Katawa Shoujo Forums

Enjoyed this story as a lurker. Memories of the first chapter are still in my head. I felt your ending perfectly emulated those of the actual VN so I salute you for that. Words cannot express. I also immortalized your story into an eBook. As long as I don't make it available to the public, right?

This was perfect, I really enjoyed it and wished I could have helped while you were working on it. Anywho, good job Scissorlips and I'm glad that you were able to finish this great story. :')

Oh my, why did I do this... it was supposed to be a short trip to the Ks forums, for a few laughs, maybe checking the latest version of Katawa Crash, stuff like that, as a finishing note on my "annual soul purge".

Then I stumbled into this thread.

I'm not.. entirely sure what happened to the last 17 hours. I think I slept somewhere in between.

Uh.

Thank you, this had as much impact on me as reading the original KS paths for the first time about a year ago. In my opinion there's no better compliment to a writer than "your story touched me on a deeply emotional level", so I'll leave it at that.

Wow. OK. I was not expecting the story to stretch for the better part of the thread's 55 pages (of which I have read every single one). I thought maybe the first 10 pages or so would hold the story. Boy, I was in for quite a great surprise!

This is an impressive piece of work. It was touching and well-written. Normally I'd probably follow my compliment with some literary analysis, or some typo-spotting, or something, but this story is about the size of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Hmph. I've never been good at coming up with unique compliments, so just know that I thoroughly enjoyed your work. I'm impressed by your determination (after all, it did take a year to write), and I have a good deal of respect for you. I suppose I can put a few thoughts out there:

• The characterization of Suzu was very well done. One of the hardest things when creating new characters is giving them a unique personality. Not only did you succeed at that, but you managed to make Suzu a dynamic character while keeping her personality intact and recognizable. If you don't mind my asking, for how long have you been writing?
• You're very good at writing humor. Things like Mutou's "I need to use your window" scene (ok, maybe it wasn't that awkward) made good use of imagery and had me laughing out loud more than once. I especially liked the disability humor thoughts (does that make me a bad person?) such as "Hisao looks like he doesn't quite know what to say at the offhand mention of Miki's... off hand. Urgh." They reminded me of Hisao's fretting over his own faux-pas statements in canon. The occasional run-on thought was nice, too, for example, "except of instead of watching it you're the freaking train oh god."
• Thanks for throwing in all those allusions. I'm sure I missed plenty of them, but they were fun to spot.

--Intermezzo: a wild typo appears!--

Miki's eyes are narrowed as she tires to work out how to squirt sunblock into her good hand with her stump

So now I wonder: are you done with this story? Not in the sense of adding more plot; that seems pretty well wrapped up, and in any case I'm not sure it would be wise to lengthen the story much further. Several pages back you mentioned wrapping it all up into an ebook or something. While that's a great idea, perhaps you'd be willing to comb over the story more? It would just seem a shame to let a quarter million words worth of effort sit without polishing it off into a finished product. I have a good deal of experience in the area, and I'd be willing to go over the story with you for a few months cleaning up the grammar and making suggestions. (Grammar may not seem very important, but just try to find me a book with a misused comma outside of dialog. Editors don't make $60K per year for nothing.)
If editing isn't your cup of french vanilla tea with a hint of lemon, I know enough HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that I could package the whole thing into an HTML file (could also embed music this way, a la Katawa Shoujo's conditional music playing), PDF, ePub, or Mobipocket (Kindle).
Of course, I understand if you want to be done with it; it was obviously no easy task to complete, and you might be exhausted by now.

If that's the case, just take this comma tip for the road; it will serve you well.

Commas do not separate independent clauses.
Incorrect:
This is a statement, it has a subject and predicate.

Correct (these are not synonymous):
This is a statement. It has a subject and predicate.
This is a statement: it has a subject and predicate.
This is a statement; it has a subject and predicate.
This is a statement, because it has a subject and predicate.
This is a statement, and it has a subject and predicate.
This is a statement, so it has a subject and predicate.
This is a statement, for it has a subject and predicate.
This is a statement, but it has only one subject.

Thank you for writing A pseudo-pseudo Suzu route!

I liked the full circle book ending you went with(started with a room visit of Miki taking a scared Suzu out, and ended with a room visit of Hisao taking a scared Suzu out). It did it's task rather well.

Ah~ I've been in the habit of checking the forums for nearly a year just to read your newest chapter. Now that it's done, I dunno what I'm going to do when I come here outa habit lol.

Daitengu wrote:I liked the full circle book ending you went with(started with a room visit of Miki taking a scared Suzu out, and ended with a room visit of Hisao taking a scared Suzu out). It did it's task rather well.

Ah~ I've been in the habit of checking the forums for nearly a year just to read your newest chapter. Now that it's done, I dunno what I'm going to do when I come here outa habit lol.

Well, there's plenty of other fan-fiction shuffling through that could serve as a distraction (shameless plug achievement unlocked). You could stop by the Ask! thread for some VN author tidbits. Maybe you could wander over to the HBHC thread if you feel depressed, or want to offer some wisdom to the downtrodden.

Too many replies to quote them all, even for me. I've avoided responding in this thread for a little while, simply because I don't really know the right words to say. But please just let me make it clear that I am incredibly, incredibly honored by and grateful for your kind words and support. I should be the one thanking all of you, because this story would always have been nothing if no one had taken the time to read it, and it would have been much worse off without your feedback and criticism. I'm especially grateful to the people who bothered to create an account just to post their thoughts. I know how easy it is to say "that was nice, moving on", so that extra effort means a lot to me.

There are a few things I want to respond to individually, but as far as future plans go: I may get around to writing a few more story ideas I have floating around, but if I do they'll most likely only wind up on my pastebin, which is in my signature. A number of other short stories can be found there that I haven't posted here, so if anyone feels like wasting an afternoon, that's always a suggestion. Beyond that, I have no further plans.

Mirage_GSM wrote:

Now I can tell that he’s wearing a deep frown. “Don’t show her this book.” (Hisao)
“Whatever. Did you find anything else?” (???)
Some shuffling. “Well, I guess you could always go with something in here. She likes this kind of crap, right?” (Kenji)
“It’s not crap.” Hisao replies.

The "he" in the first line is still referring to Kenji. I... didn't really expect that anyone would misunderstand that.

Mirage_GSM wrote:I admit, though, that this is hard for even me to read and understand, and I've read a good number of Shakespeare's works (not Cymbeline, though). With Hisao's problems with the English language I doubt he could make heads from tails with this.

True, although he did have roughly an entire week to figure it out.

HD23 wrote:Something that would be really cool would be suggested music for the passages, I was listening to the soundtrack while reading, and when the music and text synced up it was much more intense.

I'm very glad some people were willing to do that, as I feel it enhances the experience quite a lot, but it's not really something I would require or even suggest. Having already read the story once, the appropriate music tracks would be fairly clear, most of the time. I've thought about making a youtube playlist of many of the (non-KS soundtrack) songs that served to inspire or motivate me over the course of the story. Many of them I would listen to as I wrote, and some apply rather well, but... so many people have so many different tastes in music, so I don't really know whether it would make as much of a reflective experience as I would hope for.

Solistor wrote:My only regret is that there isn't as much art of her as there is of the others.

While that is completely natural and normal, given that she's a tertiary character, and I've already been blessed by a huge amount of fanart for my story alone, I might be able to help with that. Here is a link to my Suzu folder. It contains almost everything I have saved, barring a few pieces that were either too personal, too explicit (sorry), or the artist might not have been comfortable with it being posted elsewhere. Also, many of the sillier edits that I or others have made I haven't uploaded, because they're, well, silly.
Most of these pictures are from 4chan's Katawa Shoujo General threads, and some of the pieces in this folder are actually ones that I've requested from artists in the past, but haven't linked here in this thread because they weren't made specifically for this story. I would rather not have this thread be derailed into discussing particular pictures, so if anyone has any questions regarding them, I'd be happy to answer what I can through PM.

CptSalsa wrote:I also immortalized your story into an eBook. As long as I don't make it available to the public, right?

I don't have any objection to that at all, although like I mentioned, I was thinking of doing the same thing myself eventually. As long as you don't make any changes to the content of the story, feel free to link it here for anyone who would like things in a single, cohesive format.

neio wrote:If you don't mind my asking, for how long have you been writing?

I played around with various works of fanfiction when I was younger, but never produced anything of particular length (or quality) until just recently. Before KS inspired me to try my hand at things again last February, I hadn't written any sort of fiction for five or six years.

neio wrote:So now I wonder: are you done with this story? Not in the sense of adding more plot; that seems pretty well wrapped up, and in any case I'm not sure it would be wise to lengthen the story much further. Several pages back you mentioned wrapping it all up into an ebook or something. While that's a great idea, perhaps you'd be willing to comb over the story more? It would just seem a shame to let a quarter million words worth of effort sit without polishing it off into a finished product. I have a good deal of experience in the area, and I'd be willing to go over the story with you for a few months cleaning up the grammar and making suggestions. (Grammar may not seem very important, but just try to find me a book with a misused comma outside of dialog. Editors don't make $60K per year for nothing.)
If editing isn't your cup of french vanilla tea with a hint of lemon, I know enough HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that I could package the whole thing into an HTML file (could also embed music this way, a la Katawa Shoujo's conditional music playing), PDF, ePub, or Mobipocket (Kindle).
Of course, I understand if you want to be done with it; it was obviously no easy task to complete, and you might be exhausted by now.

I am done with this story. While I believe my style and ability have improved a lot since beginning it, and I know for a fact that the final product would be much improved by going back, fixing things here, rewriting things there, it's less an issue of effort and more of integrity. Were this an original novel that I had kept largely to myself and was trying to get published professionally, I would of course do everything to make the story the best it could be. But this was an ongoing effort that was influenced and improved by the input of others as it progressed and was written, and people who are just catching up now deserve to read the same thing that people who have been there from the beginning have read. What's done is done, and, barring typos (thank you for pointing that one out, by the way), I am content to let this story rest.
As far as commas go, I appreciate the gesture, and while some will surely and have still complained, their misuse is deliberate. Over the course of the story I developed a style of flowing, scatterbrained thoughts, and the last half of the piece was something of an experiment in stream of consciousness narrative. Looking back, even that took some time to get the hang of and refine, but I still enjoyed playing with it very much.

Daitengu wrote:Ah~ I've been in the habit of checking the forums for nearly a year just to read your newest chapter. Now that it's done, I dunno what I'm going to do when I come here outa habit lol.

You have no idea.


I feel bad for not quoting every single person. I feel bad for only quoting specific things that I felt needed to be addressed. So please, please believe me when I say thank you. It's been an honor and a privilege to spend this time trying to give back to the community that helped move and inspire me so much over the course of the last year.

The "he" in the first line is still referring to Kenji. I... didn't really expect that anyone would misunderstand that.

Yes, I got that "he" referred to Kenji, but I wasn't expecting Kenji to tell Hisao what book to show to his girlfriend, so I attributed the direct speech to Hisao.
Besides the line above that is from Kenji, and you used double linebreak after that...

Scissorlips wrote:

neio wrote:[Words, some more intelligent than others]

I am done with this story... What's done is done, and, barring typos (thank you for pointing that one out, by the way), I am content to let this story rest.

Ok. I'll probably find more typos as I read through it again (and I think I have several others written down somewhere); would you prefer them in PM or this thread?

As far as commas go, I appreciate the gesture, and while some will surely and have still complained, their misuse is deliberate. Over the course of the story I developed a style of flowing, scatterbrained thoughts, and the last half of the piece was something of an experiment in stream of consciousness narrative. Looking back, even that took some time to get the hang of and refine, but I still enjoyed playing with it very much.

I see. I'm not quite convinced that you intended all of them; the mistake is prevalent in your pastebin as well. In any case, my advice is: avoid intentionally misusing punctuation in narration, and keep misuse at a minimum even in dialogue and similar devices. There are plenty of ways to come across as scatterbrained, from ellipses to the em dash. As evidence for my position, you have only to try to find a single misused comma in any published book in your house.

...please just let me make it clear that I am incredibly, incredibly honored by and grateful for your kind words and support. I should be the one thanking all of you, because this story would always have been nothing if no one had taken the time to read it, and it would have been much worse off without your feedback and criticism.

No, no, thank YOU! I insist!

Mirage_GSM wrote:Yes, I got that "he" referred to Kenji, but I wasn't expecting Kenji to tell Hisao what book to show to his girlfriend, so I attributed the direct speech to Hisao.

Kenji "don't go to the festival" Setou? Who just deduced that the book was a feminist training manual?

neio wrote:Ok. I'll probably find more typos as I read through it again (and I think I have several others written down somewhere); would you prefer them in PM or this thread?

You probably will, no matter how many times I comb over things, a few always manage to slip past me. Through PM is fine, to avoid needlessly bumping this thread.

I haven't felt as close as feels as I just have since I finished the walking dead.

Thank you Scissorlips, for providing us with this excellent, well-written story which I would argue as, in my books, the best Original Character fanfiction I've read as of yet.

I'm kinda late to this fic (and new to posting) but I just felt it necessary to say that, from what I've read (haven't finished yet, just impatient), this may be my favorite fic ever... Admittedly, I don't read them often (hardly at all outside of KS) but I hope that doesn't take away too much from the general sentiment. I Know The Truth depressed the hell out of me. More so than any bad ending in the original game, actually. The ending of Broken Bones may be the first thing to make me audibly and literally utter "D'awwww..." It just felt wrong to read this without commenting in any way.

P.S. The main reason I decided to comment before finishing is that the John Dies At The End reference in Closing Time made me really (overly) excited, it being my favorite book and, in my biased opinion, a tad underexposed.

EDIT: Aaand now, every time I hear "Paradise" by Coldplay, I'll think of this... That actually kinda makes me happy.

So, yeah, thanks for giving me the opportunity to read this... And I apologize if I broke any of the rules for posting somehow. Again, new to posting and I don't frequent other forums much either so it's all a bit foreign.

Six-Shooter wrote:P.S. The main reason I decided to comment before finishing is that the John Dies At The End reference in Closing Time made me really (overly) excited, it being my favorite book and, in my biased opinion, a tad underexposed.

I liked the Citizen Kane reference. Feels good to know people still watch the classics. (What this book was really missing was a Pulp Fiction reference! )

Freaking Shizune waiting for them at the dorms, I would've told her to screw off and walked past her.
I was infinitely frustrated reading about Shizune splitting Hisao and Suzu up, it's not even her place to involve herself in such matters.

DESTRUCTINATION wrote:Freaking Shizune waiting for them at the dorms, I would've told her to screw off and walked past her.
I was infinitely frustrated reading about Shizune splitting Hisao and Suzu up, it's not even her place to involve herself in such matters.

The mark of good fictional writing is the ability to impart desired emotions onto one's readers. Surely Scissorlips has succeeded here

Seriously, though, it seemed to actually be kind of beneficial in the end. Suzu notes that she wants to be able to sleep by herself; she doesn't want to feel powerless. Perhaps Shizune forcibly giving her the opportunity to do so wasn't such a bad thing.

I didn't much like Shizune either, even in canon.