Katawa Shoujo Forums

Hanako Fancopter wrote: ↑Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:36 am So you guys read a fan fic every week or some such? You mind if I uhhhhhhh

Join in?

"Or such," is a good way of putting it, yes.

Yeah, just whenever you feel like chiming in on the current discussion, do so.

The Ties That Bind:

Good and well-written overall. The first sex scene was a bit too graphic for me but maybe some people are into that. I'm not big on raw smut so I don't consider it my place to judge it very well. I liked that it was written from Lilly's perspective, then switches perspectives to multiple different characters, gives it some freshness (the Kenji part was funny). The second part weirded me out a bit because Hanako neither stutters nor really displays her normal shy and submissive personality, her first reaction being to protest Lilly's request of her, and she is overall quite composed and well articulated compared to what I would expect. But since this was actually written before the game came out, perhaps Hanako's personality over the course of a full "route" hadn't been well established.

Man, Shizune is a biiiitch in her parts! But it's certainly one viable direction for the character, so I don't disapprove. Always good for the story to have a kind of villain. The only big flaw of this fic is just that it was cut short with a lot of potential left, but that's less a flaw of writing and more just an unfortunate fact of life. It's kind of sad to sit here, read, and appreciate someone's work from 7 years ago, knowing they will probably never see what I wrote about it, but I guess that's also one of the incredible things about the KS community, that people are still sitting here doing this shit after more than half a decade.

Hanako Fancopter wrote: ↑Mon Jun 04, 2018 7:03 pm Man, Shizune is a biiiitch in her parts! But it's certainly one viable direction for the character, so I don't disapprove. Always good for the story to have a kind of villain.

That's the thing, though, she's not presenting enough risk to be the villain in her own right. The blackmail angle is tossed aside so quickly that I forgot about it until my reread. Her b-plot isn't providing enough support for the main conflict.

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Since I'm basically using the forums here to try and train myself on writing actual plot:

Shiz's section should reiterate her actual motivation at some point, even if it isn't changed to blackmailing Lilly. Further, it should probably end before Misha speaks to Lilly. This would make Misha switching sides into a more dramatic reveal. Shiz has enough information already to put together that this has something to do with Lilly, and ending her section with her stating what she knows (drama between Hisao and Hanako, Hanako and Lilly not hanging out, therefore maybe love triangle) would allow her to naturally restate that she's going figure out how to blackmail either Hisao or Lilly.

The conversation between Hisao and Shiz could remain basically the same, except instead of speculating wildly and revealing that she doesn't know anything, maybe have her threaten to go to the teachers about Hisao going into the girls' dorms as a bluff. Hisao might realize that this is a bluff but may not be able to hide his reaction well enough, forcing him to end the conversation with the counter-threat to report her for harassment. The section then continues to meeting Lilly in the side room with Misha unexpectedly present, boom plot twist.

The final chapter would need to have something to disarm the danger Shiz without overshadowing the result of the pregnancy test and its impact on Lilly and Hanako's friendship. We've also committed to switching perspectives every chapter, so the who narrates the last one is a challenging problem. Emi and Rin are too far removed from any of this. An OC would require a lot of setup and someone bringing in a teacher would be so risky that a happy ending from there could feel contrived.

I've got it! We open with an unnamed person listening in on the student council room as Hisao, Lilly, Hanako, and Misha plead with Shizune to act like a decent person. The narrator steps in to the room and reveals himself as the Nurse! Making the pregnancy a matter between Lilly and the nurse invokes patient confidentiality and prevents any blackmail attempt. Cowed by a superior authority figure, Shizune gives up the fight at Misha's request and maybe admits that she's being a lunatic (nah). Lilly thanks Hanako for getting the nurse involved and they make up. The actual results may or may not actually need to be revealed at this point and I'm not sure how to do any further wrap-up without revisiting one of the perspectives already used.

Lost Opportunities by Silentcook.


Yup. You saw the author's name right. This one here is written by our very own SilentCook.
Here he wave a nice charming story told from Nurse's point of view. There's some light romance between Nurse and Meiko, a little bit more than the game implied, but it wouldn't have stuck out that much if it had been included.

I can't really say anything bad about. Partially because it's fairly good. partially because 'Cook would probably ban me.

I have no clue what the story codes are supposed to be. Although I'm fairly sure the "emi" code may have something to do with the character named Emi.

My guesses on the codes:
emi - No idea, so I'll go with your guess of "Emi"
emm - Emi's Mom (has got it going on)
hi - Hisao
nk - Nurse-kun
nosex - Nostralith Exordium, Winged Terror of the Seven Hells

Well, first things first - this is old. Old old.

SPaG issues here and there, and a severe lack of indicating who's doing what and who's speaking, but generally comprehensible. It's a cute little story - relatively short and inoffensive.

It's a solid bit of writing, but beyond that, I kind of feel there's not much I can say about it, good or bad. It just sort of is. I guess it's notable in that it includes mature content, as opposed to "mature" content...

ProfAllister wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:26 pm My guesses on the codes:
emi - No idea, so I'll go with your guess of "Emi"
emm - Emi's Mom (has got it going on)
hi - Hisao
nk - Nurse-kun
nosex - Nostralith Exordium, Winged Terror of the Seven Hells

I can confirm the first four (no bets on the fifth).
Those are the prefixes for the lines of the respective characters in the KS script files.

I didn't really noice any SPaG issues and had no attribution problems either.

The one thing that I thought was a bit incongruous was he repeated use of "nurse" as a form of address. It somehow didn't feel like Meiko to use it.

Also given the release date, I was a bit surprised that it actually "spoils" a major "plot twist" of the Emi arc, though it really is only a plot twist if you're as dense as Hisao

Nice little story and wow, quite an old one. It reminds me a bit of Meiko and Goro in Developments.

Super short, and not a lot happened, so I really don't have much to say. Well-written though.

Also given the release date, I was a bit surprised that it actually "spoils" a major "plot twist" of the Emi arc, though it really is only a plot twist if you're as dense as Hisao

Given when it was written and Hivemind's comment, I'm not sure Cook knew he was spoiling anything.

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 5:15 pm a bit incongrous

The rare occasion on which I get to do the 'incongruous' thing to our dedicated proof-reader.

That said, I've always wondered exactly what opportunities and whose opportunities were lost, in Silentcook's mind.

That's what I get for posting in the middle of the night

You could say he lost the opportunity to sleep with Meiko - though by his own choice and design...

Oddball wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 2:50 pmLost Opportunities by Silentcook.

This was a little weird for me to read, because I wrote a story about Nurse going to the Ibarazaki household for dinner just a few months ago - I'd never read this story before, but interestingly, a few similarities showed up anyways. I guess it's not exactly an "anything can happen" kind of situation.

I quite enjoyed the very social feel that Cookie gave this one - very slice-of-life, with really good internal monologue for the Nurse. As an aside, Meiko using "Nurse" is a bit weird, but it's often less jarring than the alternative of coming up with a brand new name. Not so much of a concern back when this story was written, but definitely something I considered myself. (I eventually came to the conclusion that it was easier to never have her address him by name, which was a bit of a cop-out, but certainly helped reader immersion.) Part of the social aspect was the light humor involved, especially Nurse's characteristic lightheartedness; the "older woman" line gave me a chuckle.

Regarding the more serious half of the story, it all made sense well enough. Surprisingly for a Nurse x Meiko fic, there was nothing off-the-wall. SpaG was fine as far as I saw, writing and tone were good, plot worked. Given the length of the story, as others have said, there's not much more to be said.

Just because I feel like it, this item we take a look at TWO stories.






That's right! Two stories fro the price of none! What a bargain!

Actually they're both really short and I didn't think they needed a Club meeting each.

Heartbreak (A neutral Lilly continuation) by SuperKatawa

and

Mirrors of the Sun by Aura

Mirrors is a Hanako story. Not much happens but the writing is pretty and it has a nice title.

Heartbreak is a Lilly story... almost. It starts strong with Lilly's father dying, Akira apparently trying to get them back together and Kenji arrested for murder. We can only speculate where it would have gone, since the author of the story was a guest that never continued the story past the first chapter. They said chapter 2 and 3 might be up in twelve hours, but that was back in 2012 so I kinda don't think it's continuing.

Heartbreak

Minor SPaG issues all around, but no point in complaining about that. I enjoyed this bitter and cynical version of post-Lilly Hisao. He's even more pathetic than he was when he first arrived at Yamaku. Shame it ended there though, would have been interesting to see how that phone call goes.

Oh and Kenji sucked. Too over the top, to the point of being OOC, even for him.

--

Mirrors of the Sun

Sweet little fluff piece. It's nice.

Heartbreak

Don't really care for this one, Hisao is just pitiful and it goes straight into some fairly forced (IMO) melodrama. I think I have a bias against a deeply unlikeable male protagonist who does the woe is me routine to such an extent. Still could've been good if it continued but there's only the one chapter. I don't feel too bad for saying I don't really like it since it's 6 years old, doubt the author is around anymore anyways.

Also, Kenji arrested for murder--wha? I guess if it had continued then maybe the author would have done something with it.

Mirrors of the Sun

Super short but nice. It's a bit more interesting because of what it doesn't say. The kid is obviously Lilly's, but we have no idea where Hisao is, or what the status of he and Lilly is. Hanako also refers to a "her" who used to touch her face "back then" the same way that the child does, which probably refers to Lilly, but the emphasis on the word "her" suggests some kind of unspoken significance.