Hey there, super cool to hear from someone developing a project of their own! That doesn't happen very often around here. You'll have to keep me updated on how that goes.
As far as Lessons in Love and its impact on the game, yeah, it's definitely there in the architecture of a week-based class schedule. Though I will say that I haven't actually played any visual novel whatsoever since 2022. Early covid days gave me way too much time at home, and that's when I found and played through what existed of LiL circa winter 2020. To be honest I don't know if I had ever heard of visual novels before that point. So, early in the comments section of Perfect Pitch, I certainly do make reference to Selebus and appreciate the initial spark which got me thinking about what kind of project I'd be interested in building.
These days, as I mentioned, I don't have much of an interest in actually playing through other's games myself. Initially this was an intentional choice so as not to simply mimic what others were up to. Now, I feel like I've gotten to the point where I can trust myself to brainstorm a scene and along the way figure out how to realize it in koikatsu, often with the help of peripheral multimedia tools and patience. I'd stop far short of recommending the act of cloistering yourself away from AVNs as a method to discover creativity as a dev, though. That's just the extent to which I prefer to be involved and spend my free time.
And no, I haven't ever been a professor. Funny enough though, some faculty in this game and their actions/behaviors are based on my own first hand or second hand encounters with real music faculty from different places around the country.