Things are looking grim for down-on-his-luck hentai manga artist, Ichinari Tsuzurigi. He’s struggling to even afford his meager rent, and is seriously considering giving up on his dream, until… His editor, Akira Higashibojo, who’s always looking out for him, offers him a position as an assistant to one of the top dogs in the adult comics industry!
Thinking of it as a last hurrah, Ichinari accepts. Lo and behold, said top dog turns out to be none other than Ichinari’s childhood friend, Iori Shitaka, with whom he made a childhood promise to become manga artists together.
Also working as an assistant is doujinshi artist of the moment Nadoka Amabane. Ichinari was her Senpai in manga club during high school and taught her how to draw.
Shocked but elated at this unexpected reunion, Ichinari discovers that a certain god has taken an interest in their wishes and blessed them with interconnecting “Fates” that will forever change the course of his life. And so Ichinari finds himself working on sexy manga while living with a group of women whose burgeoning feelings can’t be ignored…
LoveCube.part02.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part03.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part04.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part05.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part06.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part07.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part08.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part09.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part10.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part11.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part12.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part13.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part14.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part15.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part16.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part17.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part18.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part19.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part20.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part21.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part22.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part23.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part24.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part25.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part26.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part27.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part28.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part29.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part30.rar – 200.0 MB
LoveCube.part31.rar – 13.8 MB
This is have h scene?
I advise you guys to buy this on Steam, and you can buy it with the +18 patch that have all the sex scenes, i have done that and i didn’t regretted AT ALL!!! So, if you can’t play with this download here, go to steam
I can’t start the game. This sends me the error sound but there’s no notification of error. Any help?
Can someone please get Red Embrace Hollywood on this site? I’ve been a visitor of this site for 5 years now. If you can get the game I would be eternally grateful. Thank you.
wtf does that even mean? Did the globes bounce or not during the performance?
No need to be edgy, we have enough of that around here. I refer to the fact that it does have those scenes in the first place, due to several people asking if the game was the 18+ version.
Since I see a lot of people asking, I’ll answer this now so you don’t have to scroll past that novel sized “intellectual debate” below. This is a fairly long visual novel that DOES have proper sex scenes. Once you get to the point in which they begin, they come fairly often, but to get to the point in which the H-scenes begin takes about 4 hours (bit more or less depending on how fast you go).
Is this the 18+ game ?
With animated scenes ?
She looks bouncy.
Whats this game even about? Story? Porn? both? In what relation?
It’s a proper Nukige, so the story is built into the sexual content instead of vice versa. It takes about 2-5 hours to get to the saucy bits, but they do become the main focus of the game once you make it there.
Is anyone else unable to save? I get an notification in japanese and have no idea what to do.
works with run “run in japanese (admin)” via local emulator
Just tried it, and it worked. Thank you for the suggestion!
@anon seems we have broken the maximum reply count. so one last time like this. Quite fittingly i think this marks a good point to stop, as you are not discussing anything anymore. At this point you are just randomly ranting about topics which are barely connected. Also your grammar makes it almost impossible to follow your thoughts through the joyride of topics.
I get that you are trying to talk down to me on some level, but it’s way too messy to be sure about what exactly.
It seems you missed my points about you twisting your views to your own liking while calling others out for this. There seems to be some sort of complex at work here that leaves you in need to simulate some kind of superiority by throwing around word salad. This explains why you switch views during your rant and don’t stick to your arguments. There also is a weirdly hostile undertone in everything you write hinting at you imagining some sort of opponent you need to defeat.
Feels like you are more monologing than discussing here.
So yeah, as a discussion sadly this has grown to be boring.
Take care.
I understood him just fine dude.
@Revvo: Admittedly, yeah that whole debate was one big clusterfuck, and I tend to go in a *little* too hard with intelligent(-ish) conversation, thus explaining the air of aggression/condescension I at times put out.
But I think the one you’re specifically referring to was that “another anon” person. Honestly I got the same general off-putting vibe from them as you, but I’ll give them this much: at least they were admitted that there’s something seriously wrong with them & they need help.
Furthermore, the main reason I even joined the discussion was because sometimes, clashing one’s own views against those of another is how we learn something new. And I -definitely- took away a lot of fresh knowledge from this.
So, for whatever it’s worth – y’all both have my thanks for that.
Yeah…ok. Now that this has been thoughroughly discussed I want to ask if the tag list is complete. Comes of a little bit short with lots of Japanese words I don’t understand. What can I expect from this game? Rewrite with a bit of sex? Or a Majikoi fuckfest but with a likeable protagonist instead of a complete asshole? Or more like Grisaia? Story heavy but not too shy when it came to make love?
so this is the non 18plus patch version since the normal CG arent animated wich is what that patch unlocks
Any plans on Majo koi Nikki?
Uploading right now. should be out in 30 minutes or so…
Thanks
Ishikei’s art is on another level, its the only reason you need to play this game
whas gonna ignore it until I found out that
Can’t seem to run this for some reason. No error messages, no black screen… nothing happens when I try to run it. Any suggestions?
Same with me, can someone help us please
Same thing happened to me, make sure you have updated windows update. If that does not seem to work then download microsoft update kb4019990 for your os. Hope this helps!
This won’t run to me either. I have Windows 7 with SP1. I tried everything: japanese locale, japanese locale with admin rights, compatibility mode for xp, antivirus real time scanning disabled…nothing happen. Cursor change to the wheel then nothing. No active process either.
Ok, i finally resolved the problem. You just need to install Microsoft Framework 4.7.2 (the actual one). That worked for me.
Make sure to look for the newest Microsoft Framework version 4.8. Works for Windows 7. Also download Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015-2019 file as well as a precaution and negate any issues when playing VN’s and other games.
Thanks
2-3 games in a single day, but STILL no sign of Grisaia Phantom Trigger 5.5 and 6. What’s going on Admins? >.<
uncensored? (mosaic or no)
Mosaic – The team who brought this over is the Japanese team so they will follow their own rules and laws.
admin can you please upload expression amrilato
there is something really suicidal about most of these games.
This constant notion to introduce a random deus-ex-element that saves the protagonist from his terrible life.
So rare to see anybody face harsh circumstances and grown up to defeat them.
it’s always this mellow, getting bailed out by fate, no effort needed kind of wave which carries the protagonist in these kind of games but would often times just bury you in real life.
I mean this is fine as a fantasy from time to time, but the amount of stories like this… has something very creepy to me.
Still, ty a lot for the upload!
“Something suicidal”, huh?
Yeaaaah, well~ consider the country that makes these games – Japan consistently maintains a spot in the top 10 world’s highest suicide rates. It really ain’t that hard to connect the dots, dude.
It also explains the current isekai trend in a lot of anime & light-novels nowadays.
Yeeaaaah, well… i think drawing a direct correlation between this and actual suicide rates might be a stretch, but yeah i think this might be an expression of something fundamentally wrong in pop culture.
The isekai thing is a good catch, this fits this scheme perfectly. Becoming special without effort. Putting way too much focus on what people think of you and dreaming up a mellow wonderland where everything just goes your way.
Considering the unhealthy-to-lethal-levels grueling grindfest that is daily life in Japan? It’s not really -that- big of a stretch to be honest.
14-16 hour work days are both expected and the norm, the “good worker” always catches the late train home every night (or just crashes in their office for the night), and the average person has no time for anything because their occupation(s) more-or-less consume their entire lives.
And ho-hooo, it’s not just about pop culture, yo.
Nowadays, there are *A LOT* of things fundamentally wrong with society as a whole that lead to storylines like these being so commonplace.
Basically, the average person is a slave with nothing to look forward to outside of the all-consuming daily grindfest, and barely managing to survive at all despite it.
When you take that into account? Well then… yeah. Of course people are going to want an escape. Obviously they’re going to be looking for an exit. And yes, they will want to retreat into a surrealist/exotic Mary-Sue power fantasy, one in which everything they could ever want is simply handed them without rhyme or reason.
Tbh, this pretty much explains the increasing market demand for isekai + “deus-ex-machina protagonist bailout element” stories (such as the game featured on this very page).
And let me just add that I’m not necessarily justifying that style of writing being so ubiquitous these days; imo, very few series/games actually do it well. However I -am- explaining the reality behind why this is so.
not arguing against it. I think this is true for the most part, even though i wouldn’t jump into extremes like you. Log work hours or challenging jobs are not identical to dissonance, depression and longing for isekai fantasies. There is another level to this wich makes people feel disconnected from their lifes, work, and one another. And i think this is were it gets really absurd, as these kind of games and dreams further your disconnection issues.
There is a general insecurity about one self, identity and ones place in the world. this can not be broken down to just one cause. there is a network of assumptions and demands that run astray here. But this form of entertainment is a part of it (or it can be, depending on the individual).
P.S. – just go watch/read Shield Hero if you *really* want to see isekai and/or a deus-ex-setting done right. Srsly, the writing in that series is -so- brilliant, the MC starts out with literally nothing more than a base lvl-1 weapon and the clothes on his back, and went thru several different kinds of hell clawing his way up to being OP as fuck. And you get to SEE the suffering, despair and anguish Naofumi goes thru in the process of all that.
Ever seen people DEFEAT harsh circumstances IRL? If you think you have it’s most likely a lie – a draw being called a victory for the sake of the peace of mind.
Even the ones we call successful are mostly just the people who managed to find their own “niche” in the maw of the monstrosity that we all know as life. Most of them would be (understandably) scared to death (not literally) the second they have to seriously consider having to find a different niche, or in other words – having to resume the struggle.
And almost anyone can get crashed to death in less then a second if that monstrosity just sneezes the “right” way.
What’s really shocking here is not the reality itself though it’s the reaction.
I can understand were the desire to have everything handed to them on a silver platter comes from. What I DON’T understand is where’s even a hint of an appeal in watching everything be handed on a silver platter to SOMEONE ELSE.
I get an appeal of watching a hero, but not of watching a loser. The later includes the kind of looser that is being elevated to the rank of hero without changing on the inside at all.
And while we’re talking examples, here’s a good one – watch KonoSuba. It’s realistic in it’s own way (about as much as anything could be in such a setting), AND features a pretty respectable (in a way) protagonist.
Not really sure i catch your drift correctly here, especially why you are so against the idea that people can grow from hardship in real life (kinda sounds like a justification not to grow), but that seems pretty personal.
I’d argue that i have undergone quite harsh realities myself, from which i have grown. Scared for life but also enriched by somewhat rising above it.
Also the tale of the hero overcoming harsh events is like THE original story setting, and that for a reason. Seeing somebody grow from failure and succeed is fulfilling. Granted, not if the story is too naive and black and white (tbh shield hero for me is one of those stories that fails because it is too back and white. The harsh circumstances start too feel forced/ridiculous).
Considering Vns, Steins gate is doing a brilliant job of creating a brutal reality and using it to elevate it’s characters.
I think to really gain from the isekai setting (in most cases) you need to identify with the “loser”, that gets everything handed to him. I mean i can very much understand people disliking a hero who is just too ignorant towards harsh realities, but connecting to the loser who whines about everything seems to be the other extreme. You need to see yourself as a victim for that to work. But passivity and a victim complex seem to be rather common in japan.
I Feel like we are getting to the point where it’s hard to argue over text as it all the litte emotions and indicators what the other person thinks go missing.
Yeah… you didn’t catch it correctly. People CAN grow IRL, that I never disputed (most of the time we don’t though we just “loooooooove” being stuck with the same flaws for most of our life and then making a big deal out of finally losing a few of them).
The point was – real life has no “winners”. It has losers, it has people actively fighting, and it has people who turned their fight into a standstill.
The later two categories aren’t in a hurry to admit it, but all that separates them from the losers is a bit of circumstance. This is a heavy topic I’d rather not delve into, but the point here is that even personality growth is circumstantial.
A person may think he’s greater then the next guy, but that’s just convenient thinking. Switch their parents, teachers, and neighbourhoods around and it’s the next guy who becomes greater. This kinda stinks of determinism, but what can you do, it’s the truth.
What I’m trying to get at here is that we’re all fundamentally the same. I repeat, fundamentally. What we grow up to become is as different as it ever gets (which is not as much as we’d like to think btw), but the core of what we are is the same for everyone.
Deep inside every “winner” lives a looser that secretly thanks god (or at least would thank if he was religious) that things turned out well for him all the while trying to convince himself that what he’s got in live is something that he earned.
To sum it up there are 2 important points related to the topic in the above.
First – the kind of preferences that the above discussion attributed to “losers” are not unique enough to be so discriminatingly attributed. Every man is a close acquaintance of the terror of failure. Some are just putting up to much of a front to admit it. Hence all the difference between losers and winners here is that the former are a little more honest about their fear.
And second – there is no such thing as a truly “earned” success. Don’t get me wrong there ARE differences in personalities of humans. But those differences aren’t “earned”. Seriously, ask yourself what differentiates you from the more successful or less successful people. If you dig deep enough you’ll hopefully get what I’m saying. But that’s not the second point. Second point is – what you’re actually asking is for writing that hides this better, ones that creates the same lie, the same illusion that the more successful people like to feed to themselves IRL.
It was the guy above me that suggested Shield Hero. I Suggested ConoSuba. It has that rare kind of protagonist that I can truly respect.
If you ask me both Shield hero and steins gate failed in this regard. Don’t get me wrong, their MCs are both cool, but they are the kind of cool that doesn’t exist IRL, they are both those elusive hero types that are fun to watch so long as you ignore the stench of fantasy on them (which is something we all do a lot). They guy from ConoSuba though, he’s not that “magical” guy everyone would dream of being, he’s just someone who’s managing to make reasonable use of what his life gave him. And that’s the real limit of how much of a winner anyone could ever be.
And as far as comparing Steins gate to Shield Hero, I think it’s the Steins gate that’s not being real. It’s MC is unrealistically “good”. It does show him having some inner trouble, yes, but it’s significantly downplayed. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that it shouldn’t have been, I’m just saying that it was. In other words seeing what a REAL person would have done with that situation would NOT be fun (at least not MY kind of fun). It’s fake, but because it’s fake it’s good.
Same can be said about the shield hero, except in that case the falseness in more external then internal. Main fault there lies in the plot devices that were noticeably twisted around. The most glaring of all the flaws – MC’s communication with the other heros. While the author needed MC to be that lone kick-ass-to-be hero, reconciling with them was somehow out of the question, but the moment it got old – poof they are all reasonable people, you just had to try talking to them. LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME as fuck. But other than that it’s good.
P.S. I actually enjoy isekai settings, even though I tend not to identify with any fictional characters. My reason is pretty basic and boring though – most of those have MCs that actually DO shit. I like that part so much (or rather I dislike the over-abundant (imho) lack of it) that I can easily overlook the accompanying flaws.
I’ll take an “instant dried hero – just add water” over any kind of pushover MC or any kind of sideline observer MC in a heartbeat.
Mhh sorry for misreading, but yeah it is hard to follow you at times. The discussion has turned a bit “jumpy” in general.
I can agree with you on certain aspects but there is something that strikes me as irritating in your views. They are not obviously wrong, but they too sound rather convenient to you, which seems to be something you criticize in others.
This is normal ofc. our psyche is primarily trying to justify our hesitation to do the scary stuff and do the easy stuff in life. Finding truth is not of much value to the functionality of our inner system. It actually is rather dangerous. Although there are definitely tendencies in us to enjoy this danger as well.
Your deterministic world view is understandable but it also seems absurd at times. For there is too much that seems to tick you off about other people for you to really believe in it. If you were really in tune with this point of view, there would be less extremes in your observations. You clinging to it feels to have a psychological function for it. For if everybody is actually the same and all kind of growth is determined but ones surrounding…i hold no responsibility to grow myself? I don’t know, you finish that sentence for yourself. All i can say it seems to be loaded with purpose to me.
All in all i believe there is a ton of grey in the world, and people can be black as hell, and good as heaven, and a lot in between. I also thing your own character and self-awareness do a lot more than you assume ( you can counter this by saying this is wishful thinking, but so can i with your argument). In the end there is definitely a tendency in us to take the easy route, not utilize everything we say and do for a feeling of identity, to believe whatever makes us feel the best about ourselves, but i don’t think that is all there is to it. I don’t think these chains are unbreakable and an absolute limit to our potential. I might be wrong, and this believe is only saving me from depression. But luckily it’s a firm believe and i will hold onto it.
Concerning Steins gate, yeah the characters are a product of fantasy. I would not say the main character is unbelievable good. To me he seems to be unrealisticly communicative and open towards his surrounding. He has not been dulled by rejection like we all have. But that is fine for me, as there are times when i can overcome the dullness and open up and i have no problem seeing this expressed in an extreme way in this character. He might be overdone but not in an unrelatable way.
Also concerning him being too good: He is forced by circumstances to search a happy ending for his friends, not only by his desire. If you watch / read steins gate 0 the whole thing gets much deeper and much more real, as it portraits the mc as somebody who has failed and given up, too traumatized to try again. He in the end can only find the strength to move on through his surrounding. Which to me is as real as it gets in fantasy stories.
Personally i don’t enjoy most of the isekai settings. As i need something hard and gritty in a story to make it feel real. I need to see a protagonist struggle to open up. Because opening up is hard. If things are easy, they also are hollow.
Furthermore, your statement about:
“‘instant dried hero, just add water’ MC > pushover/standing-on-the-sidelines MC”?
Sorry, but… no. The former archetype is really just the opposite extreme of the latter two. Most of the time they are all *equally* terrible. Not many people can portray any of those MCs well tbh.
At the end of the day, a trope is what you make of it – however good or bad it is, largely depends on how good of a writer you are.
P.P.S. (disclaimer – feel free to ignore the below rant, it’s unrelated)
It really bugs me when people complain about anything being “black and white”. I mean I get what the mean, but what they actually say is ridiculous. Especially the ones that take it to “there’s not black and white in life” level.
There’s no GRAY in life. Gray is what it looks like to us when there’s a complex enough combination of black and white for us to be unable to see it clearly.
Id doesn’t matter how complex a situation or a personality is it always consists of no more that 3 types of elements, namely, the good the bad and the bland. If an element HAS a moral meaning it’s either positive or negative.
Vast majority of people talking about grey morality are just people trying to convince themselves and others that all the “black” inside us is somehow acceptable.
It’s not acceptable, but that’s not an easy truth to live by. And THAT is why there’s actually so little personal growth happening IRL.
Mehhh… the problem with that outlook is that humanity is fundamentally flawed/imperfect. That, and at this juncture, modern society is so horribly fucked that in order to actually get anywhere and/or “do the right thing”, you actually DO need to lean more towards the “black” side of life and break a few rules/laws.
There absolutely IS such a thing as gray morality, and that’s because the status quo of the world today has necessitated its existence.
Also, I can’t help but notice that many components of your outlook/worldview seem more than a little absolutist, if I had to be frank. Too bad that is decidedly /not/ how the world works.
…Yes, there are plenty of factors outside of our control that prevent us from being entirely “winners”, but by the same token there are MANY folks out there who rose above and attained varying degrees of success on their own merits, either with or without the support of others around them.
I wouldn’t just write such people off as essentially being “the losers who got lucky”, because no… that’s /really/ not how that works. Sure, while such people do indeed exist? That is definitely NOT the case for every ‘successful’ person ever.
Anyway, back to the black & white thing:
There’s a little something called “biting the bullet” that happens quite frequently in this world of ours.
A lot – and I do mean *A LOT* of times in life? The “black” in the ‘black & white’ moral dynamic *REALLY IS* acceptable — in the sense that people often have no choice BUT to accept it. Happens far more often than you’d probably care to admit, honestly.
This is because (for the reasons illustrated in my above post) there will be MANY times in life where, for abc-xyz reasons, we absolutely HAVE TO “do wrong” in some way/shape/form, before we are able to “do the right thing”, or even in the process of the latter.
^ Frankly, that is the TRUE meaning of “gray morality”, and why “right vs. wrong” isn’t really so simple and deterministic as you make it out to be — not in this vast world of over 10 billion people constantly making good & bad life decisions, thus creating a gigantic moral clusterfuck a.k.a. this world in which we all live.
The problem with your “gray is really just little bits of black & white mixed together” is that two colors truly DO meld together into one, when you mix them up long enough. Factor in all of these principles, and “simple” transforms into “complex” pretty goddamn quick. Hate to break it to you, but sometimes in life, when people say something is more complicated than it seems?
…That’s because it actually is.
Sometimes there just ain’t gonna be any simple solutions.
Sometimes there just won’t be any easy answers.
Sorry, pal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, I notice how you talk about the nature of reality pretty often, on a rather cut-&-dry basis. Buuuuut… I’m just gonna be straight with you here: reality is /extremely/ subjective.
But even deeper than that: “reality” is an illusion.
Trust me, the sooner you acknowledge this, the better off you’ll be in the long run. Because in many ways, we create our own realities.
What is unreal for some people, is QUITE real for others, depending on the individual circumstances of each person’s life.
And on a side note? …let’s be real here, there are FAR better examples (within anime alone) of a protagonist “doing the best they can with the hand they’ve been dealt in life” than the MC of a fan-service-y genre-parody series like friggin’ KonoSuba.
Shield Hero’s story progression is straightforward to a fault, but it’s still a greater + realistic showcasing of an MC getting dealt a garbage hand and turning it into a royal flush than Kazuma Saito being caught in the middle of an anime-meta fantasy setting, or the Steins;Gate scientist being unrealistically altruistic in the midst of all that jiggly-wiggly-timey-wimey Doctor Who-esque character drama.
If there’s one thing you got right about my world view it’s that it’s not mentally healthy (now try explaining how it can be both unhealthy AND convenient).
All the illusions I spoke about and a ton of those that I didn’t mention are there as a defense mechanism. A very very ugly defense mechanism. Really, there’s absolutely nothing acceptable about ignoring all the shit we could have dealt with for the sake of personal convenience. (it is forgivable though, to an extent)
If the world on the whole stopped lying to itself we’d soon all find ourselves living in a better place.
If a single human stops lying to himself… well chances are where he soon finds himself will be either one building below the edge of a rooftop or a living hell. And that’s more or less where I am with my views.
Funny thing about depression is that it has a lower limit. Once you’re at the point where you’d rather not exist if you were given the choice, there’s really no need for defensive mechanisms – it just can’t get meaningfully worse then where you are at regardless of how many of your defensive mechanisms you’ve turned off. (p.s. I’m not advertising that as a great tourist spot though)
Anyway, what I’ve been trying to say the whole time is really quite simple (just not easy to understand/accept) – your ability to deal with what you’ve been dealt is also something that you’ve been dealt. It takes NOT having it to naturally realize that.
You know the whole “perseverance is a type of talent” moto that anime like Naruto or Black Colver are peddling? It’s meant as an encouragement to those who find themselves “out-talented” but it actually goes both ways. And it’s kinda true. I mean I wouldn’t define it as talent, but it’s definitely a trait and it’s no less important than any specific talent. Actually as someone who lacks exactly that I consider it to be the most important trait to have for “success”. If you don’t have that no amount of talents are gonna do you any good.
Any kind of achievement or directed personal growth in this life takes work. Now imagine needing to work on you inability to work. Getting rid of your inability to keep putting forward effort requires … [drumbeat] … effort. Like I said – it’s the worst trait to lack.
My own brand of loserhood stems primarily from lack of motivation. There’s a whole package of bad traits involved, actually, and most of them aren’t far behind in severity, but still that’s the “leading” one. Got more talent than an average person along for the ride with that, but it’s all “wasted “potential”” (not truly a potential if you can’t tap it but whatever…) – I’ve impressed and subsequently failed more teachers than I’ll ever be comfortable admitting to (so let’s just say a lot and leave it at that).
Anyway, back to the topic. The “your ability to deal with what you’ve been dealt is also something that you’ve been dealt” part is also true for any written character. Actually it’s easier to notice there then it is in real life, because with fiction there’s a simple FACT of life that we all know – whatever it is that a character has or lacks it’s present or absent as a result of the decision by the “real god” of that fictional world – the author. If he wanted to write a hero that got elevated purely by outer circumstance that’s what we’ll get, if he wanted to write another harem loser, than that’s what we’ll get, and likewise we only get “true persevering hero” if that’s what the author created. Hence the point – what you (heck, not just you) really want out of fiction is a writing that makes it less obvious that the hero is a hero because he was scripted to be one.
I should probably note that it’s more of a funny point than a practical one. I mean it’s pretty obvious that all fiction is a type of illusion. It’s just easy to forget what the illusion truly hides behind it. And part of what it hides is that EVERYTHING in fiction is essentially a deus ex machina element, not just the things that are left obviously so.
But then again, if that’s how one sees fiction then it’s probably harder to enjoy it. So maybe I should keep that view to myself.
Then again, the same is true for life. It’s a lot more enjoyable when you don’t attribute all your success and good qualities that lead to it to god/luck/fate/whatever, which is a big part of that view’s popularity.
Moving on…
Responsibility in determinism. I guess I’ll have to take a step back up to explain that.
There are two aspects to it, really.
First – if we’re saying that the world is deterministic then it’s easy to compare it to a play (minus the acting skills, all the actors have them maxed and play their roles as realistically as possible).
I can’t blame actors for playing villains and can’t praise them for playing heroes, but I still like the heroes that and dislike villains.
Does that clear it up?
And the second aspect is about where the blame goes. There’s only one personality in all of this that is responsible for the plot – it’s the author, and to him goes both the fame and the blame. A hero owes him a lifetime of success, a villain owes him a boot up his arse. Both are rightfully earned by the author IMHO.
Moving on again…
The grey morality.
Morality is in the eye of the beholder, but for each given action there’s always at least ONE beholder that knows it best (know and admits are not the same, mind you).
Morality of actions is determined solely by motivation behind them.
We can easily lie about motivation (both to others and to ourselves) but we can (a very loaded can) be also honest about it. And when we are, the so called “gray” vanishes like an illusion that it is.
The saying that there’s no gray in this world may be a lie if taken literally, but the true meaning of it is that all the gray in the world is an illusion. An illusion of indeterminable morality definitely exists, indeterminable morality itself however does not.
There’s one part of life where I don’t lack motivation and actually get to places.
And it’s this kind of digging.
There’s either black or white in the end of ANY hole you can drill into yourself (not into others though, because in that case you generally lack the needed information to drill down the whole length).
If you ended somewhere else – congrats, you gave up on drilling part-way.
Sadly that’s what the majority does. Can’t blame them for that, it’s what they’ve been dealt, yet I definitely can’t bring myself to like that either.
Hero evaluation…
Ever noticed how most heroes lack flaws you could dislike them for?
That’s the main difference between a realistic hero and a fake one.
Fake ones are generally more fun, but it’s the realistic ones that are hard to make.
Without it backfiring that is, I mean any slob of an author could just plug himself into his writing but where would that land his product? Right, in a garbage bin most likely.
The KonoSuba dude has a whole list of bad traits, but along with them he also displays traits I can respect him for. Meanwhile the ones in Shield Hero and Stein’s Gate (I watched both the original and zero btw, I never played those VNs though) are almost exclusively “great guys”. I can respect that in theory, but in practice I’m having a hard time taking those personalities seriously – they aren’t human enough for me to respect them for being good humans. (I should probably note at this point, again, that the KonoSuba dude wasn’t good, just respectable. BIG difference)
Also… take it or leave it but… While I liked shield hero both for the plot AND personal drama, Stein’s gate I enjoyed ONLY for the plot. Never though about why exactly it was like that but it was like that. Despite the fact that it was clearly supposed to be deep in Steins Gate, to me it felt somewhat shallow and fake. Not even remotely as fake as the MC’s girlfriend in Wise Man’s Grandchild (MAN I got REALLY sick of everyone acting as if she’s a walking angel while the girl herself barely displayed ANY kind of personality let alone a matching one), but fake nonetheless.
And now would probably be a good time to note that MOST fiction feels fake to me, which actually creates an interesting preference – I tend to like the most fake ones – your typical fairy tale fantasy scenarios – if they’re all mostly failing at hiding their falseness (in my eyes anyway) I might as well enjoy the ones that are not wasting effort on that.
And in Shield Hero… well I just naturally found myself as pissed off as the hero was supposed to be. Doesn’t happen to me often so that’s a cause for notice.
That being said, the best works to look for if you want personal drama are the ones that are not particularly heroic in nature in the first place. You know the type – slice of life, romance (actual romance, not harem), drama – the works. Some of those don’t feel fake even to me (the ones that DO feel fake bore the crap outa me though, and that’s how the majority of them are).
And one last thing – about the “instant dried heroes” that was merely an expression of a personal preference, nothing more. I’m not saying they are well done or anything, just that I enjoy them more than the alternatives. Obviously a well done hero is better, but there’s not enough of them around and once I run out of the good ones I resort to the cheap ones and those (namely MC’s that take a big active part in their story’s plot, regardless of why) happen to be the only type of the cheap ones that I can stomach.
I feel really strange reading your viewpoints on life and self descriptions. I have to ask.. are you me?
I’ve never actually known another person who acts/thinks this way.
I feel slightly less alone haha