Hanabi

--- Final Note ---

Hey everyone~

So, I finally finished Hanabi. I can’t even believe this haha. That epilogue was so freakin long for an actual epilogue lol but I couldn’t help it. I really wanted to write all those things :P I always had that image of the story ending with all of them travelling together haha. I hope once again that you enjoyed the read.

This was seriously the longest story I’ve ever written, and also my favorite one. I used to write like a maniac when I was younger and then I stopped, and SCANDAL made me write again after several years. To say that I’m actually really happy and satisfied about the way Hanabi turned out is a big thing for me because I always had the tendency to be a nagging perfectionist. I’m happy to have finished two chaptered SCANDAL fics and to be working on more ideas.

I’m writing this separate (long) note as a thanks and also in case anyone feels curious about some things regarding the story itself.

Ideas for Hanabi came one very boring afternoon while I was listening to music. I wanted another idea for a new story, so I was just thinking of all kinds of random stuff, and then when a bunch of Kagrra, songs came in my playlist (that song “Shiki” that I included in the Epilogue has a special part in this lol) I got this image of the girls in kimonos and watching fireworks from a big old house. And this is it lol In the end only Mami kept the kimono, but it still counts haha.

From there I decided I wanted to use Japanese mythology because I absolutely love it, and make it a supernatural kind of story. Once I had the girls’ characters figured out, Haru and Tomo were the ghost hunters, and Haruna was the first one to get a full background story. My first idea for Mami and Rina was switched; Rina was a lonely haunted girl and Mami was a kitsune but then it didn’t really click in my head so… yeah. Scratched that and changed it. Mami was a completely different character back then, she was supposed to be the usual clown, the wacko of the four. Which is kind of why I ended including Tomoko later, besides the practical reasons why I needed another youkai. I didn’t have a sassy wacko character and I wanted one, so the idea for Tomoko came later lol I really had no plans for her at first, but I’m glad this idea came to me later since people like her so much (and I do too).

I made this list of all possible elements that I wanted, mostly from Japanese mythology, and I had a crazy amount of items including tengu, several types of ghosts, demons, youkai, and just a whole lot of things that I couldn’t possibly include in just one story haha. I listed Oni from the start, but I had no idea how I was going to use them if ever. There were notes on some legends, including the one about Sojobou teaching warriors, and also notes on this thing about Oni reading people’s minds. It’s hard to find stuff on that subject in English, so even if I was REALLY interested in using that element, I’m still terrible at Japanese and I had to stick to the stuff I could understand.

With Mami as the haunted girl, the actual center of the plot, I defined her and Rina’s characters and then I had the very serious problem of… what the hell was going to haunt Mami. I really wanted to use Oni and the mind reading thing, but then I didn’t know how exactly because… seriously, the traditional imagery of Oni is something I find really cool, but I didn’t want that kind of thing to be haunting Mami. The huge red or blue muscular ogres with iron clubs and wearing that freakin loincloth made of tiger skin. I surely didn’t want that kind of thing attacking Mami because… it would be disturbing as hell. And I can only imagine that type of Oni trying to break Mami’s skull with those iron clubs at every opportunity so it really wouldn’t work in my head. I wanted something that would make it plausible for Mami to be haunted for over 20 years and not be dead yet. I wanted lots of things. I knew that I wanted scenes with fireworks; I wanted some kind of possession to happen at some point (yes, you can judge me all you want lol); if possible I wanted a trip to the other world; I obviously wanted ToMami… and cats (lol). I wanted tons of things for the story and the *thing* that was going to be Mami’s whole problem had to make sense with all these things I wanted, even for Mami’s own character. I wanted her to be completely isolated so I could focus on building her relationship with the other girls from absolutely nothing, and I wanted her to be slightly suicidal in the start because… it made sense in my head; and while an Oni reading her mind and torturing her could cause that, it wasn’t really the right thing. I can be freakin boring and nagging with my own ideas.