Ideas Thread

[Brian]

Well, from the novels, the IDSE can do almost anything.  Interfaces can do some cool stuff, but tend to need permission for the more awesome stuff.

But that's all pretty irrelevant, since Yuki stole Haruhi's powers once (though, novels 10/11, now that I think about it, seem to imply that Haruhi actually subconsciously let that happen because it ended okay...).

[Arakawa]

So Brian had this fic idea up for a while which as basically "The Inevitable Ranma 1/2 Crossover of Haruhi" with no further explanation. I spent a while trying to figure out how that could possibly work. I guess the only thing that makes it inevitable is that Brian writes Haruhi fanfics, and Ranma fanfics, which obligates him to cross them over at some point?

Problem is, it's difficult to come up with a good hook for this so-called inevitable cross-over. "Random Haruhi character gets thrown into Jyuusenkyo" just doesn't cut it as a story idea.

Just now I had this brainstorm which sums up to "Akane Tendo is Haruhi's mother". (Haruhi's father would be... someone from outside the martial arts world. Akane is, in this fic, mostly fed up with Nerima and the people who inhabit it.)

There's really only a couple of things which make that theory work well. First, Akane is rubbish at cooking, and Haruhi's mother in-canon (or, I dunno, well-established fanon) is also rubbish at cooking, which is how Haruhi becomes such a skilled cook, having to do everything herself if she wants to eat reasonable meals. Second, Haruhi is not just athletic, but on a few occasions does implausible and impolite things like high-kicking the Computer Club president in the head just for the heck of it, which could be linked to martial artist genes, plus half-hearted training at some point from Akane.

Of course, there's the problem that Akane would have witnessed plenty of the kind of stuff that Haruhi is looking for during her days in Nerima. There's two ways around that:

• Most of what Akane remembers is crazy enough that Haruhi dismisses it as looney
• Akane knows that what she remembers would be dismissed as looney by anyone who isn't a martial artist from Nerima, so she keeps quiet about her history. Moreover, since Akane has an overall negative opinion of the martial arts culture, she doesn't have any motivation to reminisce about it in the first place.

There's probably a glaring hole somewhere in this crossover idea. Anyhow...

Let's say that our story begins with an older Ranma arriving at Haruhi's house. He was happily married to Ukyo (hooray Ranma/Ukyo shipping!) but miscellaneous trouble / inheriting a crippling yakuza debt from Genma / angry Chinese Amazon revenge plan / whatever drives him into temporary hiding and he tries to get Akane to let him lie low in the Suzumiya household for a while.

(cue reprise of Ranma/Akane tsundere arguing which drives Haruhi completely and Akane's husband completely nuts)

There's also the bit about Ranma still having a Jyuusenkyo curse and how the rest of the Brigade finds out and tries to persuade him to hide it from Haruhi. It might simplify things a little if the fic is written Takahashi-flavour, so that Haruhi can plausibly have the same brain disease Kuno has that causes them to think Ranma's boy and girl selves are different people.

From there, the most promising route would probably have Haruhi seeing some far less conclusive form of evidence that Nerima, Tokyo is a very... odd place, and then organizing a trip there do to a mystery search. Arbitrary chaos ensues. This could be made interesting even as a purely "so, what's happening in Nerima twenty years later?" fic, with Haruhi taking the role of a Takahashi-style 'itinerant challenger' character and possibly dragging Ranma along as a temporary guide. (Nerima-POV: "Insane paranormal investigator arrives in Nerima with a bunch of weird henchmen and annoys everyone half to death with inquiries about things like the marriage-obsessed ghost cat that is considered a minor local nuisance (and attempts to marry Mikuru). Mysteriously, she's never quite able to witness any paranormal events first hand, although she does comedically make mortal enemies out of all the usual suspects.")

Haruhi and a grown-up Kuno butting heads over whether Haruhi should be allowed to search the grounds of the Kuno estate grounds could be either seriously epic or majorly annoying.

Kyon: "And so, Haruhi eventually prevailed and we were let into the garden, which was planted mostly with land mines. Ranma muttered something about the self-important fool getting even more paranoid over the years, and I had to ask Nagato to do something about the land mines.

In the middle we found a pond which turned out to contain an ancient and extremely grumpy alligator."

It's definitely very rough, but in my opinion it's miles more workable than the usual "Haruhi gets thrown into Jyuusenkyo".

[Brian]

Oh, you want the outline for that?  Okay, so, writing this up to share before reading your post.

So, as a fair warning, this story is really dark, and probably freakishly squicky.  In fact, Ranma's presence is just a foil for the reveal of what's going on ... story uses only him and Ukyou from the Ranma universe.

Most of the latter half of the outline/plan is vague because I don't know how things will work until that point.

In fact:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Prologue:

Somewhere Far, Far away, and Long Ago (Tokyo, 1982): Story starts with Ranma returning from Phoenix Mountain -- alone.  Akane died, so he eventually decides to just leave town forever, not sure what else to do.  Realizing it's probably her last chance to have anything to do with him at all, Ukyou is along for the ride, too.  Her family lives down in the Kansai area, you see, so she can arrange for them to have some place to start fresh.
   All of this would be related in a single scene, Ranma's PoV as Ukyou is asleep next to him on the train.  He's holding a 'good luck' charm she almost forgot to pack, a mysterious rod that the pair of them dug up a loooong time ago when they were kids, and falls asleep while thinking about the shishi houkodan.

Somewhere not nearly as far away and much more recently (Nishinomiya, 2011): Tsuruya Haruka's father brings to her attention that a member of the branch family (they took the name Kuonji years ago) suddenly announced that his daughter and her fiance are in town and looking for work.  This is interesting because as far as the Tsuruya family knows (and they watch this guy closely), he's just a crazy old man -- and the last of his line.  His daughter died many years ago.  Tsuruya sets down the rod that Kyon told her to dig up from where she was rolling it across her desk, and considers things.

Chapter content:

Not sure how else to handle it, Tsuruya decides to meet the pair.  They have a letter from Ukyou's father (and she complains that he seemed to have aged 'decades' since she saw him last, and 'really seemed out of it') vouching for them, but since he's kind of a loon who never got over the death of his daughter....

After some fairly straightforward tests to establish Ukyou and Ranma's skills, Tsuruya determines that they aren't sharp enough to be assasins, but given how effective they are, she's not going to turn them down, either.  Since things have been heating up lately, she makes a deal that Ranma will work as her bodyguard, and Ukyou can go to Kouyen so she'll be able to pursue the business degree she needs now.

Ranma's bodyguard duties place him in a class with Yuki -- as a girl, since his male half has been building up something of a reputation by destroying all those mooks (Ranma is superhuman compared to the limitations of mortals in Haruhi's universe).  Tsuruya knows about the curse, presumably, but also trusts that Ranma (based on his surprisingly effective disguise skills) can keep things quiet on his own.

This falls apart when Haruhi starts hearing about Ranma.  Or, probably, someone in Ranma's class thinking 'she' is unusually sullen, and mentioning that her introduction to the class was to announce that she was engaged, and that her boyfriend would beat the crap out of anyone who asked her out.  This is a great chance for Haruhi to call-back to novel one where she mentions that Koizumi may not be a boy because he could be 'in disguise'.

Ranma takes an immediate dislike to Haruhi and her attitude for reasons he can't figure out right away.  When Haruhi hauls him into the clubroom to try and interrogate him, Ranma's not impressed, and Haruhi gets really worked up about Ranma's attitude (because he is very good at pushing people's buttons), so ends up jumping up to stand on her chair while she's shouting at him.  Being overenthusiastic, Haruhi manages to actually fall out the window -- but Ranma, being Ranma, rescues her by jumping out after, catching her, and then jumping back.

To Ranma, this is nothing but an opportunity to chastize Yuki for obviously having the skills/speed to react, but (for whatever reason) not helping Haruhi (she was actually prepared, but didn't want to break the masquerade if she could help it -- and Ranma made her intervention unnecesary).  When Haruhi demands to know how Ranma managed to pull that off, he scoffingly dismisses it by remarking that he is the greatest martial artist on the planet (which she will believe wholeheartedly).

But Ranma still doesn't like Haruhi, so he leaves after that, and does his best to avoid her -- which becomes impossible once she learns of the connection between Tsuruya and Ranma.  Not that Tsuruya's going to let Haruhi annoy the hell out of her best bodyguard ... but a few questions, and hanging out every so often are fine.

From there, a less central plot emerges where it turns out that Ranma has the same powers as Haruhi, except they're all internalized.  So because he believes that the interfaces are humans (no masquerade breaks for Ranma!), he also believes that anything they can do, he can too.  (And, generally, he can, though if he doesn't see it as a martial technique, he wouldn't bother.)  The really interesting side-effect here is that when Kuyou tries to kill Kyon, Ranma is able to actually fight her off.  ("'Bout damn time someone worth fighting showed up!")  For what it's worth, Haruhi's power will trump Ranma's in any case.

Despite his general indifference to Haruhi, Ranma thinks Kyon's okay, if he seriously needs to train (Kyon will, in fact, train, when Haruhi demands this as an excellent way to keep tabs on Ranma).  So, Ranma has to pretend to be two different people to Haruhi, as much as that annoys him.

From there, the plot develops that it seems Haruhi is losing interest in Kyon and starting to become much more interested in KYon.  And this is where the squick comes in.  Oh, god, does it ever come in:
[spoiler]

Some observations come up here, regarding somewhat freudian justifications for her behavior.  Namely, Haruhi doesn't understand boundaries and what's 'okay' or not sexually.  She's also able to get money enough to buy things like the bunny suits and get them online without much trouble.  She has no hesitation to agree to date anyone who asks.

There's a connection here where Haruhi gets money (and also acts ... weird) almost every time her mom goes out of town on a business trip and she's left alone with her father.

I'm ... not going to expand on that here.  I think you can figure it out.

It works because Haruhi believes that her father's really a monster (on the inside) and that there's no one in the world who can stop him.  Well, until Ranma shows up.

So, Haruhi is still actually interested in Kyon, but things get ... difficult any time her mom takes a trip, and because Haruhi doesn't want anyone else to know the truth, not even Yuki or Koizumi are aware of it (and will Kyon ever be furious when he finds out).

This all leads to a confrontation where the Brigade (plus Ranma) bust into Haruhi's home when they realize what's going on and they have a chance to stop it.  So, they kick down the doors and force a reveal that Haruhi wasn't ready for.  In this setting, Haruhi's father becomes a literal oni, and then you get the whole two-different levels thing, where Ranma goes out to fight Haruhi's father, ("You deserve this even more than that crazy knife-chick!"), while the rest of the Brigade tries to reach Haruhi and she rejects them all, terrified of their judgement (and blaming herself, because in these situations, that shit happens, ugh).

Kyon ultimately convinces Haruhi of the powers of friendship, because if she doesn't believe in her friends, Ranma can't win.  (Not that he'd believe that, or stop, but anyway.)  So, Haruhi decides to believe that her friends can help her ... and that lets Ranma win.

And of course, Ranma doesn't kill people, so Haruhi admits to herself that once he's defeated, and she's surrounded by her friends ... he's just a man.


Then some distant epilogue where Ranma's gotten over Akane and become less of a jackass.  Ranma and Haruhi become friends after all, even if they don't see one-another as much because he's at Tsuruya's college.  Haruhi's still dealing with her issues, but Kyon's patient enough, so can leave off implying that things are getting better and everything will work out.

[/spoiler]

Which, I suppose, is why I've felt minimal motivation to actually write this story....  Hilarity most certainly did not ensue. :x

[Arakawa]

Hmm, I see... good to know, for the record. I'd probably have felt severely alienated if you'd written a fic like that and I ended up reading it (starts out innocently enough, but then...)

I'd suppose "Nerima twenty years later" gives plenty of opportunity for bringing in a bit of melancholy as it is already. (The bit with Kuno getting more and more paranoid as he grows older... could easily be played as a tearjerker.) I'm not very clear on how the Ranma cast comes together as a whole so I'm not going to be able to write such a fic competently, though.

So conversely my idea mostly uses Haruhi as a foil for a "Nerima twenty years later fic".

It also just works as a vehicle for random ideas like:

• Ghost cat attempts to marry Mikuru
• Haruhi and Kuno have epic clash of titanic egos
• Someone (foolishly) challenges Nagato

Ehh, I guess my idea would just be construed as an attempt to one up Demiglace Graffiti by handling the settings more coherently.

[Brian]

(starts out innocently enough, but then...)

I thought I was jaded.... 

Which part was the innocent start, where Tsuruya is a yakuza, or where Akane dies?

Nevermind.  Scapping the idea as a failure.

[Arakawa]

Yes, I'm quite jaded. Culturally speaking, I've inherited the perfect storm of worldviews that cause me to consider human individuals to be entirely worthless until proven otherwise... putting that pleasant thought aside...

Which part was the innocent start, where Tsuruya is a yakuza, or where Akane dies?

Yes, compared to the Freudian deconstruction stuff at the end, Akane dying is positively upbeat. Jeez... last I checked you're not Hideaki Anno.

Then again since you haven't written the fic, I assume you're perfectly aware of that fact yourself...

[thepanda]

Oh, wow, that's dark. -_-

Hm, crossing Ranma and Haruhi. What mood would you be going for? Does the masquerade break?

[Brian]

There was no way I could come up with a presentation that would save it.

Other than that, generally, I find the settings mostly incompatible.  The Ranmaverse is crazy enough that Haruhi would either demand less, or more, depending....  I seem to recall trying to hash out fusion concepts between the two of them with a few others.  Couldn't get anything more solid, which is why I'd never written a word of that outline until earlier today.

Pretty much it was just in my head.  I can see the scene of Ranma catching Haruhi, and possibly of fighting Kuyou, but a pair of action sequences don't make a story.  Well, not this one.

And, anyway, I'm in enough projects at the moment. :x

[thepanda]

I find the incompatibility mostly lies in if you want to break the masquerade. No one in Nerima has any reason to hide what they can do, and I generally read fics about them because of what they can, and often do, do.

[Arakawa]

Oh, wow, that's dark. -_-

Hm, crossing Ranma and Haruhi. What mood would you be going for? Does the masquerade break?

Yeah, let's stick to comedy for this idea...

If we try to deconstruct and reassemble Haruhi in the mold of a Takahashi character... which is probably the way I'd go... the masquerade would probably end up set in stone. Just like Ryoga has no sense of direction, and Shampoo insists on talking pidgin all the time, Haruhi would likewise be doomed to having supernatural things ironically happening all the time around her without her noticing. I mean, if Kuno still hasn't figured out that boy and girl Ranma are the same person...

Brian points out that the Ranmaverse would be a very awkward thing to have inside the Haruhi setting. True.

But conversely, to reiterate my point, Haruhi would work well by the rules of the Ranmaverse as a 'perennial challenger' type of character. She arrives out of town and proceeds to pester everyone about supernatural events, resulting in the usual Takahashi-style Rube Goldberg chaos. The SOS Brigade's powers function to drive the comedy further up the wall without any particular focus on complicated Haruhiverse repercussions.

e.g. how Haruhi might function as a martial artist:

She has martial artist genes (and even possibly learns to jump rooftops during her stay in Nerima, thinking it to be entirely within the limits of human capability) but her training is basically rubbish. She was trained by Akane, and Akane is very low on the ladder of martial prowess, anyhow.

She never challenges anyone, that's not what she's come here to do.

But she never backs down from a challenge because she's very proud and competitive.

Whenever she gets into a fight, her opponent ends up having awful luck for absolutely no reason, and her rubbish training at the hands of Akane ends up being sufficient to cause Haruhi to win.

Ranma is very suspicious of this, particularly when Haruhi refuses an offer from training from him (you know, because Ranma is concerned Haruhi might end up hurting herself at this rate). He thinks Haruhi might be like that copycat guy, using some one-off trick to cheat her fights, and possibly even resolves to defeat her after some careful planning, to put her in her place.

(Lead in to Ranma asking Cologne's advice, Cologne investigating Haruhi?)

I don't know, the presentation would be a series of inconsequential short stories as opposed to some big stewing pot of combinatorics that ends with the Haruhiverse masquerade being broken...

Actually, one alternate way to handle this would be to innocuously start as a "Nerima twenty years later fic", setting the mood first, then having Haruhi appear out of left field.

Reader: why is Haruhi here?

Akane appears and starts telling Haruhi off.

Reader: she's Akane's daughter??

[Brian]

Abrlagrlgraflargghfgs.

Blerg.



Well, okay.  Haruhi goes off on a wild adventure (while Kyon facepalms) chasing some wild rumor of a district of Tokyo that's totally insane, and worth checking out for the amazing things that happen there.  (Like that couldn't be Akihabara or Shunjuku, instead of Nerima.)  Justification for the craziness of Ranma (which requires at least ... ghosts, cursed items, cursed springs somewhere in China...).

so many ways that could go

In my mind, something has to be done to address the fact that the Ranma universe does run on the Law of Comedy, or else we're saying that the Nerima Wrecking Crew are genuinely Made of Iron in a World of Cardboard.  Also, the magic thing.

So, is Nerima some government controlled zone?  We could play off the fact that the manga itself isn't accurate to the real district, and it's somehow been concealed by a conspiracy.  Partially 'concealed in plain sight', in some way, not _really_ hidden, just hard to find.  Haruhi stumbles across it chasing some rumor or another?  Leads the Brigade there, trying to follow Ryouga somewhere?  Absolutely anywhere at all, really.  Hell, following Ryouga could work even if Koiuzmi, Yuki, and Mikuru conspire to prevent Haruhi from going anywhere near Tokyo.  (This does mean playing up Ryouga's ability to get lost as nearly a superpower, but when has that stopped fanfic authors?)

Then, how crazy _is_ Nerima, really?  Maybe crazy things happen rarely enough that it's not a secret.  So, Brigade have no idea what's there until they arrive.

Even at this point, so many options, so many, many options.

• Haruhi manages to miss everything amazing/supernatural in the entire district, going through 'A typical Nermian day' (heya, Miao) in a comedy of errors.


• As above but ending in a reveal -- probably someone getting splashed, leading into a longer story exploring, what, the fallout of Haruhi knowing about Jusenkyou curses and/or super martial arts?


• Haruhi immediately decides that she has to learn this super martial art, and begins to pester Ranma for training, because he's a kind of guy she'd respect (though, she would feel sorry for the girl that dated him).  Again, comedy of errors as the fiancee squad goes ballistic at the interloper.  (This idea wouldn't even need the rest of the Brigade.)  Haruhi starts picking things up by learning to dodge projectiles from Ranma's fiancees/rivals, treats everything as a game? Comes back to Kitago a Ranma-level martial artist, demands that Kyon train up to her level?


• Inversely, somehow, someone in Nerima has gotten information from a member of the Agency, and has discovered the existence of Haruhi.  (I can only really see this being Cologne, but even then, best to shy away from Haruhi's powers being some ancient amazon legacy from over their 3,000 years of history.)  Very brief story about a clever woman promising to show Haruhi something amazing.  She then pours water over Shampoo's head, engaging Haruhi's skepticism and breaking Shampoo's curse, but write it from Haruhi's PoV, so she sees nothing?  Cologne can then do some incredibly minor trick that impresses Haruhi (just showing herself to be remarkably spry at her age would probably do it, and might cause Haruhi to believe people in general were healthier, so, win-win, on that front).  Or have Shampoo demonstrate something impressive, and then run off.


• As the above, eh, the Kunos find out about Haruhi, and Kodachi has some plan to convince Haruhi that Ranma is her boyfriend?  (Seems kinda underwhelming, but then, maybe that works for comedy?)  Not ... sure if want to consider implications of idea I wrote.


• Setting aside intents for coincidences: The Brigade goes to the beach for vacation, and the Tendo family is there, too (and so, the rest of the Ranma cast follows, because they always do).  Then ... they meet?  Ranma casually masquerade-breaks because he doesn't like Kyon oggling him?  (Or Haruhi claiming Kyon's doing it, when he's actually oggling Mikuru/Nabiki/Kasumi?)  Hilarity ensues?

So, yeah.

[Muphrid]

Haruhi manages to miss everything amazing/supernatural in the entire district, going through 'A typical Nermian day' (heya, Miao) in a comedy of errors.

I picture Koizumi with a dossier on Ranma and company, saying to Kyon that they have to keep Haruhi from learning about anything mysterious while on this trip to Tokyo and Kyon desperately trying to keep up while typical Ranma-esque hijinx are ensuing, much to his chagrin.  Gods only know that if Haruhi sees Ranma get splashed, she may turn the whole world into genderbenders.

...this is probably a terrible way to work in that universe, too, if one were so inclined, but that would probably detract from the above.

[Jason_Miao]

Hey, Muphrid.

Somewhere Far, Far away, and Long Ago (Tokyo, 1982): Story starts with Ranma returning from Phoenix Mountain
<snip>
After some fairly straightforward tests to establish Ukyou and Ranma's skills, Tsuruya determines that they aren't sharp enough to be assasins....

Did you mean "sharp" as in "intelligent"?  Because you can't possibly mean "capable of killing someone".

Ghost cat attempts to marry Mikuru

I can't stop laughing at this, for some reason.


So, realizing that I'm fairly familiar with Ranma manga, pretty much never watched the anime, and don't know much about Haruhi except for what was in the first few novels (+ whatever I managed to crib from reading Bri's fics).  Therefore, this might not work...

Haruhi wants for the supernatural to exist.  Haruhi is also freakishly smart, so she has to know that the supernatural doesn't exist.  Add those together, and perhaps you have the effect where all the crazy Nerima martial arts and magic only works when Haruhi isn't looking (and this would apply to why the SOS always gets away with all of their plans.  Because they are all dependent upon Haruhi not recognizing what is gong on). 

However, there's the caveat that Haruhi can be persuaded that the crazy effects are real, if explained in a reasonable fashion (also, since she's looking for the supernatural, so 'reasonable' can stretch quite a way).  Two effects from this:
(1) Of course, once Haruhi figures out that super martial arts are possible, she wants to learn.  Haruhi with chi blasts, 100 punches/second speeds, and leaping on rooftops.
(2) Once Nerimans find out, they all rush to influence their opinions of what Ranma is like to Haruhi.  Since Ranma is a pervert/a true warrior married to Shampoo/a "dreamy" subject/noble/should die, Ranma keeps going through rapid and strange shifts in attitude (which can be played up for whatever comedy that can be drawn from various scenes), while running around Nerima wondering what the hell is going on.

Eventually, Haruhi gets fed up and decides that Ranma is probably some pretty cool, exciting, and attractive guy.  They finally stumble across one another, and Haruhi decides that she's going to figure out what Ranma is really like.  As it turns out, Ranma is a cool, exciting, and attractive guy.  So, a feedback loop commences where Haruhi continually thinks better of him, so Ranma keeps improving, so Haruhi becomes more attracted to him, so Haruhi continually thinks better of him...soon, Haruhi is Ranma's girlfriend/fiancee.

This bodes poorly for Mikuru, since she is the grandaughter of Ranma and Ukyou (cue Back to the Future).  I don't know if the Haruhi-Kyon relationship would have ever gotten up to the point of being jealous of Ranma, but with the Mikuru angle, there is still motivation for everyone to meddle since no one would like to see Mikuru cease to exist.  The other twist is that since Ranma is now so much more attractive, the fiancee war changes from just plotting to get Ranma to trying to going out of their way to actively attack (although these should be more like humiliating pranks) their rivals.


That seems like enough of a basic framework.  Especially since I don't know if the starting premise is feasible, so that might all be for naught.

[Arakawa]

Random thought - one way it's possible to make even "Haruhi gets thrown into Jyuusenkyo" work: assume that Haruhi's regular and cursed forms have no memory of one another (or, more promisingly, they have conveniently-edited memories which omit the whole transformation part, making Haruhi think she's always been in whatever form she's in), as well as completely different personalities. Skip going to Nerima or having Ranma characters (except maybe Amazons), in order to be able to maintain the Haruhiverse masquerade.

Koizumi: blah blah blah theory of Jyuusenkyo boring boring boring

Kyon: "Is there a spring of Drowned Mime somewhere? I'm weirdly tempted to throw Koizumi into it."

Although that effectively makes the fic a dressed-up version of "Haruhi gets multiple personality disorder" (with additional complications depending on what form it is we choose for her). To prevent the scenario of a well-meaning doctor/psychiatrist tape-recording the transformation and showing it to Haruhi as evidence, have her fall into Spring of Drowned Something that needs to be covered up from the general public, or perhaps something that Haruhi might dismiss as cheap special effects. Or, on the other hand, maybe Haruhi's curse is public knowledge, but the actual transformation process is magically un-filmable, and only the before and after can be recorded on video:

"If you want to claim that I transform when splashed with water, don't shove some amateur video at me as 'evidence', where the actual transformation is some awkward camera cut!"

Thus Haruhi gets the status of a mental patient who is fully functional and able to exist at school, but also completely unaware of her condition.

We could have Koizumi theorize that Haruhi wanted to make some changes to her personality / wanted the Brigade to relate to her differently, but her old personality is too stubborn to let her accomplish this the ordinary way, so she ends up having to use these unorthodox means. Kyon is eventually pressured to have to choose between Haruhi's old form (causing Haruhi to remove her own curse) or new form (sealing her in the new personality and shape permanently). Unless the new form is some extremely fitting evolution of the old form -- I can't think of anything like that, personally -- Kyon would probably choose the old form.

[Jason_Miao]

Random thought - one way it's possible to make even "Haruhi gets thrown into Jyuusenkyo" work: assume that Haruhi's regular and cursed forms have no memory of one another (or, more promisingly, they have conveniently-edited memories which omit the whole transformation part, making Haruhi think she's always been in whatever form she's in), as well as completely different personalities.

Thoughts:
(1) Jusenkyo curses don't appear to grant selective amnesia.
(2) Just Kyon telling Haruhi that she turns into a duck might be merely an unbelievable joke, but is Haruhi going to ignore the entire school telling her that?