Chapter 4 is a bit shorter I think!
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Thanks Bu$tafellows, totally using シュウ in my head for making mnemonics for every new kanji pronounced しゅう that I learn 
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Ah, I just realized I forgot to post the thread for the new chapter today. It is late here now and I’m afraid if I tried to do it now, I’d make a mistake. Because information around choices will be a bit more than usual, since there will be good reasons to save at certain points to go back and get bad endings (or do the bad endings first, whatever you choose).
So I’ll get it up tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience!
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That’s OK, I still haven’t finished chapter four yet 
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New chapter is here. Or more specifically, the first actual part of リンボ’s route! 
Do note there are some extra things for this. For example, I do include info on bad endings, but they are not an official part of the book club as decided by a poll. So please if you play the bad endings, do spoiler any discussions of those separately, so those who don’t want to play them right now, don’t get spoilers for them.
Also, if someone looks at the English guide for example, it will suggest three different saves, two for bad endings and one for a CG variation unlock, but the Japanese guide I picked, smoothly includes the CG variation through one of the bad endings instead. So as far as I know, all unlocks possible for リンボ A will be achieved if one wants them.
Lastly, since we’re kinda hitting new territory here. Please let me know if you notice early that this seems a lot shorter than the regular chapters have been. Because I feel like maybe we’re finally entering territory of having to adjust our speed on the fly. 
Once again, I want to know people’s thoughts on how much time was needed to read chapter 4. Since the poll came up only today, I’ll keep it active until mid next week.
How did reading chapter two over two weeks feel?
- I can handle a faster pace
- Just right, or close enough
- I had to work really hard to finish reading in time
- I didn’t finish in time
- I’m still behind since earlier
0
voters
Also, maybe during the read through of this part or as the next part starts we have some decisions to make, so I want you guys to think about them, and those would be:
- Do we want to continue reading more routes together as a club? (We don’t have to commit to reading the whole thing together already.)
- If you want to continue as a club, what route do you want to read next? (Do realize that the club might not pick the one you want to read most, so if we read as a club flexibility will be needed.)
- If we don’t continue as a club, would you still like threads to post about the different routes in?
No need to reply with your answers. I will put up polls in a little while, but I thought it worthwhile to post these already in case there are some in depth discussion about this that people want to have. Or maybe just some thinking time.
Also, do note that we will probably take a break between finishing リンボ’s route and starting another, just to give people who has fallen behind a chance to catch up and start the next route with the group if we decide to keep reading the same route together on a schedule. 
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Well, I’ve decided now is the time I’m gonna give you guys some polls about the future of BU$TAFELLOWS club. Feel free to elaborate in comments below.
One reason we want to do this already, with (probably) 3 weeks left, is that this is a part of the main VN club, and we’ll need some answers for the main club, so the organization of that one can be figured out. Thank you all for your cooperation! 
(Sorry, just felt so very organizational, haha.)
Are you interested in continuing to read BU$TAFELLOWS as a scheduled club*?
- Yes
- No
0 voters
*scheduled club meaning both we keep reading on a schedule and the same route together. For example, if you want to freely pick your second route yourself and would only read with the club if it happened to pick the one you want to read next, the answer is no.
I would put the next two polls under detail tags, but detail tags break polls and I don’t know how to fix that so…
If YES:
What route do you want us to read next?
- シュウ
- モズ
- ヘルベチカ
- スケアクロウ
0 voters
For info on what some reviews of the game thought the best order of routes were, you can check @Sylph’s post here.
If NO:
Are you still interested in having club threads for all routes and such?
- Yes, please add all threads, I want read this VN at my own pace/pick my next route myself
- No. Thanks for the club though!
0 voters
And now to more overall VN club things. The whole reason we’re reading two VNs at the same time is because the vote was even and only a couple of people were interested in both. While all the others were only interested in one or the other.
So for organizational reasons, the main VN club wonders (if any of the other regular VN club members realize I missed something, let me know!!!):
What is your position on VN club(s) going forward? Are you likely to vote and participate, etc.
- I’m generally interested in the VN club and will read any VN that is picked that fits my interests
- I’m only interested in otomes, and will only join the VN club if an otome is picked / would be interested in a otome only VN club
- I’m not particularly interested in any VN club, I just happened to want to read/try BU$TAFELLOWS
0 voters
I think that covers it, but let me know if I missed something or presumed too much. 
Voting in these polls if you’ve been reading BU$TAFELLOWS with us would be super helpful (I don’t care if you’ve fallen behind, it happens to all of us)! I appreciate you. 
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It was nice to be part of a book club and to discover BU$TAFELLOWS, but I think I’d rather finish it at my own pace. Also I think I would have liked better to do my first run blind and see who I end up with (and on which bad ending ) rather than a Limbo route, so I think I’ll do that for my next route.
Thanks for making this club, I had fun!
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Wasn’t sure what to vote on that last one because I’m interested in VNs in general but I’d definitely be interested in an otome club so idk.
As we are bound to keep choosing longer and longer VNs, joining the club becomes a big time commitment (and possibly money commitment) so I’d only join choices I would want to read even if there was no club. In that sense it’s a bit different than with bookclubs where I’m okay reading books I might not have typically been interested in.
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Mmm, this is about where I am too I think, especially since I don’t have a good setup for playing Windows only games right now. So I picked “any that fits my interests” but am likely to be a lot pickier than that wording implies…
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Thanks for elaborating, guys. 
So, the point of the last poll was to figure out something for the main club basically. Because BU$TAFELLOWS seemed to pull in so many new readers to the VN club. We who were part of the first read became interested in understanding why, so as to carter to those readers and hopefully keep them. Maybe it was just that more people became aware of the club, and that’s great, maybe it was suddenly having otome nominations, maybe it was something else, maybe it was a little bit of all of those.
Basically we just want to understand better, and also to help guide when we have the next read poll. Like should 9-nine- continue with the next game in the series (basically that several versions of that one comes with each route in a separate game), as BUSTAFELLOWS continues, or should a new pick be made, and anyone who wants to continue either VN does it in their own time or as an off-shoot club.
Lots of considerations. And one of those is very much the time commitment part of reading VNs together.
So the way I was thinking was this (hopefully this makes it clearer what you should pick):
If you are likely to read a future pick with the VN club as a whole, if it is a pick you’re interested in, then picking that option is right for this poll in particular. Preferably you’d be a bit more involved, like actually voting for the picks you’d like to read, but as always, nothing is mandated.
Basically this is to figure out how many have a more general interest in VNs and who would join if it was a VN they wanted to read. Time and money commitment allowing.
If you’d only read the pick if it was an otome, then pick the otome option. Considering how many of the new voted only for otomes in the next read pull, some of us wondered if it was just the popularity of otome that had them join the VN club. Which is absolutely fine, nothing wrong with that at all. But it would be good to know.
If one is also interested in an otome only VN club, while also being interested in the general VN club, we can have that discussion for sure. But right now, I guess in a way, I’m more interested in learning those who are planing to join the VN club in general (which does NOT mean reading every pick).
The possibility of an otome only club if there is enough interest would be a discussion for another day. Especially if we continue reading BU$TAFELLOWS, since then I feel like starting an otome club would be something to consider when we’re ready to stop reading B$ as a club (or we finish it, whichever happens first).
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I hear you on wanting to do a blind run first. I think that would be my preferred option for my next VN too. If nothing else, because I haven’t done that yet. ^^
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I hope you keep enjoying the VN.
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In my case it was largely that the game had an Android version with a free demo chapter, so it was easy for me to say “yeah, why not” because it fitted in with my general “want to do this sitting in an armchair” Japanese habits in a way in which a PC-only game doesn’t.
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I’m a Switch only reader (for VNs) right now for the same reason, so I get ya.
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Whew we’re getting down to it huh! I voted in the polls but I wanna clarify a couple things:
I voted no for continuing the club and voted for having general discussion threads for the routes, but I probably would continue reading with the club if it ends up still being a scheduled thing. I’d just prefer to go at my own pace at this point and discuss as I go, but unless I go completely off the rails I’ll probably go along with whatever 
And as far as the whole VN vs. otome thing goes, like I think I’ve said before I didn’t really pick BU$TAFELLOWS because of it being an otome so much as the general concept and vibe of it appealed to me. I feel like the likelihood of me being interested in a VN is about the same whether it’s an otome or not, so basically I’m on board with the general VN club and will join in or not depending on what’s picked, and the same would be true of a theoretical otome club. That felt like a lot of words to say not that much actually but hopefully it gives some insight
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Second what @natarin said, basically.
I don’t care that much about the order of the routes, but would probably prefer a more casual ‘all threads at once’ approach for some speed flexibility. But if the club consensus is to keep going as before I don’t mind going along with that either 
At least for now. Can’t promise I won’t ever want to just finish the whole thing, mostly because July/August seems so very far away 
But I also get distracted by new shiny things all the time so it might be fine
As for this, from the other thread:
I did a 2nd run of the main route already, felt like doing a semi-blind run without a guide & it’s not like you’re forced to immediately continue with the character route you just unlocked, so you can do these pretty much whenever without it interfering with anything (I got クロchan 
)
All 4 chapters combined took me around 1/7th of the time it usually took me to finish an average chapter. I chose mostly new answers but not exclusively, so depending on which answers you go with it could probably take a bit longer, but definitely nowhere near as long as a full chapter (I used the jump/skip functionality and only read the new parts). It’s mostly just a couple of new lines per choice, I didn’t come across any completely new scenes or anything (edit: Now that I think about it, some probably do count as new scenes. They’re just kind of equivalents to ones we’ve already read, just with a different character? They’re relatively short)
Yeah same. That definitely makes clubs like this a bit tricky.
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Oooh, thanks for the info!
That means we can probably do the set up for the next route as a kinda break/light week. (If we read as a scheduled club.)
And honestly, I think it’ll be time to increase the pace a bit. At the latest, after another route. Maybe do A and B side over three weeks. Unless the A and B sides turn out to be a lot longer than the normal chapters.
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Last part of the リンボ route is here:
For those who haven’t managed to finish A side yet, I have heard from a trusted source that A + B together are about the same length as two main chapters, but A side is bigger than B side, so hopefully this will let you catch up.
Since the majority wants to continue with the book club, we will!
And because sometimes I’m an idiot/or a bit anal, sorry . Anyone who plans to keep reading with the club (even if you voted for no originally), can now go ahead and vote in the route choosing poll in this post (it is the only poll still open).
It is not currently clear if another main club VN vote will happen soon, and I ask you all kindly to vote in these organizational polls in this post on the main VN club so we can figure out some important parameters for the club.
Whether a new VN will be picked soon or not, I feel like we need to speed up our reading going forward. I’ve heard that doing different choices for all four main chapters will only result in as much more text as 1/7-1/6 of a normal chapter. And we need to speed up the A+B portions too. And after doing all 5 routes A+B parts, I think there are 2 more main chapters. Meaning we have 10 parts left + 4 small unlocking the next route parts.
As a reference, if we kept at this speed that would be 24 weeks, aka almost 6 months. Finishing August 25th.
Speed up plan A: 1 week to unlocked the next route (small amount of reading) that can act as a break week/catch up week too. 3 weeks for A+B sides (if all follow the length pattern of リンボ’s path, we could do 2 weeks for A and 1 week for B). And then maybe 3 weeks for both the last two chapters. Meaning 19 weeks. Finishing July 21st.
Speed up plan B: 3 weeks total for unlocking new route plus A+B sides. And then 3 weeks for the last two main chapters. 15 weeks. Finishing June 23rd.
Speed up plan C: 2 weeks total for unlocking route plus A+B sides (aka 1 week per side), and then 1 week per main chapter. 10 weeks. Finishing May 19th.
Plan C would be a big jump in speed. While plan A doesn’t cut that much time off. Anyone planning to read with the club should vote. Please 
Which reading speed plan do you prefer? (max 2)
- Current speed (finishing August 25th)
- A (finish July 21st)
- B (finishing June 23rd)
- C (finishing May 19th)
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voters
I feel like plan B is a reasonable speed up if the B side really is a bit shorter, but also figured we can reassess again after each route in case we underestimated something or if people get comfortable enough to keep speeding up.
Something I hadn’t considered before is if that people fall behind on a route they could just jump along into the next route instead of being perpetually behind (if they want) and go back to that one afterwards, but I guess that doesn’t really work if there’s something that needs the other routes to be unlocked…
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Yeah, I’m very behind at this point so I’ve been thinking about jumping in to the next route instead of finishing Limbo’s. That said, the idea of now going back and redoing chapter 1 with different choices is a little disheartening. If we want that to be an option, I think we should decide the order we want to do the routes in all at once instead of as we go.
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Not sure if you already know that, also using spoilers just in case somebody doesn’t want to know, I went ahead and am already on another route, and when you restart, basically you can just skip already read text until the choices, and there are very few new lines when it is new choices, the rest of the plot is the same. So going through chapter 1 to 4 takes probably less than an hour
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