"Can You Open Your Heart?" - a Rika pseudo-route

[Finn Solomon]

I just discovered this a few days ago and what a brilliant story. Like Rin's route, I feel I should go back and 'play' it again to really understand all the little nuances and philosophical content. Rikabro, you've done an excellent job. Your Rika, her character, her personality, her way of speech, and her dangerous live on the edge mindset is CANON as far as I'm concerned.

[WRXJoey]

I just discovered this a few days ago and what a brilliant story. Like Rin's route, I feel I should go back and 'play' it again to really understand all the little nuances and philosophical content. Rikabro, you've done an excellent job. Your Rika, her character, her personality, her way of speech, and her dangerous live on the edge mindset is CANON as far as I'm concerned.

Are you from the future

[Celdia]

I'm not even sure how I got here. I've never read one of these psuedo-routes before and I just finished reading this one on a whim and likely via a link from somewhere else...and I have a feeling I'm going to spoiled from reading any others just by how much I enjoyed this. This was wonderfully done and I'm glad I took the time to read it all. Thank you for writing it.

[Mirage_GSM]

You might be surprised. There are plenty of very good stories here.

[neio]

I'm not even sure how I got here. I've never read one of these psuedo-routes before and I just finished reading this one on a whim and likely via a link from somewhere else...and I have a feeling I'm going to spoiled from reading any others just by how much I enjoyed this.

We call that "devotion sickness." You'll get over it as soon as you start reading some of the other great stuff around here.

[Helbereth]

I'm not even sure how I got here.

Neither am I, really. I read about KS as much as two years prior to its release, but missed its impetus by several months--finally finding it in June last year. After reading through and finishing the VN to 100%, I started browsing the forums and read several dozen fan-fiction iterations over a couple weeks before starting my own.

The fan-fiction forum is several dozen pages in length, most of the submissions are at least interesting, and several of them are quite well-written--within the parameters of amateur fiction and beyond. There's a number of distinct long-form stories on par with the Rika route (neio's signature contains links to two other good ones), and dozens of intriguing, topical, candid, surreal, comical, dramatic, and thought-provoking short stories and one-shots.

Feel free to stay a while.

[Rikabro]

I'm not even sure how I got here. I've never read one of these psuedo-routes before and I just finished reading this one on a whim and likely via a link from somewhere else...and I have a feeling I'm going to spoiled from reading any others just by how much I enjoyed this. This was wonderfully done and I'm glad I took the time to read it all. Thank you for writing it.

Thank you for your kind words and I'm glad you enjoyed reading it.

As everyone else has said, this is far from the best fanfiction you'll be able to find around here. Please do have a look around and see what else interests you. If you thought this was good, you're in for a real treat. KS fanfiction tends to be pretty good in general.

Thanks to everyone else for the replies. It's nice to know people are still getting something out of this story.

[Rosenkreuz]

Thank you for your kind words and I'm glad you enjoyed reading it.

As everyone else has said, this is far from the best fanfiction you'll be able to find around here. Please do have a look around and see what else interests you. If you thought this was good, you're in for a real treat. KS fanfiction tends to be pretty good in general.

Thanks to everyone else for the replies. It's nice to know people are still getting something out of this story.

If this is far from the best fanfiction there is around here, then this an incredible gateway story.
I'm not entirely sure how I stumbled upon this, but I'm glad I did. I saw what it was, resolved to read it in one sitting (because I'm some sort of freak and I've done this with a couple of the arcs), and experienced very similar feels to that of which the official arcs brought me.
I'm not really good with these sort of posts, and I don't want to drone on for a disturbing length, so I'll leave it at this:
This was a fantastic read. Thank you Rikabro.
I'm going to go curl up, hug my pillow, and maybe cry a little.

[neio]

gateway story

Now that you're hooked, you'll never leave!

[Helbereth]

gateway story

Now that you're hooked, you'll never leave!

One of us... one of us... one of us...

[Titus]

I'm not even sure how I got here. I've never read one of these psuedo-routes before and I just finished reading this one on a whim and likely via a link from somewhere else...and I have a feeling I'm going to spoiled from reading any others just by how much I enjoyed this. This was wonderfully done and I'm glad I took the time to read it all. Thank you for writing it.

Thank you for your kind words and I'm glad you enjoyed reading it.

As everyone else has said, this is far from the best fanfiction you'll be able to find around here. Please do have a look around and see what else interests you. If you thought this was good, you're in for a real treat. KS fanfiction tends to be pretty good in general.

Thanks to everyone else for the replies. It's nice to know people are still getting something out of this story.

You're too humble. If you ever come skim through here again, mind answering an old fan's question please? The ending, how much of an effect did your absence have on it?

[YutoTheOrc]

Just finished reading this, thought it was awesome, you did the character a lot of good, just by going off her appearance. Was scared at the ending, thankfully I didn't get the "bad" side. Well done! Keep on writing, I like your style.

[Rikabro]

Just finished reading this, thought it was awesome, you did the character a lot of good, just by going off her appearance.

Thanks. I was mostly going off her appearance. Her personality is based on what I figured she'd be like when I saw Moekki's art, and the story mostly comes from my thinking that the most interesting thing about Rika is the way in which she significantly differs from Hisao and things that they may have to learn from one another.

If you ever come skim through here again, mind answering an old fan's question please? The ending, how much of an effect did your absence have on it?

I typed an answer to this inside spoiler tags and it made a really big ugly black wall of text that I didn't care for, so instead I just pastebinned my answer. It's long. You can read it here:



Anyways I did a little bit more than answer your question there, I also figured I might address some of the other feedback I've gotten, mostly on /vg/ but also in the comments on the forums.

Here's a fun bit of trivia: I originally intended to finish writing this story on April 1st with the Fresh Prince ending, but I was writing it too slowly and I started taking it seriously enough that I wanted to do more with it.

Thanks again for your answer and your kind words, Titus. Your support throughout the writing of this story meant a lot to me.

[Titus]

If you ever come skim through here again, mind answering an old fan's question please? The ending, how much of an effect did your absence have on it?

I typed an answer to this inside spoiler tags and it made a really big ugly black wall of text that I didn't care for, so instead I just pastebinned my answer. It's long. You can read it here:



Anyways I did a little bit more than answer your question there, I also figured I might address some of the other feedback I've gotten, mostly on /vg/ but also in the comments on the forums.

Here's a fun bit of trivia: I originally intended to finish writing this story on April 1st with the Fresh Prince ending, but I was writing it too slowly and I started taking it seriously enough that I wanted to do more with it.

Thanks again for your answer and your kind words, Titus. Your support throughout the writing of this story meant a lot to me.

Thanks for feeding my ego and the compliments Rikabro But you actually wanted to finish it with Bel Air? C'mon, I've never hunted someone down before, but that would be a legitimate reason to start. Right, to be honest when I said "Yea thanks for finishing the story bro cya", I was a bit upset. You've seen how I go on and on after an update, I was really invested in this as a fan. When I read the ending I thought you just wanted to get rid of the story. After I read that and commented I never opened this thread again. After nearly a year I decided to check where it was and I saw you still came back to answer a few questions. So, the old bitter feelings came back and I had to ask...in a polite way...did you just come back to conclude a wonderful story because you had better things to do?

But you know what, it's okay that Hisao one hit K.O.'d Rika on life and how one should best live it, even though Hisao has been taking the shaft for most of the story. I guess that way it means he wasn't such a pushover after all

PS: I remember reading a post where you were working on a VN before you came with your conclusion to this story. Is that true? I'd like to know the name...and which parts you wrote. 'cause I really do enjoy reading your stories. God I sound like such a lowly nut-hugger, but good writers have that effect.

[Rikabro]

I was a bit upset. You've seen how I go on and on after an update, I was really invested in this as a fan.

I really am sorry about that. I had a difficult choice to make, because I could have finished this story much sooner with something I wasn't happy with. I had a few things ready to roll out and I could have gone with them, but they weren't satisfactory because they didn't adequately address the issues I mentioned in my last post. I had to choose between finishing the story right away for the people reading it, or finishing it properly for posterity, and the latter is what I decided to do. It's really one of the chief perils of releasing something in serial format like this. You set a pace for yourself and you write for an expectation, which can be motivating, but can also result in a lot of what you write being rushed. Much of what I wrote in this story I'm not happy with because it was rushed for a "deadline" that I'd set for myself.

That's one of the reasons I'm so happy people are still reading this for the first time, as a single finished work, and managing to get a good read out of it as a unified whole - because they aren't affected by months of downtime and a general loss of interest. Not to mention the fact that the strangeness of the ending gave a lot of people the wrong idea about its intention. It was meant to be surprising but it just came off as ill-conceived and convenient.

As for that VN project I was working on, it tanked.

In terms of fanfic, I have an idea for a Rin epilogue that I've been toying with, which involves her quitting the Art club and starting to grow distant. I also had an idea for a small Saki fanfic and an additional (better) one with Miki/Misha since I really think there isn't enough yuri fanfic of Misha (I'm in the minority of people who thinks she's 100% lesbo). Maybe I'll hammer those out sometime soon. If I do I will notify you via PM. Meanwhile, I'm going to stop vanity bumping.