Yamaku Book Club (20220124 Dish Washing)

[griffon8]

It's Option-S on a Mac, at least. (I find Apple's special character assignments to be particularly... logical... like that, really.)

On other OSes, good luck.

That's what I tried first. Option + S gives me Í (Option + s gives ß).

[bhtooefr]

Ah, the site I looked up (I was on my phone) was wrong, then. (And, if I say a shortcut with a capital letter, I don't mean use Shift with it, I'd say Shift. So, Option-W (which makes a kind of sense) gives ∑, Option-Shift-W gives „ (an upside down quotation mark, which doesn't make sense)).

[Mirage_GSM]

An "upside down quotation mark" is used in several laguages (e.g. German) to open a quote, while the "regular" quotation mark is used to close it.

[Sea]

Well its not the 2nd for two more hours (GMT), but damn it all, I'm bored. Y'all may begin.
Link is up.

[griffon8]

Oh, well I guess I can go first.

It was still enjoyable the second time, but I believe my own growth in writing and editing has altered my view a little.

Katsuro is a little more of a Marty Stu than I recall. Granted, he's had the terrible background of getting shot and being on dialysis for the foreseeable future, but everything, and I mean everything, works out for him. He joins the band, he gets the girl, he cracks his mother's wall of indifference, he even gets the antagonist to 'get over it' and be friendly.

You know, I think this would have been better without the epilogue. Delete the 'Eight Years Later…' part and it becomes a fine story. The epilogue just wraps everything up too neatly. That way, it ends with Katsuro & Naomi in a good place, and some progress on his relationship with his father and with Daisuke, but not to the point of puppies and sunshine for all.

Naomi's cancer resolution is a bit too neat as well. Sure, we don't expect 'Love Story', but to have her be declared cancer free since meeting Katsuro? Credulity is stretching…

A guitarist wearing a blindfold is definitely badass. Yamato is my favorite side character.

[dewelar]

It's funny that we read this story just when I've just picked back up on reading Deardrops to my friend. There was a lot about this story I enjoyed -- I thought the pacing was good, and for the most part the OCs were well characterized. I think I actually liked them better than the characters from the VN that appeared in the story, which is good because (I assume) I was supposed to. That said, I tend to agree with griffon8 about where its major flaws lie.

Katsuro is a little more of a Marty Stu than I recall. Granted, he's had the terrible background of getting shot and being on dialysis for the foreseeable future, but everything, and I mean everything, works out for him. He joins the band, he gets the girl, he cracks his mother's wall of indifference, he even gets the antagonist to 'get over it' and be friendly.

He also gets the big kiss from Miko (and to fantasize about her pretty heavily later) with no repercussions, and goes through a car accident nearly unscathed. You'd almost think those two incidents were there solely for the sake of being cliffhangers. I was brought back to my reaction to the kiss between Emi and Hanako in The Purest Form of Love, and it seems BlackWaltz likes to throw in big moments just for the sake of having big moments. Daisuke having a thing for Naomi falls into this category, too, although at least that got some foreshadowing so it worked better than the others I mentioned.

I think I would have liked this story better if Miko had played more of a role in it rather than just serving as a glorified plot device. I liked Sakura-sensei quite a bit, and wish we'd found out a little more about her as well. Actually, I think the side characters overall were more interesting than Katsuro or Naomi, but that's not unusual for what is essentially a rom-com.

So, I'll go with "had potential to be much better, but still not bad."

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot...a few times over the course of the story, I saw someone say "Cya" (instead of "see ya" or even "c-ya"), and I couldn't help hearing it in my head as "Kya!". I've been reading too much of this stuff...

[forgetmenot]

It was still enjoyable the second time, but I believe my own growth in writing and editing has altered my view a little.

Yeah this is sort of how it was for me as well. It's interesting to read this after having read some of BlackWaltz's later stuff (The Purest Form of Love being what comes to mind) recently, too. I suppose my gripes mostly come with the formatting. Italics for everything except dialogue? Really? It got so bad, whenever I tried to read regular print, for a few seconds afterwards it seemed to slant backwards to the left. The paragraphs aren't double-spaced, either, which lends momentary confusion whenever there's a lot of dialogue (which, really there isn't when you consider stuff like my Saki/Rika fic, which is mostly dialogue).

I also thought the inclusion of another Naomi Inoue was fun in it's own right. It's neat how something that was completely innocuous ended up almost being a massive blunder, only to be saved by a bit of lampshading halfway through the story. That was almost my favorite part of the entire work.

everything, and I mean everything, works out for him

I think this is more of a minor issue I have rather than anything huge. While it may not be my personal literary favorite to go from problem to solution to problem to solution linearly, for some reason it seems to work in this context. Mostly because, save for his kidneys, Katsuro's problems aren't really that huge. I think it may have been worse were it not for the inclusion of the car accident. In a fic that was otherwise light in tone and somewhat sappy, that came as quite the surprise to me. Its inclusion came at just the right place as well; Daisuke's bitchiness was nearing critical mass as far as what I can take from a character who is still supposed to be considered rational in some way.

A guitarist wearing a blindfold is definitely badass. Yamato is my favorite side character.

Hands down, yes.

Overall I quite enjoyed it. Both the first time and the second. I think now that I've spent a little more time in the depths of the fanfiction board, the flaws jump out at me a little more, but unlike some other stories I first read when I got here (*cough*KS: Bloodlines*cough*), they're not enough to severely detract from my enjoyment of the story. So I guess it stands the test of time.

[Velitation]

Ok, even though it technically isn't the 2nd for another 3 hours (PDT), I'll give my $0.02.

The strongest thing about >Σ is the characters.

The great thing about Katsuro is his daydreams. Really brings out what he values and his personality. Katsuro is a likable guy (maybe too much so), but the supporting cast drive the story better than he does.

I was disappointed that Seto had a fairly minor role, but it makes sense since that he was fairly one-dimensional from what we were shown of him. The same goes for the already established KS characters, where they don't hog the spotlight, which is good in this case.

Naomi, the love interest, is well written in regards to the complexity of her background (I wouldn't really accept much else, this is a KS fanfic after all haha). Likewise, Miko gives a dynamic to the story for a while.

The other supporting characters are pretty cool. Yamato reminded me of the late Jeff Healey. Daisuke defintely was the most multifaceted out of all of them, though.

As for the plot, I liked the intro, and the writing got progressively better at it went on. However, there was a point where I felt it was going well for too long. However, PLOT TWIST OUT OF LEFT FIELD. That definitely woke me up, even though I knew it was inevitable, haha. I really liked the follow-up chapter quite a bit; it definitely gave me a clear picture of the confusion that Katsuro was going through. However, Katsuro never really experiences complete pit-falls (or repercussions for his "bad" actions), like griffon8 and dewelar mentioned.

Overall, I liked the story and characters you developed BlackWaltz. Thanks for writing it.

[brythain]

I have to say that I liked the rock band idea a lot, and the plot (for me) revolved around it and its very fraught history.

The thing about OCs in KS fanfic is that my personal attitude (something still new, still evolving since I signed up three months and change ago) is that OCs need to be more embedded in the KS-verse's milieu to make them work for me. This is why an OC having a romance with Hisao or one of the other girls is easier for me to get into. Unusual pairings of existing characters are also easier to evaluate.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy >∑ (that arrangement of symbols looks like a dead angel, to me). I enjoyed it for the ride, the characters and their reversals and reverse-reversals. And the cool images of Springsteen and Sting that kept floating around at the edges of my consciousness while reading it.

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

Okay, here I go, rereading this first fic of mine from over two years ago. I actually haven't read it in its completed form as yet, so this'll be a relatively new experience. I anticipate much harsher criticism from myself than from others.

Firstly, DAT. FORMATTING. Jesus. Way to make people's eyes bleed. I see others have shared this sentiment.

What a great start. "Hi I am an OC and this is my first day (night) at Yamaku, isn't my joke about the word disabled le funny?" Going on to list pop culture and brand names for no good reason isn't much better. Man, as if it wasn't already obvious that this was a self-insert character. My god, the dialogue early on is cringeworthy. And is basically the start of Hisao's own story. Also, love birds, friendship and normality on his first day. Talk about contrived. Furthermore, Katsuro seems to have a paranoia about girls' bitchiness. Can anyone say *tips fedora*? In fact, Katsuro is kind of dick. I certainly wouldn't want to be reading the word "faggot" thrown around like it does. I'm even a little disappointed in myself for using such language so often.

Also in later chapters, Katsuro seems to act very genre-aware, which is probably due in part to me self-inserting my own metaknowledge into him. He is uncannily perceptive about some things and uncannily dense about others. It's kind of off putting. And then of course comes the crux of Naomi's conflict, which is infintely more off putting. It's like "hmm, how can I extract the most suffering and other emotional responses from readers as possible? Haha I know, CANCER!"

And to top it off, Katsuro acts like the perfect gentleman, to both Naomi and then Miko shortly thereafter, further reaffirming the status of his inner fedora. And he wears cargo shorts on a fucking date holy shit. Considering that he ends up getting his "rewards" for acting so nice, it reads like an idyllic fantasy. Also kissing and making out are not the same thing, goddamn. He is definitely a Gary Stu kind of character. I'm definitely not feeling the likeability of Katsuro's character that others seem to find.

And I keep reading these passages that look like some kind of weird attempt at humour. "Psychic flavour conversion"... real funny, that one. It happens again after talking to Sakura about Band Club. Later on, there are things that allude to Katsuro being aware of his thought processes being observed by others, in that he corrects himself for describing something poorly, etc.

There are also these nonsensical subplots that don't do anything, like with the StuCo early on and later the coma and practical joke and the phone. Why did I waste a good few thousand words on buying a new phone? Same for the cameos of the canon characters; I feel like they were meant to be these nice little nods but they seem really out of place.

Having reread this whole story, and seeing what just how little ties there are the Katawa Shoujo beyong the setting, I'm inclined to think this would have been better off taking that one extra step and making it an entirely original story altogether. The story would not lose anything in doing so. But, all things considered, for a first work of fiction it holds up reasonably well.

P.S., those h-scenes are as cringeworthy as the early dialogue. I'm glad I decided not to do one in The Purest Form of Love.

[Helbereth]

Having reread this whole story, and seeing what just how little ties there are the Katawa Shoujo beyong(sic) the setting, I'm inclined to think this would have been better off taking that one extra step and making it an entirely original story altogether. The story would not lose anything in doing so. But, all things considered, for a first work of fiction it holds up reasonably well.

I love how bipolar this paragraph is; you completely called your own story an utter failure at its directive, then announced that it "holds up reasonably well". That's like an EMT saying his heart attack victim died, but the funeral was nice.

Anyway, I still haven't read the story in question, but, after reading the reviews... I might have to look it up when I feel like administering some self-torture.

[Sea]

Well that was weird, hmmmmm
Anyhoo, We've covered every girl and even OC's but not so much the april fool's girls, so I've been looking around and so far as I know this is the only completed Rika route, and reading the Suzu route would take a hell of a long time.

Can You Open Your Heart? – Route by Rikabro (completed, 63,615 words)
PoV: Hisao; Pairings: Hisao X Rika; Begins: during Act 1
Remarks: sex, branching storyline

I'll say the meeting shall be on the 9th, good readings.

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, let's say there are certainly more torturous stories around.
I didn't reread it now, but I remember enjoying it when it came out.
Yes, there are some things that could be improved when looking at it as a whole, but there is a noticeable improvement in the writing as the story goes on, and that is an accomplishment all in itself.

I remember I didn't like the H-scene that much, but then that goes for 95% of all H scenes around here...

[AntonSlavik020]

Haven't read it yet(Rika smoking and her general attitude early on annoyed me greatly), but I'll give it another chance. Who knows, maybe it will surprise me.

[brythain]

I have a confession to make. Rikabro's piece was so powerful and moving (in most parts, not all, but I'll save that for later), that it was one of the 'kickstart' inspirations for my own writing here. In particular, these innocent-looking words from near the end: "As you’re no doubt aware, Mr. Nakai, the dream of Yamaku is not self-sustaining. It takes hard work and effort." What happens after the dream was what I wanted to know.

Thank you very much, Rikabro. The standards you achieved will remain some of my benchmarks for a long, long while to come.