My workplace recently started cracking down on attendance, so I can’t show up a few minutes late whenever I feel like it anymore.

That means I don’t dare go home at lunch either — I have to eat at work. I used to eat in the cafeteria, but my meal card doesn’t cover enough, and the cafeteria is both expensive and not very good, so I switched to takeout. At first I ordered from 鸡尿外卖; then I realized the discounts only applied to the first few orders, and after that it just kept getting pricier. A few orders in, I noticed it wasn’t just expensive — the taste was mediocre too.

Then I was playing an eroge and saw a scene where the heroine makes bento for the protagonist, and it hit me:

“Shit, why don’t I just make my own bento and eat that?”

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I meant to make cookies. What I ended up with was fake cookies.

Why fake? Because they don’t look like cookies at all…

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Oleophobic coating matters, because I’ve been playing Arena of Valor lately and I care about how the screen feels.

But my Pixel C’s original glass film is gone, so I had to grab some stupid plastic film off Taobao. The glass film I ordered from overseas hasn’t arrived yet. What to do?

Someone said Taobao sells oleophobic coating you can apply yourself, so I figured I’d try it. Not expensive either, about 10 yuan.

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My Surface Pro 4 came back from its last repair with a bright spot on the screen.

So I filed another repair request. Microsoft support fought me every step of the way, claiming a second repair might not actually fix anything, but I insisted, and honestly, as long as you hold your ground, it goes pretty smoothly.

When it came back, sure enough, it was a brand-new unit. So basically Microsoft’s repair process is: fix it the first time, and if there’s still a problem after the fix, they just give you a new one.

I was pretty happy with the replacement, but the glass screen protector I’d put on was gone. Honestly, the screen protectors I recommend most are intelliarmor’s. Why can’t you buy domestic ones? Because they fucking have no oleophobic coating — some aren’t even plastic, let alone glass. The foreign brands are the ones with real integrity. Ironic, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, intelliarmor discontinued the protectors for both the Surface Pro 4 and the Pixel C, saying they’re out of stock. I emailed them and they said there are currently no plans to restock.

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I’ve made mousse cakes quite a few times, and honestly most of them weren’t really up to my own standards. People eating them said they were fine, but there were a few things I knew needed work.

1. Texture — sometimes too firm, sometimes too soft. The setting part is a pain to control.
2. Flavor — if you use milk it tends to be too firm, because milk has way too much water.
3. Time — making a mousse cake is time-consuming, and if you can’t manage your ingredients well, you won’t be efficient.

So after summing things up, I’ve got some experience now, and I can make cakes I’m fairly happy with.

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I counted it up: I played 64 galge this year. For comparison, 2016 was 77 and 2015 was 80, so it’s trending exactly the way I figured it would. Fewer games every year, which is solid proof my life is getting fuller.

Not many, sure, but I did get through most of the big releases, and honestly the year as a whole left me disappointed.

For one thing, a bunch of the big studios put out nothing. Even the old moege factories were quiet. Yuzusoft had no new game, SAGA PLANETS is releasing at the end of the month—I’m enjoying what I’ve played of it so far, but I haven’t finished, so it misses the cut.

Most of what I did play was fan discs. Fan discs, more fan discs, and “fake fan discs” wearing a “second installment” label. Strip out those sequel cash-grabs and what’s left is moege and landmines.

I thought about it for a whole day and barely scraped together a list. It’s a pretty personal one. Use it as a reference if you want.

(Ranked in order)

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This morning on X (Twitter) I found out some absolutely wild news:

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Play enough visual novels, step in enough pitfalls, eat enough shit, and looking back you start to notice a lot of interesting things.

Most fans of visual novels got their start with fan-translated versions. First it’s anime and manga, then they hear some games have lewd stuff in them, so they go try those out. A few end up stumbling into plot-heavy visual novels that way, but the majority just permanently equate visual novels with porn.

Even today, if you ask someone what a visual novel is, probably 80% will say “Nekopara”… another 18% might say Steins;Gate, and only that remaining 2% might actually bring up Memories Off.

Yes, I’m saying right here that Nekopara is trash. It’s a pure porn game with zero substance and nothing worth discussing, and personally I don’t even like the art style—can’t even jerk off to it, which is why I’ve played maybe 2 minutes total. What’s more depressing is how many newbies get drawn in by Nekopara and straight-up equate it with visual novels as a whole. Makes me sigh just thinking about it.

Sure, plenty of visual novels have porn elements, but a visual novel with nothing but H has no legs to stand on. If you want to understand visual novels, you need some more interesting works to break you in.

The Memories Off series is a solid entry point. It’s also the most honest, unpretentious example of what makes visual novels their own genre—the music is fine, the story’s actually decent, not exactly massive waves but plenty of ups and downs, and it genuinely suits most people’s first exposure. If someone gets interested in visual novels because of it and goes looking for “more games like that,” that’s when the problems start piling up.

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Nekoneko Soft games always leave me not knowing what to say.

First off, they usually have a solid scenario, most of the time by Kataoka Tomo. I won’t deny he can tell a story, and most of it is told in an approachable, faintly sorrowful way that slowly gets you tearing up. It’s mostly positive stuff — cherish the people around you, love life and its little beauties, that kind of thing.

But the other annoying thing about Nekoneko Soft is the art. They always go to this guy Akino Takehiko, and the characters he draws… sometimes they clear the bar, and sometimes they’re genuinely ugly. I looked at his doujinshi and honestly they weren’t bad, so why does it come out so rough once it’s in a game? Some of the heroines end up with those pork-kidney faces, looking like Zhao Benshan. Painfully awkward.

So I kept going back and forth, and I did play some Nekoneko Soft games plus stuff from their sub-brands. The story side is generally fine; the art style is just a bit rough. Probably the coloring’s fault.

Anyway, Nekoneko Soft has a new game out. They actually put out a new title this year called Ramune 2, but I didn’t play it. I mean Ruri no Kasane: Imouto Monogatari, which came out last month.

Honestly I don’t get the title, especially the “kasane” part. No idea if it means “overlapping” like I think it does. Not that it matters, since the subtitle already tells you everything: imouto monogatari. A story about a little sister.

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Lao Wu, 30 years old, is a total loser.

Lao Wu is a high school classmate of mine. His defining trait: horny as hell, but too chicken to do anything about it. In my limited memory of him, what stands out most is him in class flipping through a porn magazine so worn out it was falling apart, gleefully reminiscing about his sexual exploits.

Bragging about having a sex life in high school—that’s a hell of a flex. Absolutely goated.

High school in China and high school in a Japanese visual novel are two different worlds. Most people don’t even have a girlfriend. Sex? Out of reach.

Back then I looked up to Lao Wu, but thinking about it now, I was just too naive. Because the way Lao Wu acted in high school was nothing like someone who was getting laid.

How should I put it—aside from flipping through his dirty books, one of his favorite hobbies was lying on the balcony railing checking out girls.

A girl transferred into the class next door. Long black hair, liked to dress up, a bit aloof and cold. And this was high school—daring to wear that plaid skirt uniform style, showing off pale thighs and zettai ryouiki. She was ahead of her time. Anyone who saw her couldn’t help but get a little hard just to show their appreciation, right?

Ever since Lao Wu spotted that girl from the next class, he thought about her every day, muttered about her constantly, like she was already his girl.

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