Yamaku Book Club (20220124 Dish Washing)

[brythain]

An interesting item I'd like to float for now: is it because Shizune has one conspicuously missing parent (as opposed to the rest, whose parents—alive or dead—are either fully present or fully absent) that that parent becomes so very important in defining her? Is it better to have that parent in a fanfic or to leave completely missing?

Edit: in the interests of full disclosure sans spoileres, the missing parent appears in AtD in quite somebody else's arc, briefly.

[dewelar]

Regarding the Misha discussion (since I missed it ), For Want of a Nail is a conundrum for me. Whenever I try to read it, I'll be getting into the parts involving Misha and/or Shizune, and then I'll hear a needle scratch in my head whenever I get to a part where other characters come into the picture. Quite frankly, most of them are caricatures. I found both Rin and Emi so far OOC as to make them unrecognizable at times, and Lilly wasn't much better. I find the good Professor to be generally intelligent and insightful, but it appears she only has a good handle on certain characters.

I'm not terribly certain how to respond to this. On the one hand, I will readily concede that I've spent more thought on Shizune and Misha than the other girls; on the other, I don't feel it would be spoiling much to note that, to some extent, they're supposed to be caricatures.Take into account the canon routes - you don't get terribly much of a picture of the other girls, and it's mostly the obvious and superficial traits. The less you know of someone, the more likely you are to categorize and caricature them. That's not to say that this natural tendency is an excuse to do whatever you want with characters; I was under the impression that, insofar I was making caricatures of characters, they were, for lack of a better term, "accurate" caricatures. Either way, I'd certainly appreciate continued/more detailed feedback on that concern (by PM or in the thread itself would be ideal, methinks).

Ah, I think you've hit on my issue here: I didn't consider the possibility of the characters being caricatures of themselves intentionally. It does make for quite the contrast, having your central characters feel real while the peripheral ones are drawn in a more exaggerated fashion. It's still not my cup of tea, but I think I now have a better grasp on where you were aiming.

[brythain]

So far we've had Hisao—Iwanako—Mutou—Hanako—Misha—Shizune (the last two still within our discussion focus). Bold indicates Hisao's love interests.

I'm suggesting we do Kenji—Lilly—Yuuko—Emi—Nurse—Rin over the eight weeks from beginning of November to Christmas. Then from Christmas into 2016 we'll discuss large-scale ensemble works with dewelar's Developments as the top-of-the-slate example. The sequence is roughly that in which Hisao encounters people, adjusted for variety and also to alternate between his love interests in the VN and the supporting cast.

From about mid-January 2016, we'll head towards Valentine's Day by looking at pseudo-routes involving characters such as Miki (who has a small role in the VN) and Akira. I think that would be followed by discussions on other supporting characters, alternating with characters who are in the VN but unnamed (such as Suzu and Natsume). For April, we'll look at Saki and Rika, because that's when they were 'born'. I'd like to find a space for OCs as well.

These are just musings. Anyone is welcome to suggest different topics or a different order, and I'd be very happy if such a thing happened!

Now... back to Shizune (and/or Misha)!




Edit: One possibility considered so far was squeezing Miki in and shifting Rin to January. But that seems odd, displacing a main route because of a route that didn't make the final cut. Suriko's Summer's Clover, and Suzu, would be the main highlights of a Miki round. However, what can be done is to arrange it for 19 Feb, since that's Miki's birthday.

[Oddball]

You left out Akira. I'd actually do her next, and then move into Lilly.

I'd also put Yuuko and Kenji next to each other, since there's going to be some overlap.

[brythain]

You left out Akira. I'd actually do her next, and then move into Lilly.

I'd also put Yuuko and Kenji next to each other, since there's going to be some overlap.

Akira/Lilly then Yuuko/Kenji then Nurse/Emi then Nomiya/Rin?

[Oddball]

That could work.

[ProfAllister]

You left out Akira. I'd actually do her next, and then move into Lilly.

I'd also put Yuuko and Kenji next to each other, since there's going to be some overlap.

Akira/Lilly then Yuuko/Kenji then Nurse/Emi then Nomiya/Rin?

The more I try to puzzle out the "best" approach, the more cross-eyed I get, so I'll sit out of that discussion. I will say that I hope I'm not the only one who snickered at Oddball's choice of words...

An interesting item I'd like to float for now: is it because Shizune has one conspicuously missing parent (as opposed to the rest, whose parents—alive or dead—are either fully present or fully absent) that that parent becomes so very important in defining her? Is it better to have that parent in a fanfic or to leave completely missing?

An interesting question, and one worth exploring. I'd be inclined to say "no" (And to also ask if you've read Emi's route, but...). With the possible exception of Rin, family plays a huge role in all the girls' routes. Family is what makes Emi's and Lilly's routes more than two teenagers boning. Hanako's route is all about Hisao defining himself in Hanako's surrogate family (as husband, as brother, or as creepy uncle). So I'd say it's only natural that family runs a strong current through Shizune's route as well.

[brythain]

The more I try to puzzle out the "best" approach, the more cross-eyed I get, so I'll sit out of that discussion. I will say that I hope I'm not the only one who snickered at Oddball's choice of words...

No, you weren't the only one.

An interesting item I'd like to float for now: is it because Shizune has one conspicuously missing parent (as opposed to the rest, whose parents—alive or dead—are either fully present or fully absent) that that parent becomes so very important in defining her? Is it better to have that parent in a fanfic or to leave completely missing?

An interesting question, and one worth exploring. I'd be inclined to say "no" (And to also ask if you've read Emi's route, but...). With the possible exception of Rin, family plays a huge role in all the girls' routes. Family is what makes Emi's and Lilly's routes more than two teenagers boning. Hanako's route is all about Hisao defining himself in Hanako's surrogate family (as husband, as brother, or as creepy uncle). So I'd say it's only natural that family runs a strong current through Shizune's route as well.

In Emi's route (yes, I was consciously avoiding spoilers) there are two very clearly defined parents, and they're key to the route, practically and/or psychologically. In Rin's route, both are absent. In Lilly's route, we know they're both there and significant, but we only get a tiny moment with her mother, and Akira seems to stand in for family. In Hanako's route, both are absent, but as you've noted, Hisao and/or Lilly play some role as substitutes. In Shizune's route, however, there is a huge imbalance between her father and mother; it's not just family (we've even got Hideaki) but the imbalance in her family that makes some of us abnormally and enormously curious about the situation.

[Mirage_GSM]

Not really...
In all likelyhood Shizune's mother is dead.
Sure there's the distant possibility that she divorced Jigoro and has no contact at all to her family or that she is coincitentally on an extended business trip when Hisao visits, but neither of those possibilities offers an adequate explanation why she isn't mentioned once in the story.
So: Occam's razor - The version that requires the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be true.

[brythain]

Not really...
In all likelyhood Shizune's mother is dead.
Sure there's the distant possibility that she divorced Jigoro and has no contact at all to her family or that she is coincitentally on an extended business trip when Hisao visits, but neither of those possibilities offers an adequate explanation why she isn't mentioned once in the story.
So: Occam's razor - The version that requires the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be true.

Occam's razor actually says that you should select the competing hypothesis with fewest assumptions. The best version must thus be that 4LS could not think of what to do with Shizune's mother in the final version and so left her out (just like Rin's parents, who are mentioned only once by Nomiya), or that she wasn't in any way necessary to the plot and so was left out. This is borne out by the fact that, in earlier versions, Jigoro and Lilly's father are erroneously said to be brothers. In Japanese culture, I'm sure that being divorced is greater grounds for not being mentioned than being dead (see Emi's route for example).

However, it's always fascinating to see how fanfic authors weave her into the plot. In such cases, we're no longer talking about competing hypotheses, but rather the choice of story that the fanfic author wants to tell, and how successfully the story makes use of the character.

[Mirage_GSM]

Of course - that would be the meta-assumption. I was talking purely about in-story-assumptions.

If you want to bring Japanese culture into this, I'd say that a divorce is much more unlikely in the first place rather than her simply not being mentioned because of one.

[brythain]

Of course - that would be the meta-assumption. I was talking purely about in-story-assumptions.

If you want to bring Japanese culture into this, I'd say that a divorce is much more unlikely in the first place rather than her simply not being mentioned because of one.

Which is why it would not be mentioned at all; it's positively dishonourable as opposed to merely being dead.

[Mirage_GSM]

Which doesn't invalidate my point in the slightest.
It's - and I'm exaggerating here - as if I had argued the moon isn't made from cheese and you countered that IF it were it would probably not be Gouda

[brythain]

Which doesn't invalidate my point in the slightest.
It's - and I'm exaggerating here - as if I had argued the moon isn't made from cheese and you countered that IF it were it would probably not be Gouda

Ha! But that, exaggeration or not, is looking at it the wrong way round. The evidence is simple: Shizune's mother isn't mentioned at all. It's as if there's a conspiracy to not talk about her, there are no signs of her around. So some kind of cheese is present — whether it's death-cheddar or divorce-gruyere or alien-mimolette or affair-gouda. The kind people don't talk about? Likely marital instability of some sort. But we can't tell at all, since while there's cheese, nobody has seen what kind of cheese and even the smell is gone.

So, back to the Book Club: does Shizune appear to have maternal influences? Do fanfic writers settle on particulars related to such?

[Oddball]

I don't jump on the mother being dead bandwagon. it's possible, but at the same time there's no real evidence pointing towards it either.

Shizune doesn't talk about her family at all. You find out nothing about them until you meet them, and when you do, they tend to remain rather tight lipped about anything, other than the occasional slip from Jigoro.

In fact, given Jigoro's rather outspoken nature on his own accomplishments, I'd think that if he had to raise two children alone, he would have mentioned it, possibly by bragging.