Okay. So, it's time to break my obligatory post-update silence.
Helbereth wrote:The part that seems a little contrived is her bringing the whole tea set, but if I were going to visit someone in the hospital, perhaps for an afternoon, I'd bring something with which to pass the time, and for Lilly that's tea.
I get that the tea thing comes off as a little weird, but from where I stand, the alternative is a scenario in which
Lilly would drink tea out of
Styrofoam cups. However unbelievable it is that Lilly would carry around a small tea pot and three cups, it is, to me, significantly
more unbelievable that Lilly would drink tea out of something as gauche as polystyrene. I mean, tea is pretty important to her, and a major motif of her character. It would have been weird to portray it like that in her very first scene in my story.
Besides, those school bags are pretty big, and a teapot and three teacups don't really take up that much space. Especially in light of the fact that Lilly almost certainly had to bring a much more comprehensive tea set into the classroom she shares with Hanako, assuming it belongs to her.
bhtooefr wrote:Something did feel vaguely off about that chapter, but I can't put my finger on what it was, to be honest. Actually, I think I'm noticing that Hanako seems to be a little too at-ease with Iwanako - this feels like Act 3 Hanako, not Act 1 Hanako. Yes, I'm expecting someone more at ease with her than with Hisao, but this feels like a bit too much.
I'll admit, this surprised me. I almost made Hanako
more proactive in the scene than she was. It never even crossed my mind that she might be acting too comfortable for the scene—to my eyes, she spends almost the entire scene sipping tea quietly and shooting troubled glances at Iwanako. All of her behavior in the scene felt totally natural to write compared to Lilly's, so I didn't really give it a lot of thought.
I think perhaps people are taking too much of their own knowledge of Hanako's situation to realize how Iwanako's experiences have affected the dynamic with Hanako. The most important thing to keep in mind is that Iwanako really doesn't know (and hasn't really shown otherwise) that Hanako is anything more than an asocial girl with a troubled past. She's completely unaware of Hanako's reputation and it's
obvious she is because Iwanako approached her in the classroom without a shred of hesitation or irony. It's also clear that nothing's changed since then because she's been laid up alone in the Misery Vortex ever since.
Remember that in addition to all the other ways in which Iwanako differs from Hisao (gender, sexual attraction, height, width, subtlety,) a major difference between the two of them is that Hanako utterly
borks her first impression on Hisao by running away, and in every scene after that Hisao treats her differently. With Iwanako, though, Hanako kind of bumbles her way into leaving Iwanako thinking that
Hanako's okay, that she can be engaged with more or less the same way as any person. (Doubt briefly crosses Iwanako's mind, sure, but then everything seems to go fine.) And Hanako is perfectly aware that, by all appearances, she stumbled into leaving a good impression on somebody—based almost totally on ignorance, mind, but beggars can't be chess sets etc etc.
Even in this scene, where Hanako winds up seeing a
much more personal side of Iwanako than she'd surely ever have expected this early in their acquaintance (and there's much more going on here than I've shown,) Iwanako still operates on her prior assumption about Hanako, because she's still refreshingly (to Hanako) oblivious to any other information. I tried to reflect that in the dialogue between Iwanako and Hanako here. Iwanako's comments to Hanako are intentionally somewhat cavalier. She's unaware of Hanako's vulnerabilities, which Hanako knows (and Lilly has probably figured out.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that Hanako's distracted from her own anxieties with worry for Iwanako, who is in a position of
complete vulnerability. Her big secret has gotten out in the first week of school, she almost died, and she received a concussion, and those are the only things Hanako
knows about. However unthreatening Iwanako was before, Iwanako is, like,
negative threatening now.
What I would
like to think is that if Hanako's behavior feels unusual in this scene, it's because she finds herself in a scenario completely unlike anything in the visual novel, not because I screwed up and made her too personable. And, again, remember that we're looking at Hanako from the perspective of someone who really knows next to nothing about her, who is also suffering from a brain injury and severe depression and is almost naked.
Blank Mage wrote:Excellent writing, as always. And we're on the Lilly/Hanako route!
Whoa, let's not get carried away here. There aren't routes, not really. And Act One still has a ways to go. Rin hasn't even showed up yet!
Blank Mage wrote:I agree with bhtooefr that Hanako is surprisingly open, but I feel like this might be her attempt at cultivating friendship: unlike Hisao, Iwanako desperately needs support right from the start, and Hanako needs to feel like someone who can offer it. That alone might be enough for Hanako to overcome her anxiety.
It's definitely harder to feel worthless when you've visibly just brightened somebody's day.
Blank Mage wrote:I'm interested to see how this might change Shizune's behavior. Finding out that Iwanako is grappling with such a severe condition could force Shizune to realize just how misguided her attempts to help Iwanako really were. After all, expecting Iwanako to rise to the occasion would be unfair, and Shizune hates being unfair.
You may find out the answer sooner than you think.
dewelar wrote:I especially appreciated Iwanako's slow ascent into acceptance of her visitors. It was subtle, yet palpable if you're paying attention. For instance, I got the feeling that Iwanako's internal grandiloquence is more of an affectation than a natural state, as I noted that it receded somewhat over the course of the chapter. It's all of a piece, given what we know about her thus far.
There is a lot of merit to your analysis. I'll leave it at that. And I'm glad you enjoyed it!
dewelar wrote:Of course, I'm very much a cat person, so is it evil that I felt worse for the kitten than either of the humans
?
If it makes you feel better, Iwanako's parents are bourgeois as hell, so it was probably a purebred Siberian or Maine Coon or something. They would have just returned her to the breeder and gotten some of their money back, and the kitten was probably sold to some other rich family. She certainly wasn't a shelter rescue.
dewelar wrote:On a side note, I briefly mentioned somewhere on these boards that I read
Ménage à 3, and the way Iwanako described Lilly immediately brought to mind Zii's image of Didi. Lilly is quite crush-inspiring, no?
Oh gods, this is such a can of worms.
So, I haven't read MA3 in years, and when I say years, I mean that it had been running for six months the last time I read it. It's been a very, very long time. So when you brought it up, I wound up looking through it again, and realized that Iwanako in my imagining looks
almost exactly like Zii, sans ponytail and punk rock ensemble. The hairstyle, features, stature, and even the curves are almost exactly the same.
I have no idea if it's anything more than a coincidence, but now I can't get it out of my head.
Guessy wrote:Meanwhile, Iwanako crushes on Lilly rather spectacularly though I believe she's straight if I'm recalling her route correctly...?
Despite the mysterious and troubling resemblance to Zii, "crushing" is not exactly the verb I would use right now. Iwanako is in awe of her, but that's not the same.
As for Lilly's sexuality, there's not any definitive proof that she's strictly heterosexual, but there's no evidence that she isn't. Thanks for the feedback!
Reese8 wrote:Stoneflower seems to be on track, though…
Iwanako hates
Anne of Green Gables as much as I hate
Star Wars.
Jailbreaker wrote:Thank you, based Leaty. I will sleep in peace tonight.
'Based Leaty'???
. Also, the story about Cancer Girl and the kitten really struck a chord for me. Of course, I'm very much a cat person, so is it evil that I felt worse for the kitten than either of the humans 
.
