Leaty wrote:
That's a very strong criticism, one I haven't heard before, and one I can't effectively argue with.
I honestly don't know that I would have written those scenes if I were starting this story today—in a sense, I probably could have time-skipped all the way to Scene Six and covered them with a bit of delicate exposition—but on the other hand, if I had done so, I don't know that the story could have gone in the direction I eventually took it. The pregnancy thing, for example, would indeed probably have been a great bomb later on in the story, but by sacrificing it at the front end, I felt the story would garner a more sublime feeling of hopelessness than the VN had; I wanted to thoroughly subvert that expectation early on that, as in canon, our protagonist would be gradually smoothed out over the course of falling in love with someone. Unlike Hisao at this stage, Iwanako is a person who genuinely expects to die alone—she believes that finding that kind of love is not merely unlikely, but completely impossible. She's not even open to the possibility of romance anymore, because she feels that she's been taken permanently out of play.
I think that's a fair argument, really. Sorry for not getting to this sooner, also - I've been behind on everything outside of work, including my own fic which I desperately need to get back to. I'm going to do my best to catch up on this as well.
It's odd, but I think that in trying to cement Iwanako's hopelessness, you make her feel to me somehow less so. Katawa Shoujo was my first visual novel. I didn't know a lot about the medium going in, so I didn't know a lot of the conventions. Hell, I didn't even know if Hisao would end up with anyone (he didn't on my first run through because I had no idea what was going on.) Hisao felt utterly hopeless to me, and I think it's in large part because of just how minimalist those early scenes are. Iwanako, by contrast, feels more personalized and fleshed out. As empty inside as she is, from the outside looking in, it sort of...seems better than it is, as opposed to Hisao, who both feels and looks from outside like a husk to me.
I'm still getting up to the points where your work and decisions are going to pay off, though, so I'm going to hold off on more detail on that until I see how things are going.
Your mileage may vary, and probably will. I'll read up on everything I've missed in the coming days and try to provide more current thoughts as I go.
Characters: Shizune > Lilly > Rin > Emi > Hanako
Routes: Lilly > Rin > Shizune > Hanako > Emi
Replaying now, so subject to flux. Except Shizune. Shizune is best.
LordDarknus wrote:(Either way, Brythain will probably "Send in the Klounens" later. At some point.)
(...maybe)
No, no... That's Kroenen. Way different thing altogether.
Kroenen the Barbaryan?
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end. Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga. "Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
"You're an inferior species! What could you know about taste?
You get excited by a pile of trash on a plate!"
An interstellar dolphin who had quit his boring, voyeuristic day-job belts out the lyrics to a ranting rap song. His protestations are immediately countered by some talking sea gulls in answering rap.
They continue arguing on the tv, while Daidouji watches, still hunched and resting her chin in her folded arms over the countertop, now with more tiny umbrellas adorning her hair, a new red one between her lips, and some scattered around and planted in the empty Lipovitan bottles.
Kroenen has joined her, and is hunched over in the same fashion, wearing his uniform and mask, and is surrounded by Nazi-minded owls, perched on his shoulders and all about the bar counter, all watching intently as the sea gulls finish singing their inane song.
Daidouji's doppelganger stares quietly at the tv, sitting upright amidst the chaos of owls and multicoloured cocktail umbrellas.
Suddenly, one of the Nazi owls asks, "What would you call Kroenen's theme, if he were the one to attend Yamaku Academy in Hisao's place?"
The other owls all blinked and started pondering...
"Cold Aryan!" she said.
Slowly, the owls all started laughing in screeching hoots, their clamour rising to an unbearable cacophony.
Kroenen, Daidouji and the doppelganger remain completely indifferent and motionless.
As the ear-piercing noise finally dies down, another owl asks, "I thought it was pronounced AIR-ree-yan?"
No one answers...
The doppelganger finally speaks, "This is off-topic."
After a while, Iron Man appears, and walks up to the bar and joins them. He says, "Hey Iwanakos, and Kroenen and friends! While you guys were busy having heart troubles and attending Yamaku in my stead, I was off fighting aliens and monsters attacking our Earth!"
"... What do you mean, 'In your stead', Mister Iron Man?" the fourth wall-breaking Iwanaklone asks.
"Mister Iron Man" opens his helmet, and Hisao is revealed underneath.
"WHHHHHHAAAA-?" everyone shouts out, eyes wide with shock.
Er, sorry to interrupt, but can we drag this back to a semblance of normality...?
This thread is starting to get a bit... Stanely Parable Adventure Line.
And we're back.
-----------
"I wish I could convey to you just how socially inept I am, but I can't."
"I think you just did."
"No, I really, truly haven't."
Right, still catching up. It's been a while since I read these chapters. I had forgotten how intriguing Molly's behavoir is, even in these early phases of the story. I can't lie; I wanna read into it. But we're here to talk about Iwanako.
These more recent chapters introduce another major change from Hisao; Iwanako lacks his easy going acceptance and dry humor. The comic stoicism he portrays with the Council Duo and Kenji is replaced by bewilderment and almost fear. Particularly with Momomi, we see that Iwanako doesn't have the flexibility Hisao does at the start of his school year. It adds to the idea that Iwanako simply isn't equipped to deal with her situation.
She also continues to accentuate the negative, speculating that people might already have guessed her issues, and are gossiping about her. No matter who she talks to, she never seems sure enough of herself to do anything but react, and not well, either. She really is more like a combination of Lilly on the outside, Hanako on the inside.
And we're back.
-----------
"I wish I could convey to you just how socially inept I am, but I can't."
"I think you just did."
"No, I really, truly haven't."
Life in a canteen
Molly's persistent niceness
Yet alienation
Scene Eight:
The swimsuit returns
Student Council foreshadows
A pleasant lesson
Scene Nine:
Coffee and a dog
Doorway communication
Antipathy shines
Scene Ten:
Dark classroom mirrors
Amethyst hope lies hidden
Emerald death strikes
=====
This week we could read Scenes 11-14, for a Monday discussion, perhaps?
Next week Scenes 15-18 will bring us up to the present day. Discussion can continue into August.
Thanks!
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end. Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga. "Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
August reading will begin with secondary character Mutou, and the main-cast character pairing that goes with him has two possibilities, I think:
a) We can pair him with Hanako Ikezawa—she's the first of the five main girls whom Hisao notices when he walks into class on that fateful Monday morning. Suggestions for readings are welcome, but we won't revisit works already discussed. Since Hanako is a major character, she'll take up much of September as well; her interactions with other characters in fanficdom are many and various.
b) We can pair him with Shizune and/or Misha — they're the next main-cast characters to 'come online' in the game.
Whichever option we pick, the other secondary-cast character after Mutou will be Miki, whom Hisao notices twice in the first few minutes of his life in 3-3.
So it's Hanako OR Shizune/Misha, AND Mutou-then-Miki. Further suggestions for scheduling are always welcome. PM me so as not to clutter the thread, or discuss the scheduling here.
Back to Iwanako now!
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end. Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga. "Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
I always watch them when they enter my office. Especially Holden. How they walk in frequently tells you what kind of session you’re going to have. It was easy with him, usually. When he uses his slink, it means he figured out a new way to try to piss me off. When he shuffles, that means he’s feeling sorry for himself.
Today, I couldn’t tell. He bounced in, shot me a big grin, and piped up, “Hiya, Herbie!” I just smiled. We established long ago that my name isn’t Herbert and also that he didn’t particularly care – to him, I’m Herb. “Herbie” was new… either he was genuinely in a good mood, or trying out some new irritant.
The standard process is to ask them to rate their feelings on a scale from one to ten – appetite, initiative, anxiety, and so forth. Holden always says he’s a five. When he’s being slinky, sometimes he adds decimal places – his anxiety is 5.375, and so forth. This time, when I asked about his appetite, he said it was 3.1412. I was way ahead of him on this one, so I asked if he wanted apple or blueberry. We grinned at each other; that happens maybe four times a year.
“How are you doing this week,” I asked… conversationally. I try to do that anyway, but I didn’t want to spoil whatever was going on – we were on some kind of roll.
“Screw that. I want to talk about the story.”
“Uh, okay. You actually read the chapters I asked you to?”
“Are you kidding me? I read the whole thing. I went back and read the chapters I was supposed to read before, and then I read ahead. Iwanako is fantastic.”
“Wow.” I knew he hadn’t read the material before, so I was astounded. He actually pronounced the name correctly – last week, it was “Wookienako, or whatever”.
He pushed the hunter’s cap back on his head. “Is she real?”
“Who, Iwanako? I don’t think there’s anybody by that name running around doing what the story says, but yeah, I think some of it’s real. I mean, the author has put in a lot of terrific detail, so it’s coming from somewhere.”
He leaned forward in his chair and grinned again. “Yeah. Gotta be. Old Iwanako – she knows. She isn’t a phony, unless she wants to be.”
“What is it she knows, Holden?”
“All that stuff she’s talking about, that’s what’s she knows. Like the parent things, I mean her parents and my parents could form a club, the goddam Missing Persons Society or something. Mothers are all slightly insane. And the teachers. That Mutou, boy, did he depress me! I don't mean he was a bad guy- he wasn't. But you don't have to be bad guy to depress somebody- you can be a good guy and do it.”
“Un-hunh. And what do you mean she’s only phony when she wants to be?”
“Come on, everybody is. I mean, I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.”
“So when she gets talked into helping with the paint or doing the makeup or trying to work with Shizune, that didn’t strike you as phony?”
“Well, sure. But she didn’t know what she was in for. The first time, you go along with things. Besides, that Rin is frigging clever. It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to. Once Iwanako figured it out, she avoided it.”
“You mentioned Shizune. True enough, she and Iwanako didn’t like each other at first, but then she wrote the note…”
“Boy, that note. She just made it goddam clear that she was more worried about the school than Iwanako.”
“No, wait. Read the note again. I thought it was clear that she did care about Iwanako, even though they didn’t like each other initially. I mean, she didn’t have to send the note at all.”
“Nah, the Student Council there is just like the ones at my schools. They get somebody in who’s good at it. If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don't watch it, you start showing off. And then you're not as good any more.”
“So you think Yamaku is like the schools you attended?”
“You ought to go to a boys' school sometime. Try it sometime. It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques.”
“So there’s no difference between Yamaku and your schools?
“Well, there’s one. I like to be somewhere at least where you can see a few girls around once in a while, even if they're only scratching their arms or blowing their noses or even just giggling or something.”
“What did you think about the ‘Bathory’ chapter?”
“Jesus, that was the best part. I would have taken the needle out of my arm and stabbed her with it a few times.”
“Well, our time is about up,” I sighed. Well, I had gotten a reaction. I had gotten lots of enthusiasm, so much that he missed the point of the story. But that’s about average for him I guess. Or maybe I’m missing it.
He rose from the chair. “Hey, so where’s the rest of the story?”
“Not written yet, Holden.”
His face fell. “So there’s no ending?”
“Not yet.”
“Too bad. What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”
Bravo, Monsieur Fardels. Whatever is going on in here, we have a Book Club where people write reviews in fanfic form. I should compile them into a separate thread. The Iwanako Lonely Characters Hearts Club Band or something.
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end. Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga. "Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Damn, and here I was hoping to write a fic reviewing a review fic reviewing the Book Club's review of it's own comments.
Acheivement Unlocked: You Br0<r t~ '''''a^3
DISC FAULT
And we're back.
-----------
"I wish I could convey to you just how socially inept I am, but I can't."
"I think you just did."
"No, I really, truly haven't."
