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Old 2012-06-04, 19:17   Link #220
Triple_R
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Age: 42
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Kirito - Thanks for the detailed reply. I was prepared for some readers to not like certain elements of this update. But just to be clear, it's not that I'm trolling my audience. Let me try to explain why I took the plot the way I did in this latest update.

1) I'm sure that everybody here knows that I'm a big Sayaka fan. So it almost seemed too predictable for me to have Sayaka win her fight. I thought it might be pretty surprising if Hitomi "won" (in one route, the other ones all essentially ending in draws). Plus, Hitomi winning allowed me to showcase a wish side-effect power of her's that I had planned out from the start - I couldn't really think of another good way to showcase that (no reason for Hitomi to kiss familiars or witches, after all ). I also thought that Hitomi kissing Sayaka might be a nice, unexpected visual for yuri fans.

2) One thing I always try to keep in mind is the VN side of this. This fanfic is intended to eventually become a full-fledged VN, thanks to our good friend Kimidori. So my thinking is this: If you end up in the "Kiss of Victory!" section, it means that you passed on Mami, you passed on (or failed to get an opportunity with) Sayaka, and you passed on (or failed to get an opportunity with) Homura. So basically I see the "Kiss of Victory!" section (and the "Madoka Is Alone" sub-chain) as a bit of a punishment for readers/players doing poorly at the "romance game" side of things. Now most of the people reading this fanfic are reading everything, so naturally we all just want to keep seeing our favorite characters do well, but as the writer of VN routes, I can't forget the VN side of things.

3) I'll admit that I had a hard time deciding what to do with Mami in this latest update. I myself wasn't sure if it was more in-character to have her stay on the sidelines as an observer and just hope for the best, or for her to get more involved. The problem with her getting more involved is that it would prevent the Homura Romance branching - I'd have to push that back even farther, and I thought now would be a good time to get that branching started.

I also want to write here that Mami and Hitomi really are on good terms with each other. That isn't all an act on Hitomi's part, and/or Mami just being polite. My conception of Puella Magi Hitomi is basically "a dark Mami", personality-wise and style-wise, as I think the two have a lot of personality similarities. So I think they'd naturally get along well (or at least as well as circumstances would allow).

I've admittedly been writing Hitomi as a bit more of a ham than her anime self, and I'm basically using "intoxicated with Puella Magi power" as the excuse for Hitomi being like this. But even though I'm writing Hitomi as a bit of a "theatrical villain", in large part because I love theatrical villains, I don't think Hitomi is entirely unsympathetic. I'm mostly with Sayaka myself, of course, but I really do think that Hitomi has a right to be a bit pissed in how Madoka and Sayaka kept her in the dark about everything. Hitomi is badly overreacting to that, but I don't think she's just a coldhearted villain either. Perhaps I've gone too far in making Hitomi theatrical, and hence her more sympathetic elements aren't coming through as well as I had hoped.


Anyway, I hope that answers your criticisms of course. Not saying it'll make this update any easier to swallow for you, but I thought you should know where I, as the writer of this, is coming from at least.
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