And don’t let it be said that I don’t feel a measure, however small, of guilt that I haven’t been able to set aside decent chunks of time and energy to continue my “baby”…

Crep, it will be finished, or Muse-chan will have my hide.

On the other hand–and I think I may have mentioned in another Notes discussion–there’s a lot of information both published and informal about homosexuality in Japanese culture, which is good. I’ll certainly add more information about that later in Notes.

^_^

I stumbled across your story about a month ago, I’m not sure how, and I completely devoured it. I’ve since gone back through it several times (much more slowly), and at this point, I have to say I’m convinced that there simply isn’t a better piece of writing for this fandom. Even if I had no idea who the characters were, the writing itself is so compelling that I’d want to. The only thing that’s come close to your fic is an excellent series of drabbles (which I also randomly found) by , which if you haven’t read, I can’t recommend highly enough.

Needless to say, I’m slavering for the next chapter, but even if it never comes, I want to thank you for what you’ve put out here up to now. Between this and ‘s drabbles, I was actually inspired to start writing something myself… who knows if it’ll come to any sort of fruition, but regardless, I’m enjoying the process.

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to say thank you, and keep writing. Even if it isn’t this, you do have a gift, and I hope that you recognize that and continue to use it.

Well, you are absolutely right, I was not enough specific about what I meant. I was thinking about ‘nuance’. Like how Fuuka society is close to a real Japan.

Ah, and that’s what bothers me, not much, but a little. It is, well it should be, absolutely normal and logical to use Japanese-based settings for after-Carnival Mai Hime fiction. That’s why many fics with westernized settings feel pretty out of place, and that’s why your fiction is so nice to read. But sometimes I wonder if some settings or characterizations used in MH, which should be moved to the ‘real word’ with charaacters, are the same as in real Japan. Err.. for example… do some of Japanese girls speak the way Kuga does? Or… Hime-verse is very, very homophobic. Everytime homosexuality is mentioned, it is mentioned in a negative way, like something very bad, not tolerated by society, one should be ashamed of etc. Is the real Japan so homophobic too?
These things are not of great importance, or even maybe I see things that don’t exist, but I felt like explaining myself ;D.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to read your story :).

As an interesting aside, my initial research has involved the postwar Japanese business model of keiretsu, which is being broken down the past few years thanks to globalisation and Western influence. (Real interesting!)