Developments (Post-Lilly NE) [Complete, 2015-08-11]

[Oscar Wildecat]

All of which has happened in the course of six days. Yeah, Hanako's grown quite a bit, but she still has a boatload of insecurities, and she's got major trust issues that she's only just begun to reckon with. Add to that that, during the course of this story, she's been having nightmares about Lilly taking Hisao away from her, and...well, you get the picture .

It actually makes sense, given that Catastrophic Thinking is a trait present in PTSD (as well as other anxiety disorders).

While we need to see a Hanako chapter to know for sure, I would speculate that the following scenario is what took place:

- We know how Hisao reacted to his spat with Hanako in Chapter 46 -- he joined Yoshi and got drunk on Noriko's Seaweed Juice while Yoshi got ...well... ahem. ANYWAY, I would imagine that while this was happening, Hanako was in her room worried sick both about losing Lilly (literally and figuratively) and now Hisao (just figuratively).
- The next morning, she calls and Noriko -- who she dislikes and distrusts -- answers the phone.
- I would say Hanko's initial reaction would have been "WTF?!?" However, based on her history with bullying and betrayal by close friends, the catastrophic thinking starts kicking in. So over the course of the next few hours Hanako talks herself from merely a "WTF" moment to living in a reverse Mendācium scenario where Hisao was seduced away by someone with flawless skin and superior sexual prowess.
- This leads Hanako to seek support from the person who she has always seen as her closest ally, Lilly.

Now lets look at what Lilly said that set off the Hanabomb:

I think Lilly started on the right track by asking Hanako to clarify what it is that she was thinking. However, she started to derail with this statement:

"Hanako, do you really think that little of Hisao? After everything you've been through together, that something like this would cause him to seek comfort from Yoshimura? Is that something that you honestly believe Hisao would do?"

- Challenging the evidence is a good way of combating a catastrophic thought. However, the way Lilly does this sounds accusatory -- as if she thinks that Hanako is making up the scenario out of whole cloth.
- I would imaging that, at this point, Hanako is thinking, "Why isn't Lilly siding with me? What's going on?"
- Then Lilly says:

"Hanako, I know this is going to sound bad, so please don't get angry at what I'm about to say. If you really think Hisao would treat you like that, that he would behave that way, then maybe...maybe you're not ready for the kind of relationship you want to have with Hisao."

- Take this statement, add in her pre-existing worries about her relationship with Lilly, multiply it by a number of unfortunate statements made in the past, and Hanako has with what she thinks is the answer. Lilly is betraying her as well.
- Let the accusations fly!

[Blasphemy]

Eesh, looks like my Hanako ship took a torpedo. I'm with Lilly, Hisao has always and ever been a gentleman, and Hanako assuming he ditched the lot of them for a one night stand borders on idiot-ball. Of course, people do funny things when they're as stressed as she is, so I'll just have to hope for the best. It seemed like yesterday that Hanako was an emotional anchor for a distraught Emi. Now Emi is better than she's been in weeks and Hanako's a wreck.

It's easy to see it from that view, given what you know as the reader, both in what actually happened, and what Hisao's internal thoughts are on it. Imagine that from the outside view. Known promiscuous girl answering guy's phone in the early morning, clearly hungover/waking up from having slept at least near him. Given the dorms and bed situation, that likely means same bed. Cmon now.

I agree. Especially given who Yoshimura is it's obvious what comes to mind first. Even on a second thought it's just kind of hard to come up with a reasonable scenario where she'd be groggily answering Hisao's phone in the morning. The actual explanation would appear rather random anyways. "Yeah we just wanted to get drunk...in my room because the others invited themselves and I felt like I couldn't say no. Oh yeh and once drunk they happened to fuck but I was asleep by then so whatever."

Considering Hanako's fears about staying behind due to her lack of sexual experience and what not her reaction seems understandable.

[Silentcook]

Obviously,

I just wanted to comment that if you felt the need to post that note, perhaps it's not quite so obvious...

[Thranduil_01]

Perhaps this has been asked before. Are you planning to make Developments partially user-interactive in the sense that there will be decisive decisions to make like in KS actual, or is this going to be a story with one ending? I understand that this might be asking for too much...

[Vempele]

All of which has happened in the course of six days.

To us, Lilly returned on March 15, nearly half a year ago. Weird, I didn't think I'd started reading this story until relatively recently, but I clearly remember having waited for that update.

Incidentally, how many words has it been since then?

[dewelar]

Obviously,

I just wanted to comment that if you felt the need to post that note, perhaps it's not quite so obvious...

Matching pedantry with pedantry :

I believe that Hanako's level of stress is being ratcheted up is obvious. What may not be so obvious are (a) the amount of ratcheting, (b) the pace of ratcheting, and (c) whether those, taken together, are sufficient to explain Hanako's actions without resorting to claims that it's bordering on Idiot Ball carrying, thus my post .

Perhaps this has been asked before. Are you planning to make Developments partially user-interactive in the sense that there will be decisive decisions to make like in KS actual, or is this going to be a story with one ending? I understand that this might be asking for too much...

Yeah, it was asked before (way back when the chapters still numbered in the single digits, I think, so I can't really blame you for missing it ), but there will be no decision points in this story.

All of which has happened in the course of six days.

To us, Lilly returned on March 15, nearly half a year ago. Weird, I didn't think I'd started reading this story until relatively recently, but I clearly remember having waited for that update.

Incidentally, how many words has it been since then?

Hmmm...I haven't done an actual word count, but Lilly's return was in Ch.36, and there have been 13 chapters released since then. I would guess that would be about 70-80K words.

[Vempele]

Hmmm...I haven't done an actual word count, but Lilly's return was in Ch.36, and there have been 13 chapters released since then. I would guess that would be about 70-80K words.

Reminds me of the webcomic Freefall: IIRC it was recently stated (on the same in-comic day or close to it) that it had only been a month. After 16.5 years, the comic is at 2546 strips. The current day started nearly 300 strips ago, and it's still morning.

[bhtooefr]

It actually makes sense, given that Catastrophic Thinking is a trait present in PTSD (as well as other anxiety disorders).

I... didn't realize there was a term for that, but I do that, and I can totally see where Hanako is coming from here. Shit, my worst anxiety is in romantic situations, and if genders were reversed and I was in Hanako's shoes, I'd probably be worse off than her...

[Oscar Wildecat]

I... didn't realize there was a term for that, but I do that, and I can totally see where Hanako is coming from here. Shit, my worst anxiety is in romantic situations, and if genders were reversed and I was in Hanako's shoes, I'd probably be worse off than her...

After ten years in cognitive behavior therapy for my own anxiety disorder, I've learned to recognize many of the common cognitive distortions, at least in myself.

[Mirage_GSM]

Hope that helps make things a bit clearer.

Oh it's clear alright...
Just because it's understandable why she feels that way, it doesn't mean she's any more ready for being in a relationship.
A partner who's prone to catastrophic thinking is a bad partner to be with...

And rationally she has little reason to be afraid of Noriko as a rival and even less so for Lilly. The only one she doesn' seem to be mad at at the moment is Emi who currently seems to have the best chances of scoring with Hisao.

[Mahorfeus]

What bothers me the most is the hypocrisy. Did she go to Lilly because she genuinely wanted advice, or because she just wanted her to say what she wanted to hear? However rough and poorly worded Lilly's statement was, Hanako's reaction to it only served to prove a point. She chose to confide in someone who she does not trust about someone she does not trust, and blew up when things did not go her way. Never mind that she went behind Lilly's back and exposed to Hisao that she still had feelings for him. If he did not know that, if she did not know that, she would not have as much of a reason to be so damned paranoid to begin with.

She has doubts about Hisao, yet the moment she believes that Lilly is trying to sabotage her, she immediately reaffirms her interest in pursuing him. I'm inclined to agree with those that think she may only be in this to affirm her own self-worth.

[LilyKitsune]

What bothers me the most is the hypocrisy. Did she go to Lilly because she genuinely wanted advice, or because she just wanted her to say what she wanted to hear? However rough and poorly worded Lilly's statement was, Hanako's reaction to it only served to prove a point. She chose to confide in someone who she does not trust about someone she does not trust, and blew up when things did not go her way. Never mind that she went behind Lilly's back and exposed to Hisao that she still had feelings for him. If he did not know that, if she did not know that, she would not have as much of a reason to be so damned paranoid to begin with.

She has doubts about Hisao, yet the moment she believes that Lilly is trying to sabotage her, she immediately reaffirms her interest in pursuing him. I'm inclined to agree with those that think she may only be in this to affirm her own self-worth.

I'm sure as far as the "going behind Lilly's back" thing is concerned, she surely saw it the opposite way. If Lilly was truly intetested, how selfish would it be to keep that information from him, when he may still hold feelings for her? If that's who he wants, and she knows he is who Lilly wants, how awful of a person would she be getting in their way? This is rationalized similarly with Emi. Her view is that she wants it to be fair. I know that sounds odd, but from that perspective, it makes more sense that she would break down when it seemed Lilly wanted her to back off. She may have ruined her chances doing what she thought was the most fair, and then she's being asked to back off? She had the same opportunity to keep Lilly backed off, but she didn't want to do that because it wouldn't have felt like the right thing to do to her best friend and love interest.

As far as why she spoke to Lilly, it's possible she was just trying to recreate the same situation she's likely used to. Something happens, she talks to Lilly about it. In the tea room, no less. I'm so curious for real answers from the author, though x.x

[dewelar]

I'm so curious for real answers from the author, though x.x

Hopefully, you will find them over the course of the next few chapters . There will be a Hanako PoV chapter soon, after all...

[cake307]

What bothers me the most is the hypocrisy. Did she go to Lilly because she genuinely wanted advice, or because she just wanted her to say what she wanted to hear? However rough and poorly worded Lilly's statement was, Hanako's reaction to it only served to prove a point. She chose to confide in someone who she does not trust about someone she does not trust, and blew up when things did not go her way. Never mind that she went behind Lilly's back and exposed to Hisao that she still had feelings for him. If he did not know that, if she did not know that, she would not have as much of a reason to be so damned paranoid to begin with.

She has doubts about Hisao, yet the moment she believes that Lilly is trying to sabotage her, she immediately reaffirms her interest in pursuing him. I'm inclined to agree with those that think she may only be in this to affirm her own self-worth.

I'm inclined to agree with Mahorfeus here. IT feels like Hanako is feeding her own predisposition of distrust- partly because she doesn't have a lot more options possibly, but certainly part of it is that somewhere subconsciously she suspects Lilly will appease her. Of course, that would probably have been just as bad (if not worse) than Lilly hitting Hanako with the truth. At least now Hanako may take some time alone to consider what she really wants out of her relationships with Hisao, Lilly, and Emi. Whether or not she's still going to be in the running is going to depend on the answer there- and if it's honest. I don't expect it will be honest though, as Hanako has always seemed like someone who has trouble looking deep into herself and trying to figure out what to do for herself.

[brythain]

I'm so curious for real answers from the author, though x.x

Hopefully, you will find them over the course of the next few chapters . There will be a Hanako PoV chapter soon, after all...

Nooooooooooo.... just as I was recovering from post-developments stress disorder...