Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {updated 2015-4-1}

WORDS WORDS WORDS
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Bad Apple
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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Bad Apple » Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:00 pm

I'm back, and so is this! I'm tardy so I'll try not to repeat earlier posts.
The second book I pick up is about an agent of a depowered federal government in a dystopian future where corporations control the entirety of the western world, and it’s pretty bleak and unsettling throughout. I don’t decide I like it until I’m a third of the way in, and even so, it takes most of the rest of the evening to finish it. It was a pretty compelling story, even if it was a bit complicated at times. It seems like the kind of story my father would enjoy for all the wrong reasons, if he was the kind of person who read books.
I can't think of what the other described books might be, but this one rings some bells. Jennifer Government, I presume? That's taste. I don't see anybody ever thinking Iwanako being into anything close to that subject matter, so I'm going to go with these being Hanako's preference by default.
before Ibarazaki speared me in the hallway.
Emi certainly likes living life on the edge. sorry
After a few moments, I get bored watching her, though—watching somebody paint isn’t that interesting;
If Iwanako had discovered the joy of painting, she'd be a happy little tree and that earlier encounter with the Nurse would be just a happy accident. (An epiphany I'm looking forward to, by the way.)
Well, that’s not really true. One thing is different, and that’s that now they know about my condition.
I thought the latter part of this passage was a typo, frankly. Took me a few tries to get. There's a few other lines that had the same effect as well.
The van slows to a halt as a stoplight,
at a stoplight
Is this real life?
Her mastery over past references complete, Iwanako sets out to prophesize Internet memes years before they've developed.

Now for the serious stuff. Iwanako's self-contained barbs are even sharper and more humorous than before. That there is correlation between misery and cynicism makes this unsurprising, to dispute earlier posts. This story wouldn't be the same without the cynicism; it would be neither as entertaining nor as authentic otherwise.

Suddenly birds, birds everywhere. All these passing descriptions of birds jumped out at me, and have me thinking whether or not there is some sort of foreshadowing at work here in the form of deliberate avian symbolism. Or I could be overanalyzing as always.

Misha obviously has a crush on Iwanako, though it feels (pleasantly) unusual for things to veer that way, and at this point I'm personally opining that a fleeting limerance is more likely, but that can very well change. On the other hand, Iwanako accumulating a lesbian harem is even more unlikely. Moreover, Lilly and Shizune's cold war hasn't boiled over yet, which makes me think that it will come to a head at some point, with Iwanako smack-dab in the middle. Whether that happens before or after the Emi (and Rin) situation comes to the fore again, I imagine, will depend on the timeskips involved.

Nice new OC, even if he may be ultimately unimportant. Speaking of OCs, for all her talk of 'maturity', it's not a word that I've ever associated with Momoni. Her behavior, I think, still fulfills Momoni's quasi-counterpart role of Kenji as one of the most immature characters in this story. Not that I dislike her, but I can still make that observation regardless.

This was a voluminous update, but it doesn't feel like a 'four-in-one' deal. Indeed, it feels more like a typical chapter from the VN, with each new scene a cutaway transition.

From all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy writing, and God bless, my friends. Signed, Bob Ross.
"If the world is cold, make it your business to build fires."
— Horace Traubel

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Leaty
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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Leaty » Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:15 am

Bad Apple wrote:I'm back, and so is this!
I'm really glad you are! I hadn't heard from you for a while, so I worried you had left the fandom.
Bad Apple wrote:I can't think of what the other described books might be, but this one rings some bells. Jennifer Government, I presume? That's taste. I don't see anybody ever thinking Iwanako being into anything close to that subject matter, so I'm going to go with these being Hanako's preference by default.
Indeed! Congrats on being the only person to figure out that I was referring to actual books. I'd wanted to make it kind of a game for the reader to figure out which ones I was talking about, but I think I may have been too vague.

The other two books mentioned are The Last Unicorn and Slaughterhouse-Five. And I do characterize Hanako as enjoying all three of those books; I actually put a lot of thought into what books Hanako not only enjoyed, but thought Iwanako might enjoy. And I figured the books would have to have been chosen very tactfully; maybe, had it been published five years earlier, Hanako might have enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars, but she's certainly not about to give that sort of book to a girl who's currently drying up on a hospital bed.
Bad Apple wrote:Emi certainly likes living life on the edge. sorry
With that reference we are now best friends.
Bad Apple wrote:If Iwanako had discovered the joy of painting, she'd be a happy little tree and that earlier encounter with the Nurse would be just a happy accident. (An epiphany I'm looking forward to, by the way.)
What does this mean? What epiphany?
Bad Apple wrote:I thought the latter part of this passage was a typo, frankly. Took me a few tries to get. There's a few other lines that had the same effect as well.
Yeah, sorry. I'll figure out how to make those sentences more readable someday.
Bad Apple wrote:Her mastery over past references complete, Iwanako sets out to prophesize Internet memes years before they've developed.
Yeahhhhh... I thought somebody might catch that. In fairness, I osmosed the meme from a roommate who used to say it constantly, and now it just feels too natural for me not to use it in a sentence.
Bad Apple wrote:Now for the serious stuff. Iwanako's self-contained barbs are even sharper and more humorous than before. That there is correlation between misery and cynicism makes this unsurprising, to dispute earlier posts. This story wouldn't be the same without the cynicism; it would be neither as entertaining nor as authentic otherwise.
I set out to write a Katawa Shoujo fanfic and I am accidentally writing a Daria fanfic. My long-due restitution for the terrible self-insert OC fic I wrote in 2001, I guess.
Bad Apple wrote:Suddenly birds, birds everywhere. All these passing descriptions of birds jumped out at me, and have me thinking whether or not there is some sort of foreshadowing at work here in the form of deliberate avian symbolism. Or I could be overanalyzing as always.
Negative; the birds are indeed symbolic. I actually thought the symbolism was obvious, but it seems I went too vague with it, because you're the first to mention it. >.>
Bad Apple wrote:Misha obviously has a crush on Iwanako, though it feels (pleasantly) unusual for things to veer that way, and at this point I'm personally opining that a fleeting limerance is more likely, but that can very well change. On the other hand, Iwanako accumulating a lesbian harem is even more unlikely. Moreover, Lilly and Shizune's cold war hasn't boiled over yet, which makes me think that it will come to a head at some point, with Iwanako smack-dab in the middle. Whether that happens before or after the Emi (and Rin) situation comes to the fore again, I imagine, will depend on the timeskips involved.
I love this sort of speculation, though obviously I cannot comment on it.
Bad Apple wrote:Speaking of OCs, for all her talk of 'maturity', it's not a word that I've ever associated with Momomi. Her behavior, I think, still fulfills Momomi's quasi-counterpart role of Kenji as one of the most immature characters in this story. Not that I dislike her, but I can still make that observation regardless.
Interesting analysis; I don't know if I would call her one of the most immature characters in the story (Yoshizumi is a character in this fic, after all,) but it's still true that in a lot of ways Momomi is Kenji's counterpart and functions in a similar context within the narrative, and there have been times (and will be more) where I've consciously endeavored to have her echo Kenji in an unflattering manner. Their relative ostentatiousness compared to other characters in the story is one such element they share.
Bad Apple wrote:This was a voluminous update, but it doesn't feel like a 'four-in-one' deal. Indeed, it feels more like a typical chapter from the VN, with each new scene a cutaway transition.
Good! That was the intention. I really want Act One of this story to feel like a twisted version of, well, Act One. I never considered this a "four-chapter update," so much as an "apology update."

On a totally unrelated note, I'm a little bummed out MTtB's TV tropes page hasn't been updated in a while...

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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Vempele » Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:57 am

Leaty wrote:
Bad Apple wrote:I'm back, and so is this!
I'm really glad you are! I hadn't heard from you for a while, so I worried you had left the fandom.
Bad Apple wrote:I can't think of what the other described books might be, but this one rings some bells. Jennifer Government, I presume? That's taste. I don't see anybody ever thinking Iwanako being into anything close to that subject matter, so I'm going to go with these being Hanako's preference by default.
Indeed! Congrats on being the only person to figure out that I was referring to actual books. I'd wanted to make it kind of a game for the reader to figure out which ones I was talking about, but I think I may have been too vague.
Actually, I too was reminded of Jennifer Government, but since I've only ever read about the book and I'd forgotten the name, I was unable to find it.

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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Mirage_GSM » Thu Sep 25, 2014 9:51 am

Well, I never read Slaughterhouse five, never heard of Jennifer Government and never knew The Last Unicorn was also a book...

JG sounds like it would be pretty hard for me to suspend my disbelief while reading it...
Emi > Misha > Hanako > Lilly > Rin > Shizune

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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Mahorfeus » Thu Sep 25, 2014 10:01 am

Slaughterhouse-Five is a real trip. Well, just about anything written by Vonnegut is. I'd recommend it to anyone.
"A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love." -Stendhal
The verdict is (finally) in:
Hanako > Rin > Emi > Lilly = Shizune

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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by dewelar » Thu Sep 25, 2014 3:15 pm

Heh, guess I'm the only one who caught the Last Unicorn reference, then...I've sadly not read the other two yet. And, believe it or not, I didn't mention the bird symbolism because it was so obvious (at least to me) that I didn't think I needed to...
Leaty wrote:On a totally unrelated note, I'm a little bummed out MTtB's TV tropes page hasn't been updated in a while...
At least your story has a TV Tropes page :(.
Rin is orthogonal to everything.
Stuff I've written: Developments, a continuation of Lilly's (bad? neutral?) ending - COMPLETE!

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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by bhtooefr » Thu Sep 25, 2014 3:22 pm

Note to self: Add Jennifer Government to my reading list.
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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Leaty » Thu Sep 25, 2014 7:17 pm

Mirage_GSM wrote:Well, I... never knew The Last Unicorn was also a book...
It totally is! In fact, I happened to meet the author, Peter S. Beagle, and get a bunch of swag autographed by him just this week. Everybody should read the book, I think. Lady Amalthea is probably one of my favorite characters in anything ever.
Mahorfeus wrote:Slaughterhouse-Five is a real trip. Well, just about anything written by Vonnegut is. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Yeah, sometimes Vonnegut gets a little too pervy and crpyto-misogynist for my tastes, but Slaughterhouse-Five is a goddamn classic and everybody should read it.
dewelar wrote:Heh, guess I'm the only one who caught the Last Unicorn reference, then...
Thank god.
dewelar wrote:And, believe it or not, I didn't mention the bird symbolism because it was so obvious (at least to me) that I didn't think I needed to...
Thank god. I thought for sure that the bird symbolism was a freaking bludgeon.
dewelar wrote:At least your story has a TV Tropes page :(.
Developments certainly deserves one. I'll get one started in a few days when I have time.

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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by dewelar » Thu Sep 25, 2014 7:42 pm

Leaty wrote:
dewelar wrote:Heh, guess I'm the only one who caught the Last Unicorn reference, then...
Thank god.
Honestly, it would have been hard for me to miss, because a while back I was part of an RPG group where the GM based one of the adventures on it. Sadly, it was not well-received :(.
dewelar wrote:At least your story has a TV Tropes page :(.
Developments certainly deserves one. I'll get one started in a few days when I have time.
That? Would make you the awesomest person ever. I pretty much found out about KS and these boards through TV Tropes, so when I first started writing Developments, one of the things that passed through my head was how cool it would be to have it get a page.

Oh, and about Edge and the spear? I was a WCW fan then, so I always associate it with Goldberg instead. Sorry.
Rin is orthogonal to everything.
Stuff I've written: Developments, a continuation of Lilly's (bad? neutral?) ending - COMPLETE!

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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Leaty » Thu Sep 25, 2014 7:56 pm

dewelar wrote:That? Would make you the awesomest person ever. I pretty much found out about KS and these boards through TV Tropes, so when I first started writing Developments, one of the things that passed through my head was how cool it would be to have it get a page.
It is cool, but the KS fandom isn't really on TVT anymore, I don't think. At least, nothing related to it gets updated much anymore. (Compare that to Jackie Chan Adventures fandom, where my brother started a fic years and years after that show ended and magically a tropes page appeared for it without any provocation.)

Anyway, it's a farce that Developments doesn't have one, so it's about time somebody rectified that.
dewelar wrote:Oh, and about Edge and the spear? I was a WCW fan then, so I always associate it with Goldberg instead. Sorry.
Goldberg (and now Roman Reigns) have significantly better spears than Edge, but then the pun wouldn't have worked.

Before I stopped playing WWE games because they stopped allowing you to have intergender matches (yeah, Chun-Li can fight Ryu, but Lita can't wrestle Christian, what the fuck) I would always create a female wrestler with the spear as a finisher and win the heavyweight title with her. It was immensely satisfying.

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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Blank Mage » Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:15 am

Leaty wrote:On a totally unrelated note, I'm a little bummed out MTtB's TV tropes page hasn't been updated in a while...
Ah, I suppose I gave my word on that, didn't I? I haven't been on TVTropes for the better part of a year now, so it kind of fell by the wayside. I'll get on that soon. I'll also write my own fic, script a dnd campaign, pick flash animation back up and start reviewing things on YouTube.

....I'm bad at this, aren't I.
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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Leaty » Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:28 am

Blank Mage wrote:
Leaty wrote:On a totally unrelated note, I'm a little bummed out MTtB's TV tropes page hasn't been updated in a while...
Ah, I suppose I gave my word on that, didn't I? I haven't been on TVTropes for the better part of a year now, so it kind of fell by the wayside. I'll get on that soon. I'll also write my own fic, script a dnd campaign, pick flash animation back up and start reviewing things on YouTube.

....I'm bad at this, aren't I.
You forgot "master French onion soup." You must achieve mastery of onion-based soups.

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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by emmjay » Fri Sep 26, 2014 6:41 am

Leaty wrote:
Blank Mage wrote:
Leaty wrote:On a totally unrelated note, I'm a little bummed out MTtB's TV tropes page hasn't been updated in a while...
Ah, I suppose I gave my word on that, didn't I? I haven't been on TVTropes for the better part of a year now, so it kind of fell by the wayside. I'll get on that soon. I'll also write my own fic, script a dnd campaign, pick flash animation back up and start reviewing things on YouTube.

....I'm bad at this, aren't I.
You forgot "master French onion soup." You must achieve mastery of onion-based soups.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Blank Mage » Tue Oct 07, 2014 8:23 pm

I added some tropes to the page! Unfortunately, I've forgotten most of the tropes I was once familiar with, and consequently my additions aren't on the scale I would have liked.
And we're back.
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Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}

Post by Leaty » Wed Oct 08, 2014 4:36 am

Thanks! I actually saw that, but I've been so busy I haven't had time to thank you over PM. I know it's massively immature of me, but seeing my tropes page fill up earlier this year was a rare joy, and really motivated me to move forward at times when I wasn't feeling it.

On a totally unrelated note, people who like this fic and like superhero comics should really take a look at Edge of Spider-Verse #2. It's basically Mean Time to Breakdown if MTtB were a Spider-Man comic and not a Katawa Shoujo fanfic.

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