Mirage_GSM wrote:Basically I agree with everything he said, and 600.000$ for four months of hospital stay (that would be 5.000$ PER DAY) is frankly ridiculous for any country.
Protip: An uninsured, one-hour hospital visit in the U.S. for a minor injury can run you over $3,000, excluding tax, depending on the state, et cetera, ad nauseam. So yeah. Only in America and possibly 'Third World' countries, this plot.
But frankly, yes, there's better things to worry about than plot. I'll consider checking this one out when I've actually watched Breaking Bad.
"If the world is cold, make it your business to build fires."
— Horace Traubel
Please don't be discouraged by any nitpicking. The nitpicking will make you a better writer and will make the story better for everyone who comes to read this in the coming months (or years, some stuff here goes on for over a year). This is a fabulous premise. With a little suspension of disbelief I can see this really going places.
My recommendation is to try to keep Hisao somewhat like he is in the actual game (though he does vary somewhat in personality depending on the route) at first and slowly darken his character and corrupt him as he goes deeper. Whatever you decide, I'll be interested to see where you go with it.
While you should indeed not be discouraged by feedback, negative or positive, 600k worth of money is a hell of a large nit to pick. It's on the level of "Lilly is not completely blind", or "Mutou is the owner of the Shanghai", or any of the other examples you can find by browsing around here. :p
In short, it encroaches on crackfic.
This is fine and dandy, but if by slim chance you did not MEAN to write crackfic it would definitely be better to drop everything and rethink while it's early days yet. Nothing is worse than shoehorning oneself into something one didn't want to write.
And I can't imagine why someone would want to write crackfic myself, but enough talk! Have at thee! >:3
Shattering your dreams since '94. I also fought COVID in '20 and '21, and all I got was this lousy forum sig.
I'm sorry but I'm going to have to disagree. 600k for a hospital visit is not too out of the ballpark. It may not be if you don't live in the US but medical bills can sometimes get expensive. I'm sorry for the inaccuracy, but I don't believe a rewrite is necessary.
Last edited by Dreamcastin on Thu Apr 10, 2014 7:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
No, 600k€ (and roughly 818k$) is quite frankly insane and I have to imagine that even with the ridiculously inflated hospital bills in the US this would have to be a very rare case. This amount of money has to be pretty much impossible to acquire for middle class families. And overall it's not like Hisao required the most extensive care. The operation and the long stay wouldn't be cheap, but as Mirage pointed out the 5k or so per day for staying hospital? Eh...
But even if we can come to an agreement that it's not unlikely in the US to pay that much, this takes place in Japan (Iand the currency you used is yen). Now KS doesn't seem to pay all too strict attention to that fact itself but key elements of your story better do. I mean you're writing a fan fiction after all, you should maybe try to adhere to the base material?
I don't even see why reducing the amount of money is a problem. Make it 10m yen and they could be in similar troubles, just not as utterly over the top.
I wouldn't even consider that much of a rewrite rather than a slight fix. The thing is, if there's OOC behavior and you aren't interested in adapting some bits to the Japan setting then many people who'll want to read this as a fan fiction will get turned off.
I'm gonna be honest, in your first chapter I still do think that all characters act OOC. How can I be all that interested in Hisao "breaking bad" when he apparently already turned into someone assertive (if that's a fitting adjective). Walter White does what he does primarily due to family concerns at first and it's very easy to emphasize with his path. Now here Hisao probably won't care much about his parents' well being after getting fucked over by them. Walter White had the chance to deal with his issues in different ways but ultimated made the decisions to go down a darker route because of his characterization (e.g. how he felt towards his former friends and company co-founders.) Hisao doesn't seem to have a choice, he's in dire straights and morality will be less of an issue for him.
Now I obviously don't expect Breaking Bad quality writing but you're already eliminating a lot aspects I love about that show. That and the overall OOC behavior and dismissal of sticking to the location this takes place in make me wonder how well thought through this.
You've only written one short chapter so far, reconsidering and overhauling your story now is relatively easy. After additional chapters, not so much.
Last edited by Blasphemy on Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The amount of money is nitpicking. Months in the hospital/multiple surgeries in the US can be super expensive. If you want to justify it, just add in money for experimental medication + tuition at Yamaku. The only thing important plot wise is Hisao needs lots of money. A KS/Breaking Bad story doesn't need to be picture perfect accurate to real life.
Silentcook wrote:
In short, it encroaches on crackfic
>crackfic
Don't you mean methfic?
...
I'll grab my coat...
And assuming a fanfic was not written by a teenage fangirl to get her naughty bits going, and it's an outlandish crackfic like this, I always perceive it to be comedic and kitsch. It might be played for drama by the author, but I'll probably empathize as much as people empathize for WH40K characters.
P.S.
Blasphemy wrote:No, 600k€ (and roughly 818k$) is quite frankly insane and I have to imagine that even with the ridiculously inflated hospital bills in the US this would have to be a very rare case.
So... arrhythmia isn't a rare, lifelong disease or anything, you guys. Really! Listen to this guy. And his six long paragraphs' worth of nitpicking essay.
OK OK, bowing out for real this time. Probably.
Last edited by Bad Apple on Sun Oct 20, 2013 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
"If the world is cold, make it your business to build fires."
— Horace Traubel
You know, there's a very simple solution for the issuer with the cost. Instead of saying that it was a very large amount of money actually say "it was a very large amount of money."
Keep it vague. Don't say "it was this much." Say "it was a lot."
Oddball wrote:You know, there's a very simple solution for the issuer with the cost. Instead of saying that it was a very large amount of money actually say "it was a very large amount of money."
Keep it vague. Don't say "it was this much." Say "it was a lot."
Actually, as I pointed out earlier, while the amount of money may be unbelievable, even more so is the fact that his parents are able to simply have Hisao pay all of it.
First of all, they did pay for the hospital bills, so it's them who are in debt now. If you're in debt you can't simply hand those debts over to another.
Secondly Hisao is a dependant, and his parents have the obligation to support him financially. The worst that could happen would be that they tell him they can't afford the tuition for Yamaku anymore and he has to go back to a normal school. Even that would be a stretch, since obviously they would have calculated the tuition before they sent him there.
Read Kosherbacon's Madam Lilian for a more believable take on how such a thing could happen... "Madam Lilian" and "more believable"? I can't believe I just wrote this sentence^^°
Mirage_GSM wrote:If you don't want this to seem like a crackfic*, you might want to dial it back a little, though.
Bad Apple wrote:
Silentcook wrote:
In short, it encroaches on crackfic
“Yes and I won’t be able to pay it,” I said in an oddly neutral voice.
Kenji spoke very slowly in a serious tone. “I don’t know how much of help I could be dude, but if you need anything else don’t forget you got Kenji across the hall.”
“You mind if I take off, I need to think about my next move.”
“No problem dude. Hey mind if I stay in here? The feminists are everywhere in the dorm. I don’t want to risk opening my door and one of them seeing my plans.”
Even hearing news like this, Kenji always finds a way to be insane. “Sure, just don’t go poking around looking at all of my stuff. Leave it as is.”
“Another thing, why were you in the hospital? And what’s with all of these pills on your desk?”
“I’ll tell you another time Kenji, right now I need to think.” By then Kenji was eyeing the labels on my pill bottles. I really hope he doesn’t get any funny ideas and take some. Then I picked up my partially smashed cell phone and walked out the door.
Stepping outside of the dormitory, I looked at my watch. Ten o’clock AM. Might as well go around the festival, as that’s a place to think if any. Defiantly not in my dorm room, as Kenji will be in there all day due to the “feminists”. Slowly I made my way to the courtyard looking for something appetizing to eat.
Mostly all fatty, heart attack induced foods. Two words to describe the food being server here, comfort food. I need a lot of that at the moment. Eyeing all the booths, I look for the most appetizing looking food I can find. To be brutally honest, nothing catches my eye for edible.
“Hicchan!”
I turn around to face the unknown voice. It was Misha, with her trademarked laugh that can pierce anyone’s ears. “Misha, I’m not in the mood right now.”
“C’mon Hicchan, we need some help for the festival!”
“Seriously Misha, it’s not a good time.” Misha looks at me with a puzzled look, then turns around and walks away. The festival is not a place to think, too many distractions. I take another glance at my watch. Ten-thirty five o’clock. Might as well head back to the dorm and kick Kenji out.
I make my way slowly back to the dormitories, not wanting to rush. Especially when the thing I’m heading to is Kenji. Knowing him, he probably already turned my room upside down to snoop around. All I know is, he better have not messed with my meds.
Wait a minute. How am I going to pay for my medicine now? My parents always picked up the tab when I went to the nurse to get refills. I wonder how much they cost individually. I need to go see the Nurse immediately to see the mere cost of the pills.
And with that, I change course from the dormitories to the Nurse’s office. As I entered the building to the Nurse’s office, I felt a slight pain at the chest. Oh god, not right now. Okay Hisao, breathe in breathe out. I start feeling weak at the knees, doubling over on all fours in pain.
By then, the Nurse opened his door to check what was going on in the hallway, no doubtable due to me gasping loudly for air.
“Nakai, are you all right?!”
“I………. can’t………… breathe………” That was all I could force out, by now everything was slowly going black. The lights in the hallway slowly faded away. The last thing I saw was the Nurse picking me up, and then injecting me with something.
Then as slowly as the world was taken from me, it started to fade back in. I was laying on top of a cot, in the Nurse’s office. Then I leaned forward, attempting to get a look around the room. Almost instantly the Nurse rushed to my side to see what was going on.
The Nurse smiled and said “Welcome back Mr. Nakai.”
Yeah, welcome back. He said welcome as it was a good thing. Is it really such a good thing that I nearly keeled over and died. It’s such a good thing that I can’t pay for my medical bills. It really is good that I won’t be able to pay for my medicine. But like always, I didn’t say that. I merely looked at the Nurse and said.
“What happened?”
“Apparently, you got so worked up you pushed yourself too hard. You had a heart attack right outside my office. Thank god you were so close to my office, and not in your dormitory or you would have never survived.”
“Such luck.”
“So why were you heading over here anyways?”
“I was wondering, how much does my pills cost out of pocket?”
Last edited by Dreamcastin on Thu Apr 10, 2014 7:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
The last thing I saw was the Nurse was frantically doing heart compressions to get me to breathe.
I don't even know where to start...
First of all heart compressions will get nobody to start breathing again. That's why CPR is always performed in conjunction with artificial respiration of some kind. Contrary to what Hollywood and Baywatch taught us, it will only very rarely get the heart to start beating again on its own either. That's the job of the medical professionals and their drugs. CPR is just to keep the body supplied with oxygen until those professionals arrive.
Also, nobody would start doing heart compressions on someone who is still conscious enough to notice. Heart compressions are to keep the blood circulating in a body the heart of which has stopped beating. That's why during CPR you don't worry about a broken rib or two: The person you are performing it on is essentially dead already and can only get better, not worse.
Performing CPR on someone who is still conscious will most likely make his condition much worse - it could in fact kill him.
Don't misunderstand, if you come upon an unconscious person and he is not breathing and has no pulse, by all means perform CPR! You can't make that person worse than they already are, but applying Hollywood medicine in real life can get people killed.
