Zalor

Please do more! That was great. Personally I want to see you do a picture with Fal in it.

South Park is easily one of the best satirical commentaries on modern (American) society. This is still easily my favorite scene ever:

I'm pretty confident I know who #23 is. And I have a hunch for who #'s 3,5,and 26 are. Also, to what extent can I discuss my thoughts. Can I talk about why I think a certain member matches a certain fact? Or is mentioning anyone's user name forbidden, even if it's just hypothesizing?

Fuck them, is all I have to say. Then again, I never used Twitch anyway. What's the appeal of watching other people play video games real time? But whatever.

Anyhow, what was the latest thing in Japanese that everybody read? Lately I've been reading a translated light novel. To start with, I hardly ever read in English, also I read Japanese at the same speed I read in English. (I'm not too confident in my translation of the last sentence. Could somebody tell me if my translation was valid, and if not, what did I interpret wrong?) 私はついさっきSNOWを読んだ。私は失楽園（Milton's Paradise Lost）を読んだからParadise Lost (エロゲ)迚も欲してを読みたい。

This seems fun. Participating in this might help break my reputation as a socially-disengaged intellectual (or at least that's the vibe I hope I've been giving out, lol). Count me in! Edit: Sent the pm with my 3 facts.

@Elairiah: Interesting, we really do seem to find our escapism in very different ways. Although I must thank you for allowing me to understand the other side a bit better. If I'm reading what you said correctly, you seem to be saying that you can't find escapism in movies, anime, video games as effectively, because everything is given to you; rather than you picturing everything yourself. But to me that's preferable. When I'm reading a VN or watching an anime, I forget myself and surrender my senses completely to what I see and hear. For all intents and purposes, I feel like I am in the story (though as a passive observer). My trouble with reading seems to be the opposite of yours. When I sit down to read a book, I become very self conscious of my loneliness; and that in turn raises my perceptions of my surroundings. I start hearing the noises that my mind normally puts on mute, such as the noises outside. When I'm reading I have to actively try to invest my attention in the story. When watching an anime or reading a VN, I put my headphones on and the outside world ceases to be. I can no longer hear it, and I no longer pay attention to it. And then my focus is undivided to whatever I am watching or reading. In fact, it reminds me of something the author David Foster Wallace said in an interview "reading requires sitting alone by yourself in a quite room. And I have friends, intelligent friends who don't like to read because they get, it's not just bored; there's an almost dread." (The quote is from this video). And he said it better than I could. It's not that I just get bored, but there is a dread I get when reading a book. And that dread doesn't exist when I watch an anime or read a VN.

I'm pretty much the same way, except that I actually like the books my professors assign. (Btw there is humorous element to Heart of Darkness that you won't realize unless you are in the right mood, or have the right teacher to point it out). I voluntarily sign up for a lot of literature classes because while I don't enjoy the act of reading itself, I can appreciate the ideas classic authors raise. I don't think I will ever be able to read for entertainment, but I do read for intellectual engagement; especially so when I'm reading for a class. It's interesting to find social critiques and philosophical statements in classic literature. I remember once my Milton professor told me something along the lines of this: "I don't think we should read for entertainment anymore. If you want entertainment, Netflix has got that covered. Rather you should read to broaden your intellectual and cultural horizons". I completely agree with that statement, and I read for the same exact reason. I claim bullshit on this. I'm sorry if I'm coming across as rude, but what you said really bothers me for rather personal reasons (I'm not mad at you but at what you reminded me of). I never ever understood people when they said they like "visualizing" the stuff they read. Wouldn't you rather watch a movie, read a visual novel, or play a game? Isn't it better when you have visuals and audio to immerse you in the story; rather than have to imagine the visuals yourself? When I was a kid my dad always made me read books, even though I hated it and preferred reading the plots of JRPGS. Whenever I argued that I hated reading books but wanted to read stuff in my video games, he would get upset at me and basically tell me what you said. That its supposedly better to experience a story when you "visualize" what the author said. I simply don't believe that statement, as I never once understood how people could say it.

I don't play Brave Frontier myself, but my friend is super hardcore at the game. Every day and evening he farms for items, it's a daily ritual for him (just as going to the bathroom is). I forget what his level is, but something incredibly high. Something in the mid to high 200s I think. Anyway, Brave Frontier introduced him to the music game Deemo; and he got me into Deemo. I believe the song Magnolia is from Brave Frontier, and that is a hell of a hard song to play.

Wow, this is right up my ally. Thanks for the recommendation!

I remember you, your posts made me laugh sometimes.

Translation: I am sanahtlig. The English writing of my name is strange, so I don't mind if you call me "sana". Do you want to know the origin of my name? The opposite spelling of my name is gilthanas. It's very original, so calling me "SEO" is another recommend online nickname you can call me. サナは名前の古事来歴知ってほしい! (私は日本語が駆け出し.)

My younger sister read both Symphonic Rain and Narcissu due to my recommendation, and she was 12 then. Clannad or Planetarian could also be good choices. FYI though, I started reading visual novels when I was 13 (so when I was still kind of a kid) and two of my earlier VNs were Princess Waltz and Yume Miru Kusuri. Yume Miru Kusuri in particular has a decent amount of sexual content, so yeah...

This sort of reminds me of what Slavoj Zizek said in this video. The video is titled Political Correctness is a More Dangerous Form of Totalitarianism: It's hilarious to watch this guy talk (just watch all the times he touches his nose). But if you can understand him, he says some interesting and relevant stuff as well.

I don't think English VNs can really stand toe-to-toe with professionally made Japanese releases simply because of budget. And even for smaller Japanese VN developers, at least they have a far larger potential market. Regarding OELVNs, without a real market for this stuff, I think the best we can hope for are interesting amateurish/semi-professional VNs. Basically I view most good OELVNs as sort of avant garde VNs that digress from the cliches of Japanese titles. Which is exactly why I am interested in this title.

That is a great analogy. To the point that the way I interact in this forum in many ways reflects how I behaved during most of high school. The only difference really is that while I have some friends that I hangout with outside of school, I don't communicate with people much outside of the forum. But again, that's mostly because I have a weird relationship with the internet, and I enjoy the freedom of being able to disconnect. Also, I am a bit more of a humorous personality irl than I am online. But despite the fact that people behave slightly different while online, I still agree with the gist of your point that forum interactions are eerily similar to high school interactions.

Lol, this. I don't look forward to anything I have to do, because it is stuff I have to do. Hell, sometimes I don't necessarily look forward to doing things that I want to do, because then it starts feeling like an obligation as well. The only time I can truly escape from any and all stress is during sleep. Which is why the moment I wake up, the only thing motivating me to get through the day is to sleep again. Ironically though, usually when it finally arrives at the time for me to sleep, I am so involved with something that I tend to go to sleep late.

A couple months ago I had the same question and started a topic titled: What are "Forum communities". I recommend checking that thread out as there were many interesting replies. To answer your question. In my experience feeling a sense of belonging is difficult in online communities (specifically forums). I've found that most people who feel like they "belong" generally communicate with other members outside the forum (through Skype, irc clients, etc.). Personally I never liked Sype and irc, since I'm primarily only interested in focused discussions. Also, I like having the freedom to disconnect from the online world when I feel like it. Sype and irc make that more difficult since they are real time. Regardless, even if you are like me and don't want to use external programs to communicate with members, you can always Pm people. Personally I like communicating through pm as you can take your time to reply. This generally results in longer and more interesting conversations. I'm not sure how well you can "get to know a person" if you only communicate with them through pms and forum posts, but you can definitely exchange a lot of interesting ideas with only those 2 methods. In fact, if you are interested in having good conversations with other members, I would argue Pming is a better choice than irc. Also, just as somebody else said. The more you post and frequent a forum, the more likely you are to run into the same people over and over again. Eventually you will be able to learn about them (or form an opinion of them) simply by reading a bunch of their posts over time. That's how I got to know most people on fuwa, granted it took a while. ;P

I agree with you. Swan Song very accurately portrays human nature, and offers a fairly bleak view of humanity. For anybody looking for a VN that will intellectually engage them I recommend it without a doubt, but it's not a light read. Swan Song is dark and grounded in realism, but I guess people not interested in that stuff won't particularly enjoy it.

Narcissu, Yume Miru Kusuri and Swan Song. And to the people crossing out Swan Song, go screw yourselves. According to vndb most people who voted for Swan Song rated it an 8 (very good), and the second highest amount of votes gave it a 9 (excellent). Personally Swan Song is the only VN (other than the original Narcissu) that I would give a 10. I first read Swan Song 3 - 4 years ago, and it still holds up as my favorite VN.

I always claim bullshit on these claims, as throughout most of human history we were hunter gatherers and didn't even have writing. And even if you exclude that and only take into account the generations that existed after writing was invented. The majority of the world was illiterate for the longest time. Even if people are generally reading less than 2 generations ago, we still beat most other generations since at least most of us are literate. I remember this once came up in an episode of Lucky Star, and I would have to agree with Konata's counterpoint. She argued that these claims rarely acknowledge the fact that most people do spend a tremendous amount of time reading online. Be it through social media, blog/forum posts, articles, etc. So even if most people aren't reading books, we are still reading quite a bit. Regarding VNs, I think they are fantastic tool to get people back into reading fiction. Most people who do read fiction, read it because it is entertaining and interesting to them. But to be perfectly honest, TV dramas, movies, anime, video games, etc are far more entertaining for most people because they involve more senses. Visual Novels are a medium that rely on prose writing, but also incorporate music and visuals much like anime and video games. So the people who get bored with regular books, could probably find entertainment in a VN.

That's a common goal most of us have. I hope you enjoy this community! Since you've expressed interest in exploring untld VNs I recommend checking out this list: For Love of VNs: For Beginners