Yamaku Book Club (20220124 Dish Washing)

[Blank Mage]

You could also revisit old fics, although obviously that's not preferable to some long-time residents. There are quite a few new members floating around, after all. Or suggest your own stuff. Because honestly, we could dedicate the club to your fics exclusively, and still not cover half of it.

I'm jealous of your creativity...

[brythain]

You could also revisit old fics, although obviously that's not preferable to some long-time residents. There are quite a few new members floating around, after all. Or suggest your own stuff. Because honestly, we could dedicate the club to your fics exclusively, and still not cover half of it.

Haha, I think they actually did me the honour of nominating Rin's Arc from AtD some months ago in the YBC (your name is on that ballot! Ha!). Also, quantity is not necessarily quality, as you know. A few times I've had to do complete rewrites of stuff that didn't come out right—I didn't see that, and it took a sane voice (each time a different one) from this forum to more or less yell, "Bollocks!" before I noticed. Lilly's Arc, in particular, felt uneven from the beginning.

Themed months could be interesting, for instance, whether they be by character (maybe keyed to the apocryphal character birthdays), by genre (maybe a whole month of crossover stories or something) or some other stylistic element (a month of nothing but prologue stories, or third-person PoV stories, or poetry, or parodies, or pumpkins or...well, um, whatever). The more I consider this idea, the more I like it. There's your suggestion from me !

You know, this could work. I'm going to pick a random theme for the next three pieces. However, anyone can PM me to suggest a theme that won't be so random. Let's give it a week before I put everyone at the mercy of Chaos.

[SirKaid]

For what it's worth I think it's valuable for us to occasionally review long and popular fics like the Akira and Suzu routes as well as short and less good fics. The former so that we can introduce them to people who haven't read them as well as pointing out things that worked well and fell flat, the latter so we can see things that could have been improved as well as finding diamonds in the rough.

That said doing either too frequently would probably be detrimental, so maybe once a month or so.

[brythain]

Perhaps building on the suggestions so far, we could do something like this: I'll attempt to clear my suggestion queue and add to it by proposing one long fic and a range of related fics for a quarter. Discussion begins a week or two into the quarter, using any of the fics that readers may have read (but spoiler-tagged if you're sensitive about certain things).

For example, we could do a Suzu quarter with the (in)famous one-and-only BIG pseudo-route, plus a few fics that are Suzu-related but not so long. Then Akira, or Rika, or whomever. PM me from now till the end of the month with a suggestion, and I'll order them based on votes received, failing which I'll draw lots or something. I'll alternate main char/side char order if there's a choice. I will also suggest an interim reading to tide us over till 31 May, and then start the new queue from 01 June.

Comments are most welcome, either here or as PMs.

[Oddball]

If we're going to do the super long route stuff, I'd recommend posting a starting date way in advance and then continuing to run the smaller one-shots up until that point.

[brythain]

If we're going to do the super long route stuff, I'd recommend posting a starting date way in advance and then continuing to run the smaller one-shots up until that point.

Perhaps 1 July begins the run-up? Then we can do Jul-Aug-Sep, Oct-Nov-Dec quarters.

[brythain]

Dear members,

This is the first of some very short reads.

Reunion (Shizune Bad-End One-Shot)

We'll meet some time in the week ahead, starting Monday 25 May 2015.

It looks very likely that we'll be exploring girls who people think should have had their own routes. More suggestions are always welcome.

[brythain]

Hi everyone, meeting is open!

Current story:

Reunion (Shizune Bad-End One-Shot)

All contributions welcome. We'll do a few more shorts and then launch a bigger 3-month arc. Carry on!

[Blank Mage]

Alright, let's get started, then.

A Shizune story! Bry, you shouldn't have. I have to say, this post-Bad End Shizune is almost exactly how I picture her in my head; she accepts all the blame and never thinks to question why, because she's certain that whatever happened, it must have been her fault. When it comes to matters of social interaction and empathy, she just assumes that she's in the wrong by default. Even in situations where she could have some positive influence, her usual confidence fails her, and she backs off. The writing itself was solid, as well.

It's the plot I don't particularly agree with. The timeline doesn't flow well, events seem kind of forced together, and Misha's note just doesn't have the tone you'd expect from someone writing their suicide note to the girl they love. Of course, your mileage may vary, and I know Misha has a history of handling her depression uniquely, but... I don't know. It just didn't have the emotional impact that it could have. I think it would have gone better if it was more of a cry for help, an underlying, quiet plea for Shizune to stop her, only reaching her after it's far too late. People on the verge of committing suicide don't change schools, or send normal mail the week prior. Even Misha can't fake cheer well enough to talk about her own death with that kind of positivity. It all just seems off.

This story is only okay, but I empathize heavily with Shizune in this scenario. I know what it's like to watch others suffer depression, and not know how to comfort them. I know how easy it is to hold yourself responsible when the people you love think you don't care, and all you can say is 'yeah I do', like an idiot. Nothing is worse than thinking you could have helped someone if you just knew how to express yourself better. (I think I've mentioned this before, so apologies for repeating myself. Don't commit suicide, folks. It sucks for everyone. Blank PSA over, sorry about that.)

[Puncyclopedia]

I share many of Blank Mage's thoughts on this, so I'll try to post here things that overlap less.

Shizune's bad ending (IMO) is probably the weakest ending in all of Katawa Shoujo, so I'm always going to be interested in works that take it on. This just doesn't feel like it can be read following the bad ending and the canon and this are coherent.

The overall concept of Misha killing herself, while depressing, has potential, but not as a one-shot. There's too much that needs to happen for the train of events depicted in the piece to be believable for a one shot, I think. The overall concept provides a way to answer a lot of questions that a player of Shizune's route asks and doesn't get answered (why, for example, didShizune reject Misha to begin with? There's a thousand possible reasons and all of them interact with the scenario differently.) I'm left asking why Misha killed herself, as the piece itself doesn't really give a good answer. Is it guilt over sleeping with Hisao and ruining her best friend's relationship? Is it lingering bad feelings from unrequited love? Both? Neither?

It's just a huge topic that the author takes on, and there's not enough meat on the bones of it.

[bhtooefr]

It really feels like the author was trying to go for the shock value of misdirection with the whole TWIST ENDING, and it comes off as rather cheap and disjointed in my opinion. The problem is, I'm pretty sure that a straightforward presentation of that story from Shizune's point of view wouldn't have an effective plot, it'd read as a description of something that happened, rather than a story. Misha's POV or a third-person POV might've saved the concept, though.

[Mahorfeus]

I have stated before my distaste with twist endings, particularly the kind that involve tossing in a single sentence that abruptly changes the context of the entire story. A proverbial punch to the gut, that makes one feel almost cheated. But never mind that for a moment. I want to talk about that fucking letter.

I mean, what the fuck? To be completely honest, I can see Misha committing suicide after Shizune's bad ending. She (and Hisao for that matter) had done something she deemed unforgivable, as a means of hurting the person she loved for some perceived sleight. I can see how that could push her into a downward spiral, starting with the transfer out of Yamaku. But the letter almost read as though she was specifically trying to hurt Shizune (and Hisao)... again. I'd think her leaving would be for the entire purpose of avoiding doing that again, because like Shizune, Misha is more or less convinced that everything was her fault. But here she basically sends her a message saying "Ha ha fuck you!" Knowing Shizune so well, she knows that she is going to blame herself for all of this, which could quite possibly send her on her own downward spiral. I agree that the basic concept has merit, but the hastiness of the piece to rush to that conclusion just makes the whole thing all the more fucked up.

[Path]

The first part got my interest to see Shizune's POV on the bad end and how it affected her and HIsao. It was interesting to see Hisao go to Lilly after the break up for support because Lilly is one of the few that know Shizune personally.

The letter though, I didn't even know that was suppose to be a suicide letter and thought of it as a "Dear John" sort of type. Afterwards, the story kind flet like Shizune was going to visit Misha at her school to talk, but that twist ending felt like a cheap hit to the readers to get some feels. It's not bad or good, just kind of underwhelming to me.

[dewelar]

Gah.

This worth the time and energy to point out its multitude of flaws. It made me hate everyone involved except Shizune and (maybe) Mutou, so there's that. Most of what I would say has already been said, but mainly this:

But the letter almost read as though she was specifically trying to hurt Shizune (and Hisao)... again. I'd think her leaving would be for the entire purpose of avoiding doing that again, because like Shizune, Misha is more or less convinced that everything was her fault. But here she basically sends her a message saying "Ha ha fuck you!" Knowing Shizune so well, she knows that she is going to blame herself for all of this, which could quite possibly send her on her own downward spiral. I agree that the basic concept has merit, but the hastiness of the piece to rush to that conclusion just makes the whole thing all the more fucked up.

Exactly.

[brythain]

Well, clearly my foray into the ancient underbelly of KS fanfic has borne low-hanging fruit. There are many others, but one question I'd like to ask is: when is a twist 'fair'? I'm not saying that feeling cheated by a blatant 'it was all a dream' or some such isn't legitimate; I would feel that too, especially if inexcusably OOC.