Yamaku Book Club (20210920 Writings of AA)

[dewelar]

Well, take what follows with a grain of salt, because I pretty much binge-read this after publishing my chapter last night. I do, however, consider it five-ish hours well spent.

As some of you know, I'm a big fan of fluffy stories, especially well-written ones. This one...well, it fell a step below "well-written", but was still quite enjoyable. I'm generally not a fan of Misha stories, but I found her character development quite good and quite believable. I thought the story could have used more Shizune, though, and Hisao felt a little OOC at times (which is easily chalked up to the time skip). Lynda didn't really click with me, and most of the other OCs were one-dimensional. I surprisingly found myself getting attached to Kelly, though, and felt really bad for her when Misha rejected her. I liked her, darn it ! However, given what we were shown, Lynda was probably the better match for Misha.

Plot-wise, things felt like they were a bit too neat and tidy. I know, I know, that generally comes with the fluffy, and as Hoitash stated, this was written to give Misha her happy ending, and it definitely accomplished that goal . I just think it erred a bit too far in that direction.

So...overall, I'd call it a good light read.

[AntonSlavik020]

I feel like Misha's speech patterns in the game are mostly put on anyways, so those not being prominent in this story isn't a problem. Makes Misha seem more real, in a way. And I actually liked this more than your H&K series. I took numerous breaks from that story when I read it.

[Hoitash]

I surprisingly found myself getting attached to Kelly, though, and felt really bad for her when Misha rejected her. I liked her, darn it

Heh, funny you mention that.

I had originally planned for Misha to break up with Lynda for Kelly, way before I started writing and was just planning out the story. But I tend to get attached to my characters, and I couldn't do that to Lynda, so the two stuck it out and I had to rework things.

I do think it was for the better, though.

And yeah, I'd like to think I'm at least better at writing characters these days.

As for fluffy, well, I was a lot less bitter in those days .

[Sea]

As a side note, if you don't mind asking, where do you live Sea? Where I am it was 4:30 PM March 4th when the meeting started.

I inhabit Toronto but am in Berea at the moment visiting my step-brother in Ohio, it's like 20 minutes from Cleveland which I got to on a ferry across the Eire. Technically my home is in Vancouver but college so yes. I'm going off GMT, meaning for all you EST people its going to be like 4 in the afternoon, but for Comrade, who I presume Lives in or around the Kazakhstan area (Or Kazakh Eli as it might soon be called) he's already in the next day, and because GMT is the global tipping point for time, I though it be a good idea to start there.

I feel like Misha's speech patterns in the game are mostly put on anyways, so those not being prominent in this story isn't a problem. Makes Misha seem more real, in a way.

Indeed, The best thing about it for me was exploring Misha's character and getting farther in depth than canon.

[brythain]

I've read this piece through for the first time. It comes across as rather unpolished, but it does tell a fascinating story with interesting insights as to the history and character of Shiina Mikado, our dear Misha.

Characters: Misha grows well and comes to terms with herself, Will is a good bro, Henry is the bro's bro, Carla is the roommate, Kelly is the accidental alternate, and Lynda is a bit underdeveloped for a major character. Shizune and Hisao are peripheral, which is right for this piece.

Plot: Coming-of-age and coming-out mixture. Good traditional ending, nice feels.

Aesthetic: Very slice-of-life, a bit like eating a pizza while watching TV, one slice at a time, and feeling comfy after that. It's urban college aesthetic, and very true to its origins. What I perhaps felt a little uncomfortable with was that while Misha has a lack of cultural awareness and vocabulary in English (perfectly natural), she doesn't quite come across as Japanese or 'alien' enough. That tends to make the story sound more like 'small-town girl goes to NYC'.

Conclusion: Pleasant fluff, and I see there are side-stories… yum.

Afternote: Someone might feel that going through the piece with a fine-toothed editing comb might help with reader accessibility on some level.

[Hoitash]

Afternote: Someone might feel that going through the piece with a fine-toothed editing comb might help with reader accessibility on some level.

I always wonder if I should go back and edit earlier works.

I should probably handle the various errors, at least. It deserves that much, now that I'm slightly more capable as a proof-reader (thanks in large part to this very forum.)

she doesn't quite come across as Japanese or 'alien' enough. That tends to make the story sound more like 'small-town girl goes to NYC'.

I kinda figured Misha was used enough to big cities that it was less of a country girl thing, and more of just culture shock. At their core major urban centers have a lot in common, so I was trying to strike that balance of familiar, but still foreign. That was the idea at least; clearly I was a little off the mark.

Unpolished is... appropriate. I'd say ignorant, because that's what I was when I wrote it, but now unpolished fits very well (that, at least, is better in the one-shots. Theoretically.)

[Helbereth]

This story is how I was introduced to Hoitash, and it's among the collection of fictions I started reading before starting my own diversions. During my first read-through, it was still being published, and I believe there are a number of comments from me in between some of the later chapters. Anyway, enough about that.

Since Misha never got her own route, there are a lot of stories around that try to give her a pseudo route - some more successfully than others - but this one is different because it assumes there was no Misha route, and instead we get an epilogue that follows her after Hisao and Shizune have already become Japan's next power couple. It's unpolished, especially in the early chapters, but I'm guilty of that sin at least a dozen times over, so I'm not going to complain.

The issues I have remain that some of the characters feel woefully underdeveloped, while others got a lot of attention that went nowhere. Lynda is Lynda, and she's something of a mystery even to herself, so I can forgive the lack of development a little bit, but when a major story point hinges on how a character thinks or what they believe, it's somewhat difficult to swallow unless the reasons thereof have been at least mentioned. Again, that's a mistake brought on by inexperience - Hoitash has gotten better at solving literary identity crisis over the past two years.

The Kelly thing still bothers me. Not so much that it didn't seem necessary, but that there was no clever attempt made to turn it into a conflict near the end. Instead of making the problem something for Misha to really wrestle with, like deciding between the prospective girlfriends - thereby making it an internal conflict with external influence - it became all about saving Kelly's feelings, which, if you look at it through the lens of Misha's high school experience, is a terrible bit of history repeating itself.

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and I wouldn't hold this against someone making their first foray into long-form fiction, but looking back after almost two years makes me wonder what could have been if Hoitash had started writing USOM now. There at least could have been more lemons.

[Hoitash]

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and I wouldn't hold this against someone making their first foray into long-form fiction, but looking back after almost two years makes me wonder what could have been if Hoitash had started writing USOM now. There at least could have been more lemons.

Lemons, maybe. Scissoring, probably (I still find it funnny I've written literally one sex scene on this forum despite all the romances.)

That said, I often wonder that myself, but I doubt I could ever do a full re-write. Maybe it's the nostalgic in me, but I'd rather let the old story stand on its own then remake it, for better or worse.

Now, I will remark on the Kelly thing: Misha is aware of the similarity, and she, at least, makes it very clear that if Kelly wants nothing to do with her, she is completely free to do so. I never got around to addressing it, but I figured after that night they probably did little more then exchange a courteous nod to each other on campus.

Although that doesn't absolve me, of course. It just shows my lack of skill at the time. Still, I'm glad that despite the faults, the story can be enjoyed despite the many flaws.

I'm also really glad I didn't try for a pseudo-route. That woulda ended in tears for all parties involved.

[Craftyatom]

United States of Misha... Well, let's play Angel's Advocate!

First and foremost: PURPOSE. The first few chapters of this story left me wondering what exactly was going to happen - which isn't, I should say, a bad thing. I was left with a general taste of "I don't know where this is going, but I like it." I may not be a big slice of life fan, but I recognize that conflict is not necessarily a pervasive element in literature. (I would argue that it's rarely actually a necessary element, but that's a different topic for a different discussion) Then came the Lynda. This was nice. Everything fit. There was a story here, with characters, events, and even routines. There still wasn't much happening in the way of surprises, but hey, just because I wasn't flying out of my seat didn't mean I wasn't having a good time. I knew, though, that this story, like all others, was going to end up hurting me, because that's just how these things work. I looked at chapter 13 and thought "Thirteen... It's going to happen now, isn't it." It didn't, and for a brief moment I thought that maybe this story was just going to be happy, and there would be happiness, and... Well, then came chapter 14. Boom. Kapow. Other grudgingly typed explosion noises. Via a roundabout process including computer science majors (go team), though, we reached the end, and I was made very much happier. Oddly enough, this did not restore a sense of purposelessness in me. Having been through the whole story, I felt like something had been accomplished, which I wasn't expecting given the first 10 or so chapters. So, TL;DR: If you intend to feel a sense of purpose from USM, you're going to have to read all of it. If you're like me, though, you'll enjoy the story all the way through, even if you wonder for a bit why you're reading it.

Subsequently: CHARACTERIZATION. I will say that all of the characters performed very well as they were written. At no point did I wonder why a certain character was doing something, because their personalities remain consistent throughout the story. Everything makes sense. That said, though, Misha felt a teensy bit weird. Maybe it's because I wasn't paying a ton of attention to the Shizune good end, but she didn't quite feel the same... I realized pretty quickly, though, that having her talk in another language made all the difference. I also think that, looking back, her ability to speak English actually improved throughout the story, something I almost missed but am glad I caught, because it seems like the kind of thing that would take a lot of effort. On top of that, a big part of the story was about Misha "finding herself," and therefore expecting me to know who she is right off the bat is perhaps a bit much anyways. So, given that Misha was talking in a completely foreign language (and had a Hispanic accent in my head the whole time, ay madre), I think that the characterization was, on the whole, quite good.

Strangely coming in third is ROMANCE. Romance actually would be fourth, but I couldn't possibly shove it that far down the list, so I gave it some love up here. The reason romance is so far down is that, for me, it was not a very big part of story. For a plot where the vast majority of events focus on the protagonist and her love interest, you'd think that romance would be a big part of it, but it wasn't, at least in my eyes. The story put a lot more emphasis on who the characters were, and their interactions seemed to have a lot more depth than expected of a strictly romantic conversation. Of course, one part of what usually makes up romance was missing, but I fully respect your decision not to write erotica; to each their own. One way or another, the romance seemed to drive your characters without anyone really noticing it (or maybe I'm just not very perceptive), especially the scenes in the final few chapters involving Kelly. The romance in this story, while not a very big element, served to further the characters, and really, that's kind of what the whole thing was about, so it worked well.

Fourth place is TEMPO, also affectionately called pacing. I have this vision of someone, somewhere, who is very concerned about the timing of events in this fic. They're quite angry about two-month gaps and plot point density. I am not that person. I honestly don't care when the things in the story happened, because some of the nicest moments were when things weren't happening. I mentioned before about the first 10 or so chapters being very much uneventful (okay, there were events, but nothing that showed up as drastic), and that doesn't include the multi-month gaps scattered around the place, but to me, it didn't even matter. Anyone who thought "get to the point already", however, was a victim of the slightly slow tempo used here. Not saying that detail is a bad thing; just that some spice would've made it more readable in some cases. Regarding word-wise pacing, I would've liked some minor changes in the way the early chapters worked, but I firmly believe that chapters 13-19 were paced excellently. (IMPORTANT NOTE: I was a goddamn sucker for the Lynda+Hisao 'middle of the night' scene, it's probably my favorite part of the whole story)

Coming in at the last place here, that is, fifth, is WRITING. It's always nice when writing comes fifth because that means it wasn't very important, which means I didn't notice it, which means that it didn't do anything wrong. As mentioned before, the characterization is smooth, there were no jarring or glaring inaccuracies, and the detail was wonderful, especially regarding the rooftops at night. I will say that there were more spelling mistakes than I would have liked, but they were all common things - "affect" instead of "effect" (not bad considering it's usually the other way around), "then" instead of "than", and at least 4 assorted "their/they're/there/your/you're"s. But, basic mechanics aside, the actual vocabulary and tone were wonderful, and that's what counts.

So, on a scale of 1 to 4761, where 1 is your significant other moving to Canada and 4761 is writing your best program ever, "United States of Misha" grabs a solid ranking of "A Damn Good Read."

[Sea]

It's not quite 24:00 GMT yet, but i'm in a hurry so there. Alright, much (very little) deliberation has been put into the search for our next fic, and here it is!

Titanium by Meadows (completed, 5.413 words)
PoV: Miki; Pairings: N/A
Remarks: non-standard setting: SciFi

It's a little diefferent from our usual fare, but I found ti interesting an it's nice to see something from Meadows to dull the ache of knowing the Miki route has died. (The best of them all) He/She did say it was progression from the Miki route but I'm assuming you've all read it. (If you haven't, go do it. It's awesome) Keep in mind USM discussion is open until the meeting on 24:00 GMT on the 9th, so keep on keepin' on.
Quick note: that one story about the fireman who saved Hanako is out there somewhere and im having trouble finding it, if anyone has a spare link I was planning on that being our next book.

[Mournful3ch0]

Yeah, I found one kicking around.The Fireman by MEHKANIK.

[Sea]

Meeting three!
It begins! I hope everybody liked this one ad a bit of a step from the established fics, but really got into it. We're once again having a vote, but less general, Meaning I'll choose 2 catagories, in this case Dark or Happy and everybody just PM me which you'd rather have. I'll choose a properly dark/happy fic and away we go. I'd like to speed the club up in general so voting closes in two days, and the fic will be posted shortly after (Probably 24:00 GMT on the 11th, not to break the pattern) Happy readings.
Note: The link has been created to this page.
Note 2: Curses! I don't think the fireman story is on the page and one of the rules is not external links . . . . . Would anyone be adverse if we read it?

[Oddball]

We're still working out the kinks in the rules, so let's allow it this one time.

Besides, I've already read the thing and it's awesome.

Oh, and I vote for HAPPY.

[dewelar]

Sorry, Sea, but I didn't care for this one at all. Not that it wasn't good -- for all I know, it may very well be good for what it is -- but because pretty much everything about it wasn't my cup of tea. For one thing, unlike most folks here, I'm not a big Miki fan. Also, I'm not a fan of dystopian-future stories, and the premise was just too far out there to allow for suspension of disbelief. The writing itself was pretty decent, I guess, but not good enough to grab and keep my attention. I guess the best thing I can say about it is that I'm glad it was short .

I have no problem with allowing discussion of off-boards stories, as long as it isn't grounds for being Cooked. And I also vote HAPPY (in fact, you can pretty much mark me down for HAPPY any time such a choice exists ).

[Oscar Wildecat]

Regarding Titanium: A story containing a malfunctioning brain implant as an element strikes a bit close to home, given that my neurologist discussed the possibility of treating my tremors with well ... a brain implant.

As for the story itself, yeah, it's a bit too dystopian for my tastes. However, it does work well as a one-shot; and, it does fit the mood set by the song referenced at the end.