Mendācium (Hanako) - Version 1.1.1

[Bagheera]

Forgive me if I don't care about the opinion of a guy who admitted he hits women.

Oh, come on! That's not exactly relevant to the discussion at hand.

(and forgive the rest of us for not giving a shit about the opinion of someone who won't even show their face! Get a handle and show us who you are and then say something shitty like that and see how it goes.)

[Doomish]

Forgive me if I don't care about the opinion of a guy who admitted he hits women.

Don't make me hit you too, I've got quite a backswing with a golf club.

But seriously, how weak does an argument have to be to take personal hits on the person you're arguing with? I'd call you a tryhard but I don't think you're even trying hard at this point!

(this is the exact reason i love this thread)

[Mirage_GSM]

At least in this thread personal insults do not adversely affect the quality of the discussion X-(

[txalolrn9]

Forgive me if I don't care about the opinion of a guy who admitted he hits women.

So you're perfect and have no faults whatsoever?

I respect him for admitting it rather than hide behind an anonymous internet guest account

[Silentcook]

I'm fed up with teh Internet dramah. It stops now.

[Titus]

Touching story, BUT: What mistake has Hanako made? The cheating? You mean the cheating that was entirely intentional and not an accident?

And I laughed hard that she said she wasn't going to tell Hisao until she was raped. I guess Tenshi really is a dark knight after all? He punished Hanako's unfaithfulness with rape, and indirectly caused Hisao and Hanako's relationshit to become stronger (well I'll assume). If that was OP's intent then WOW, good fucking story.

[Kayo12]

Touching story, BUT: What mistake has Hanako made? The cheating? You mean the cheating that was entirely intentional and not an accident?

And I laughed hard that she said she wasn't going to tell Hisao until she was raped. I guess Tenshi really is a dark knight after all? He punished Hanako's unfaithfulness with rape, and indirectly caused Hisao and Hanako's relationshit to become stronger (well I'll assume). If that was OP's intent then WOW, good fucking story.

Tenchi-Improving Relationships Through the Power of Rape

[Cossack Commissar]

Though I do still believe that Hanako wouldn't cheat on Hisao (or her romantic interest in-general), this is a surprisingly good fan fiction.
I thought it would have a dark ending, but it actually ended on a good note.

[Brogurt]

I thought it would have a dark ending, but it actually ended on a good note.

Yeah it was like a triple bait and switch, and I often wondered if I pulled it off well at all.
Above all else I wanted there to be some really good reasons behind the rooftop scene at the end happening the way it did. This lead to the first rooftop scene for the confession to set the "precedent" as it were, and I even harkened back to the first fanfiction I ever wrote with the mention of her having once had pills on hand. Of course, painkiller suicide is also a real thing, and I don't expect people to just take my headcanon for granted, so that found its way in that scene as well.

I think that's as much as I'd like to say on the subject for now. I could go for a long time but I'm sure I'd end up boring people.

[Brogurt]

So, I'm not really sure if this deserves a bump, but I had an idea last night that intrigued me. If anyone would be so kind as to respond, how would you feel if the following changes were made to Part 4?

Near the beginning, some of the lines about "a lover's comfort" and related sentiments would be removed, and some lines during the rush to the rooftop about a determination to not "have Hanako's blood on my hands" would be added. Then, at the rooftop, during the breakdown, Hisao wonders to himself why he cares so much about her. And this isn't just the fact that he'd hold himself responsible, but he genuinely realizes that he wants her to be around. Then, at the end, following the "I love you"s (which are still there), Hanako asks Hisao if he still wants to pursue the relationship, to which he replies "I don't know." This answer would be acceptable to her, since she wants to "earn back what I've lost" and, in a sense, prove that she's worth it. Not to to him, but to herself as well.

I think this would jive well with the guilt trip at the end of Incense, since it would tie in directly to the beginning of Ashes, but the whole point of the H-scene was a "shared pain" kind of thing, since it made Hisao realize that he's been hurting, and that he needs her help as well. And in this revision, the "shared pain" would have a sudden resurgence during the breakdown right before Hanako comes back, which would overshadow its presence in the H-scene. But if the H-scene were to be made that unimportant, then what's the point of having it?

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

Oh this is gonna go down well. disgonbegood.gif Look, it's far too late for me right now and words are nigh incomprehensible, so I'm not going to reread this just to compare your proposed changes. I'm just gonna skip straight to the point and say that maybe you should just let this die. Wouldn't you rather just leave it than open up Hater-Con Aug'12? Also you joined the forums on my birthday. No relevance at all, I just thought it was a random co-inky-dink.

[Brogurt]

I'm not going to discard the opportunity to get feedback which is valuable to me just because of a couple people on an internet forum with attachment issues. My faith in my writing isn't that low.

[Guest Poster]

But if the H-scene were to be made that unimportant, then what's the point of having it?

Dunno. Fan service? Angry sex? Something else? Hisao's and Hanako's first act of intercourse in KS said a lot about their relationship...without actually having to spell it out for the reader. So obviously it can be used to convey stuff you'd otherwise use a conversation or monologue for. Or to emphasize an existing point.

And er...instead of simply asking "would you like me to make this or that adjustment in my fanfic?", isn't it better to simply make the adjustment and tell people: "I've updated my story in this or that way for this or that reason." It's your story and you can do whatever you like with it without needing someone else's permission. At least, that's how I see things. If you think something's an improvement to your own story, just change it.

[Brogurt]

I won't deny that the scene would still have some purpose, but I decided early on that all the parts of this story would have great significance to the story. No fluff or slice-of-life, (not like any of that would have been appropriate for the story anyway) so fanservice doesn't cut it. For that reason, I've heard criticisms of the story being a bunch of dramatic setpieces strung together, but that's just how the cookie crumbles.

I can think of another thing to give it significance, for which I had ironically been weighing the upsides and downsides previously, so I'll probably give it a shot, but let me tell you why I didn't earlier. As blackwaltz oh-so-eloquently displayed, not everyone would be interested in rereading it, so an abridged version would be more convenient. Likewise, a simple statement of the theoretical changes saves me from having to write everything and having to make sure it works with the music and all that.

[Brogurt]

Now updated to 1.1.1 with the proposed changes. I actually did a runthrough of all of Part 4, cleaning up the prose as I went, but Part 4 was the only one I touched. It was surprisingly quick. I wish all my writing was this surprisingly quick.\

Also, this is a pastebin of the previous version
http://pastebin.com/WGKD7iB3