My vote was actually kind of gamble, and perhaps it slightly backfired at me 
I voted for ATRI, 9-nine- and Tsui no Stella, but I’ve already read the first two - my vote was meant just as a recommendation, because I think both of those are great VNs. Sadly, Tsui no Stella never rose above third place 
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This is a hard nut to crack, huh?
I also switched one of my votes to show that I’m interested in 9-nine-, Nightshade doesn’t look like it’ll win this round, anyway. 
Thereby making my interest more clear.
But even so, right now we have a situation where two options are clearly very interesting to people, and the vast majority of voters do not overlap.
So it could make a lot of sense to have both running concurrently. We should also remember that while 9-nine- looks a lot shorter, it ends on a cliffhanger, and is really supposed to be part of the whole. Also knowing that an otome should feel finished at the end of each romantic route (as long as you get the good ending), so can be reduced (although I think there might be a true ending at the end of all routes, so might not be as attractive for this specific otome).
Basically we have two very long VNs in the top (assuming those that finish 9-nine-'s first part wanting to continue reading it). So interesting dilemma.
I feel like we can potentially experiment with splitting. And just check in periodically, seeing how many members are falling off. If it makes sense for Bustafellows main club ending after main story/mainstory+Xroutes (a spinoff/continuation done on behest of those still active). And seeing how the 9-nine- people feel after finishing the first part.
Maybe as a different medium we have to be willing to be more flexible and maybe not do things the same as a book club would have. 
Also, I think we have two choices with no obvious dividers (as far as we currently know). So we’re about to have a lot of fun. Worse for us Switch players with no character counts.
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Just for the record, the Intermediate Book Club has been in the same situation as well (two books at the top, with most people being interested in only one of them) and after lots of thinking and polling, we ended up reading them both in parallel. 
(That was コンビニ人間 and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumia, in case anybody wants to know.)
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Hmm, now I wonder if we all have different conceptions of the voting 
. To me personally it means more like “I’m interested in reading this and if it wins I intend to buy it and read it with the club”. Maybe that’s just me though I did vote with that idea in mind.
Yeah we’d be introducing a game with four parts, but I think if I remember correctly we mentioned about potentially running a side-club for the rest of them if there’s interest or something like that? Which doesn’t make it any shorter as a whole, but I guess it does make it easier to change to another pick if the club votes on another thing the next nomination.
Everything is really early and experimental, so I guess it’s good that we have all these doubts and questions that will hopefully resolve as we grow more experienced with what we’re comfortable with. I say in any case trying anything will be a good experiment nonetheless ^^ .
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I do agree with this. I think you should only vote if you have intentions on reading with the club at the same time since that is the purpose of the club.
As for splitting the club into two different groups this round, I would be okay with that since if Bustafellows wins I would automatically be out since there is no PC version and it seems like there is a decent core group of members that would also have to drop out in that scenario.
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@NicoleIsEnough How did you feel the experiment went?
Nah, I think this is the most common way to vote. Or at least I hope so, because my assumption is that people vote for what they want to read.
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I thought it worked really well! I was in the コンビニ人間 group, and we of course had the usual dropout rate but nothing spectacular, and finished the book with a nice group and had good discussions and stuff.
I don’t know about the other group’s size, but I think they continued the series for a number of volumes, so it seems to have been successful for them as well.
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Things sure got interesting
I’m also okay with the idea of running both as I don’t think I’d be joining 9-nine-. It’s interesting that they are both technically long picks. Maybe we can do the first route of both and then reassess as a club if we want to do another route of each or merge back for a new round of voting (and repeat if an additional route is chosen).
Things are always complicated in this club so I guess we just have to learn to flow with it.
Ohh, I read both of those and I didn’t even remember they were in parallel, so I guess it went well.
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Yeah, that’s why I suggested that if we do a runoff vote, also voting on whether to run both games in parallel or sticking to one. This way we can see if people only care about “their” game and don’t mind if other people play the “other” game, or if people want to play both but only think they’d be able to handle one game (if both were run) and don’t want to get left out (since, y’know, even if the games are run in parallel people can still join both if they so incline).
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Something like a poll with these options?
- Only want to read 9-nine-
- Only want to read BU$TAFELLOWS
- Want to read both, can read both at the same time
- Want to read both, can/want to only read one at a time
And only allow people to pick one option. I like the idea because it will more clearly show our overlap, and whether people think they’ll have the time and capability to read both in parallell.
It is important to remember that dividing weekly readings neatly is very hard in VNs, and considering the length of them, we do kinda need to have a higher tempo. Even most of the short VNs become very/extremely long for a beginner. I do think we’re more intermediate to advanced level. (My vocabulary needs to grow so much to make this medium an easier reading experience. 
)
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I was thinking more like “Bustafellows, 9-nine-, don’t mind parallel clubs, don’t want parallel clubs”, either split into two polls, or allow 2 options but with instructions “pick one from the first two and one from the second two!” but I think your proposed poll is more elegant.
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Hehe I’m nothing if not predictable yeah from what I played it’s definitely got some intriguing mysterious stuff going on, fun characters, really nice visuals and UI and such, I’m certainly interested! As expected lmao
Honestly it’s interesting that BU$TAFELLOWS is seen as so much more niche for plausibly being an otome. From what I can tell it and 9-nine- seem fairly similar, both have possibly-supernatural mystery stuff going on surround by a cast of characters that may or may not have fanservicey elements, so it’s interesting that 9-nine- seems to be seen as more… neutral maybe? But idk, I haven’t played either extensively
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I think it’s just in the context of VNs as a medium? Like I get the impression there is a large audience that is into VNs and rarely if ever dips into otome (and you can see how they get a bit buried, relatively, on VNDB). I’ve sort of unintentionally been in that group myself, more just because of the way that reinforces itself when I’m looking for picks more than any conscious effort. Meanwhile, it seems to me like otome VNs get more mainstream console releases and the like more frequently, and are there’s a pretty sizeable group of specifically otome fans that may not intersect too much with the other group. It is, to my knowledge, the only real subgroup of VNs to have its own community on Reddit and the like.
Sorry I’m a bit more distant recently – still dealing with a very messed up arm that’s flaring up hard again. I think running both VNs concurrently would be fine (I might still try to join Bustafellows and probably regret it!), feel free to poll on that if you want.
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[Accidentally made votes private. Remade poll in next post.]
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- Only want to read 9-nine-
- Only want to read BU$TAFELLOWS
- Want to read both, can read both at the same time
- Want to read both, can/want to only read one at a time
0 voters
super-special-awesome unofficial nonbinding interest poll 2: electric boogaloo goooooo
(didn’t realize you had to set a specific option to be able to see who voted what whoops)
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Meanwhile isekai otome villainess novels on a massive uptick these past few years.
But really, who doesn’t like some smokin’ hot sausage from time to time?
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What.
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This hasn’t been mentioned, so I don’t know if it’s a no-no, but I could consider joining Bustafellows with the Steam version (English interface and text only but Japanese voice), just to be a part of the club and try the story.
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I’m conflicted. I am/was(?) a bit hesitant about Bustafellows because I don’t love the idea of putting that many hours into something I can’t texthook (manual look ups… effort )
… but I tried a tiny bit of the demo as well yesterday and it does seem pretty fun 
Also just visually it seems really cool, definitely a step up from something like Loopers imo.
The struggle.
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Well, well, well. Looks like I’m in trouble. 
We ended in a tie! BU$STAFELLOWS and 9-nine- are our top two choices, and looking at the additional poll about parallel clubs and the number of overlap people… Well, the overlap is fairly small. 
So might just have to try the parallel thing. I need to make a decision on whether to try for both, or just Bustafellows that I will be running if we do double club. I might just have accidentally started an otome vn club. Help. O_O
But I’ll also wait for @Daisoujou to weigh in. 
In any case, we’ll need enough time between now and the start of clubs for getting physical copies from Japan, although shouldn’t be that slow I think. Since that is probably how I’ll buy 9-nine- if I decide to join that. But a couple of weeks at least would be needed. (I might be the only one buying anything physical though.)
For Bustafellows readers, I want to especially note that you can’t buy it from EU or US eshop because you will only get the English version (with Japanese audio, but NOT text). It is either the JP eshop or physical for Switch. I assume the mobile/app versions are probably JP store locked for the respective OSes, but I’m not versed in that.
I also think we hoped to wait for the fall steam sale in late November, right? In about a week? For the hope that 9-nine- would be discounted, right? Also a review says it plays excellently on Steam Deck. Hmmm…
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