Katawa Shoujo Forums

We present to you the first Katawa Aniki release of this fresh year. Act 3 part 3 is now live.
We hope you enjoy it; personally, it ranks as one of my favorites to edit thus far. Quite eventful, with a high range of happenings and emotions present. We hope it helps to usher in the new year, and encourage our readers to make this a good one.

Ha, I was just thinking today that you guy's haven't updated in a while. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Dippeggs wrote:Ha, I was just thinking today that you guy's haven't updated in a while. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Sorry for how long it took. We've both had some interferences here and there, but we're working on getting parts out as soon as we can and to the best of our ability.

This one's worth the wait, lotsa feels in this one. I'd love to see people's reactions!

Hanako beating the shit out of someone? And winning? Didn't expect that.

Amazing work as always.

Probably the best chapter so far there. Couple of things that happened at first seemed a bit OOC, but coming to the end of those scenes, they all kind of came together and made everything seem like it fit well with each persons character.

YourFavAnon wrote:Probably the best chapter so far there. Couple of things that happened at first seemed a bit OOC, but coming to the end of those scenes, they all kind of came together and made everything seem like it fit well with each persons character.

Glad you like it.

Any specific examples of things that seemed OOC?

We appreciate the feedback.

YourFavAnon wrote:Probably the best chapter so far there. Couple of things that happened at first seemed a bit OOC, but coming to the end of those scenes, they all kind of came together and made everything seem like it fit well with each persons character.

I knew that could be an issue, but I think they're the kinds of things that, while not something expected from the characters, if you stop and contemplate it for a little while, it starts to make sense. The emotions that drove the most unexpected thing, for example, are not entirely unprecedented, based on a particular scene within KS establishing certain feelings and problems one of the characters has, but tries not to show or give into. Plus, anyone's reactions can be erratic and unexpected in such extreme situations. Further, in the end, we're writing KA, not KS. We try to stay true to the characters, but if nothing unexpected within the KS dynamic ever happened, it would just be a really samey retread, so expect the unexpected, once in a while. As it is, different events from what happened in KS are already happening to bring about some personality changes in the original cast, though they still keep the core of their characterizations. People grow in different ways, based upon their unique experiences, after all.

DietKane wrote:

YourFavAnon wrote:Probably the best chapter so far there. Couple of things that happened at first seemed a bit OOC, but coming to the end of those scenes, they all kind of came together and made everything seem like it fit well with each persons character.

Glad you like it.

Any specific examples of things that seemed OOC?

Primarily the fight and Shizune handled losing Risk very well. In the end, it all made more sense than it did at the time of reading it, so it's not really much of a problem.

YourFavAnon wrote:

DietKane wrote:

YourFavAnon wrote:Probably the best chapter so far there. Couple of things that happened at first seemed a bit OOC, but coming to the end of those scenes, they all kind of came together and made everything seem like it fit well with each persons character.

Glad you like it.

Any specific examples of things that seemed OOC?

Primarily the fight and Shizune handled losing Risk very well. In the end, it all made more sense than it did at the time of reading it, so it's not really much of a problem.

I actually thought about the Shizune thing while editing, but I guess I just didn't think of anything. I figuredher saying she wouldn't go so easy on him next time would do the trick.

DietKane wrote: I actually thought about the Shizune thing while editing, but I guess I just didn't think of anything. I figuredher saying she wouldn't go so easy on him next time would do the trick.

If you want my personal opinion, I would have written it more like she gets extremely pissed and tense after losing, but lightens up after some post-game conversation and all. That might have made for an easy transition where you went with it anyways, but again, just my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt because I'm not a great writer as is.

YourFavAnon wrote:

DietKane wrote: I actually thought about the Shizune thing while editing, but I guess I just didn't think of anything. I figuredher saying she wouldn't go so easy on him next time would do the trick.

If you want my personal opinion, I would have written it more like she gets extremely pissed and tense after losing, but lightens up after some post-game conversation and all. That might have made for an easy transition where you went with it anyways, but again, just my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt because I'm not a great writer as is.

The funny thing is that I was actually a kinda decent writer, but subpar in a lot of important areas, before I started writing KA. It was just the right kind of story to click with me, and get me to try several times harder. A lot of people are just one stroke of inspiration away from becoming good writers, and they don't realize it. Not that I rest in my laurels or anything; I constantly worry if I'm doing a good enough job, but you can only touch up a document so much before you gotta let it go, have a little confidence, and let it stand on its own legs.

I think the thing with her is that Shizune is, for one, unpredictable at times, but also, the circumstances were just plain different than normal. It was a celebratory game for a big victory for Kano, over something that made him feel inferior as a person, so maybe she dialed it back a bit because she wanted to help him get over it. Besides, winning most of the time against Misha at a majority of games has to get boring sooner or later, and some lines in KS about her preferring games of chance actually seem to imply that. A loss means she has a reason to get on top of her game again, and she enjoys a good challenge, and fostering competition. That, and she won't always take losing so lightly, in different circumstances. It was kind of a fluke, lucky victory, anyhow. Kano's not exactly a threatening presence; it's rare he even bucks up the energy to be a real rival, so it's not like Shizune's top dog status is being compromised. It's different when someone who rarely wins finally does, which could evoke some sympathy, which ties into my previous statement about some personality changes coming about, due to new events happening. Those are some of my guesses, just by the feeling I got by being involved with that scene. At this point, she's purposefully something of an enigma, so please ponder these things, rather than immediately assume OOC-ness.

While we're still on that subject, I will say that there may come some surprising times in the story that leave strange first impressions, but cannot be accurately judged until you see how they really turn out; what they build into. One of my very favorite upcoming arcs might be easily misunderstood, but I'll try to make things as clear as I can, in editing it.

Popo wrote: so please ponder these things, rather than immediately assume OOC-ness.

I really hope you're not offended by what I said, because there were no bad intentions. As I said, it really seemed OOC while the act was in motion; when the end of the scene or bit occurred, everything was righted and everything that had seemed OOC really wasn't anymore. I was just trying to point out that, hey, maybe there could have been something that could have been changed to make that initial feeling disappear while keeping the end in tact, but it doesn't really matter; nobody here is a professional writer, and it certainly isn't a big deal in the end because it didn't make the story bad or anything of that sort.

No, I wasn't upset or offended at all, and I totally understand what you're saying. I felt like your comments were given with good intentions, in fact, and I appreciate you speaking your mind. I'm not easily offended, so no worries. It was just a humble request. I only make it because we've dealt with some issues of accidental OOC writing (we've tried to edit those out), and the opposite extreme: worrying about it so much, we began to run out of ideas that didn't seem too "different" at some points. It was a really ironic moment for us, because worrying about OOC behavior was what initially helped us greatly (we did a lot of re-reading of KS scenes and even studied the sprites and CGs), but then we realized that the more the flow of events deviated from KS, the more the characters should change. It was scary to deliberately skirt and even gingerly cross that line, but we did come to realize that KS did show a kind of malleability, in that regard; Hisao ends up fairly different as a person at the end of each route, and the way the girls change over the course of them naturally makes one wonder what they'd be like if they were never changed by Hisao.

We decided to keep the things that really make the characters who they are intact, but embrace some changes. Sometimes, the characters themselves are surprised at their own reactions to new experiences. Like in real life, they can succumb to irrationality at times, and at others, do what they never thought they could, when put to new trials, as a few examples. We do try to make the pieces fit, as it were, and get it to all come together and make sense, but sometimes that takes more than one scene to do, is all I meant. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm no professional writer, either, to get so long-winded about it, but I just love talking about KA, lol.

Not bad at all. So far this is the only piece with OCs that I actually liked.

My congrats to the writers and editors. Great job.

Kochi wrote:Not bad at all. So far this is the only piece with OCs that I actually liked.

My congrats to the writers and editors. Great job.

We're glad you're enjoying it. We had to take great care to try to avoid certain things that cause OCs to have a bad reputation. We both went into this project with some kind of understanding about that; in my case, besides experiencing a fair number of stories, countless hours of browsing TVTropes gave me a lot of insight into what things in stories annoy people in general, and what not to do, lol. As well as ideas on how to "play with tropes," like inverting/subverting/etc. with 'em.