Yamaku Book Club (20220124 Dish Washing)

[griffon8]

My only suggestion is that we should try and avoid covering similar ground for a while. For instance, we've had Misha, we've had Miki, we've had Rin, we've had Hanako (sort of), so perhaps our next fic should avoid those characters as main characters. I'm also thinking something short to come back to after this mini-break. I would therefore like to suggest:

The Decision – by griffon8

Eeeeeeeeeeee! One of mine???

And I was just thinking as I read your post that there's no way I'd be narcissistic enough to suggest one of my own, but if I was it would be that one.

I'm all for it. That iconic piece of woodwork? Ah, such feels.

This confused the heck out of me until I realized you were talking about the music box.

[Comrade]

Operation "word count pending" has started.
More details in the library

[Sea]

*Yaaaaaawn*
Well Im finally awake, fuck jet lag and lets get going!
Our first fic to get things kicked off will be:

The Decision – by griffon8 (complete, 1511 words)
PoV: Lilly; Pairings: Hisao x Lilly; Begins: during Lilly route Act 4
Remarks:

As per request, good readings, Ima go to sleep now; spitballing I'll say the meeting shall be on the 25th

[Sea]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand, go!

[brythain]

The key part of this technically nicely-written piece is that music box, for me. Boxes are symbolic of hidden treasure, of secret knowledge, of covenants and promises. This one creates the turning point that makes Lilly decide to return to Hisao on her own, not because he's had a heart attack, and that makes their subsequent relationship (if it follows the Lilly-good-ending route) much more romantic—she's in it clearly because she wants to be, and not possibly because she's feeling guilty or because she's influenced by his heroics.

The prose seems to me a little wooden and unpolished in parts, because I do think of Lilly as a little more fluent. She does have a lot on her mind, but that should make the internal monologue richer even if her external dialogue is sparser or less euphonious.

I must say that this piece established the role of the canonical music-box in my own head-canon: if Lilly in any other epilogue remembers Hisao, it is going to be because of the music-box. The saddest alternative I can imagine is Hanako going into Lilly's room after she's left and finding the music-box abandoned.

Thanks, griffon8, for this work!

[AntonSlavik020]

There's not really much I can say that the person above me didn't. It was a very nice piece that provided another reason for Lilly to come back other than because Hisao had a heart attack. Yet another fic placed in my personal head cannon.

[dewelar]

As the person who proposed this story, my own opinion of it should be evident. As with Hanako's Story, this story belongs to one of my favorite classes of stories to read: the alternate viewpoint story. I think it does a very good job of taking that one scene and giving it a whole new aspect just by seeing what's happening on the other side. I also think part of the reason I liked this so much is because it touches on several ideas I'm using in my own story, if on a smaller scale.

I like how Akira was portrayed here. Akira, like Miki, is one of those characters that the fanbase loves but whom I often find myself not liking when presented in fan fiction (and also often don't much care for fan fiction based on them), but that wasn't the case here. With a single line of dialogue, we are shown that her efforts to push Lilly and Hisao back together weren't limited to her talk with Hisao in the park, but that it was something that probably escalated over some much longer period of time, and in the end had to resort to the proverbial clue bat to finally get Lilly to open her mind to what she was throwing away.

I know author's notes are also frowned upon here, but I found the ones at the end of this story welcome and appropriate, in part because of their brevity. I do like having some insight into why an author writes what he or she does, and here I got exactly what I needed in that regard.

Yes, the dialogue could have been smoother, and overall the story could use some polish, but it did what it set out to do, and I think just a bit more besides.

[Mahorfeus]

I am not going to lie - Lilly used to be my favorite girl. Many manly tears were shed when I first got to that sickeningly sweet epilogue of hers. But then a few things changed. In particular, the fact that she knew she might be leaving for Scotland all along, before their relationship even began. That she held this information from Hisao until the very end, perhaps not even intending to tell him that she was leaving at all. Since we see these things strictly from Hisao's perspective, this all struck me as being needlessly cruel. So my opinion of her fell. Anyway, sorry for the somewhat relevant exposition.

I've read fanfiction before that essentially apologizes for Lilly's actions, justifies them from her perspective, but none of that ever really satisfied me.

In this case however, we have something completely different. Lilly actually realizes what she is doing is wrong, drops it all at the last second, and only then, once her new decision has been made, realizes that Hisao had come for her. One hell of a coincidence. But THAT is something straight out of a soap opera, not that I am complaining, because it meshes well with the tone of her route's ending. I really didn't like the idea that Hisao had to risk his life to win the girl either, but here it works out because she intended to stay anyway. It became more of a "sealing the deal" kind of thing, putting to rest any future doubts that Lilly might have had about deciding not to go to Scotland.

But I am sorry to report that no manly tears were shed this time around.

[Guest Poster]

I never really got the impression that it was the heart attack that got her to stay for real. It caused her to postpone her departure to keep Hisao company, most likely, but I personally believe Lilly eventually made her decision due to Hisao asking her what SHE (rather than her sister or parents) wanted. If he had asked her that the first time she gave the "Akira's going and my parents really want me to go"-line, Hisao may not have been hospitalized.

[Oscar Wildecat]

My impression/remembrance of the Lilly good ending can be summed up in the old saying about assumptions. Hisao sorta ASSumed Lilly wanted to go to Scotland badly enough to sacrifice their budding relationship, and Lilly sorta ASSumed that Hisao didn't care enough about their budding relationship to fight for her to stay. Hisao eventually comes to his senses and does fight for Lilly to stay, giving lie to Lilly's assumptions. This fanfic is a nice complement to that, showing that Hisao's assumptions were off-base as well.

The saddest alternative I can imagine is Hanako going into Lilly's room after she's left and finding the music-box abandoned.

[Comrade]

You know what they say about assuming.
It makes an ASS out of U and ME.

[Sea]

You know what they say about assuming.
It makes an ASS out of U and ME.

No! Bad comrade, there shall be no terrible puns in the book club.
Moving on from that fic, and in the interest of getting all the girls some love on the book club we shall next cover:

Weekend at Hisao’s – Epilogue by themocaw (completed, 20.009 words)
PoV: Hisao / Shizune; Pairings: Hisao X Shizune; Begins: after Shizune good end
Remarks: sex

Now this particular story happens to have 3 off-shoot sidestories, namely these:

On the Couch – Sidestory by themocaw (completed, 2.966 words)
Happy Returns – Sidestoryby themocaw (completed, 1.004 words)
Summer by the Sea – Epilogue by themocaw (ongoing, wordcount pending)

Which I figure we'll do directly after the meeting for it, one a day so they all get covered. Now the last one is as yet unfinished so we'll have to poke thermocaw a bunch and maybe something will happen.
The meeting will occur on the 30th, and then one on the following 3 days for all the side stories, so dont go and read those yet.

[dewelar]

Weekend at Hisao’s – Epilogue by themocaw

Ah, the very first KS fanfic I ever read, and the one that taught me the term "headcanon" . I wonder if it will hold up...

[Blank Mage]

Well, I picked a great time to jump in, then, Weekend at Hisao's is my favorite Shizune piece. But I guess we'll get to that later.

[Walshy12238]

Never posted in this thread, and I've never read Weekend and Hisao's. I've heard good things about both though.

I'll have to read it and come back in a few days for the meeting!