That Guy's Epilogue Emporium!

[Sea]

DAMMIT SEA STOP NECROING THESE SAPPY FICS. I DON'T LIKE IT WHEN I READ THEM! But thank you. =P

Must necro something else now. . . .

[Crawford]

DAMMIT SEA STOP NECROING THESE SAPPY FICS. I DON'T LIKE IT WHEN I READ THEM! But thank you. =P

Must necro something else now. . . .

Please, by all means...Continue.

Anyway, I loved the fic overall and thought it was nicely written. However I didn't really understand the "Afterlife" ending, I don't understand it or why it was needed

[Bello]

Your fanfic was amazing and I loved everything about it.
May I ask who the "mystery guy" was at the end and other instances of the Emilouge ? Was he supposedly the "Thinker"

[Hanako Nakai]

damn.. still not finished with this yet

Edit: I finished it. It kinda broke my heart in the end though, but still.. Thumbs up for the author

[Maradar]

Superbly well done! This brought me such sadness and happiness... I don't know what to do, should I congratulate you on being a fantastic other or curse you for making me feel these feels... Thank you for this piece of writing.

[Shail]

No.. no no no no no no... NOOOOOO! *cries* the part 4 ending for the Hanako epilogue.. made me cry for the first time in 8 years QAQ ... the Hanako route ending made me sad and depressed to hell and back but this just made me cry.

[ewx]

A thoroughly enjoyable fic. I thought it got a bit much at the end with all the extra characters and the incredibly long time-jump but was a heartwarming/breaking piece of writing.


Personally, I would have ended it at the wedding. Thoughts on the afterlife do not make for good reading.

What is the proposed afterlife like?

Hanako meets all the people she's ever been to close to that have died with the rather notable omission of her parents, the people she probably missed most after her very close friends (i.e. Hisao, Lilly etc.). Why aren't they there?

Has Hanako only just arrived in this afterlife and if so, is it hers alone or shared with the others?
If it's the first then the actions of each person she knows in the afterlife would never deviate from what she knew about them because they aren't really there.
If it's the second, it's even more macabre. Imagine you're in the afterlife in Yamaku but you're not the last one there: Every time someone you know and love appears in the shared afterlife you have to remember how they got here: they died and probably left a grieving family behind.

If it's the second, then surely everyone who each person there loves would eventually encompass everyone on Earth who has ever lived and died?


How does 'life' play out in this afterlife? What age are you there?
The age you die?
The age you were happiest at?
If you 'reincarnate' as your 18 year old self to be at Yamaku, if you age then you'll see your kids slowly accompany you in the afterlife as they die in the real world. If you don't then how does life go on? Isn't life all about the journey (instead of staying at an exact point in your life)? And wouldn't it be entirely weird if you were 18 and suddenly your kids appeared? If they weren't disabled, how would their lives connect to yours if you're in a school for the disabled and they didn't go there?

If Hanako appears at Yamaku then surely she must be the right age to attend and assuming Hisao is there, it's the last year of school there. What then?
Do they grow up together and repeat the same cycle again and again? Surely this would mean that after the first life, your time in the afterlife is devoid of freewill as you're limited to only do the things you did in your life, which is depressing.
If you get another shot at life, what is to stop you from being completely different or abusing the system? If you never die in the end then all your actions seem meaningless.

In this afterlife, the only serviceable idea shot of "I'm God, I do what I want" is the idea that Hanako is in a microcosm created by her mind only in which she lives out her memories (both good and bad) repeatedly like a broken record player. Which is depressing as hell.


Put it down to personal belief if you will but Hanako isn't in Heaven, she's in Purgatory and Heaven is just something we tell kids about so they don't spend so much time thinking about the finality of death.

[Aphex]

This is a bit of a late post compared to the rest here but man... I had to post after reading the whole of Hanako's epilogue! You actually made me cry! (I don't cry, I just simply don't, I get depressed as hell but never actually cry...) ... This story must be ultra special to have done that. Bravo to you! ... Although if you don't mind I'm just gonna pretend the story ended at the wedding... Sorry! The part after it is what made me cry I think! Mainly the part where Hanako realised that Hisao actually died much younger than 85 and died in his 60's... It was just too much to bare! Nothing could POSSIBLY have prepared me for the moment I read that, and I cried for the first time in 4 years!

[bhtooefr]

Since someone necroed this... I'll go ahead and post here. It was a while ago that I first read this stuff, though.

That Guy, I fucking hate you. In a good way. I think.

Your Emi epilogue made me hate Emi (let's just say I have a specific anxiety that her actions triggered, I've talked about it in HBHC and my own one-shot thread), but still cry for Hisao.

Your Hanako epilogue opened up the damn waterworks the first time I read it. I was honestly horrified by that last chapter, and Hanako's mental state. It actually made me not even want to love on some levels, for fear of doing that to someone (my mom's side of the family has a history of hearts exploding before 60), or for fear of having to live with the person I love dying.

[Sea]

*cough* I was necroing before it was cool! *cough*

Since someone necroed this... I'll go ahead and post here. It was a while ago that I first read this stuff, though.

That Guy, I fucking hate you. In a good way. I think.

Your Emi epilogue made me hate Emi (let's just say I have a specific anxiety that her actions triggered, I've talked about it in HBHC and my own one-shot thread), but still cry for Hisao.

Your Hanako epilogue opened up the damn waterworks the first time I read it. I was honestly horrified by that last chapter, and Hanako's mental state. It actually made me not even want to love on some levels, for fear of doing that to someone (my mom's side of the family has a history of hearts exploding before 60), or for fear of having to live with the person I love dying.

That's a little dark, why would this put you off? You could psychologically analyze this was her way of coping with loss, but It didn't seem to impair her day-to-day and she had her whole family supporting her. What exactly put you off?

[bhtooefr]

That's a little dark, why would this put you off? You could psychologically analyze this was her way of coping with loss, but It didn't seem to impair her day-to-day and she had her whole family supporting her. What exactly put you off?

And she was in a delusional state, and barely functional (it only didn't impair her day-to-day because she had a housekeeper and a large family to do things for her), for a minimum of fifteen years.

And her children and grandchildren knew it all along, and played along with it, against her wishes.

To the point that when her wishes were actually respected, and the delusions collapsed, she lost the will to live.

That is, to be frank, fucked up.

[TheGoatman]

Oh its this again, yeah the Hanako part 1-3 was amazing but the part 4 epilogue was a bit of a buzz kill. It's very difficult, nigh impossible actually, for anyone to kill off likeable characters in the end of a story and still have me find it enjoyable. I have to say the way he did it was interesting and brought on a nice source of these "feels", I can't really enjoy an ending of that sort. Great story nonetheless but I won't be reading it again.

[YourFavAnon]

That's a little dark, why would this put you off? You could psychologically analyze this was her way of coping with loss, but It didn't seem to impair her day-to-day and she had her whole family supporting her. What exactly put you off?

And she was in a delusional state, and barely functional (it only didn't impair her day-to-day because she had a housekeeper and a large family to do things for her), for a minimum of fifteen years.

And her children and grandchildren knew it all along, and played along with it, against her wishes.

To the point that when her wishes were actually respected, and the delusions collapsed, she lost the will to live.

That is, to be frank, fucked up.

Mehk (that guy / author of this) isn't necessarily someone who is going to go with a happy ending just for the sake of having a happy ending. He writes what he feels is right, which is why I enjoy all of his works, including the stuff he's done outside of KS. However, if you've read both his Emi and Hanako epilogues, you'll catch underlying themes as well as the fact of all of these stories existing in a single realm sort of ordeal. I can explain this more if anyone would be interested (had a lengthy conversation a while back with him about it), but there's a lot more to the story than just the ending and actual epilogue plot. Just pay attention to characters and dynamics. In fact, you can just look back a few pages to see an argument over it, but it doesn't really just spill all of the universal details.

[monkeywitha6pack]

I would like to hear about it anon

[griffon8]

So do I, especially if the other three epilogues aren't going to be finished.