Opinions are Monopoly money, only of imaginary value with no vn reserves backing it. Yet, everyone is in a hurry to defend their play money if it comes under attack, turning what could have been an interesting thread into a feud between two posters lurking over their keyboard with hunched back and squinted eyes. Ideas are pitched not to be implemented but to sate the ego’s need for brief attention. Word counts are blasted through megaphones like they actually mean something, except as a gauge weighing how much of an epic *bore* the project is growing…

The social element has overtaken the developmental element. There is no longer creativity, there is no longer innovation, there is no longer quality… There’s only noise, lots and lots of noise… So now I have to tune it all out and wait till someone actually finds a note worth playing. I’ll give a listen then and only then. Till then, keep searching, but keep quiet.

“Thank you, Thank you,” says Courtney.
“Ahehehehe, that was amazing. Keep it up!” cheers the sole member of her audience, Yvan.

She isn’t at all upset by the turnout. This is the only fan she wants to play for today. It’s a private Father’s Day concert, after all.

“Keep it up?? I’ve already given you three encores!”
“I’ve got all day, ahehehe.”
“That’s unfortunately true. It is your day…”

The guitar quickly kicks back into gear, encouraged to life by whistles, cheers, applause, and of course, laughter. Ahehehe.

~~~

“Happy Father’s Day!” exclaims Misaki.
*Blush* “Heh heh ^^;… I’m not sure if I deserve the attention,” replies Kikered.
“Of course you do. you’ve seen me through some tough times.”
“Ah, well, these things get easier with time.”

Kikered pats her sympathetically on the shoulder.

“Yeah, it took me forever to break 100 ppm.”
“Oh. That’s what you were talking about… ^^;”
“Care for a few matches, Coach?”
“Heh. Sure.”

~~~

“Here, breakfast. And don’t hesitate to dive in. I’m getting a handle on this business!” boasts Melissa a little too confidently.

Suspiciously confidently.

“And Jason couldn’t do it, cuz…?” asks Enerccio with uncharacteristic reserve. Uncharacteristic, but much needed. Play with fire, get burned. Insult someone who plays with fire, get buried.

“He’s in the library on punishment. Alphabetizing.”
“Ahahaha! What did he do? Something perverted??”
Melissa rolls her eyes. “He usually wakes me up with a light kiss. This morning, he went for a little more. I have to live with that bag of hormones for eternity too… But… I’ve never broken a hand in so many different ways before.”
“Bwahahahaha!” Enerccio sneaks a bit of food in between laughs.
“So, how is it?”
“Not bad, actually.”
“Thanks.”

Melissa smiles affectionately at teh man who might as well have been her real father. He’s the one who really raised her all these years. She has a lot to be thankful for.

~~~

There lies a quiet cottage in even quieter woods. And inside, sit two people. Two people about to partake of…

“…really expensive tea imported from the East Lands. Violetta seems real partial to it, so she sent me a ton.” Marivel offers a saucer and cup.
“I’m more of a soda kind of guy.” But Drake takes the offered cup anyway.
“You need to be more adventurous. I have potions for that, if you’re adventurous enough to try them.”
“Hey, to my credit, I’ve seen plenty these past few years.”
“And you always come back here.”
“Well, it’s one of my favorite places.”
“I’ll charge you keep if you keep dropping in.”
“Hahaha.”

“So you sent the guys on their rounds, but you didn’t say who’ll be visiting Takako.”
“Ah, well, she’s still upset about what we did to Ryou, you see.”
“You do do some mean things to people. Send my sympathies to Jason, if you see him. That witch is intolerable.”
“Ha! If I see him, sure.”
“…But it’s those things that help us grow. You did enough to be honored today.” She says with a sly smile.
“Hardly.”
“So, in thanks, take some of this tea home with you!”
“Hell no, stuff’s awful.”
“Isn’t it? And she sent me a ton.”

They both sigh. And the woods grow quiet again.

——————————————————————————————-

Happy Father’s Day, guys! You might not have the best of luck with the ladies, and thankfully no kids of your own just yet, but you’ve got plenty of girls looking up to you all, so take a little solace in that.

[ And this is the first and last time I ever write myself into something... ugh... ]

Maybe a little shy of three years ago, I encountered my first John Dickson Carr book. This was not long after Umineko was first released. And I started getting into Phoenix Wright. This left me hungry for more and more mysteries, especially entries in the EVN field. I wasn’t so lucky at the time, though, as what offers there were didn’t impress me much. But things have turned around quite a bit since then.

The first big notable mystery EVN entry is Each Uisge by Jake, which was a brilliant and fun Higurashi-esque psycho-thriller with a good dash of mystery. I loved every second of it. Some time after, The Stolen Diamond Ring by Nekomura Games was released. It was polished, it was pretty, and for a simple premise, it was well executed. Oh, and inexpensive too, which always helps. I quite enjoyed every second of it. April of this very year, I and my Team BG released our own mystery vn, Fuyu no Tabi, which was quite the ride to create. We all had a blast making every second of it.

But the most recent entry to this vn genre, sakevisual’s Jisei, gives me a lot of hope for the present and the future. It has all the polish of the other commercial mystery contender, Diamond Ring, and then some. It throws you right into the murder maze from the start, and forces you down a curvy path with no end in sight. Up until the very last second, no one jumped out at me as the suspect, despite the uncoverable secrets each of them guard. We catch whispered glimpses of our hero’s past and story, but his whole hand remains unrevealed… and at the end, there are still questions enough to carry interest over into the next installment of what hopes to be a series worthy of this intriguing start and mysterious series detective.

It was a fun experience that everyone should get a chance to play through. So go out there and buy it already. Play, observe, learn. And then go create your own mystery. I can’t ever possibly get enough cases to crack wide open.

Get to it ———   http://sakevisual.com/jisei/

*Ahem*… You’ve all heard the quote. “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars,” which is attributed to one Brian Littrell. That alone is enough grounds to pay it as little mind as possible. For the English Visual Novelist, even more so. This is terrible advice.

There is nothing wrong with ambition, as long as it is coupled with ability. This doesn’t mean talent. You don’t have to be good at what you are doing. You just have to be able. A lot of people now are diving into projects way above their ability, hoping that hole will be filled in by someone else with the proper skills perhaps. That’s not a way to get things done. Instead of wanting to make a project, more and more people are coming off as if they just want to manage a project. Get all the credit with none of the work, directing people to do what they need them to do. You won’t be able to take off like that.

But of course, that’s not what these people want at all, anyway. A lot of them propose these shoot-for-the-moon ideas not to breach the atmosphere, but to simply get a few feet higher off the ground from their contemporaries. The arena of EVN fandom has changed from a place of game makers to idea pitchers. And nothing is gonna get done like that, except the creation of a Perpetual Praise System. A world where people are too busy patting their neighbors on the back for their ingenious ideas instead of working on said ideas and producing something that means something.

Reign in your ambition to meet your ability. You don’t have to start small, you just have to start within the bounds of yourself. Sometimes that’ll be bigger or lesser than your neighbors, rivals, friends. But you’ll leap ahead once you finish, when they haven’t even crossed the starting line. If all you’re looking for is praise and flattery, keep pitching your moon-landing schemes. You’ll get it, rocket-loads full of empty admiration and excitement. But if you want something more filling and fulfilling, you have to create substance to receive substance. It’s a simple equation that you can master.

But… This isn’t going to change. The EVN scene has too much of this backwards momentum to change direction now. My ranting for reform is my own shoot-for-the-moon pitch. But being in the same position doesn’t help me understand how they think. How does the reward of praise outweigh the reward of creation? Maybe it’s a smaller profit but more cost effective. ‘Course, some things are worth the high cost. When the return is priceless, invaluable. And far more permanent.