Sisterhood: True Edition (Hanako Epilogue) (Completed)

[bhtooefr]

That said, Hanako getting the fourth year program with intensive therapy doesn't feel off to me at all. Let's just say that I have extensive experience with special treatment of such a nature from a special-needs private high school, although I was educationally advanced, and didn't need Hanako's specific special treatment (although there were other students that got treatment like that) - I could've actually graduated a year early, but needed to stay in high school for program that let me work on an associate's degree on the state's dime while in high school.

[kschmidty3]

I would just like to say that this story was perfection. Hanako was always my favorite of the girls from the game and that hasn't changed even after playing other routes and reading other fanfics. Despite that I always thought Lilly had the better story in the game and was sad that Hanako's story was lacking. But the first 17 chapters of this completely erased that, you were able to tell Lilly's story while still keeping Hanako as the main focus and you did that in a way that made it feel like this were a part of the actual VN, that alone made me feel like this story deserves to be considered as the true sequel to KS. And once I saw that you updated this story I thought it was to good to be true and even doubted that you could pull this off and I am thrilled to admit that I was wrong. The only complaint I have with the continuation is that it feels like Hisao was turned into a supporting character, I know this story was more about Hanako and Lilly than him but I still felt that he should have had a more active role. But this so well done that that barely bothered me. I know that I'm kinda rambling here and you've probably received better reviews than this but I felt I had too let you know how highly I thought of this.

To put it simply, this is without a doubt the single greatest epilogues I've ever read and you should feel proud of it.

[Deadpool021]

I just finished reading all of it (yes I used most of my free time this past week on this) and oh man I don't even know where to start. This was simply amazing. I never thought that I would enjoy a fanfiction more than it's original thing. I am not exaggerating here and truly have enjoyed this story more than the VN. This is without a doubt part of my head canon of Hanako's route.

If I had to be critical of something, it would be that Hisao did seem to be mainly a supporting character especially towards the end. I believe someone else mentioned this on a previous post. I understand that the VN makes Hisao a very bland character, but I like how some fanfics expand his character to make up for this. But then again this is completely overshadowed by the sheer quality of this story.

One thing I don't like about fanfiction is that some writer's tend lose their initial inspiration which causes the story quality to falter or even give up halfway through due to the difficulty of this. So just completing the story is already a huge accomplishment. This indeed must have been a very demanding task. I congratulate everyone involved for their dedication to this.

Thank you very much for sharing this wonderful story with everyone.

[Guest Poster]

Thanks.

Yeah, others have brought up the fact that the story moved away from Hisao in the later chapters. This was both kind of intentional and kind of unavoidable.

The first 18 chapters had two plotlines that moved side by side: Hanako and Hisao trying to develop their relationship as girlfriend and boyfriend and dealing with their first relationship crisis and Hanako trying to move her friendship with Lilly away from the mother-daughter dynamic that used to define it. Obviously, Hisao was part of one of those plotlines, so he was given plenty of spotlight time. The new chapters had two parallel plotlines as well: Lilly getting reaquaintanced with her family and getting to know them better and Hanako dealing with the prospect of having to leave the safe, isolated bubble that was Yamaku and having to return to "the world outside" which had been hostile to her before. While I've tried letting Hisao develop a bit as well, getting him to start the science club, attracting new members who become friends to him, finding his calling as a science teacher through his activities as club president, eventually making it into university and doing well enough there to be allowed to represent the school during the second open house day, Hisao as a character simply wasn't central to the two main plotlines, so him not staying central stage was kind of unavoidable.

It was also partially intentional though. When they first started dating, Hanako's life completely revolved around Hisao. This is normal when people first get into a relationship and was also due to Hanako having no other people in her life she truly trusted. As a relationship goes on and moves out of the butterfly stage, the partners often start focussing on their own life again and it would have been weird if after nearly two years, Hisao and Hanako's relationship was still exactly the same as it was when they first started going out. In my mind, Hisao no longer being the center of Hanako's universe, but simply one of the people she loves and trusts, was a healthy development for her. Alas, that did involve him moving out of the spotlight, but it couldn't be helped, unfortunately.

I guess I could have written down a couple more chats/chess matches, but given how much work it was to write the first one down, I figured I'd go easy on my sanity.

[Deadpool021]

Thanks.

Yeah, others have brought up the fact that the story moved away from Hisao in the later chapters. This was both kind of intentional and kind of unavoidable.

The first 18 chapters had two plotlines that moved side by side: Hanako and Hisao trying to develop their relationship as girlfriend and boyfriend and dealing with their first relationship crisis and Hanako trying to move her friendship with Lilly away from the mother-daughter dynamic that used to define it. Obviously, Hisao was part of one of those plotlines, so he was given plenty of spotlight time. The new chapters had two parallel plotlines as well: Lilly getting reaquaintanced with her family and getting to know them better and Hanako dealing with the prospect of having to leave the safe, isolated bubble that was Yamaku and having to return to "the world outside" which had been hostile to her before. While I've tried letting Hisao develop a bit as well, getting him to start the science club, attracting new members who become friends to him, finding his calling as a science teacher through his activities as club president, eventually making it into university and doing well enough there to be allowed to represent the school during the second open house day, Hisao as a character simply wasn't central to the two main plotlines, so him not staying central stage was kind of unavoidable.

It was also partially intentional though. When they first started dating, Hanako's life completely revolved around Hisao. This is normal when people first get into a relationship and was also due to Hanako having no other people in her life she truly trusted. As a relationship goes on and moves out of the butterfly stage, the partners often start focussing on their own life again and it would have been weird if after nearly two years, Hisao and Hanako's relationship was still exactly the same as it was when they first started going out. In my mind, Hisao no longer being the center of Hanako's universe, but simply one of the people she loves and trusts, was a healthy development for her. Alas, that did involve him moving out of the spotlight, but it couldn't be helped, unfortunately.

I guess I could have written down a couple more chats/chess matches, but given how much work it was to write the first one down, I figured I'd go easy on my sanity.

I definitely understand where you're coming from. The title of the fanfic is "Sisterhood" after all . The thing is that when Hanako "runs away" and their relationship becomes long distance, I half expected Hisao to become frustrated especially since he immediately rejected a long distance relationship with Lily in her route. I thought it would be interesting to see Hanako deal with a frustrated Hisao as much of the later story shows how much stronger she was becoming. It's pretty common for two friends or lovers to find themselves in a difficult situation so I wanted to see how Hanako would deal with it without hurting herself or Hisao. I half expected the store to go this route but after he visits her and they both agree to see each other once a month he starting phasing out a bit.

But again like I mentioned before it did not put me off from the story and it was a very minor thing as he is very present in the story up until that point. I also really like your interpretation of Mr and Mrs Satou. I think it is the best one out there as you gave both of them a very rich background which allowed us to see them as people with good intentions but just found themselves in a difficult spot which is very common in real life. Most fanfics go the easy route and present them as evil assholes.. Chapter 57 was also very nice. It gave us a good idea of how things were progressing and changed the pace of how we received that information. Little touches like that that you made throughout the story is what left me hooked and wanting to keep reading.

Thanks again for sharing this wonderful story. I'm sure that a story of this length probably left you wanting to give up at times but I'm glad you persevered. Works such as this keep Katawa Shoujo and allows us fans to continue to experience it's universe.

[Oscar Wildecat]

I also really like your interpretation of Mr and Mrs Satou. I think it is the best one out there as you gave both of them a very rich background which allowed us to see them as people with good intentions but just found themselves in a difficult spot which is very common in real life. Most fanfics go the easy route and present them as evil assholes..

I would echo this opinion. The thing that bothered me about most traditional interpretations of Mr. Satou, in particular, is this: If he was a such controlling douchebag traditionalist patriarch as he is portrayed in most fanfics, why did he ever marry a Scottish wife to begin with? Wouldn't a traditionalist patriarch prefer a "yamato nadeshiko" native? And why would an independent minded Scot such as Karla submit herself to such a marriage, if he was really a douchebag? This story does a wonderful job of answering these questions, and has become my XKCD Headcannon for the portrayal of the couple.

[brythain]

I also really like your interpretation of Mr and Mrs Satou. I think it is the best one out there as you gave both of them a very rich background which allowed us to see them as people with good intentions but just found themselves in a difficult spot which is very common in real life. Most fanfics go the easy route and present them as evil assholes..

I would echo this opinion. The thing that bothered me about most traditional interpretations of Mr. Satou, in particular, is this: If he was a such controlling douchebag traditionalist patriarch as he is portrayed in most fanfics, why did he ever marry a Scottish wife to begin with? Wouldn't a traditionalist patriarch prefer a "yamato nadeshiko" native? And why would an independent minded Scot such as Karla submit herself to such a marriage, if he was really a douchebag? This story does a wonderful job of answering these questions, and has become my XKCD Headcannon for the portrayal of the couple.

I like this interpretation of the Satous. However, I see no conflict between a Satou patriarchal figure and a Scottish matriarch—my headcanon has his wife the holder of a minor Scottish title, because the Scots do allow women to have, hold and transmit such titles. The true Japanese traditionalist can indeed appreciate a powerful woman as a useful ally (see the 'onna bugeisha' tradition). In a fanfic she can be as matriarchal as he is patriarchal, and if the Satou desire to dominate is hereditary (see Shizune, sister-daughter to Mr Satou) then it will be interesting indeed.

[Oscar Wildecat]

I like this interpretation of the Satous. However, I see no conflict between a Satou patriarchal figure and a Scottish matriarch—my headcanon has his wife the holder of a minor Scottish title, because the Scots do allow women to have, hold and transmit such titles. The true Japanese traditionalist can indeed appreciate a powerful woman as a useful ally (see the 'onna bugeisha' tradition). In a fanfic she can be as matriarchal as he is patriarchal, and if the Satou desire to dominate is hereditary (see Shizune, sister-daughter to Mr Satou) then it will be interesting indeed.

Hmm... Karla MacBeth?

[Mahorfeus]

Well, it cost me a few hours of sleep, but I’ve managed to read this from beginning to end. Here is that not-half-assed opinion I promised.

I can say now that my fears of you having "jumped the shark" were misplaced. If anything, the overall quality of the story and writing remained consistent all throughout the work. That being said, I did definitely my have issues with it.

I still maintain that this story is just too damn long. That would not be as much of a problem for me if its flow and pacing worked, but I as I read through the new additions, they felt not like expansions, but like full-blown sequels. The original story... the trip to Scotland... the downtime with Hisao's family... the writing club... the whole crisis with exam time... all of these slices felt like their own individual stories, haphazardly connected by thin threads. It is hardly unusual for a story to go through several plot arcs, but the way that this one moved through them just felt kind of disjointed.

In this regard, if I had to compare it to other stories, Scissorlips' Suzu route and some of Doomish's fics come to mind - they reach this point where they probably should have ended, but then just keep on going. I honestly have a problem determining whether this is a genuine criticism, because if I simply tell myself that these are indeed individual fics following the same continuity, then the problem is no longer apparent to me.

I agree with the notion that some plot devices were really contrived, including the heart attack. That was the point where I thought that the megalodon would leap out of the ocean and snatch the airplane out of the sky, but the dramatic tension was surprisingly fitting. I thought that the Satou family drama got a bit too strong, but I was willing to pass it off.

As for the H-scenes (oh god, the H-scenes), I also have to say that there were probably way too many of them. Several just felt tacked on and unnecessary, or outright gratuitous. The cello scene with Lilly comes to mind. Like, what the hell? I honestly found the development of Hanako's (and Hisao's) sexuality in general a little off-putting. I'm by no means invoking Hanako's "sacred cow" attribute, but my own personal bias disagreed with your interpretation of their sex life. I will say that the scenes were well-written. Perhaps a little too well-written; I guess I just like my H-scenes a little more abstract. (I know, I know, I'm just mentioning every little caveat at this point. )

Miss Yumi's character kind of bothered me towards the end of the story. It wasn't as apparent in the original parts, but as things went on I just kind of got the impression that if it were somehow for Hanako's good, she could probably part the Red Sea or pull the moon out of the sky. I understand that her character has a lot of wisdom and charisma, but her amount of influence was kind of staggering. Her best moments for me were when she did little more than helping Hanako figure things out for herself.

Well, that was hardly comprehensive, but those are the main things that stuck out at me. I am really, really glad I took the time to read through this though. I won't quite say it is one of my favorite fics on here, but it is an impressive piece of work, and not just in magnitude alone.

[brythain]

Hmm... Karla MacBeth?

I'd probably make her Mistress of Nairn or something. A junior peer and a landholder in her own right, hence secure in playing the distaff role but not a shrinking violet. Actually, I have.

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

Chapter 20 spoilers
>first aid instructor has a heart attack just after instructing Hanako how to respond to an emergency
>I was just pretending!
Fuck. You.

"I guess what I did was a bit thoughtless,"

Nooooo, you think?

Chapter 20 spoilers
Hmm, interesting that Hisao and Hanako both accepted the offer to go to Scotland so quickly. Especially since there is no indication that either of them have passports, which I'd expect would take a tad longer than they have to organise. Unless the Satous have some shady paper fakery business on the side. Also, Hanako hiding her face again is weird. I thought she was getting past that in previous chapters. In fact, there seems to be a hell of a lot of regression in these new chapters. I guess I can put it down to anxiety from the recent accident.

The whole thing had to be finished on a very short notice, but thankfully getting a passport doesn't take too long a time in this country and Akira gave us plenty of pointers on how to complete the application process as quickly as possible.

...showing her face to someone was something she considered extremely intimate

I stand corrected, but it still seems off somehow.

General
Sorry, bit of a rant. I've noticed a propensity to always separate dialogue and prose, especially when they are related. There are instances of passages where you'll see something like "Blah blah Hisao dialogue." Hisao does a thing. "More Hisao dialogue." on three separate paragraphs, even though it could all reasonably be part of the same paragraph.

Additionally, this attempt to avoid speech and prose together seems to result in an avoidance of speech tags, which in turn results in long strings of dialogue by multiple characters with little indication of who is saying what. It is usually possible to tell based on the content of the speech (or the stutters, in Hanako's case) but I've often felt confused as to exactly who certain lines belong to. For example, in Chapter 21:

"You look… c-cool, Akira."

"No fair coming here in disguise."

Akira laughs heartily at my comment...

There's no indication that it is Hisao speaking until an unrelated paragraph. I expected that line to be Akira, given the context of the conversation. Even if the prose were on the same line here, I think the effect would be the same. Of course this isn't always the case, but increased use of speech tags and formatting may go a long way to increasing comprehensibility in the future.

Also, as the new chapters have gone on (I've just finished chapter 24) I'm increasingly taking exception to the events therein. (Formerly, words). I had a big paragraph typed up here about what I disagreed with, but it sounded really passive aggressive and I was beginning to spew abuse in Crispy so I deleted it. One thing that springs to mind is a certain Arthur Fonzarelli. Perhaps I'll be able to articulate myself better another time. For now, I think I'll have to take a break. All those contrivances, alcoholic drinks and sexual encounters are playing havoc with my rose-tinted glasses, or perhaps more accurately, rose-tinted beer goggles.

[Mirage_GSM]

Yes, that thing with the paragraphs was discussed, but ultimately it would probably have taken a few more months to rework the entire text, so it was only changed in a few more ambiguous instances.

In other news, I can't wait to read your reactions to some later chapters...

[ksfan1989]

Well, I finished it. Took me a week, but I don't have as much free time as some of the other folks around here I'd wager.

I really liked the original (though it did have it's flaws) and it was hard for me to imagine where you'd go after that. This was, uh, not what I expected.

I didn't take any notes so this is just my general impressions.

The good:

Overall I thought the characterization was pretty good. Miss Yumi occasionally put on her plot device hat again but she had a bit more depth than in the original so that was cool. You actually pulled off making the Satous likeable which I was pretty impressed with. The other characters were all believeable. I felt like Hanako strayed from her original characterization pretty heavily but within the context of the story and how much character growth she underwent it made sense.

Hanako's development shows a lot of verisimilitude. You've clearly done your homework on this and other subjects. You didn't try to "fix" Hanako and made it clear throughout that progress is a bit tricky when it comes to mental health issues. She'll continue to have good days and bad days and that's just how her life will be.

I was impressed with the chess game. There's a transcription error in there somewhere that threw me off momentarily, but I was able to figure out what it was supposed to be. Little details like that are what can really make a piece stand out, and it was fun to try to guess Hanako's and Hisao's mindsets as they played through. Hisao apparently isn't a very strong chess player, or perhaps his heart just wasn't in that one.

I had a lot of fun when I read Lilly's email. I have enough technologically inept family members that more than one of those has landed in my inbox over the years. It was cute.

I don't know enough about Japanese culture to comment on how accurate your portrayal was but it was certainly believable.

The bad:

The plot did feel like it meandered in a few spots, and rushed in others. Pacing was clearly not something you had in mind for the entirety of the writing process.

The dialogue. I hate to pick on this because it seems like a fair bit has been said but it was downright awkward at times to read. The action asterisks, the lack of attribution, it got downright difficult to follow. It also seemed more than a little stilted in some places. I almost felt like that was intentional at points, as if you were writing this as if it was an imperfect translation of Japanese. If so I applaud the effort but ultimately it disrupted the pace even further, which harmed immersion.

Miss Yumi also goes under here. I don't have a lot of experience in that area but I do have enough to know that letting Hanako stay at her home, even for a day, is not only crossing the line but leaping right past it. I can't imagine a self-respecting therapist would ever cross professional boundaries that blatantly. Given how well researched her role clearly was this struck me as unnatural, and it doesn't seem like it was even particularly necessary given the ultimate outcome.

Many of the major plot points were telegraphed well in advance, or otherwise felt a bit contrived. The heart attack has been mentioned several times here already, but that's far from the only one. Hanako's breakdown during the open house felt particularly inevitable and Naomi's seizure seemed awfully convenient from a plot standpoint.

The ugly:

Oh god the grammar. There are very few spelling errors but you seem to be confused about tenses a lot, and there are a handful of malapropisms. There were also a lot of places where it felt like the phrasing was not outright wrong, but very awkward and stilted. A lot of work could be put into improving flow and just cleaning up your prose.



That's all I can think of right now. Had I more time available I'd break out my red pen and give you a proper critique but unfortunately it's not something I'm able to do at the moment.

Overall, I enjoyed it. Could've used some more polish, but it's apparent that you've put a lot of care into it and that counts for a lot. 7/10.

[Guest Poster]

I still maintain that this story is just too damn long. That would not be as much of a problem for me if its flow and pacing worked, but I as I read through the new additions, they felt not like expansions, but like full-blown sequels. The original story... the trip to Scotland... the downtime with Hisao's family... the writing club... the whole crisis with exam time... all of these slices felt like their own individual stories, haphazardly connected by thin threads. It is hardly unusual for a story to go through several plot arcs, but the way that this one moved through them just felt kind of disjointed.

Well, I'll be the last one to deny that it's long. It could have been seen as a series of full-blown sequels that I released all at the same time. But are they really that more disjointed than, say, Shizune's route, where Hisao does student council work for the second festival, then ends up at the Hakamichi home for some time, then does more student council work and gets caught up in the whole Misha business and then there's suddenly graduation?

Would it make a difference if I put Act1...5 in the index and corresponding chapters? It seems like a cheap psychological trick, but if it works...

I thought that the Satou family drama got a bit too strong, but I was willing to pass it off.

Are you talking about Akira's actions? I tried to make it clear in the various scenes involving Akira that she has some pretty serious family-related emotional baggage of her own and isn't even trying to make things better at that point.

I was impressed with the chess game. There's a transcription error in there somewhere that threw me off momentarily, but I was able to figure out what it was supposed to be. Little details like that are what can really make a piece stand out, and it was fun to try to guess Hanako's and Hisao's mindsets as they played through. Hisao apparently isn't a very strong chess player, or perhaps his heart just wasn't in that one.

I'm very impressed you actually followed that one. I'm afraid I'm not exactly good at chess myself, so the game you see was the result of a computer simulation that I then wrote out. I'm afraid I didn't have the patience to keep running and writing down simulations until I'd finally get one that would seamlessly match Hisao's and Hanako's personalities. Hisao's usually a more challenging opponent, but this was during lunch break and he was in a bit of a hurry, so he bungled his opening, allowed Hanako to take his queen and things went downhill pretty fast from there.

The plot did feel like it meandered in a few spots, and rushed in others. Pacing was clearly not something you had in mind for the entirety of the writing process.

I wanted to start rather slowly with a bit of slice-of-life stuff, before moving to the more dramatic parts. I did end up using several timeskips because the story ends up taking place over the span of over 1.5 years.

The action asterisks

Is this still a problem? I went through the entire story a few days ago and removed most of those. There are only about 34 instances left in the entire 450.000 word story.

Miss Yumi also goes under here.

You're right about professional distance, though I personally felt that the story didn't really pretend that her actions in that part were professional at all. In fact, the principal immediately called her on it during their phone call. It would have been smarter for Yumi to have let Hanako go, but insist she'd give her a contact address so they could have still have that orientation talk later on. At that point in time, Yumi was feeling guilty for her part in keeping Hanako in the dark about plan B, so she tried to go the extra mile in an attempt to make it up, which in turn caused Hanako to become suspicious of her. This chapter and the one following it were the opportunities I took to show Yumi as an imperfect human being who occasionally screws up, rather than as someone who's always in control of the situation, but maybe I failed to get that across?

A brief word about the heart attack: while developing Mr. Satou's character, I tried to make him, professionally at least, an embodiment of Japanese working culture. Several things I came across while reading up on the subject ended up sticking: being groomed for the process of making it into a top university as early as lower elementary school, practicing absolute deferrance to one's superiors, spending all but a few hours a day away from one's family in favor of one's "corporate family" and, last but not least, the risk of Karoshi. Handling this subject was tricky. Unlike Hisao's chronic arrhythmic episodes, actual real-life heart attacks are almost always "telegraphed" to some degree. Making this one come out of nowhere, in addition to it feeling like an asspull to the reader, felt unrealistic to me, so I added some additional foreshadowing to show that there was already something wrong there to begin with.

Oh god the grammar. There are very few spelling errors but you seem to be confused about tenses a lot, and there are a handful of malapropisms.

I have to say that this one genuinely surprises me. Before posting the story, I ran it past a proofreader who mentioned once that tenses are a bit of a pet peeve and while it's certainly possible he's missed a couple, I find it hard to believe the story's still riddled with wrong tenses.

[Mirage_GSM]

Care to elaborate on what you think is wrong with the grammar?
I'm certain I missed a few typos here and there, but I thought the grammar was actually pretty good - if a bit stilted in places, but I think that was intentional.