Talks about otome games, drama cds, and occasionally provides advice? Running away endlessly from my backlog of hobbies.

Ilinox

Coming to this a month late with my drink in hand LOL. Fortunately, Light and Night slid under the radar because all the fighting was among themselves, Love and Producer, and then Tears of Themis immediately afterward.

Although I did get a good chuckle out of how STSS were coping and using descriptions about their wedding dresses that basically described Light and Night's wedding dresses and their symbolism to their men. A friend who only plays Love and Deepspace and Lovebrush Chronicles (but is aware of the other CN otome games) made a comment about how one LaDS wedding dress looked like a knockoff LN wedding dress, especially with the meaning people were trying to attribute to it. People say I have a hate boner, but how do you explain this third-party opinion? LOL.

One day, when I want to make myself Public Enemy #1, I'll drop an essay about how it's rare for someone to stan a personal outlier. With enough self-dissection and introspection, you'll realize that all the characters you like have a similar through line. So, when people attribute certain characteristics to their blorbo but they don't actually stan other characters who embody those characteristics, I can't help but think those people are unsalvageable STSS who just want their blorbo to have everything (and that the writing for their blorbo is kind of shit if they can be everything like this).

Anyway, returning to the rest of your ask, I hesitate to comment too much on LaDS myths because any story can be reduced to simple beats that look like they overlap with other stories. The details are where stories shine though and, even if they have similar scenes, the core theme could be vastly different. Unknown Paradise was a story about human survival at the edge of an apocalypse and the extremes of science, classism, and climate change. Osborn's card focused on androids and classism. If Xia Yizhou's myth didn't touch on those themes, then it doesn't matter to me if he was a cyborg who blew up in space with a short-haired heroine LOL. Moreover, it's a common visual element for women to have short hair in futuristic settings, so I wouldn't think much about that.

I heard that Qi Yu's 3rd myth was a copy of Sariel's 2nd birthday card, but I'm skeptical about this because of how heavily Sariel's 2nd birthday card uses Sariel's terminal illness and makes you wrestle with the knowledge of the impending death of a loved one. If Qi Yu's myth really copied all that without any of the background, then it should have fallen flat on its face. However, if people are just saying this because the relationship began while knowing that one party was going to die, then this still seems different enough. I'm not invested enough to discuss this deeper though, so I don't want to waste time reading Qi Yu's myth (not to mention if it does turn out to copy Sariel's 2nd birthday card then I know I would be helplessly pissed LOL).

What I do think is intentional and legitimately annoys me though is how Love and Deepspace gave Xia Yizhou lemon candy in his birthday and his event name plays off of Osborn's event name. If I remember correctly, Xia Yizhou eats lemon candy to keep his mental state sharp? In that case, there are a bunch of other refreshing candies or sour fruit candies out there. Hell, they could have stuck with his apple theme by giving him green apple candies or something. Why was it specifically lemon candy if they weren't going to give him a deeper reason for eating them? Xia Yizhou stans claimed this was a common symbol, but it absolutely is not LOL. Osborn's connection to lemon candy is very obvious too, so LaDS is either incompetent if they want to claim ignorance of the market or they were being intentional.

To make matters worse, when Light and Night's 4th anniversary rolled around, Xia Yizhou stans got angry that Charlie had the rectangular necklace, showing their ignorance about military dog tags. They even had the audacity to claim that rectangular necklaces were an uncommon symbol and it was copying Xia Yizhou's necklace. Puh-lease, they don't get to claim common or uncommon symbols whenever it's convenient for them.

I don't think a romance game that has everything pointing back to the heroine will automatically be bad because, as I keep saying, Beyond the World is actually closest to Love and Deepspace in terms of storytelling. BtW's heroine has affected her men at every significant point in their lives in multiple worlds and they're always in love with her and searching for her or waiting for her return, but this doesn't give the same feeling as the LaDS men. My opinion is that Beyond the World men feel as if they have goals and a self separate from the heroine. These men exist and do other things even if she fundamentally changed them. Like, all the worlds in BtW still move and exist without the heroine's presence and the men still have things to do while waiting for the heroine to reappear in their lives. None of the Love and Deepspace men give me that feeling, especially with the way their fans talk about them. LaDS worlds feel frozen and like nothing exists unless it serves the purpose of deepening or reflecting the relationship between the men and the heroine (I keep saying the game has shit worldbuilding for a reason).

I have no comments on the sleeping companion feature, haha. Love and Producer came out with one several months before them, so Papergames is just sharing features between the two games again. Heck, Light and Night has a sleep feature too (no visuals though, just audio). I view these features as a natural progression of companionship games, especially so for the virtual boyfriend simulator.

Coming to this a month late with my drink in hand LOL. Fortunately, Light and Night slid under the radar because all the fighting was among themselves, Love and Producer, and then Tears of Themis immediately afterward.

Although I did get a good chuckle out of how STSS were coping and using descriptions about their wedding dresses that basically described Light and Night's wedding dresses and their symbolism to their men. A friend who only plays Love and Deepspace and Lovebrush Chronicles (but is aware of the other CN otome games) made a comment about how one LaDS wedding dress looked like a knockoff LN wedding dress, especially with the meaning people were trying to attribute to it. People say I have a hate boner, but how do you explain this third-party opinion? LOL.

One day, when I want to make myself Public Enemy #1, I'll drop an essay about how it's rare for someone to stan a personal outlier. With enough self-dissection and introspection, you'll realize that all the characters you like have a similar through line. So, when people attribute certain characteristics to their blorbo but they don't actually stan other characters who embody those characteristics, I can't help but think those people are unsalvageable STSS who just want their blorbo to have everything (and that the writing for their blorbo is kind of shit if they can be everything like this).

Anyway, returning to the rest of your ask, I hesitate to comment too much on LaDS myths because any story can be reduced to simple beats that look like they overlap with other stories. The details are where stories shine though and, even if they have similar scenes, the core theme could be vastly different. Unknown Paradise was a story about human survival at the edge of an apocalypse and the extremes of science, classism, and climate change. Osborn's card focused on androids and classism. If Xia Yizhou's myth didn't touch on those themes, then it doesn't matter to me if he was a cyborg who blew up in space with a short-haired heroine LOL. Moreover, it's a common visual element for women to have short hair in futuristic settings, so I wouldn't think much about that.

I heard that Qi Yu's 3rd myth was a copy of Sariel's 2nd birthday card, but I'm skeptical about this because of how heavily Sariel's 2nd birthday card uses Sariel's terminal illness and makes you wrestle with the knowledge of the impending death of a loved one. If Qi Yu's myth really copied all that without any of the background, then it should have fallen flat on its face. However, if people are just saying this because the relationship began while knowing that one party was going to die, then this still seems different enough. I'm not invested enough to discuss this deeper though, so I don't want to waste time reading Qi Yu's myth (not to mention if it does turn out to copy Sariel's 2nd birthday card then I know I would be helplessly pissed LOL).

What I do think is intentional and legitimately annoys me though is how Love and Deepspace gave Xia Yizhou lemon candy in his birthday and his event name plays off of Osborn's event name. If I remember correctly, Xia Yizhou eats lemon candy to keep his mental state sharp? In that case, there are a bunch of other refreshing candies or sour fruit candies out there. Hell, they could have stuck with his apple theme by giving him green apple candies or something. Why was it specifically 

 if they weren't going to give him a deeper reason for eating them? Xia Yizhou stans claimed this was a common symbol, but it absolutely is not LOL. Osborn's connection to lemon candy is very obvious too, so LaDS is either incompetent if they want to claim ignorance of the market or they were being intentional.

To make matters worse, when Light and Night's 4th anniversary rolled around, Xia Yizhou stans got angry that Charlie had the rectangular necklace, showing their ignorance about military dog tags. They even had the audacity to claim that rectangular necklaces were an uncommon symbol and it was copying Xia Yizhou's necklace. Puh-lease, they don't get to claim common or uncommon symbols whenever it's convenient for them.

I don't think a romance game that has everything pointing back to the heroine will automatically be bad because, as I keep saying, Beyond the World is actually closest to Love and Deepspace in terms of storytelling. BtW's heroine has affected her men at every significant point in their lives in multiple worlds and they're always in love with her and searching for her or waiting for her return, but this doesn't give the same feeling as the LaDS men. My opinion is that Beyond the World men feel as if they have goals and a self separate from the heroine. These men exist and do other things even if she fundamentally changed them. Like, all the worlds in BtW still move and exist without the heroine's presence and the men still have things to do while waiting for the heroine to reappear in their lives. None of the Love and Deepspace men give me that feeling, especially with the way their fans talk about them. LaDS worlds feel frozen and like nothing exists unless it serves the purpose of deepening or reflecting the relationship between the men and the heroine (I keep saying the game has shit worldbuilding for a reason).

I have no comments on the sleeping companion feature, haha. Love and Producer came out with one several months before them, so Papergames is just sharing features between the two games again. Heck, Light and Night has a sleep feature too (no visuals though, just audio). I view these features as a natural progression of companionship games, especially so for the virtual boyfriend simulator.

since it's confirmed wedding banner for their next multi, i wonder if there'll be any weird stories they're gonna use from LN again (both devs and the fandom with meal rep). Let's be honest, robotic XYZ MC was horrendous enough because it looks so XY's 2nd anniversary card. Mecha body? alright, it's his lore. Short-hair MC? kay, that's sus. Both explodes in space? that's intentional as hell. They could use long hair MC as usual but nope, they go for tomboy-ish hair, just like LN MC.

If on livestream later they use some things from LN, the devs truly are lacking creativity now. The whole game now feels like cash-grabbing purposes and fanservice without any consistent lore updates. Every single lores and LIs past always has MC in it and i'm bored with all that. Is this what it feels to have a romance game where it's always pointing back to MC only? lmao.

Anyway, what do you think about sleeping companion feature? the game itself already drains so much battery and now adding that feels like a circus.

Ilinox

laughing with the updates