Alcorin

Was going to quote somebody but felt what I was going to say was better off not in response to anybody. I said on here before that I have been in a relationship with someone who had depression, and it wasn't a lie. The feeling of having to worry about someone who is very mentally unstable and could opt to take their own life without you around is something I will never forget. That, at least compared to what I have read in either manga or VN form, has never been properly conveyed.
As others in the thread have mentioned before, love cannot cure depression. It can make things much more bearable knowing that at least one person cares whether you are alive and breathing or six feet under. Sometimes, it may even lessen the impact depression has, though, I can't prove that but can base it on what she had said to me at times. In my experience, being close to somebody with depression leaves yourself vulnerable to feeling-like/becoming a victim to it. At times, the worry you feel, or anxiety can literally make you sick. In my case, I had really bad insomnia because I would worry she'd text me a goodbye letter or something of that nature, or when I was in her room I could easily find pills, razor blades, and other items that could cause serious bodily harm to her (Yes, she did go to a psychiatrist but nothing they gave really changed her besides making her into a vegetable for hours on end, and most of the time worsening her condition).
It can really weather a person's mental state, both having depression and staying close to one with it. That's not to say depression is that person's fault or that they aren't worth caring for, hell I loved her and stayed with her for 7 years and wasn't the one that gave up on the relationship. The amount of times I thought I would never see her again, or that I would hear she was put into the hospital for attempting to end her life and the way it made me feel can only be described as agony. It is a trauma I don't like to think about, that is why Yume Miru Kusuri struck a chord in me when I played through it. 
(Just wanted to say that it wasn't my intention to make this into a sob story of myself but more as a post of awareness about how depression can seriously impact people and their loved ones. Oh, and that the VN way of "MC love cures all" is bullshit and I wish more realistic depictions like mentioned previously in the thread were more frequently used.)

I am here to announce that the most recent announcement of an announcement was announced in error. Unfortunately, we're still making the finishing touches on some of the promo materials. We may have a more accurate announcement of an announcement at a later date, but not until we know exactly what day we can make said announcement.
I am also announcing that we will be much more careful about announcing announcements going forward. We are very sorry for the disappointment this brings. It was an honest mistake, and we'll do better in the future. We won't say "we'll never announce an announcement ever again!" because it's honestly very helpful to prepare people and get them paying attention, rather than surprise announcing stuff. We promise we'll be more responsible about this from now on, though.

So, you're announcing your announcement displeasure at their announcement of a forthcoming announcement?  I do declare...

Top 10 Pictures Taken Right Before Disaster
(I love this game so much it hurts uuuuuuugh ;w;)

Thanks for the announcement of the announcement announcement.

Some people don't have a credit card so they need to use a store that supports PayPal.

Koharu looks very lolish lmao, but I don't think that's the problem. It's those two ban-happy admins apparently.

"Dear Mr. Newell

Please open an internal investigation on two employees working for you - Jason Ruymen and Arisa Sudangnoi. They are alleged to be responsible for the continued censorship of niche anime-styled games under the guise of 'child exploitation'. This contradicts Valve's previous statements about not being the 'taste police', and calls into question the legitimacy of your company's commitment to give gamers the freedom to buy and play what they want.

Please resolve this."
 
https://www.valvesoftware.com/it/contact?contact-person=Gabe Newell

Well, this is a special occasion, because this news pissed me off. I just had to come back on to give my two cents, or it would've bugged me for days to come.
While I don't care for VNs very much, what Valve is doing is going way too far, and it may very well affect the future of all anime games on Steam.

No, but it's futile

Meanwhile in Clannad...
This game broke me already and it didn't even start for real yet ;v; This is gonna be a doozy, isn't it...?
Bonus:
I still love him tho X'3

Meanwhile in Clannad...
This game broke me already and it didn't even start for real yet ;v; This is gonna be a doozy, isn't it...?
Bonus:
I still love him tho X'3

Finally got started with Clannad. Too bad that I can only read it when I'm home alone, since I keep screaming at the screen... Yeah, I don't take second-hand embarrassment too well, and Sunohara is the goshdarned master of it. I mean, I like him - he's like that small dumb puppy that thinks it's a wolf and keeps getting chased by the neighbor's bulldog... But damn, are some of the scenes where he gets in trouble hard to read (for me, at least). Also, both him and Tomoya are arseholes. Likable arseholes, but still arseholes. I don't really have an opinion on the girls yet, since I've only met 4 so far, and just for a little while each (Tomoyo and the dorm mom whose name I don't remember yet seem pretty cool, tho). I wonder what's the deal with the dead world, too. It seems so out of place... We'll see, we'll see.
Ah, as a side note - I've finished Kokonoe Kokoro the other day. Man, was it painfully generic. I don't think that the script was even written with having a monster girl heroine in mind, it was just the plainest, most boring high school romance I've ever read. The fact that Kokoro is a giant fuckin' grasshopper didn't come up even once! I know that it'll sound pathetic, but I'm disappointed. Like yeah, I know, what the heck did I expect, but if Hatoful Boyfriend could do it, then Kokonoe Kokoro could too. Shame.

Well, when all is said and done, the most important thing is that you enjoy yourself. No point reading at all if you're not having fun.

Most of it will probably repeat what other people said already, but here goes:
- Pick VNs that your attention span can handle.
- Try to read only one VN at a time. If it's long, you can break it up here and there with shorter ones, but be careful not to overdo it.
- Take breaks. Nobody can stay interested forever.
- Read because you want to, not because you "have to". If you push it, you'll probably lose interest completely.
- Be a completionist by nature. I know it can't be helped, but if you are, you're in luck (?).

Hello, I always wanted to have a bgm like how it's literally in everything (movies, drama, anime, vn's etc.) but not included in my particular very exciting life.
Sending god an online message to say he needs to make an additional life patch for an enjoyable experience being a weeb at least. 
Anyway sorry about that, it's me being me, casually weird. But if I was going to make an introducement I wanted it to be weird like me hah (yeah it was a great idea cykaki *claps self* >_>)
But leaving the jokes aside I'm very pleased to be here! the idea of how visual novels can bring together this many people is just awesome. Whatever the content is, we all enjoy a good waifu  story and love to see and feel new oppa- emotions. 
I'm just a 20 year old, really don't mind being called he/she or they. I also enjoy all types of genres of visual novels, just chilling and enjoying the show you know 
So yeah thanks and see you around peeps

Not sure how academic scene works in your country, but my experience is that you can write a thesis about anything in humanities, if you are able to convince people there's something meaningful in the phenomenon - popcultural studies may be young, but they're only expanding and it would be absolutely doable to make a serious research project on VNs from the perspective of literary studies, game studies, fan studies etc. I even made a small project on VN fan translations for a conference, even though I never expanded it as far as I initially wanted.
I also made my master's thesis on MLP fan porn, in no way a mainstream phenomenon, and it was in sociology, where the burden of showing what you write about is meaningful in the scale of the broader societal issues is a bit higher than in cultural studies. Even so, it's true that there's virtually no academic work on VN in the West - when doing research, I've been literally able to find one book about VNs and their anime adaptation, which wasn't very helpful or particularly interesting BTW. I imagine it's not much better in Japan, as popcultural studies are still very weak there. I'd say there are a few reasons for it:
1. It's an extremely niche medium, that is seriously absent from most people's popcultural knowledge - I think there many very curious aspects of VNs for both cultural studies and marketing, but simply too few people know them well enough to write about them in a meaningful way. Even in the academic world, it's the fans that drive various types' of media presence in the discussion and there's simply too few of us.
2. It's a medium connected to porn, which means it will very likely be picked up by porn studies or by no one. I don't think the stigma connected to porn is that bad in the humanities/social studies nowadays, but once more, you have to first learn about the medium in-depth and see its potential before you can write anything interesting about it. And the idea of VNs being "gross fanservice games for horny teenagers" definitely doesn't help with that.
If I end my leave next year and go back to my academic work, I will surely try to publish something on VN fan translations in English. Maybe will refocus my PhD on it, because the current project surely isn't getting anywhere.

I play some. I take them as no more than a change in perspective.

Heaven’s Feel is such trash. UBW was so much fun to read. Also, Fate/Hollow literally feels like a gag visual novel half the time. Hell even the creator said it’s like a dream, so don’t think to much.
 
Now back to the point.Yeah I am not a big fan of “One True End” because it kinda defeats the purpose of visual novels a bit. For example, Ever17 annoyed my ass off with that kinda thing. It just comes out of nowhere.
 
Having mutitple endings of equal merit is literally why I think visual novels excellent at. Can movies do that: nope. Can anime do that: nope. Can comics do that: nope. Can video games do that? Sure, however it’s very genre specific RPGs. You’re not going to get a Halo game with a multiple endings. Furthermore, multiple endings to the level that visual novels do them have only been seen in certain JRPGs like Neir Automata. 
 
It’s one thing to do a linear story, a kinetic novel, but honestly I don’t like the fact there’s a true end as if my choices were somehow wrong. Like skip your VN, my true end is with Waifu X or Husbando Y etc. This really sucks in romantic visual novels where characters are basically routes to several endings. I mean imagine having to fall in love with a certain character to only learn that their ending is not really the true ending because you have to go with a stupid character that you don’t like just so you can get to the true ending. 
 
Another point is that multiple equal endings allows for there to be debate. You know, discussion, over which ending is best. Ideally, when you create a VN or a some kind of artwork, you want to leave the reader, viewer, player etc. something to think about. Having multiple endings could lead to a grand mystery that will leave the audience guessing forever vs “here is the true end! You can stop the debate. You can go home now.” Everyone loves theorizing shit. Give them more fuel to theorize by having multiple endings so they can theorize all kinds of headcannons to satisfy their curiosity.

I have the feeling that this question is equivalent to asking whether it is better to write with right or left hand. It depends on the language (some language start from the right) and personal preference hence differ on a person to person basis.
Theoretically so long the story is complete I don't mind. Practically even some of the best VNs have terrible side routes. Writers are not so patient as many would think and frequently their work would be judged by the best route, not the average performance.

Reading this line of thought, it got me thinking that writing a story with a single "true" conclusion is actually easier, more practical, and not to mention more effective in writing a good story. In terms of narrative writing, unless your story has heavy involvement with a multiverse or maybe even time-travel, having "multiple significant endings" is like having unnecessary filler for your main story (provided you have a "main story," and not just multiple side stories like most dating sims). "Less is more," as they say when advising people about writing. A story with too much of such filler would be meandering, and therefore would lack a strong impact.
Therefore, it makes sense why many VNs have chosen to use a "True Route", since it's the most "normal" and practical way to write a story. Furthermore, when you take into consideration that "a story is only as good as its ending," the usage of a "True End" is even more important.
That being said... I still stand by my preferences. I just love VNs with multiple routes and endings too much for the reasons I described in my prior post. It's just too much fun. Not every VN has to have some overly serious story. 
Furthermore, visual novel is a special medium where you have the opportunity to utilize multiple routes (or parallel universes) into your story, so to not use them to tell a better story that no other medium like books or anime could seems like a waste of opportunity. That's why I greatly admire those VNs that manage to tell a great story while still having multiple endings of equal significance. That's truly not an easy feat, and makes it an exceptional creation above others.

The "True End" of a VN for me is whatever ending I liked the most. Simple as that.
Of course I like some sort of conclusion, but it needs to be satisfying and well written for me to acknowledge it as the Best/True End.

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies... Just like No Man's Sky!
Also relevant...
 

Six Days of Snow maybe? ^^ Dunno it's all that heartwarming, tho...