Katawa Shoujo Forums

bhtooefr wrote:Out of curiosity, how do you think I got Kenji wrong in 6? Hisao being OOC I can completely understand, though (and, unfortunately, it means I failed to do this right).

Keep in mind that there's two time skips in there, and I wanted to try to develop Kenji's character. Chapter 6 part 1 is a few months after chapter 5, and chapter 6 part 2 is 10 years after Yamaku (so about 7ish years after part 1?)

Also, it's my opinion that a "good ending" for Hisao and Suzu as a couple post-Yamaku is unlikely (not impossible, though, but I don't want to write the good conflict resolution). A neutral ending would be possible, I think, but given that I wanted to write everything around him being violent to her, a bad ending was really the only plausible way to do this (and that's why I didn't like chapter 5 being the ending, and changed it). I also didn't want to end on a character death, because I wanted to develop Suzu, and give her a good ending, by herself.

At this point, I think I'm going to let the plot stand, and merely fix more basic errors, such as spelling/grammar errors and continuity errors. (Re: those errors, specific examples would be helpful.)

Kenji just seemed too different from what he was in the VN and Suzu's route, suddenly his anti-femenist crusade is conveniently over, and he's siding with Suzu over Hisao, who, iirc, is one of the few if any people he trusts. I can see Kenji acting various ways towards Hisao hitting Suzu, such as him respecting Hisao for "fighting the feminists head on" or disagreeing with him for hitting poor little Suzu, but outright blacklisting him and taking his girlfriend in away from Hisao just doesn't seem right. I suppose with more setup you could work Kenjis character to fit this scenerio, but that wasn't done.

I do agree that chapter 5's ending was rather... weak? Not sure what the word for it is in English, but it was too much of a cliche and, well, expected ending that didn't really fit. It would have been far more "Canon" as to Hisao's behavior, however it just didn't feel right. 6 Simply feels like a different author wrote it altogether.

Note: (Your writing itself is really good, you could easily write your own fanfic and it would be great - but continuing from someone elses work is difficult)

Edit: Also, while I believe that Hisao does NOT deserve a happy ending after what he did to Suzu, having her kill him off seemed extremely unlikely and she handled it far too well, she goes from having nightmares about him dying to accidentally killing him herself, and all things considered, handles it a little too well. I would think she'd be traumatized, instead she's able to tell Miki/Kenji what happened while watching his body get taken away on a stretcher, sure she cried, but that still seems unlikely for Suzu.

Yeah, seems I should've done even more exposition than I did, to get the characters to the points I showed. I guess the idea is that I was trying to develop too many characters, but only focusing on one character. And, the scene of Hisao specifically hitting Suzu for the reasons he did, while drunk, is what popped into my mind, and from the issues not resolved at the end of Scissorlips's story, so the idea only worked in the context of his story. But I failed to make it work. Bleh.

Honestly, I'm done with this story, but I'll keep all of that in mind for the future. I think my next challenge is to go to the other extreme, and deal with short stories, maybe go all the way to drabbles, because I can see that selecting a compelling story that can be kept short is a challenge I need to work on. Just not sure what I want to write there, nothing in this storyline for a while I think.

bhtooefr wrote:Yeah, seems I should've done even more exposition than I did, to get the characters to the points I showed. I guess the idea is that I was trying to develop too many characters, but only focusing on one character. And, the scene of Hisao specifically hitting Suzu for the reasons he did, while drunk, is what popped into my mind, and from the issues not resolved at the end of Scissorlips's story, so the idea only worked in the context of his story. But I failed to make it work. Bleh.

Honestly, I'm done with this story, but I'll keep all of that in mind for the future. I think my next challenge is to go to the other extreme, and deal with short stories, maybe go all the way to drabbles, because I can see that selecting a compelling story that can be kept short is a challenge I need to work on. Just not sure what I want to write there, nothing in this storyline for a while I think.

Why not write your own story, or route? With the character development you seem to prefer, I could see you managing to make some pretty interesting works ^^ either way, I will keep an eye out for your name on the forums, I enjoyed your writing style.

The problem with that is, I'm not sure how good I'll be at doing an OC.

I fear I'll go self-insert unintentionally, which basically means making a male Hanaklone that has far less reason for his anxieties than she does.

Still, something to think about for the future.

In any case, I think I'll stick to working with the canon characters (with some fanon, specifically that Kenji and Yuuko dated, not gonna convince me otherwise unless a KS 1.2 comes out that specifically denies or acknowledges it, which everything has said won't happen AFAIK) for a while, until I'm completely comfortable with it, then maybe do an OC.

dewelar wrote:If you really wanted Hisao to be the aggressor, though, you really have to show something drastic having happened in the intervening three years. Otherwise, it just feels off.

Something DID happen, at least it seems so to me. That something is called "alcoholism", even if Hisao doesn't spend his time on continuous benders. Alcoholism (or any addiction) can warp the character of anyone, turning them into someone even they wouldn't recognize in a mirror.

NekoDude wrote:

dewelar wrote:If you really wanted Hisao to be the aggressor, though, you really have to show something drastic having happened in the intervening three years. Otherwise, it just feels off.

Something DID happen, at least it seems so to me. That something is called "alcoholism", even if Hisao doesn't spend his time on continuous benders. Alcoholism (or any addiction) can warp the character of anyone, turning them into someone even they wouldn't recognize in a mirror.

Sure. Been there, watched it happen . But how and why did he become an alcoholic? Hisao doesn't strike me as the type to start drinking heavily without some kind of major malfunction happening first.

Yeah, but usually something has to happen to make a person resort to alcoholism...
And even if someone is so drunk they can't stand anymore they don't normally become agressive if they don't already have a predisposition for it.

I'll just say that all of that is a legitimate criticism of this story. I failed at expanding properly on that aspect of Hisao's descent, and not sure it was even plausible, now that I think about it.

This was just an utter buffet of loathsomeness and out of character behavior.

We have alcoholic abusive Hisao out of nowhere who then dies and everyone else is happy.

We have sane rational Kenji that's openly socializing with females and siding them them over one of the few (if only) male friends he has.

We've got a Suzu who's so meek that even Hanako would have told her to grow a backbone.

There's just no explanation given for how any of them became this way. Even as a standalone story, I'd be struggling to accept these versions of the characters.

Even Miki, the only character that really feels believable, her first reaction is violence towards Hisao. She's not exactly 100% likable here either.

On a lesser note, I also never cared for it when every anyone that tries to make Kenji and Yuuko's relationship actually work. Still, that's the most minor of complaint regarding the story.

Ugh, this thing got bumped.

It's basically completely terrible, and the only reason I haven't deleted it is that I don't believe in deletion once something is posted.

First of all, Hisao is a smart young man who has a somewhat positive look on life. I don't think he would ever try to hurt anyone physically or mentally, especially someone he fell in love with and it just doesn't make any sense if you think about it. Also Hisao never shown any signs of aggression towards people whether he would be drunk or sober.
In my opinion this fan fiction makes no sense and there is no reasons what so ever for Hisao to get mad at Suzu. Maybe you could re-write your work and give it a bad, emotional and interesting ending if you wish but without Hisao becoming an alcoholic, woman beating idiot which he would never become because he is way too smart for that.