Mendācium (Hanako) - Version 1.1.1

[BobBobberson]

Apparently she's able to lie about quite a bit in this story.

Well Hisao didn't have any cause to question her about any possible cheating. If he had a source (Say Kenji saw Hanako and that guy whose name I forgot already kissing in the city or something) and he came to Hanako about it, I'm sure she would've spilled her guts. A lot of people can pretend they're not cheating if they're never confronted about it.

eh, if that's the case, she's just full on crazy and the eventual outcome of the relationship is cpl_crud's bizarro yandere ending for her

And sorry about the off-topicness, but can I get a link to that yandere ending? Seems interesting.

[Brogurt]

On the bad side; from your comment,s you seem to not have intended to emphasis the sex as much, but you sure seem to mention it quite a bit. Maybe if you talked more about what else she got out of that relationship and less about how much she enjoyed the sex, your intentions on those scenes would be clearer.

Would it be a dick move for me to say that doing so would negate too many of the NTR-related feels and redeem her a little too much?

Hanako is suddenly confident and sure about her self enough to cheat on Hisao on a regualr basis

That's not true anymore. And Hanako knows that her stutter is back too. It wasn't just a method for me to differentiate their dialogue.

Hisao's narration talks about how angry he is, but it never shows up in any of his actions.

There was a line in Part 2 where I tried to address this by saying that it's hard for him to act angry with her because of how "submissive and utterly dismal she's become" after the incident. Once again, I guess these things just aren't sticking. Or perhaps people aren't agreeing with the sentiment at all due to how straightforward she's being with the facts. It's not like I can know unless I'm told.

>The final paragraph
Shit, maybe I'll get back to you later on this, because it looks kind of like a blanket statement and I hate trying to respond to those


Sorry I'm so slow on replying everyone

[Brogurt]

Apparently she's able to lie about quite a bit in this story.

I don't recall writing any flat-out lies within the story. Only the stuff prior to it like the Newspaper Club and all that shit. And something else, but that -while not particularly important to the plot- is for another time. I made sure that she would tell the truth whenever questioned so that it would show a desire to repair things with Hisao, instead of feeding more lies into the architecture of their relationship.

[nemz]

We're supposed to believe that Hisao is somehow inadequate for her, despite the fact that he's invested more in her than any other person on the planet? We're supposed to believe that she'd just cheat on him without discussing whatever it is that's bothering her? We're supposed to believe he feels guilty about what happened to her, when she betrayed him instead of talking to him about it?
(...)
but instead they're presented as rational actors, and that just makes the story laughable.

Ah, on this point I differ with you because I don't really see them being rational, which in turn makes it rather more believable to me. Hisao has been deep in stonewall/denial mode (as he did at the beginning of the game) while Hanako is falling back to the relative safety of the passive timid girl, even though she hates it. Given the situation this rings true for me, despite my many comments complaining about it. The fact that the story frustrates me so deeply is evidence of it's quality.

Hisao's level of investment doesn't mean he isn't still falling short of her needs (though it's her job to tell him so). Hanako's history of pushing others out and fleeing a situation when she doesn't know how to deal with it leads me to think her sexual escapism isn't entirely unfounded for her charecter. Hisao's feeling guilty about the situation can be read as him grasping at straws for something to focus on beyond truely blaming her, because he really is that desperate, and blaming her explicitly would force him to act.

How would you (and anyone else here) respond to a prequel to Mendacium? A series of short stories detailing how things began to fall apart, and showing how Hisao was ignorant to the fact, as opposed to me trying to tell the reader that things haven't all been well and expecting them to believe it.

I don't think so... doing so would be burying the hook and make the whole work weaker. Instead you could add more detail to Hisao's wandering mind in chapter 1, perhaps with him hoping to use the planned date to make up for the argument they had the night before about her spending so much time with the newspaper club, or his annoyance that she was getting dressed up and heading to the city and didn't want him along because it was 'girls night' or something. Maybe even have him thinking about a new 'trick' he heard about from one of they guys (or Miki?) that he was hoping to try out that evening to spice up their sex a little. Things like that would help sell it.

If you're going to expand the story I believe you'd be better off following the NTR trend and writing a companion piece from Hanako's perspective... or maybe even a prologue from Tenshi's POV? Anything to give us a new window into things with a different 'mental filter' so that there's less inherent bias.

[Bagheera]

How would you (and anyone else here) respond to a prequel to Mendacium? A series of short stories detailing how things began to fall apart, and showing how Hisao was ignorant to the fact, as opposed to me trying to tell the reader that things haven't all been well and expecting them to believe it.

I don't think it would address the central problems with the premise, which are threefold:

1. Hanako resorts to cheating without talking to Hisao about her problems with him;

2. Hanako lies about what she's doing for months, and by all appearances would have continued to do so indefinitely had she not been raped and abandoned;

3. Both parties are attempting to repair the relationship when it's been established that they're incompatible and basic trust is gone.

Given what's already been established in the story I don't think a prologue would do anything to resolve these. If you massively rewrote the story to address these points then . . . maybe? But I'd still be left with wondering why things should continue given point three; it's not impossible that they might try out of desperation, but the basic issues there are irreconcilable based on what you've given us so far.

[BlackRockHanako]

I think a prequel could be interesting, particularly a part showing Hanako meeting Tenshi and all his efforts to woo her - I know you mention that he bought her lots of gifts and other stuff, and i'm not suggesting a scene like this to say, 'Oh my god what woman could refuse him! Surely it's not Hanako's fault at all!' But, well, I just think more insight on the sweet nothings and manipulative confident boosters he drip fed her would be interesting in relation to the story and justify Hanako's actions a bit more.

I also think a part showing the relationship's cracks before all this (like you said), and showing Hisao happy in his mind to gloss them all over in thinking that he 'rescued' Hanako (despite that he shouldn't really be thinking this anymore) and so she'll now be with him forever without him having to make too much effort on her behalf, or something along these lines would make his reaction more believable/bearable.

Also for what it's worth, I'm not the best writer myself (at all, really), but this story *was* well written, and with a bit of refinement the music system you implemented could work very well too (I think the only problem now is that maybe it changes a bit too often, which can occasionally break the flow of the story if you're concentrating on opening and closing tabs.)

Just my thoughts, and I'm sorry about my dick comments earlier, dunno what came over me. Believe me when I say i'm looking forward to the conclusion

[Silentcook]

You're kinda late with your condom disposal, mate.

[Brogurt]

You're kinda late with your condom disposal, mate.

For a while I forgot to have a line mentioning its disposal at all. This means he was technically wearing it through all of Part 4.

[Silentcook]

Har. Har. Har.

So you mean that Hisao carrying along (or keeping on) his used rubber all the way to his room is intentional. Takes all kinds, I guess.

[Brogurt]

I can certainly change it, but I thought that making him dispose of it when he got to his room would be more indicative of the fact that his mind was on other things immediately post-coitus, and that disposing of it would be analogous to his crazy epiphany or whatever you'd like to call it.

[nemz]

Could be taken as as a sign of severe mistrust... if he left a baggie of swimmers in her trash what's to stop her from fishing it out and knocking herself up without his consent? Sure it's crazy, but Kenji would applaud his efforts to deny the feminists more soldiers.

[MeatBag]

Off topic, but I love your avatar BobBobberson. Saya no Uta was amazingly awesome imo.

[Brogurt]

Part 4 is now up. Enjoy~

[advicefrog]

I feel like i just played through hana's route again.

FEELS

[nemz]

Nope, in the end I just don't buy it. You tipped over the edge from drama into melodrama and gave us a rehash of Lilly's bullshit ending because you didn't have the balls to really kill her.

Much better in my mind if in the end he really didn't know her well enough anymore to know where she'd go, and his race to the roof was pointless. Instead she took a bus to the city, rented a specific room in a specific hotel, then leapt from the balcony like she probably feels she should have done weeks ago rather than letting Hisao ever suffer the full weight of her betrayal. The cold, shining city is where she really lived and where she should die, not the warm safe nest of the school.