A pseudo-pseudo Suzu route (completed)

[Ascended Flutist]

Meanwhile in a dark and dry cave lit by rare, red candles emitting a feeble, rotting crimson glow

"Has Scissorlips released any more chapters of his Suzu series?" A stout hooded figure asks in a fluttery voice.

"Yes," answers another voice, coming from a greyish humanoid form.

"Bring it to me," says the fluttery voice.

The other, evidently a lowling, goes away to come back carrying an impressively large amount of paper, ploughing under its sheer weight. The manuscript falls before the stout figure with a loud 'thud.'

"Well. Shit."

...

So yeah, I'm just coming back from vacations (Red Mountain is lovely during this time of the year), you'll forgive me for not doing the comment-as-I-write thingy because frankly neither my mind nor my strong appendages would be able to withstand the effort of doing it for the truckload of words you've released.

Anyway.

I noticed the two chapters of 8/10 steadily feel more depressing as they go along. While this sets up the Science Exam Incident nicely, I feel it could have benefited from being a bit more subtle about it, with things being seemingly okay bar a few foreboding hints, then unexpectedly whack the Incident in our faces. Feel ensues. But I realize there's little you can do about it now, and that's my isolated opinion anyway, so let's move on.

Oh, and I felt the Seiji Room scene could have been expanded on, but seeing the sheer length of these, I don't know if it would have been such a keen idea.

These chapters were still great by the way. As a side note. These are one of the few things here on the Internet that I actually bother to read and really enjoy every time.

Concerning the Bad End :
It was obvious that getting out Hisao's inner White Knight isn't the brightest of ideas, so for me, the conclusion was more or less evident from the start. You still managed to surprise me a few times, and I still enjoyed it all very much, so kudos. Note that I always try to do educated guesses about the ending, which has spoiled more than one great plot. Your bad end is another unfortunate victim of this damnable quirk of mine.

Still, I love a well-done downer ending every once in a while, and yours certainly falls in this category.

[Bi-Polar Hernandez]

Why are you all spamming spoiler tags? Anyone who has read the thread to this point will also have read the story. (And if they read comments first, they only have themselves to blame.)

I see no indication of suicide. In a story that is PoV of the character in question there should be some kind of intention visible.

Oh, and since I forgot to mention it in my last post: The final scene was beautifully written. It's just the events leading up to it that I had issues with.

People sometimes jump to the latest page because they think that's where the update is.

Also it's just common courtesy to not spoil things.

[griffon8]

People sometimes jump to the latest page because they think that's where the update is.

Then people are idiots.

Just click on the little square with the arrow pointing down and right, just to the right of the thread title. If you hover over it, it says "View first unread post". That's what I always use.

[Doomish]

Also it's just common courtesy to not spoil things.

This is the most important reason to spoiler tag things, especially if they just happened in the most recent chapter or so. Sure, YOU'VE read the story so far, but that doesn't mean everyone who clicks on the thread has. There's no explicit rule that covers openly talking about recent events (and is in fact what keeps the discussion going after the chapter is over), but I would be kind of upset if I scanned past the chapter for some reason or another and the whole thing got spoiled for me. It would be my fault for reading the discussion before the chapter even accidentally (by jumping to the most recent page or just scrolling over it for some reason), sure, but if it had been spoiler tagged then I wouldn't have to worry about it in the first place.

[Mirage_GSM]

I only use spoiler tags when I can reasonably assume that other persons reading my pot haven't read what I'm posting about yet. In a forum thread below the post I am referring to that is not a reasonable assumption. As griffon said, there is this useful option to go straight to the last unread post.
Besides spoiler tags are a major PITA if you happen to read the forum on some medium without a mouse cursor, like a mobile phone or a tablet. I had to keep up with this forum for three months on a tablet, and I used to skip posts with spoiler tags entirely because it just was too much work to read them.
I think there're (pronounce that!) a lot more people reading from mobile devices than who don't know how to skip to the last unread post.

[Bagheera]

I suppose I'm lucky, in that all I have to do to read spoilered info on my phone is tap it. But that's just here; on another forum I can't read spoilered material at all without quoting the post in a reply, so I can see how it would get annoying.

I get the common courtesy argument, but should that really be an issue when you can just skip to the last unread post? I'm not really sure how you can be spoiled in that case unless you're deliberately reading ahead.

[Banda]

That.... Bad End...

[Wallachia]

disclaimer: I am far from a competent literary critic
The only part I really had a problem with in 3-11 (well, that comes to mind) is Lezard's behavior.
Sure, he's been given some reason to be frustrated with Hisao and Suzu both, but his little tantrum at lunch
seemed pretty... extreme, almost to the point of being preposterous.

Minor character, I know, but he set the gears of that chapter in motion, it just seemed a little difficult to understand why
Waiting with great anticipation for the next chapter.

also, first post on renai, hello!

[hernytan]

disclaimer: I am far from a competent literary critic
The only part I really had a problem with in 3-11 (well, that comes to mind) is Lezard's behavior.
Sure, he's been given some reason to be frustrated with Hisao and Suzu both, but his little tantrum at lunch
seemed pretty... extreme, almost to the point of being preposterous.

Minor character, I know, but he set the gears of that chapter in motion, it just seemed a little difficult to understand why
Waiting with great anticipation for the next chapter.

also, first post on renai, hello!

I'm betting that it'll be developed in the next Act.

Also, welcome to the forums. No real need to spoiler tag your self-introduction

[JTemby]

disclaimer: I am far from a competent literary critic
The only part I really had a problem with in 3-11 (well, that comes to mind) is Lezard's behavior.
Sure, he's been given some reason to be frustrated with Hisao and Suzu both, but his little tantrum at lunch
seemed pretty... extreme, almost to the point of being preposterous.

Minor character, I know, but he set the gears of that chapter in motion, it just seemed a little difficult to understand why
Waiting with great anticipation for the next chapter.

also, first post on renai, hello!

Hello Mr Wallachia, and welcome to the renai.
There's one thing that you have to remember when it comes to Lezard, he also "Likes" Suzu, which is what drives him to resent Hisao.

[Wallachia]

There's one thing that you have to remember when it comes to Lezard, he also "Likes" Suzu, which is what drives him to resent Hisao.

I gathered that from the early chapters. It just doesn't seem like it is enough or a good reason (even for a high-schooler) to metaphorically swing a brick at Suzu's face. Might have been over the top.

[Helbereth]

There's one thing that you have to remember when it comes to Lezard, he also "Likes" Suzu, which is what drives him to resent Hisao.

I gathered that from the early chapters. It just doesn't seem like it is enough or a good reason (even for a high-schooler) to metaphorically swing a brick at Suzu's face. Might have been over the top.

It's because he sees Hisao white-knighting Suzu and doesn't think she needs it - and he's probably right. Finally frustrated to the end of his wits, he blows up and forces a confrontation that snowballs into a fist fight.

The only reason his build-up seems so sudden is because we're only seeing it in little glimpses; little bits that Suzu catches over the course of the story. He never comes out and says what he feels until he reaches that breaking point, so his transition may seem sudden to us, but it began the moment Hisao and Suzu became an item.

[Bagheera]

The only reason his build-up seems so sudden is because we're only seeing it in little glimpses; little bits that Suzu catches over the course of the story. He never comes out and says what he feels until he reaches that breaking point, so his transition may seem sudden to us, but it began the moment Hisao and Suzu became an item.

It does make sense in that context, and we've seen hints of the conflict at several points in the past. My main issue with that scene was the fact that Lezard never really articulated his concerns (which, as you note, were likely valid), coupled with Hisao's unbelievable stupidity -- even by his standards getting into a fistfight is a new low.

Past that I tend to agree with Mirage; several characters need to share the idiot ball to make the bad ending work, and while this is offset by the excellent writing (particularly in that final scene) my overall impression is still "eh." I'm hoping the good end will feature more intelligent characters as well as happier feels.

[Helbereth]

You can excuse his lack of explanation by remembering he's pretty much flying into a white-hot-rage, and his mouth is moving ahead of his brain by that point. Hisao really doesn't help the situation, but, then again, he has no idea why Lezard is reacting so forcefully. It's a giant miscommunication, almost a comedy of errors; except that it isn't funny - not at all.

Plenty of characters, I think, are carrying the idiot stick in the bad-end chapter; Suzu is being her evasive self, Hisao goes into white-knight mode, Lezard tosses the gauntlet at just about the worst time, and even Miki manages to be away from the table when the shit hits the fan. Later, Suzu continues carrying that baton by tempting fate on the precarious edge of the school rooftop.

All the worst things that could have occurred seem to happen all at once - Murphy's Law amplified to tragic proportions. That's the impression I got from it, anyway.

[Bagheera]

I don't think Miki screwed up there -- she was just getting lunch, which is hardly a sign of idiocy.