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Ambiguity is a fascinating element of language, one an editor both struggles with and celebrates regularly. On the celebration side of things, ambiguity is an essential tool in the setup of a lot of short jokes, for one. As an example, an ambiguous statement leads to a misunderstanding, and in a VN said misunderstanding usually leads to an accidental love confession, resulting in the unfortunate victim stammering outrageously while blushing like a sunset. How cute. Ambiguity can also be a powerful tool in foreshadowing, since it allows a single statement to be interpreted in two ways, of which one can be applicable to the immediate present, thus making it a perfectly reasonable line to have in the present, and the other only meaningful when considering future events, usually causing the reader to look back and say, "Ahh-hah, now I see what it really meant." Ambiguity is also absolutely essential in writing clever blog post titles. But on the struggling side, ambiguity is often an enemy getting in the way of your reader enjoying your text. As you read, your brain furiously analyzes words as they come in, building up and tearing down many possible syntactical structures for the sentence and many possible semantic interpretations of the various words and phrases, before eventually trimming this all down to a single interpretation of the sentence, typically over the course of a tiny fraction of a second. However, there are many stumbling blocks which can lengthen this process or thwart it entirely, notably including actual errors (misspellings, dropped words, incorrect grammar, etc.,), which is probably the chief reason why such errors are so frowned-upon in typical writing. Slowing down the reader's understanding, or preventing it entirely, is generally not the author's goal, assuming said author is not James Joyce. Setting aside actual errors, ambiguity is one of the main impediments to a reader's understanding. Since one of a VN editor's chief goals is to ensure a script flows well for a reader, eliminating unintentional ambiguity is an important sub-goal. Even outside of intentional usage like in the cases mentioned in the first paragraph, ambiguity in English is still incredibly common, with small ambiguities cropping up constantly while reading essentially any text. Let's take a look at an example of a super-small ambiguity which slows down the reader just a tiny bit, a sentence containing my least favorite word: Looks fine, right? As a whole the sentence is totally unambiguous. But while you're reading it, you're going to run into "that", and "that"'s a problem. "That" is an incredibly flexible word in the English language: it's a pronoun, a determiner, an adverb, and a relative pronoun. It's actually even more flexible in British English, where it can act as a subordinating conjunction, and even though most VN translations are written in American English, the lines there are pretty fuzzy, and it wouldn't be surprising or confusing to see a sentence like "He asked that she go" in a VN. Now, in the sentence above, "that" is being used as a relative pronoun, but the prefix of this sentence, "I told you that" is also a perfectly well-formed English sentence in which it's instead being used as a pronoun, and if your brain follows such an interpretation immediately as you read the sentence, it'll take it a few extra milliseconds for your brain to unwedge itself, reorganize into treating "that" as a relative pronoun, and continue on forming the correct interpretation. All right, doesn't sound like a big deal, does it? You're right. This particular, single instance isn't. But they add up, and you can do better, so you might as well. To put it in super technical jargon I didn't know until I was writing up this post, English has a so-called "zero relative pronoun" which can be used in place of relative pronouns like "that" which are introducing restrictive relative clauses. To give an example, since the previous jargon is so technical as to be basically useless, instead of the above sentence, you can just drop "that" and write: Now, look, I'm not saying this makes a huge difference, but doesn't this version feel a tiny bit better when you read it? Eliminating usage of overly-flexible words like "that" is a good way to reduce some ambiguity, but keep in mind this is a single example of a specific case. It just happened to be the one which prompted this blog post. However, I assure you, if you start reading your work with a careful eye out for the clarity of each line, you'll find tons of small, unintentional ambiguities popping out at you which you want to correct. Training yourself to look for them and to clean them up is one part of helping your text flow better. I guess that's that. I hope you got something out of that, and I ask that, if you have questions, comments, or problems regarding this or "that", you leave a note below to that effect.

I'd say it's a sort of catharsis on an entirely different level. It makes you aware of certain things. It also reminds you that kidnapping and rape are - indeed, obviously - horrible and not really a subject matter for silly joking (sorry, AliceSoft). I guess it's the reason why majority of people I knew actually dropped it - they couldn't get past the point, where it becomes apparent the "rape" part is not a joke. It reminds you, it is not something you should be enjoying, as opposed to majority of darker/edgier eroge. That aside, even on a sliding sociopathic scale, Shinichi (Shinji?) makes for an incredibly interesting character, you're actually - somehow - able to relate with, if the topics mentioned within the story aren't completely oblivious to you. Feeling of social isolation, sense of loss, lack of drive towards your very own life and future, complete rejection that leads to non-existence... yet, those things are something we're not able - as human beings - to fight against. We want to love and be loved by others. It's what makes our lives fulfilling and worth living for. Everyday, we strive to build our perfect utopias, mostly unaware of the fact our freedom ends where it starts for someone else and only end up hurting them in the process. Even though, it is something we cannot influence; it's an integral part of us being a part of this society, whether we like it or not. Doesn't make a difference Mitsuki isn't any less interesting, nor important; albeit her role is designated more to one, who makes the protagonist "whole". It's an apparent theme throughout the whole game, whilst the different endings cope with different outcomes of our couple (no pun intended) coming to terms with their own existence and place in this peculiar relationship. I daresay, this is actually their best game so far, mostly because of the themes they chose; it's propably even better than Maggot Baits and Euphoria, considering how disconnected they feel in regards to our world and reality. This is, mostly because of it's presentation - which not only plays a tremendous role, but remains perfectly executed. I have yet to see a visual novel, that is *so close* to being the defining factor of it's own genre and remaining - even despite it's gritty, twisted premise - so artistically pleasant.

I would have to say as of the moment you were exactly right. I decided to randomly buy a vn from the suggested ones here and this one happened to be on sale so I decided to try it. I've spent the last 8 or so hours straight slowly reading to Chapter 4 which is not something I can say has happened in quite some time. I've heard a lot of good things about it but for whatever reason never got around to trying it. Now that I finally have as it's quite enjoyable so far. Thanks all for the recommendations; I might get to some of the others after, as this one will likely be done with soon. I think Fata Morgana has indeed rekindled my interest in the medium though so thanks.

My what?

I once dreamed something about making a blood pact with a demoness. Does that count? PS: It was H.

The House In Fata Morgana is exactly what you're looking for. I've also been in a major slump in terms of interesting VN releases in the last year, and Fata Morgana was the game that made the whole medium feel potentially incredible again. It is my favorite VN now. Fata Morgana is one of the very few VNs I have seen that completely discards the regular VN conventions and Japanese culture. There is no slice of life, there is no main heroine used as a marketing push. No slapstick humor. An art style that COMPLETELY deviates from anime art (perhaps you can make a case for exeggerated eyes, but the sprites are, on the whole, far more realistic, detailed and expressive than I am used to). 60 or so BGMs, at least half of them vocalized. A subject matter that majorly deviates from any common genre to become its own thing. 30 hours or so to boot. Its only flaws are no voice acting (though this one's open to discussion, I think it contributed to the game's atmosphere) and the 4:3 aspect ratio (the game was released in Japanese in 2012, though the translation was released this year). It's nigh-incredible on every front. Can't recommend it enough.

I wanted to wait until the year is over before I write my list for this year, but of course I haven't had the time to actually look at the December releases and now the year is over. Luckily, there isn't much interesting for me anyway. Before we start, just let me mention some noteworthy December titles: Venus Blood Ragnarok could be a nice game, but I don't really like the Venus Blood series, and as some kind of sequel it probably won't win me over anyway. I have played the trial of Meguru Sekai de Towanaru Chikai wo and it really didn't impress me. Looked like an even cheaper version of Izumo 4. And Izumo 4 was already a letdown last year. The RPG mechanics of Izumo 4 are very simple and Meguru Sekai de seems even simpler. But that is not all, contrary to Izumo 4, this time the game also looks pretty ugly! It that the reason why Yamamoto Kazue changed her name to Yamamoto ☆ Kazue for this? Well, I probably will play it nonetheless because I don't like to judge something I haven't really played, but eh, not in the near future. That's it for December. The rest doesn't interest me or I already know it will be bad (You can't fool me Moonstone!). Did I just say I don't judge something I haven't played? Eh, whatever... But now some honorable mentions of games that actually looked interesting but I haven't had the time to read them, so they won't be in my 2016 list: Dungeons & Daimeiwaku: I've read the trial, but haven't found the time to read the actual game. I'm sure it's good but it's kind of demotivating for me to read an RPG without any gameplay, heh. Iwaihime: Ryukishi07 and horror should be exactly what I'm looking for but for some reason I have this untouched on my hdd for a year now. Maybe I miss the Ryukishi07-art, since it doesn't look as good with generic moeblobs. Trianthology: Now I have the art, but not a full Ryukishi07 game, haha. Still, I have to read this sometime soon. Kanojo ＊ Step: This could probably be the "Best Charage" of 2016 as far as I have seen it. The humor is great, something that's really missing in pretty much every other modern charage. It's a shame that the genre charage has such a low priority for me, so I haven't really read much of this VN so far. Now I mention some games people might expect in my list of 2016's best eroge, but I actually found them to be only mediocre: Shi ni Iku Kimi, Yakata ni Mebuku Zouo: Yeah, I wasn't as excited about this as everyone else. I do not fetishize gore. I like death as an element of a thrilling story, but death in Nikuniku has no impact. There is no meaning in killing someone when they can't die. Baka Dakedo Chinchin Shaburu no Dake wa Jouzu na Chii-chan: This game has a Genre-Shift tag of 3.0 on vndb and some people claim it would be different than what you expect it to be. Spoiler: It's exactly what it looks like! WTF are the people talking about? lol Maitetsu: Borefest and not even usable as a lolige. Really only interesting for train otakus. Now let's start with the list of maybe not necessarily the best but the most impressive eroge of 2016, for me at least: Eroge of the Year: Natsu no Kusari Best game without a doubt, there is no other contender here. If I would make a Top 5 of 2017, the second place would already be many, many levels under this one. It's so good (or all the other recent games are just so bad, lol). I have already written walls of text in other threads about this game so I won't repeat myself here. I will just say that this game is exactly what I'm looking for when I read an eroge, the reason why I even started with this medium. Great characterization and the perfect use of narration, music, visuals and voices makes this one of the most compelling short stories I have read in years. Best NTR Eroge: Dearest Blue The lack of elf is really showing and I certainly can't say that any LiLiM game is really good, but at least with Dearest Blue LiLiM improved on their formula and made it its best game so far. We still have some obvious "Do you want to get NTR'd"-choices, but they are not as in-your-face as in previous titles. Some choices make you wonder what will actually happen if you go this route and that at least is an improvement. In some instances there is some believable drama and especially one route is good where you can cheer for both, the protagonist and the rival because both characters are likable. The main heroine is also well-characterized, being an independent and strong woman without going too bitchy or slutty. Still, not everything is good. Pretty much every male character except the aforementioned one is a one-dimensional evil villain. The biggest problem however is that the story is build around some kind of NTR/death-game where all the players need to outwit each other ... but in the end there are no mind games or twists happening! Heck, even I could probably win this game because every other character is so bad at this, not having a plan or making retarded moves. What a disappointment! Read this for the relationship drama, not for the death game. Best Modern Oldschool Eroge: Ryuudouji Shimon no Inbou This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really think that the writing in many of the latest Mink-games is topnotch. Really, if Mink-games weren't conceptually so limited (being only nukige), they could be really great. Why is that? Is it because Mink is such an old company that they still carry on old writing traditions which were established in the Golden Age of eroge? That at least would explain why Ryuudouji Shimon no Inbou is so good when it conceptually shouldn't be! Don't misunderstand me, Ryuudouji Shimon no Inbou is not a good slave-training eroge. There is no real SLG gameplay here, instead the only choice the player has is to visit 1 of 20 locations every day hoping that some kind of event happens there. There is no indication which area you have to visit, neither in script nor in the interface, it's completely by chance. Save-scumming and blindly gathering events at its finest, huh. But if you can look behind this (preferably with a walkthrough), you will find a game that feels like the late 90s. Mainly because this is a blatant clone of 99's Yakin Byoutou. It's pretty much "Night Shift School Girls". Aside from the setting that is now a school, we have the same kind of characters, the same storyline and the same development Yakin Byoutou had. And it's great, because that formula still works 17 years later! The ugly main character, who has just enough understanding of the human psyche to get what he wants, the pure maidens who fall into his traps, not because they are sluts but because they are believable corrupted, and the evil female mastermind who is probably even worse than the main character. It's beautiful. The nostalgia is strong with this one. Best Dark and Edgy Eroge: Tokage no Shippo Kiri I'm cheating here a bit because the game was released in November 2015. But since the fandisc was released in January last year which means the full experience was only available to us in 2016, I see it as 2016 game. There is not much to say here, what Derg not already said. Games like this prove that even low-budget publisher can make good games, if they just try. CYCLET is not Black Cyc, but it tries nonetheless to be something special and succeeds in setting itself apart from all the other low budget publisher. Maybe that is the reason we only had one CYCLET game in 2016; they emphasize on quality, not quantity. Best RPG: Dungeon of Regalias Let's not talk about the story and the characters. They are terrible, like in every Astronauts Sirius game. But damn is the gameplay addicting and actually good. Like in, really, really good. This is probably one of the best ero-dungeon crawler existing. They did everything right with this one. Hard difficulty available from start. Skills as "items" which can be equipped so you can change your build without any resetting of skill points like in other games. Monsters who all act differently thus forcing you to change your strategy and character builds and party constantly. Great game. Best SRPG: Sankai Ou no Yubiwa I'm probably the only one, but ... I actually liked 2016's Eushully game. Yeah, really. Ok, it wasn't really a good SRPG; it actually had many flaws, like being far too easy and exploitable and the routes being too similar to each other... but... I liked the concept. Having six main characters who all represent a different kind of approach to the Ero-RPG genre is really something I wish more games would do. I hate the good guy, the antihero and the maou archetype, and sadly most Eushully games have one of these three as their main character. But Sankai Ou has also three other, more interesting protagonists to choose from. For example, I always wanted the angels to win in an Eushully game, and finally I have the opportunity to do this because the obligatory fallen-angel storyline is already covered in the other routes. Nice. Biggest disappointment: Extravaganza ~Mushigurui Hen~ I was so hyped for this one. The first true Black Cyc game after 5 years of absence. Written by Banya Izumi who we could trust with the task of continuing a beloved series, right? Right? No, it's awful. This game turned out to be an abomination which is quite remarkable because Black Cyc already milked the Extravaganza series with bad sidestories back when Black Cyc was still good for the most part. And Mushigurui Hen is even worse than these cheap nukige spinoffs. At least with cheap nukige fandisc, we know we get something bad. Mushigurui Hen on the other hand could have been good. It could have been awesome. But it wasn't. So what went wrong? You have these great characters with their epic background stories, but what do they do with them? Putting them in school, because school life is, as we all now, the most important thing ever. And if a character is too old for school, just make them into rich snobs whose only problem in life is being too old (meaning being 23 years old) and lamenting about not having the time to go to the cinema with friends because work (meaning being CEO and chilling all the day in the office). And if that wasn't bad enough, they also retcon a character death because this character was very popular back then and we need him for funny slice of life scenes now, yay. The most offending thing however is how this "sequel" actually takes place after the second arc of the original Extravaganza, which means before the last third of the original game. And all the important character events in the third arc which really were the heart of the Extravaganza story apparently don't take place in this timeline. Instead, we get inferior and meaningless drama with derailed characters in Mushigurui Hen which is apparently now the canon timeline. Hurray. Biggest insult: Everything released by Akabei Soft 3 I'm not going into this now, but literally every AKB3 game this year greatly offended me, just as Silky's Plus' games did last year. Let's just say that AKB3 makes games which represent everything that's wrong with modern eroge and have nothing left of what made eroge once great. (I might write a post explaining this statement in the near future.) It saddens me how popular these games are. A dark prospect for 2017.

Regardless of how you feel about the arrival of 2017, here it is!!!

Very good. Indeed. I myself tend to complain every time a "that" shows up since they can take on far too many meanings. When possible, murder it, otherwise, replace it, if you can't, you're probably using it right.

I think one of the reasons why this game is so good and connects with the people who like to read a well-written story is that Natsu no Kusari is not trying to sugarcoat anything. Shinji is a bastard. The game never glorifies what he does and even in the instances when he succeeds, there is a bitter aftertaste for the reader to stomach. That may not seem like much, but it's really fundamentally different than 99% of all the other eroge out there which are constantly trying to pander to the reader. For example, usually if you have a villainous protagonist, there is some kind of dark desire the reader has and the game wants to satisfy. (And there is nothing wrong with this as this is fiction and having some dark fetishes is perfectly normal.) In a normal corruption eroge, even though the reader knows it's wrong to do the things shown in the story, the corruption of the heroine is in the end shown as something glorious, a feat worth praise. And the evil protagonist, although without a doubt the reader knows he is a bad person, is looked upon with envy and respect. And the reader might even wish he was as awesome as he is. But none of this is in Natsu no Kusari. Even though the game knows that the majority of its players will identify with the protagonist, it doesn't give us the satisfaction of enjoying the torment of the girl or putting ourselves in Shinji's shoes. We only get a reason, no justification for having these feelings, the feelings of being social outcasts, not being able to find our place in society or even happiness, even though the game definitely understands why we are thinking like that and why we can relate to Shinji's line of thought. When I'm thinking of the best game 2016, there is no doubt in my mind that it's Natsu no Kusari. For telling a story without compromises alone, even though the reader might, no, certainly will find this off-putting, it deserves this title. There is no reason to force you to read something that you will obviously not enjoy. Natsu no Kusari is a very good game, but even the best story can't make you enjoy something that is conceptually repulsive to you.

https://vndb.org/v933 horror, occult https://vndb.org/v16796 surrealism, madness https://vndb.org/v17863 horror, denpa https://vndb.org/v3660 horror, mystery https://vndb.org/v6411 occultism, mystery https://vndb.org/v6475 madness, denpa https://vndb.org/v2567 drama, mystery https://vndb.org/v5047 gore, horror, fucked up in general https://vndb.org/v37 horror, denpa https://vndb.org/v9196 surreal, mystery https://vndb.org/v4703 ???? https://vndb.org/v1912 surrealism https://vndb.org/v235 the mother of all denpa vns

The sole point of someone becoming offended over a word is wrong enough to start with. Blessed are those, who don't give a damn.

Weakling It's kind of amusing, since we're so used to rape no one gives a damn when it's used as a lousy plot device; everyone just rolls their eyes, when it happens. But give them a well thought-out vn, which actually portrays rape as-it-is and people suddenly get offended. Actually, maybe for the better. After all, if you got offended, it must had mean the story left you with a desirable impact, regardless whether you liked it, or not. I don't think I actually read that many vn's this past year, to actually have any sort of solid candidates. I'd say VA-11 HALL-A might prolly be the best game I had the chance to interact with (even though it's not a 100% vn, YMMV); the biggest (positive) surprise goes exactly to Natsu no Kusari, while the weakest link would be Inochi no Spare; I had a better initial view of that visual novel in the beginning, but once I got into it, I couldn't believe how absurd it actually is; we're literally talking about legally consented medical homicide; what sane parents would actually do that to any of their children? Sacrifice one, so another may live? Or better, perhaps - give birth to one to save another? It not only doesn't make sense; there's literally no actual ground for the events portrayed in the story to be based upon. That said, art was gorgeous, but that alone can't save the writing. I have a feeling AkabeiSoft3 is starting to get overboard with their latest projects; I still have Gusha no Kyouben to read, but regardless of it - almost all of their games have been more or less a huge disappointment to me. I actually feel offended, because there's no way any self-respecting writer would drop down that kind of shit and expect to be treated seriously by their readers. I - for one - couldn't. The more astonishing it was considered one of the very best japanese releases of 2016. It seems like there's really not much to chose from nowadays - you either get all the garbage tier charage/moege with no actual plot, or pseudo-intellectual stories that try to sound better than they really are, with end results being no less than insulting to any person with a slightest bit of intelligence.

Just started playing/reading The House in Fata Morgana and I have to say after 3 chapters in I am pleasantly surprised and am quite enjoying this visual novel thus far.

That's awful, so sorry to hear that.

Visual Novel Transation Status (12/31/2016) First of all very sorry for being late here to write my first VNTS Review at 2017. And second, even though I might already said it several times in the forum let me said happy new year 2017 again to all of the reader here. For the title, since we had Charles from Da Capo 3 touching everlasting sakura tree, I'd just use everlasting and hanakatoba for the sakura as the title (Hanakatoba for sakura was kind and gentle by the way). As for Da Capo 3, I'd play the demo and let's just said that MC was quite dense just like the anime and I'm laughing at him (I still look forward to the release of full version though). As for last week in 2016, there's no other release for full translation VN (There's Loverable 1st trial release though). Maybe this is what we call a breather though after we had many crazy releases from last month. To recap we had Himawari, Rance 5D and VI, and World End Economica last episode which all of them were quite well known title and interesting at that (I'd playing Rance VI at this moment and it's quite addictive to me for now). Not to mention there's surprise release from Denwalts which turn out to be 11eyes which quite popular in the past. And there's also not much update from last week either make it quite plain overall, although there's some interesting news from Dies Irae kickstarter though. With that done, let's do some roundup here for usual progress. From Sekai Project, in regard of Meikyuu 18+ it was delayed because of the holidays looking from their recent announcement (Of course employee need to rest after all duh). Well, nothing we could do in regard of delay other than waiting for a while there, although Sekai promised that there's will be getting Meikyuu 18+ release after holiday though. Other than the matter of Meikyuu 18+ delay, there's only usual update from them once again. For the list of update, Chrono Clock was at three quarter translated (75.01%, which mean that Sekai will need to hasten the translation if they still want to release it at late January), Maitetsu was at 82.75% translated, Tensin Ranman was reaching 90% translated mark (90.27% translated), and Bokukotsu was at 22.02% translated. And there's another news from Sekai which should take interest from any of Neko Para lover which is the release of Neko Para 3 was scheduled for April 28th (I'm not quite interested though). That's all from Sekai. For fan translation, other than Loverable first trial was released (Translated of course), there's some usual progress. For Aokana, it was at least around half of common route was translated and apparently there's some problem in regard of the translation ie shaky. Hope the best for the team then, if only to find out the good solution that could satisfy either the team or people who want good translation for Aokana. For usual translation one, there's Loverable which once again just recently released the translation for demo (The progress was 42.74% translated, 13.39% edited, and some significant QC progress at 10.66% QC-ed), and I'll definitely read that. The other usual update there were Tsui Yuri was completed retranslation and will focusing on edit and QC; and Majokoi was at 65.3% translated. There's other updates from some other projects too, and for elaboration the projects were Sukiuso and Mahou Shoujo (Sukiuso was at 41.5% translated, while for Mahou Shoujo the translation for Chapter 9 was completed (The progress in lines would be 4,450 out of 20,000 lines were translated)). That's all fro fan translation. For last news, right now Dies Irae was managed to gather 122,510 funds which is quite worrying now that it's only 10 days left to do fund rising. There's also loss matter few days ago in regard of the disappointment for stretch goal. Looking at stretch goal for Dies Irae, compared to campaign who also had same situations (Root Double and Libra) it was quite lacking if just looking it comparatively (Libra offered new mini episodes, while Root Double offer the translation for Drama CD). Especially when one user asking whether Rusalka could had a route in English first, which mean that fans expected that they'll get Rusalka route for stretch goal and they got fan books as stretch goal instead. That's all that I could think of. That's all for this first VNTS Review at 2017, and sorry for very late here. See you at either Saturday or Sunday later.

Great post as always Sana-sama

Because fiction has different goals to communication. Fiction has different goals to my group's weekly get together at the pub (which usually involves the underside of a table somewhere amirite :3) Genre fiction is about sucking people in and entertaining people with the story, and calling attention to the writing because it was written haphazardly is against those goals. There have been people who tried writing dialogue exactly how people speak, complete with 'ers' 'umms' and 'ahs', but that was literature, the artsy genre.

Sorry, that's how people around me speak though... Not sure why writing needs to make people who speak sound like they're all writers. It's one of my big bugbears - that people complain about the spoken word by characters not being correct grammar or that it sounds horrible.

Australian here, the original sentence is horrible. Like seriously horrible. I don't even like the sentence it ended up at - "I told you I gave you the unburnt piece of toast, right?" Repetition of 'you' is eyecatching. May be replaced with 'said', with the 'to you' implied: "I said I gave you the unburnt piece of toast, right?" "Didn't I say I gave you the unburnt piece of toast?"

I really enjoyed that as well. Make sure to watch the BD version too instead of the heavily censored TV broadcast material.

People need to separate the idea of 'insulted' and 'offended'. If I 'insult' someone, that person may feel 'offended', but that doesn't mean if someone is offended that they were insulted. This is because an 'insult' refers to the intent of the offender, whereas being offended refers to the emotions of the offendee. The two words are often mixed together to do away with the pesky idea that some people just go around looking to be offended, and catering to these people is sometimes more trouble than it's worth. There's nothing insulting about using the word 'blinded'. It denotes 'not being able to see', so blinded by fear means not being able to see clearly due to you being such a timid tabby. It's an excellent descriptive word that often has no prejudice behind it. That people are offended by this is only natural, because some people are offended by anything. Case in point, the other day at the supermarket the lady in front of me had such an overpowering body odour that it assaulted my senses. This, I found, was quite offensive and caused me to move to another aisle. Alas, it did not give me the right to spritz her copiously with perfume. And I'm not going to stop calling people stupid when they're being stupid because it offends those with intellectual problems. It's, once again, an excellent descriptive word. The idea of institutionalised ableism is perfectly normal. Countries are about growth and coming out on top in that international competition countries are locked in with each other. The more they win, the more resources they nab for its people. Same deal with businesses. Countries and businesses will look for the best people to carry out certain tasks, certain work, and preference will naturally go to those more able because these people are often able to more effectively carry out these tasks. The up side of this is that society is now in a position to adequately care for the disabled, unlike in the past where they were often killed off for being a drain on resources, and we got to this point partly by being terribly ableist. Society is interested in getting as far away from nature as possible, nature is all about survival of the fittest (because life was harsh and you needed to be tough to survive) and is not a nice place. These days we're cushioned away from real life enough that we can provide for those less fortunate. I regularly use all except for words 3, 11, 12, and 13. However I'm an aspiring writing, and writers are taught not to be too PC in their writing ...

No, it's not. It's a fact. And we need to recognize it in order to help those people.

Guess you haven't heard of words like nigger, spic, chink, cracker, etc. Some words hold actual power over people. Even more so if those words are associated with a history of hate and making others feel like they're less than human.

I recommend Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance. Watched this a couple of days ago. It is well animated and voice acted, has a strong protagonist and the gags are cute and well timed (including the twists). For a harem anime, it had a perfect balance of serious moments that made me teary eyed and a likeable mc.

Well, you shouldn't. First, because I'm not telling you how to conduct, I'm giving an advice so that you can make some people's lives better. Second, because, unless you are disabled, you're benefiting from your privilege within a society with institutionalized ableism. In other words, your situation is a hundred times better than those that are actually suffering.

I bought very few things tbh. - Akiba's Trip - Conception II : Children of the Seventh Star - Phantom Breaker: Battle Ground (with the Makise Kurisu DLC ofc) - Age of Empires II HD (for the nostalgic value) - Muv-Luv (which was actually a gift from @mitchhamilton)

My best one would be either: - 11Eyes or Steins;Gate 0 The worst one - Any of the Sakura series demon spawn that I've read during 2016

Buckle up kiddo, you're in for quite the ride

Please define what you mean by ancient Japanese... Japan has been around as a country in one form or another for over fifteen hundred years, but so far the VNs covering its history only go back to the 1500's. This is only natural, since the long peace after the Sengoku era was conducive to the leaving of records and documentation of past events, without the usual whitewashing and erasure of old history documents that tends to occur otherwise.

A miserable pile of secrets! Anyways, you pretty much saved my interest in VNs by gifting me Fata Morgana which became my favorite VN, so thanks Bats. That alone nets you a 10/10 (the rating I give to Fata Morgana).

Look at it another way, are you completely fine with your girl(s) being banged by other men? I wouldn't be.

Are you familiar with what marriage is about? Marriage is a possessive system invented so men to keep track of their possessions, like wives and any offspring they may bear. It’s part of what makes the concept of ‘marriage’ obsolete. In the olden days polygamy was completely natural, as was monogamy, but it was a possessive system. We're not flooded with the concept of ‘love’ being possible between only 2 people, but rather that marriage is only possible between 2 people. Which is why you see all those stories involving love triangles, cheating, revenge and whatever. If you aren’t counting your partners as possessions, then does it matter if your partner is seeing other people? Adultery is only a thing because of the concept of one partner belonging to another. But monogamy - why did it come about? Many people think it’s because of Christianity, but monogamy was running rampant before this. In Ancient Greece for example. That doesn’t mean Christianity didn’t help this, but it’s suggested the truth lies elsewhere. Think about it a little. If women and their children were treated as possessions who weren’t allowed to take multiple husbands, but men could take multiple wives as possessions, then there’s a pretty obvious limitation isn't there? Some men will be left out in the cold. These men will often leave, meaning a smaller army, meaning less tax revenue. Which results in monogamous cultures, in a world where women were viewed as possessions, being superior militarily and growth wise, or would inevitably prove themselves to be better superior militarily and growth wise. That is, monogamous culture would eventually prove to be the stronger culture. Over time people then came to view this as the norm, and because stronger cultures conquer weaker cultures, would spread over much of the globe. Which meant that monogamy, under a male possessive marriage structure, was a superior scheme idealised by society. Polygamy under current marriage norms doesn’t work. So before we talk about ‘monogamy privilege’ you first need to provide an environment for polygamy to thrive, and that’s still a ways away from happening. That eroge is poly friendly doesn’t define progress, although it does challenge some of today’s norms. What would make eroge progressive would be if they demonstrated poly relationships where the women weren’t treated like the possessions of the male. And I can’t say that it is. So I don’t really see a need for praise, yet.

Sorry, I was gone for a day and couldn't reply. But thank you for your help. Although Symphonic Rain sounds really good, and I do plan to get around to it soon, it also sounds like a slower burn, which isn't really what I'm looking for right now. So I'll be reading KnS next, and again, thank you for your help!

At first I thought it was something disgusting because I was new into it. Then i learned that my preconception of love was wrong and that made me feel sad desu.

Better than a nonexistant trash loli.

Confession : i'm in love with a real human being.

Best I Played : I/O Best 2016 release : VA-11 HALL-A Worst 2016 release: The Leisure of Grisaia (too short) Worst I played: Da Capo (average VN and two or three awful routes)

this is what would happen with intelligent neko girls in our vns. world domination i tell you!

I'm currently having my very first hangover. Happy new year everyone!

Keep reading, I found that my opinion changes after every chapter read. Personally I didn't like Mamiya after rabbit hole 2 but he turned out pretty good in the invention chapter. Just don't forget to read Tsui no sora 2 - get a walkthrough for it if you have trouble getting to it.

I edited my comment with more thoughts. On KnS, I'd suggest you to read Cartagra first, since its events are prior to KnS's and influence deeply Kara no Shoujo 2.

KNS is still gonna win, but now I kind want to look into this "symphonic rain".

KNS, I have no clue what that other one is but KNS is a god dammed masterpiece.

Volume 3 when? I need my naked nekos man, I don't want some lame anime version. (Insert less creepy comment here)

Oops, I did forget to add that one. Thanks for so meanly pointing it out, Jun Edit: To think I'd be criticized by someone who hasn't even watched Chihayafuru.

I cannot stand being told off or disappointing people. One of the comments that has affected me the most and made me sad is as follows: The person who wrote this will remain anonymous, but I hold no ill feelings against whomever said it. I also had no idea I was sarcastic until people on the forums started pointing it out. I knew I was at home, hadn't even noticed the transition onto the forums.