would you have sexsual intercourse with your cat or your dog?
The answer is most likely "no" (if it is yes, please seek counceling. I heard PETA fines aren't anything to scoff at.)
Therein lies the issue I have. Catgirls have primary human features, and yet they're often times treated as pets in most games. Why would you date someone who you treat like a pet? It makes little sense to me.
Now you might say "it's just a porn game, it's for fetishistic purposes". And of course I can 100% concede to that. In fact, I myself find it to be a nice fetish to have somebody submissive to you act like a pet. There's nothing wrong with that. However, humans are more than their genitals, and their personalities go beyond the confines of the bedroom. In real life, even when we're talking about people who are into things like BDSM, there is still a human connection beyond their sexual life. No human *literally* becomes slave to another human, they mutually agree to have this type of relationship, and they ultimately see each other as equal in the relationship. Yet with catgirls, they are introduced as nothing more than instruments for sex 90% of the time, and even beyond the bedroom they're still just a pet that will obey anything and everything their owner tells them to. I can not concede that this is a healthy form for a relationship at all.
Think about it. What is the point of dating somebody that always sees themselves and acts as inferior to you? Where is the happiness in dating someone with no consciousness, who's joy comes from eating food and sexually pleasing you? That is why I can not get behind most games featuring catgirls.
To me, a relationship partner must be equal to me in status. I don't want to treat my significant other as a pet, but as a human being. I don't want to take them out on walks with a leash, I want to go on dates holding hands with them and eat a giant parfait together, and then pass out on a bench because the parfait was too big and we now feel like throwing up.
I want script writers to write visual novels about worlds where catgirls are just like other humans. They just so happen to have cat ears and a tail and sometimes say "nya". I want them to be more than things you own that can't live by themselves without you taking care of them. That's what babies and dogs are for, not girlfriends.
This is not to say I want the end of all games featuring submissive cat girls, that's still a very valid fetish, but I believe it's unfair to treat them like that in almost every single game, especially games where the focus is supposed to be the story and the characters. How can you say you have a game with great characters when those characters are seen as less than human?
Games like nekopara thrive even though every single catgirl in it is portrayed as a brainless creature that goes into heat at random times and can only survive if the protagonist "relieves" them. Why must they act like animals this much? Why can't they just be regular human beings who you form a real bond with instead of an "owner x pet" relationship?
In conclusion, I believe catgirls are heavily discriminated against when it comes to visual novels. They are beings that need to be given a conscioussness and a will to act on their own, not to become mere cheap tools for one's sexual pleasure. They have a lot of love to offer to the world, and we should start appreciating them for that, because who knows when they'll go extinct.
Let's make the world a better place and stop catgirl discrimination. Every catgirl deserves to be portrayed as a being with a brain and a heart. 

People with good taste will never be in the majority. It's okay, I can appreciate Amano Kozue's magic with you, as I also think Amanchu is the best anime airing this season.
Whoop!

Inganock, it's pretty rad. Has gameplay but I'm certain you can deactivate it.

Having a wife is like having a dakimakura only better because she actually interacts with you. Sometimes she'll even make you a sammich!

The simplest spectroscope you could imagine, and indeed what was used by astronomers a century or two ago, is a prism. A prism deviates each wavelength of light by a different angle and thus allows to view what we call the "spectrum" of the light, i.e. what wavelength we can find in it. Spectroscopy in general is very broad, though.
The explanation iamnoob gave is actually only partial: if you observed the light of the sun through a prism, as you know, you'd see a continuous spectrum (i.e. all the wavelength would be there). That's because the light emitted by stars does not come from the transitions of the atoms in it, but from what is called "black-body radiation", which is purely due to temperature. A physical body without particular other optical properties (hence the black-body term) will emit light according to its temperature, in the form of a continuous spectrum. The peak of this spectrum depends on temperature: on the surface of the sun, around 6000K, the center is around visible light. Cooler stars will look red, hotter stars blue. For bodies at ~300K (30°C) it would be pretty far in the infrared. Yes, we do radiate too.
What happens then is that a part of that black-body radiation is absorbed by the molecules within the stars (the absorption spectrum of a molecule is simply the complementary of its emission spectra), creating small gaps in the otherwise continuous spectrum (not really visible with the naked eye and a simple prism). We can compare those gaps with the known emission spectras of various molecules we test on earth and match them onto the star's spectra.
Emission spectras are more useful when we want information on other stuff like gas clouds in the interstellar medium. Molecules in those regions can get into excited states because of all the shit going around (cosmic rays etc) and then emit light at specific wavelengths which allows us to identify them.
Of course that's only the basics of it: in reality it's more complicated. Stars are mostly made of hydrogen, so it's very easy to see the marks of hydrogen in a spectrum. There's also a bunch of Helium, but the rest is only there as tiny fractions, which means you won't see clear gaps in the spectrum but only slight deviations to the anticipated black-body radiation... There is a whole range of techniques available to astronomers though.

Sorry if there are repeats from the comments above (too lazy to check), but here's a pretty lengthy list of yuri manga with my personal comments (this is all stuff I've read)
Girl Friends (yeah it's the holy grail of yuri manga. You're a pleb if you don't agree) Hana to Hina wa Houkago (The most recent manga by the author of Girl Friends, Morinaga Milk, and it's just as cute as the former) Citrus (Basically Girl Friends 2.0) Majo to Houki to Kurobuchi Megane (One of my favorite yuri comedies out there. It has a proper ending and everything!) Husky and Medley (This is actually based on real life events. And what's more, the real people are still together to this date ) Kimi Koi Limit (A one volume long love triangle story) Ameiro Kouchakan Kandan (Really sweet, relaxing tale of two girls working together in a cafe. I was more moved by it than I initially expected) Lily Love (Not a manga, it's done by a Thai author but she puts a lot of love into the story and I think it's worth the read) Their Story [Also known as Tamen de Gushi] (A Chinese webcomic. Really adorable!) Blue Friend (This one's pretty depressing, but I really enjoy the atmosphere in it) Chouchou Nannan (Only 1 volume long, but it's my favorite Takemiya Jin story) Fragments of Love (Takemiya Jin's most popular yuri manga, I really like it as well) Anything else by Takemiya Jin (It might be clear by this point that I like this author and think her work is a gift from God) Sasameki Koto (A classic, albeit I don't think it's the greatest thing out there) Gokujou Drops (This one is both funny and serious. It's a nice read) Hatsukoi Shimai (Honestly I barely recall this one but I do remember it being okay) Renai Manga (More subtext based but really cute short read) Fragtime (Yuri + sci-fi!) Hana to Hoshi (This is more like a romcom, it's pretty cute) Bloom Into You [also known as 'Eventually I Will Become Yours'] (This one is a really recent manga but it shows a lot of promise) Shimaism (Hilarity of the highest magnitude) Yuri Mekuru Hibi (not completed, sadly, but super funny) Virgins' Empire (This is more of an ecchi series but it's still yuri so) New Game (Again a lot of subtext more than anything. It's getting an anime adaptation next season!) 15-sai (Very interesting older girl x younger girl romance, takes itself seriously) Futaribeya (Also a very recent manga but really adorable!) Kobayashi-san chi no Maid Dragon (Maids + Yuri + Dragons = This thing) Sweet Magic Syndrome (Subtext based, but this one is more out there. SUPER ADORABLE ARTSTYLE) This list should last you for a while. There's still plenty more stuff in the back of my head but I feel like these are the more memorable titles.

Nothing beats Liar-soft to me, even Gahkthun whose overall art style I don't find as pretty, has pretty good sprites.
Games by Alice-soft also have pretty sprites, and Mahoyo.

Da capo is a musical term for re-playing a especific part of a piece, just like da capo starts over from the beginning of the story and then stretches out to the real ending.
Anyway, it's not a linear story, so pick the ending suits you the best.

Da capo is a musical term for re-playing a especific part of a piece, just like da capo starts over from the beginning of the story and then stretches out to the real ending.
Anyway, it's not a linear story, so pick the ending suits you the best.

Well, there's Comyu, it's got tons of action and tons of monologues, and it is a nice game. The only other action VN I've played (that has no gameplay) is probably Ayakashibito, I didn't like it as much but it is a well-liked game the action is great, but as far as I'm concerned the game is just about that, action.
And for a blind recommendation is Eiyuu Senki (it has gameplay, and I heard it is buggy, though), haven't played it, but I think it is also about gender-bent historical figures fighting other gender-bent historical figures.
Also, if you haven't read the type-moon light novels, there's that.

Well, there's Comyu, it's got tons of action and tons of monologues, and it is a nice game. The only other action VN I've played (that has no gameplay) is probably Ayakashibito, I didn't like it as much but it is a well-liked game the action is great, but as far as I'm concerned the game is just about that, action.
And for a blind recommendation is Eiyuu Senki (it has gameplay, and I heard it is buggy, though), haven't played it, but I think it is also about gender-bent historical figures fighting other gender-bent historical figures.
Also, if you haven't read the type-moon light novels, there's that.

I lost several days' worth of likes and I want them back, dammit!!1!

Kanon, only finished one route and it took me forever. I wonder why I tried a second one.

Be aware that siglusengine sucks, well at least for me. I think I've downloaded the game three times and still haven't played it.

I think you'll like Phenomeno, it's short and good, and judging by your vndb, it might be right up your alley.

The translation of Sena’s route is now complete! Credit to Solo Spieler and Secchan for their contributions and Fiddle for finishing it off.
But today we have news even bigger than Sena’s mammaries. With this route complete, translation is now at 100%! Those of you who have been watching us intently have surely noticed some extended periods of little to no translation progress, and some of you have politely demanded an explanation for said periods, to which we replied that we had been checking/proofreading other routes in that time. Well, now you may assume that this information was accurate, because we’ve made so much progress in that regard that we will be able to release the full patch quite soon after the 100% translation that took place today: On December 24th!
Again, that’s December 24th, 2015, two days from now, Christmas Eve, the fourth anniversary of Yuzusoft’s original release of Noble☆Works.
From Keisuke and Fiddle: Thank you all for your support and patience.

Yurikuma Arashi: No argument, it is just #1 because it is. Hibike Euphonium: It was a series with a nice development with each episode being better than the previous one. Onepunch Man: Mindless fun with great animation. Teeikyuu: Alright, we arrive at the problem, I liked Teekyuu over the rest of the anime this year except for a few, but Teekyuu is a special case so it shouldn't be in this list in the first place. That being said, Teekyuu is mindless fun with fun animation. Death Parade: If we were to take Teekyuu out, this would come 4th, it is simply what more anime should try, an episodic story with a different art direction, and not a happy ending per se. Kekkai Sensen: Same as Death Parade but much messier I guess, also, this soundtrack may be the best of the year.  There are anime that should be higher on the list, but I excluded continuations, so anime like Gintama, Owarimonogatari, Biyori and Gatchaman Crowds were excluded; and since I gave 4 examples of what was excluded, well, that speaks for itself.
 

Yurikuma Arashi: No argument, it is just #1 because it is. Hibike Euphonium: It was a series with a nice development with each episode being better than the previous one. Onepunch Man: Mindless fun with great animation. Teeikyuu: Alright, we arrive at the problem, I liked Teekyuu over the rest of the anime this year except for a few, but Teekyuu is a special case so it shouldn't be in this list in the first place. That being said, Teekyuu is mindless fun with fun animation. Death Parade: If we were to take Teekyuu out, this would come 4th, it is simply what more anime should try, an episodic story with a different art direction, and not a happy ending per se. Kekkai Sensen: Same as Death Parade but much messier I guess, also, this soundtrack may be the best of the year.  There are anime that should be higher on the list, but I excluded continuations, so anime like Gintama, Owarimonogatari, Biyori and Gatchaman Crowds were excluded; and since I gave 4 examples of what was excluded, well, that speaks for itself.
 

A flat chest and a funny hat it is for me. Personality-wise, I have no dominant preference, but I tend to go for characters that have a few loose screws. 

The VN I mentioned above is slated to get a translation from Mangagamer sometime in the future.  However, if you don't mind untranslated...
Houkago no Futekikakusha is perhaps the most obvious choice.  That VN... is about as dark as they get without straying into guro.  In terms of levels of despair, it even makes Swan Song look pleasant.
Futagoza no Paradox is a bit different... it is a Cthulhu-related mystery/horror/thriller with elements of science-fantasy.
Devils Devel Concept I'd suggest for its unique 'daily life'.  Saying it is dark is correct, but the protagonist doesn't have the right set of emotions to feel 'gloomy'. 
Vermilion Bind of Blood applies, being one of the few vampire VNs that doesn't nerf vampires in any way and also isn't a nukige.
Muramasa... is probably precisely what you want. 
Jingai Makyou is a bit different, but it still fulfills your request (actually, anything by Nitroplus prior to Sumaga is worth it.
Bradyon Veda is intellectually gloomy, though it is perhaps a bit over the heads of about ninety percent of all humanity.
Tokyo Babel might apply, because it is post-apocalyptica combined with Biblical apocrypha in a fantasy setting.  It is also slated to be localized.
Baldr Sky (either the first two or the two Zero games) would apply.
I/O probably has some potential for you.
Izuna Zanshinken is bloody, violent, and all about crime and retribution (not justice).
HOTEL. is an utsuge based in a dying world.
Midori no Umi is... unique.
End Sleep is straightforward horror mystery, with echoes of Umineko but a more straightforward concept.
Owaru Sekai to Birthday... is a mindfuck plus science fantasy based in the same world as Futagoza no Paradox and by the same author.