Yamaku Book Club (20220124 Dish Washing)

[brythain]

Any suggestions for the end of this month?

I have already begun shortlisting, but it's a lot better when the collective wisdom (or anti-wisdom) of the KS Forums fellowship comes together.

[Sharp-O]

Be honest; how many are along the lines of Hanako or Misha snapping and killing people?

[brythain]

Be honest; how many are along the lines of Hanako or Misha snapping and killing people?

You forgot Rin, how could you?!

[kaserkin]

Be honest; how many are along the lines of Hanako or Misha snapping and killing people?

You forgot Rin, how could you?!

What about Rika? She's all creepy, with her red eyes and pale skin.

[brythain]

Be honest; how many are along the lines of Hanako or Misha snapping and killing people?

You forgot Rin, how could you?!

What about Rika? She's all creepy, with her red eyes and pale skin.
http://shimmie.katawa-shoujo.com/image/3319.png

Ooh, that's a good point. Hmm.

[Oddball]

If we don't pick something soon, we're not going to have time to read it before Halloween.

Come on, Bry, give us what ya' got.

[brythain]

Okay, here's a trick-or-treat random collection, since people are getting impatient...

I am choosing only short stories. Little nibbles, if you like, on the collective meat of the KS corpus.
Some are simple, direct shockers. Some are effect pieces, writing exercises. Some are just odd.
You won't find Hoitash's sprawling comedy drama sequences, for example, or Megumeru's 'The Haunting'.
And none of them have been Book Club selections before.

Pearly Whites by Elroy (30 October 2009)
Thirteen Silver Chains by themocaw (02 April 2012)
Ghosts by brythain (22 July 2015)
Ghostbusted by brythain (29 February 2016)

Problem, as you can see, is that I haven't found much that hasn't already been done before (excluding a lot of malformed slasher fics with bad typos).

Come on, help us all out, you people!

[Alpacalypse]

Hey, Thirteen Silver Chains. I remember that fic - came across it a while back when I was going through the Library. I'm all for monster-hunting organisations showing up and kicking arse, especially if they've got a bit of a gothic feel to them, so this sort of thing was right up my alley. Shame it was only ever one chapter, really. A sprawling epic about the adventures of Kenji and Rika trying to maintain their cover and relationships while fighting off the hordes of darkness might have been fun.
Oh well, enjoyable nonetheless.

On the other hand, I'm going to echo the commenters on Pearly Whites and ask WTF Elroy was thinking when he wrote that. It feels like something straight off of 4Chan, honestly.
Where exactly did you find that, Bry?

[brythain]

Hey, Thirteen Silver Chains. I remember that fic - came across it a while back when I was going through the Library. I'm all for monster-hunting organisations showing up and kicking arse, especially if they've got a bit of a gothic feel to them, so this sort of thing was right up my alley. Shame it was only ever one chapter, really. A sprawling epic about the adventures of Kenji and Rika trying to maintain their cover and relationships while fighting off the hordes of darkness might have been fun.
Oh well, enjoyable nonetheless.

On the other hand, I'm going to echo the commenters on Pearly Whites and ask WTF Elroy was thinking when he wrote that. It feels like something straight off of 4Chan, honestly.
Where exactly did you find that, Bry?

I actually once read through every single piece in the fanfic section. I've now almost done that twice over.
The concept found in Pearly Whites is a common folkloric one—look at the list of citations in the Wikipedia article here.
I've always liked the idea of Kenji and Rika having a kind of professional friendship.

[Alpacalypse]

I'm familiar with vagina dentata, it's more the way it was written that evoked the 4Chan feel. Also, the fact that it was used in the first place.
Then again, now that I think about it, I probably shouldn't have been all that surprised, given where KS originated and all.

Also, I'm very impressed with the amount of free time you've managed to accumulate in the two years you've been on this site. Productively used, too

[WillDfly]

Pearly Whites: Vagina dentata is one of those concepts that are almost a commentary on itself (metafear?). It tells you more about the ones afraid then about the object of said fear. Right until the reveal, I was thinking of Misha as a succubus, which might be another idea to consider *plots popping*.

Thirteen Silver Chains: I'll add my voice to the other ones: would read/watch the hell out of this, either with the KS characters or not. Vampires are always nice to wreck too, and a different Kenji is also welcome.

Ghosts: Honestly, this is the odd one out for me. Though I can see having a spot for the more psychological horror, Sinistra would be a better fit. But that's just me. (fun fact: in portuguese, Halloween is called "witches' day")

Ghostbusted: This is my favourite. It plays more on the pagan new year's side of Halloween, when the barriers between life and death are thinner and loved ones may come to visit those they left behind, and I love me some paganism.

[kaserkin]

Thirteen Silver Chains is a fun story. The action is decent, and I like how Kenji and Rika's disabilities have been re-purposed to fit the tale. Rika and Kenji aren't two characters I'd usually associate, but their interactions are very nice here. The concept of the two of them being monster hunters has some potential, despite the chuuni factor involved in their powers

I've only skimmed through Pearly White to get a feel if it was worth a read, since the comments here kind of spoiled me the "twist", but I didn't like the writing very much and I didn't finish it. It's probably because of the use of the second person instead of the first or third, which would have been more suited in my opinion.

I don't have much to say about Ghosts, but I really enjoyed Ghostbusted the first time I read it when it was released, and I still like it. It is well written and engaging, and it made me a bit sad in a good, bittersweet way.

[brythain]

Okay, the list as it currently stands is now:

Pearly Whites by Elroy (30 October 2009)
Thirteen Silver Chains by themocaw (02 April 2012)
Ghosts by brythain (22 July 2015)
Ghostbusted by brythain (29 February 2016)
Sinistra by brythain (11 Jun 2016)
Night Terrors

It looks a lot like self-advertising, sadly. But I think it's because the really good ones have already been covered and the more recent ones are playing catch-up. I'm not joking: tales like Hoitash's 'Terror in the Night' and and FluffandCrunch's 'Whisky, Saki and other Spirits' have already passed our way. And Megumeru's 'The Haunting' is as yet incomplete. There are some zombie-KS mashup things and stuff like that, but they're mostly fragments. For those who might want to join in the search, I might have missed out some gems buried in long threads or even in other sub-forums; also, some people have collections of shorts and I might have skipped over some by accident.

[Oddball]

Sadly, pretty much anything I could think of to suggest was an unfinished work. While there's some good stuff in some of those, I hate judging them knowing that there's no conclusion. The story just stops.

I've read 13 Silver Chains and Sinistra and I feel they both suffer from the same problem. Rather than putting the characters into a horror situation to see what happens, they're turned into something else to better fit a horror world, and I think they equally suffer from that.

Sinistra I think was the more KS style story, but it took me longer to figure out what was going on.

Silver Chains, while it felt more like original fiction than KS work, still felt the more interesting read of the two. The story had far more ambition and character.

I'll post other thoughts when I read the rest of the stories over the next few days.

[Mirage_GSM]

Couldn't really get into Ghosts. For one thing the weird way everyone is talking is putting me off, for another the story seems disjointed with the attempt of putting it all together at the end not really working.
Ghostbusted was better in those regards, but I'm not really sure where it fits in chronologically. Lilly's recation doesn't really fit if it's supposed to be after her bad end.
Sinistra was the best of the three, but it could have done with a bit more exposition regarding the supernatural elements. Supernatural elements can work in Fanfiction (that's my opinion anyway) but if you deviate from the base seting to allow magic, there should be some basic explanation of how it fits in - and that's quite hard to do in a short story...
I remember Thirteen chains did a bit more exposition. I would have liked to read more form this scenario.

I refuse to reread Pearly Whites.