[Haruhi] Unusual Suspects - full version <ProbableDreck-NeedsSeriousAdvice>

[Arakawa]

I've decided to start my participation here by posting the finished and edited version of this fic, which is probably still complete dreck. Inventive dreck, perhaps, and hopefully at least mildly entertaining, but what I'm really hoping for is someone's opinion on whether the basic premise could be salvaged with a rewrite.

[Arakawa]

And this is the final chapter. Is it better with the very last part chopped of, to become a complete downer ending, or is it better to leave things open, I wonder?

[Halbarad]

I'll probably chip away at this over the course of the day as I have time, but one thing I'd ask up front. (I'm at work, so things like this move, but slowly. =P)

Given that you're a bit unsure about the premise working as it's written, can you clarify what it was supposed to be? That'll give a slightly better basis for C&C, since I can compare that to what's actually coming through in the story. Doesn't have to be huge, just a minor summary of what you were shooting for.

(Note that I haven't even started reading yet, so this isn't a comment on how well you have or haven't gotten it across in the writing.)

[Arakawa]

Okay. Thank you for offering to C&C. Since the story didn't turn out as expected, I have no problem with giving things away right in the thread.

The Remote Island syndrome portion of the story starts as expected, except that instead of Tamaru Yutaka, we get the sudden appearance of Kobayakawa Yutaka, a slider with a grudge against Haruhi and a huge number of unfair advantages. The part of the premise that I just couldn't get to work, and that you won't realize without my pointing it out bluntly, is that Yutaka takes advantage of the fact that Haruhi, despite constantly looking for espers, aliens &c, subconsciously knows that she already has these people in her Brigade (having gathered them herself), and is suffering severe cognitive dissonance over this fact. So besides the foolishness with the madman and the giant robot, Yutaka is supposed to just drive Haruhi to emotional breaking point which (okay, why? I ask myself) enables her to win at the end...

Besides that, it's all problems of pacing and plausible behaviour that you'll surely pick up on. The first 2,000 words are a mostly pointless retelling of the original story, it only seriously diverges when they get to the island. I tried to shorten it, but then it turns out I put half of my Chekhov's guns in that section. Hopefully I can move some of them to later portions of the story.

Then when things start happening all at once, I'm not sure if the characters react believably under pressure. I think I used some variation on 'I decided to handle the only part of the situation that seemed remotely understandable' more than once. Which leads to them temporarily dropping all of the other things from their notice.

[Halbarad]

Since this is mostly a review for structure, I'm going to gloss over grammar and spelling issues for the most part - I can go back and add that in later if you'd like, but it looks like what you're seeking help with is more telling your story.

First thing that jumps out at me in general is that Kyon, as a narrator, doesn't really tell you a story most of the time, he just tells you what is (or was) going through his head. It's very stream-of-consciousness as a narration style, since he'll divert himself into unrelated rambling or get sidetracked by random thoughts the way most people do all the time. The way he starts off here already makes him feel a bit off - if you want narrate the story this way that's fine, I'd just recommend avoiding the use of Kyon for it. Use a third-person omniscient perspective (which might work better given some of the hidden tones you want to get across) or consider having someone else tell the story, that way you're not stepping on an established style.

Wandering a bit into pet peeve territory, but I also feel that introducing characters from canon in fanfiction is a bit of a waste of time. While you can do it, I prefer to presume that the reader knows the characters already (otherwise, why are they reading fanfiction containing those characters?) and simply reference things known about them in the course of the story. At least for myself, seeing something like this tends to make me lose interest almost immediately - I already know this stuff, and I strongly doubt the ability of most authors to make a complete rehash of it interesting (including me, I doubt I could pull it off well either.)

Nagato Yuki in turn offers her own cards to me. Secret identity: alien interface thing that looks like a girl. And acts like a girl. And, once you get to know her, to all intents and purposes is a girl. Certainly she speaks in a dull monotone and never displays her emotions beyond a minute twitch of the eyes, but all of the ordinary concerns seem to be there. But everyone else who knows she's an alien treats her like she's a walking laptop computer presenting a password wall to them. And as for our Brigade Chief, who doesn't know she's an alien...

Actually, at this point Yuki isn't a lot more than a walking laptop computer. Her big impetus for change is Endless Eight, which hasn't happened yet since they're just now starting on Lone Island Syndrome, and even most of what happens in Endless Eight doesn't bear fruit until Disappearance in December. At this point the only things the Brigade have been through are the original Melancholy, Boredom (the baseball tournament), and Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody. Kyon's aware that she can do some amazing things, but he hasn't really seen that she wants to become more than just an interface yet.

"Nagato!" the Chief seethes. "You aren't into this at all, are you?"

Bear in mind terms of address, too. Haruhi usually calls the other brigade girls by their first names, Kyon is the one who's formal with everyone other than Haruhi herself. May seem like a nitpick, but it helps keep people in character.

YOU CAN'T BE BEHIND THE GAME IN OLD MAID!

Kyon doesn't get angry outside of some very rare occasions (like in Sigh), he snarks instead. Keep in mind the way people react canonically to events.

"Yes." Nagato says in a despondent variety of her expressionless voice,

Goes back to the earlier point about Nagato's characterization at this point. You've got less to work with here, since this story is set so early chronologically - Kyon's very unlikely to be able to read her too well yet.

Also, scanning ahead I see you pick up Koizumi later on in the chapter; I'm hardly a fan of his, but his omission at this point does jump out - where is he and what is he doing? This is avoidable if you don't bother to go through introductions, though, since he'll just show up when he fits.

Secret identity: goddamn pissed at being stuck with a bunch of weirdos.

See above. Kyon doesn't get angry, he gets sarcastic.

A definite example of what I am talking about! Haruhi also happens to be a mind reader. She is completely oblivious of this fact. She only ever seems to read my mind. She never picks up any thoughts pertaining to our secret identities. Or even notice that she read my mind and that I'm not just mumbling. She is that oblivious.

I get here that you're trying to establish a basis for your idea that Haruhi subconsciously knows she's got an esper etc. around her, but this makes no sense as it stands - she can read minds except she doesn't know it and can't read me and can't pick up stuff about secret identities just because she's oblivious. Doesn't really make any sense - coming across this, my first sense is to go 'what the hell, that has nothing to do with Haruhi' and throw it out.

This is a case of telling rather than showing - if Haruhi's subconsciously aware of the others' identities, have her show it. She can make demands or take actions that are dependent on the others using their unique abilities to be successful; how you set these up and carry them off is up to you, but if they're done well Kyon and/or the others can reflect on it and go "hmm, how did she know we'd be able to do that" and hint at the truth that way, rather than trying to dump it in the reader's lap.

Both of us equally miserable from the heat – I note with satisfaction

Kyon's never been notable to me before as a sadist, why would he be happy about this? Does he hate Haruhi that much?

Did I mention mind reading... annoying? And Ogopogo? What the hell is that?

If you're trying to call out Haruhi seeing non-quoted text from Kyon as mind-reading, then everyone can read Kyon's mind - all kinds of people react to this type of 'speech' in the novels.

"Haruhi, I refuse to go to Vancouver." I say angrily. ...(trimmed)

...I know this to be Nagato-speak for "Kyon-kun, I think you need to cool off a little.

More angry Kyon, this time to the point that Yuki's stepping in? I've hit the mischaracterization on these two before, but another example. Kyon's more likely to get sarcastic and simply blow Haruhi off than get angry, and if he were to get angry, Yuki is about the last person who'd step in to do anything about it - emotions aren't her strong point even at her furthest extreme of character development. It'd be more likely that we'd see Mikuru or (ideally) Koizumi stepping in to calm Kyon down if he got this heated up.

While we're at it, didn't Nagato 'neglect' to regenerate her glasses after being severely wounded by Asakura Ryoko?... (trimmed)

Again, double mischaracterization. Kyon isn't particularly judgmental at any point we see in the novels, and Yuki hasn't shown a hell of a lot to him yet - she's saved him from Asakura, created the 'homing bat' in Boredom, and helped him and Mikuru get back to the correct time in Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody so far. The only thing he could really infer anything from would be the events from Melancholy, and at that point it doesn't necessarily seem like she's as much worried about him as she's worried about what Haruhi's reaction is likely to be. There's likely some of both in there, but I don't even think Kyon attributed the save entirely to the fact that she was only concerned about his safety.

However, these kinds of things are what establish the sense of awe that Kyon tends to view Yuki with in canon - not the judgmental 'poor Yuki' view we're seeing from him here. We don't really get any sense of that until after Endless Eight, when he realizes the depth of the hell she's been through and her facade just -barely- starts to crack with him.

The butler, Arakawa-san, probably has a first name, but it was never even mentioned once during the events of this story, so instead I will mention to you his impressive mustache and elderly demeanour. Both he and Koizumi have this air right now like they've bumped into each other at a funeral. Maybe they secretly hate each other?

Uh... where'd the snap judgement come from? If you're trying to set something up for further down the road in the story, again - show, don't tell. If there's some kind of animosity between Arakawa and Koizumi, let the reader work it out as Kyon observes the two of them interacting, and possibly comments on it without throwing it in the reader's face.

(The usual suspect, the master's younger brother Tamaru Yutaka, is presently missing in action.)

How does Kyon even know this? He's never met either of the Tamaru brothers at this point. If we find out about it later, the readers should learn it at the same time Kyon does.

Yutaka is also predominantly a guy's name.

What... the hell? How would she know to call me Kyon?

Kyon makes a very good point, and I doubt he'd be the only one to pick up on this. Yuki would likely note it without reacting, and it wouldn't be unreasonable for Haruhi to call her out on it.

Of course, the obvious answer is that Koizumi gave her all of the Brigade's names when he arranged the trip, which could just as easily be thrown back in Kyon's face.

"... a data abnormality within the woman known as Kobayakawa Yutaka. The pattern of sub-pattern-detectable noise is three standard deviations outside the normal pattern of noise standard to the conditions of the solar system." Nagato announces as though trying to spit a tonguetwister out as fast as possible. (trimmed)
"It doesn't mean anything. It is noise. Noise by definition does not mean anything."

That's kind of a problem right there. Nagato doesn't say anything unless she's got something meaningful to say. If she's noted something off about Yutaka, all well and good, but she's not going to blow it off as meaningless half a minute later.

Also, good technobabble can be hard, since ideally you want to actually reveal stuff in it without making it obvious what it is. If Nagato's noticed something off about Yutaka, determine exactly what it is (in normal language), then look into obfuscating it (or at least part of it) behind technobabble that means something similar.

Oh yes. Itsuki Koizumi annoys me so much I neglected to introduce you to him earlier on. Usually he never balks at uttering some vile bit of innuendo, or being deliberately cryptic and patronizing just to annoy me.

Again, mischaracterization - you're flanderizing Koizumi pretty severely here. I'm no fan of his, so I'm not going to defend him as much as others might, but Koizumi hasn't really shown many of the aspects that really make him dislikable at this point in the series. He's somewhat condescending to Kyon, certainly, but the point where he starts to move past that into a (possibly) darker role is in Sigh, where he interferes in the fight between Kyon and Haruhi, and then tries to sow suspicion of Mikuru. Before that point he's merely irritating, but depending on your view of him this is likely where any change in Kyon's perception of him past that initial annoyance would occur.

"I suppose there's no point in hiding it now. I have indeed come here to murder..."

Good god...

"...upaverybiglunch!" she jokes. Even Haruhi looks taken aback. Even Tamaru-san, who didn't stop smiling even as Haruhi mentioned his being murdered, looks slightly aghast.

This is a huge stretch for a joke. >_> I half suspect everyone's aghast not because of what was said but because the attempt at humor was just -that bad-. <_< "I could just murder <beat> some lunch" would work about as well, likely get a huge groan out of everyone at the lame pun, and they move on.

Bad humor isn't necessarily bad writing, but the characters should probably pick up on it and react to it appropriately. If you're not sure if something qualifies, try it out on someone and gauge it by their reaction - odds are the characters in the story would react about the same way.

And so, we commence the SOS Brigade Psychoanalytical Arm Wrestling Tournament, Round One.

Lots of issues here, starting with the premise. Analyzing someone's personality through games? Can easily be done - you gauge them based on their reactions to the way other people play and how they conduct themselves during the game.

Armwrestling? About the only thing you're going to see is determination, which is hardly the only personality factor someone has. The rest of it's just pure physical strength.

Moving on: Haruhi losing? She would be anything -but- delighted at that. I'm a big fan of Haruhi's ability to grow past her selfishness, but... this is still too early in the series, and she's done nothing in that direction yet - this is still the Haruhi that's going to go on to call Mikuru her personal toy in Sigh. She's described as extremely athletic (to the point that all of the sports clubs in school want her to join without exception), and while that doesn't mean she's automatically going to win here, it makes her losing almost freakishly unlikely, particularly to someone 'the size of Kyon's sister'. Remember, she was generating dangerous amounts of closed spaces -just from losing a minor baseball tournament- to a team that's simply better than hers, and reasonably so.

I can't see her as anything but extremely irritated if she were to lose - she's too selfish and proud to accept defeat gracefully. If she likes Kobayakawa so much as to overlook that, we have no indication of why or that it's even happened. More on this at the end.

----

Okay, concluding points.

Characterization seems way, way off for most of the characters here - the only ones that didn't stand out with it to some degree were Mikuru and Imouto, and they got almost no screen time. >_>

Kobayakawa is, flatly, showing up as a Mary Sue.

She comes out of nowhere, has nearly no characterization, yet somehow manages to beat Haruhi in an armwrestling competition (which should be next to impossible for a girl her size). Haruhi not only doesn't -mind- this (horribly OOC given her reaction in Boredom) but enjoys it? Even given the 'psychoanalysis' aspect of the competition, I can't see her setting aside the fact that she lost to a tiny girl that easily. She's casually dropping hints that she knows about everyone (which may be justified given her backstory, but still). She then turns around at the end of the chapter and casually coerces Kyon into cooperating with some to-be-announced plan.

All of this smacks at some kind of god-moding character that's going to twist the entire story around their little finger, which is pretty much the essence of what -not- to do with an OC in a fanfic.

If she's going to drive the plot by necessity, that's fine - you may need an OC to do that given the plot. However, the readers need to know more about her. Is she sucking up to Haruhi excessively? Is she obviously duplicitous? We know literally nothing about her or what she's like - and while backstory may need to get filled in later, the readers are really going to need some kind of picture of her personality quickly, even if it's just to tear it down while we find out what she's -really- like.

Finding the balance for this is hard; she's going to have to steal spotlight from the canon characters to do it, and that's part of what turns people away from OCs - they're reading the story for the canon characters they know, they don't want to hear about the adventures of OC-sama. Ideally, you want to paint her with the reactions of the people around her - that way the reader is still engaged with the characters they care more about, but they're also getting a decent image of the OC at the same time so they know what to expect from her (even if you subvert this later).

As far as the story's basic premise goes? A slider hijacking the Lone Island mystery is fine as a concept, but there are certain holes that you need to make sure have been reasonably covered to do it. The biggest one is Koizumi's protectiveness of Haruhi; he's willing to submit the SOS Brigade to the closed circle because, in essence, he controls all the variables, or understands them all well enough to predict what they'll do. If this unknown factor shows up at the last minute, would he scrub the whole idea due to the risk of closed spaces forming while he can't react to them? If not, why not? If the premise seems shaky to you, it probably will to your readers, too - figure out what makes it weak and shore up or explain those areas, even if only to yourself. If you know there's a good reason why Koizumi's going to move forward with the mystery, it'll give you more confidence in executing the setup, and even if it's not directly addressed, it's something you can hint at in places to say that yes, you've considered it and it's done that way for a reason.

That's all for now; I need to head out for the evening.

[Halbarad]

And back to where I can post again. Believe me, I know it can be demoralizing to get a massive C&C like this; for me, it can be hard to know what to focus on.

The main thing I'd say to take away here is to work on your characterization - both for the canon characters, to bring them into line with what the reader should expect from them, and for your OC, to start bringing them out as a character and not simply a force of the narrative.

[Arakawa]

Well, thank you for the C&C; this gives me enough to start working with already. Note that the joke behind Kobayakawa Yutaka is that she's an Expy of this character:

http://luckystar.wikia.com/wiki/Yutaka_Kobayakawa

So yes, you can name girls 'Yutaka'. At least if you're a yonkoma writer.

She is pretty much the last person you'd expect to be an evil slider. So yes, this originated as a two-second Mary Sue idea. (This character and this other character have the same given name - I smell slider-fic!) *bangs head against table*

Since getting the Yutaka in my story to match up to the original is probably a bit too ambitious at this stage, please continue to consider her as OC for all intents and purposes when reading the existing version.

And I'm not sure how to establish her motivation in these early scenes. Later on there's room to give her a perspective of sorts, which is extremely hostile to that of the SOS Brigade... you'll have to read further to form an opinion on what I'm trying to do here and whether it's worthwhile.

Thank you for the C&C so far - already there's plenty of food for thought. I guess I have two solid pieces of the puzzle to work forward from:

- Yutaka - who she is, why she hates Haruhi, and how being a slider would give her Mary Sue abilities. Unfortunately, I'm less clear what kind of take on her Mary Sue-ness wouldn't be too grating. There's an element of horror in actually meeting a character like that which could be played up a bit. Particularly since her motivation in this case is so unhinged.

- The fact that this is a very early point in the series, so Nagato hasn't developed emotions, Kyon doesn't see himself as the de facto leader of the supernatural side of the Brigade, and Koizumi basically has responsibility for running the Remote Island circus. (Mikuru? Yes, I'm kind of weak on how her character works. Is she basically a slave to will of the time-traveler organization, whose inner workings aren't very clear?) There's two ways to deal with that:
   - Rewrite the fic to stick to the canon characterizations. The bit with Nagato having less empathy should help with the fact that the IDSE essentially trades away Haruhi for an alternate potential source of data to study.
   - Scratch that and somehow turn "Year Two characters running around Year One" into an explicit feature of the fic. (Just great, exactly the opposite problem to what everyone else has!) Maybe Yutaka could show up expecting Year One characters and be thrown off somewhat by this strange divergence.

As for the 'angry Kyon' stuff, it seems that's an issue of precision in my writing. I try to go the snarky route, and it comes out as seethingly mad ;-/ - I'll have to tone him down, then.

Although, since you mention Tanabata, one thing I find slightly weird is that Middle School Haruhi comes across (to me) as slightly more polite and reasonable than Year One Haruhi. Yeah, she orders Kyon to paint the field, but Kyon is used to being ordered around at that point, so she doesn't even have to try to grab him by the tie or anything. Is it just because he's older than her at that point, and she tends to be more restrained in front of elders? Then she questions him politely about espers, aliens, and time travellers and gets her twisted version of career advice from him. But when she comes to high school it takes Kyon several weeks to even get her to give the time of day. So how much of Year One Haruhi is just the result of her being in a shell after developing her reputation as a weird delinquent, as opposed to being inherently callous and stupid?

[Halbarad]

Well, thank you for the C&C; this gives me enough to start working with already. Note that the joke behind Kobayakawa Yutaka is that she's an Expy of this character:

http://luckystar.wikia.com/wiki/Yutaka_Kobayakawa

So yes, you can name girls 'Yutaka'. At least if you're a yonkoma writer.

I'm rather restricted in anime I've seen, so I can't really evaluate her in comparison to her source character too well. Someone else may be able to step up and do this better.

She is pretty much the last person you'd expect to be an evil slider. So yes, this originated as a two-second Mary Sue idea. (This character and this other character have the same given name - I smell slider-fic!) *bangs head against table*

The main thing I see here that strikes me as off is that it sounds like you're trying to write this intentionally with a Mary Sue - not a good plan unless you plan to play it strictly for laughs which, either intentionally or unintentionally, hasn't really happened here so far. The Mary Sue trope is memorable mostly because of how universally hated the archetype is, so it's not something you want to aim for.

If you're aiming for comedy or deconstruction of the Mary Sue cliche, you'll want to either make sure you start in the first chapter here, or push back some of the extreme Mary Sue-ism to later chapters and then start taking it apart immediately. As it is, my inclination as a reader coming across this chapter would be to go "oh wow, everyone's been flanderized to death and there's a Mary Sue OC. Moving on." If there's more to the story than just that, that's fine, but your first chapter is also your first impression - you want to give the reader some kind of hook to keep their interest and get them to return for more.

And I'm not sure how to establish her motivation in these early scenes. Later on there's room to give her a perspective of sorts, which is extremely hostile to that of the SOS Brigade... you'll have to read further to form an opinion on what I'm trying to do here and whether it's worthwhile.

Motivation is not necessary at this point, that can come through further exposition in the story. Personality, however, isn't optional. Even if most of it's faked to try to win over the other Brigade members (aside from Kyon, who gets to remain the keeper of secrets, I assume), we need to see how she's doing it. As it is, we basically have a name and a physical description for her, and know nothing else.

Thank you for the C&C so far - already there's plenty of food for thought. I guess I have two solid pieces of the puzzle to work forward from:

- Yutaka - who she is, why she hates Haruhi, and how being a slider would give her Mary Sue abilities. Unfortunately, I'm less clear what kind of take on her Mary Sue-ness wouldn't be too grating. There's an element of horror in actually meeting a character like that which could be played up a bit. Particularly since her motivation in this case is so unhinged.

Given this point in the story, who she is and why she hates Haruhi aren't necessary to reveal... yet. As stated above, the thing we really need at this first brush with her is personality - what she's like is what we need to see. And again, if you try to play her Mary-Sue-ness straight, the story will basically drive off any serious reader. ff.net being what it is, you'll get positive reviews and 'omg write moar!'s, but literally -every- story will get those. As an example, a friend of mine from this site (hi Eb!) wrote the absolute worst short story he could come up with and published it under a pseudonym to see what would happen, and it still ended up getting something like 95% positive reviews.

- The fact that this is a very early point in the series, so Nagato hasn't developed emotions, Kyon doesn't see himself as the de facto leader of the supernatural side of the Brigade, and Koizumi basically has responsibility for running the Remote Island circus. (Mikuru? Yes, I'm kind of weak on how her character works. Is she basically a slave to will of the time-traveler organization, whose inner workings aren't very clear?) There's two ways to deal with that:
   - Rewrite the fic to stick to the canon characterizations. The bit with Nagato having less empathy should help with the fact that the IDSE essentially trades away Haruhi for an alternate potential source of data to study.

How does Nagato having less empathy relate to that at all? And for that as a plot point, why does that make sense for them to do? The IDSE has spent (what seems like, although we don't really know) significant resources setting up an environment to study Haruhi in, including three separate humanoid interfaces placed around her - Asakura, Nagato, and Kimidori - and have had preparations in place for at least three years getting ready for the formation of the Brigade so they can study Haruhi. Why would they throw all of that out for a complete unknown they've only had contact with for a matter of days? This may be playing into Yutaka's Mary Sue-ishness, but again - that is not something you want to aim for unless you intend to subvert or deconstruct it.

- Scratch that and somehow turn "Year Two characters running around Year One" into an explicit feature of the fic. (Just great, exactly the opposite problem to what everyone else has!) Maybe Yutaka could show up expecting Year One characters and be thrown off somewhat by this strange divergence.

You'd need an extremely good justification for doing so, and I'm not sure a reasonable one exists. Most of the character development in the novels takes place over the course of a full year, and at this point the Brigade has been together for 2-3 months at best. If you wanted to do this, you'd be better off setting this in year two with Koizumi openly staging a new mystery to be solved, and don't try to follow the events of Lone Island at all.

As for the 'angry Kyon' stuff, it seems that's an issue of precision in my writing. I try to go the snarky route, and it comes out as seethingly mad ;-/ - I'll have to tone him down, then.

'Avoid extremes with Kyon' is the best advice I can give there. He doesn't raise his voice often, he doesn't really hate anyone (or love anyone, other than in a sort of dreamy infatuated way with Mikuru). If you read over his voice and go 'hmm, he sounds upset' he's probably too extreme there, unless you've given him some really good justification to have been pushed past his limits.

Although, since you mention Tanabata, one thing I find slightly weird is that Middle School Haruhi comes across (to me) as slightly more polite and reasonable than Year One Haruhi. Yeah, she orders Kyon to paint the field, but Kyon is used to being ordered around at that point, so she doesn't even have to try to grab him by the tie or anything. Is it just because he's older than her at that point, and she tends to be more restrained in front of elders? Then she questions him politely about espers, aliens, and time travellers and gets her twisted version of career advice from him. But when she comes to high school it takes Kyon several weeks to even get her to give the time of day. So how much of Year One Haruhi is just the result of her being in a shell after developing her reputation as a weird delinquent, as opposed to being inherently callous and stupid?

Actually, the younger Haruhi is just as unreasonable as her older self is. She starts off by asking whether Kyon is a pervert or a kidnapper, then demands that he help her or she'll call the cops on him. Once they're inside the school, almost immediately she starts bossing Kyon around - who, at this point, is three years older than she is. She may not physically drag him around, but given the general bent of culture in Japan (respect for your seniors is drilled in pretty much everywhere) even without the physical aspect the mere fact that she's ordering him around is pretty unreasonable. Kyon doesn't argue with it, true, but it doesn't make the original demands any more reasonable.

[Arakawa]

Okay. Point especially taken on Middle School Haruhi's behaviour. Seems I've happily forgotten the original and allowed myself to engage in wishful thinking that Haruhi is a much less hateful person than she actually is.

To emphasize, my original question was phrased in terms of "whether it could be salvaged with a rewrite". The more I think about it, the more I see that, while slider-Yutaka is a character which I might eventually understand and develop, writing a fic where she's holding all the strings is completely the wrong way to get to work on that. There's absolutely no room in this one to give her limitations.

Aside - the only time I've seen Mary Sue-ish attributes work was when there were two or more Mary Sues pitted against each other, so they eventually start to find each other's limitations.

So I've started work on an alternate version of the fic where Yutaka going Mary Sue and kidnapping Haruhi is made into a background for Kyon and Yuki wandering the huge slider bureaucracy trying to get her back.
That gives a lot more breathing room, turning Yutaka into more of a background element, and we get to know her more based on how she presents herself to other sliders.

That still leaves the problem of the Lone Island stuff you haven't got to yet suffering from a bad case of Idiot Plot. You know, the kind of plot that relies on the characters being idiots so Yutaka can manipulate everyone :-R Again, I'll need to spend time on this. The question "how do you prod Year One Haruhi into seeing the SOS-Dan as filled with shady people" isn't intractable, but I need to be more clear to myself that that's what Yutaka should focus on doing.

And yes, getting a decent C&C for the first time is painful, but pain just means you're still alive - and it's nothing that judicious application of a Grief Seed can't fix!

[Halbarad]

To emphasize, my original question was phrased in terms of "whether it could be salvaged with a rewrite". The more I think about it, the more I see that, while slider-Yutaka is a character which I might eventually understand and develop, writing a fic where she's holding all the strings is completely the wrong way to get to work on that. There's absolutely no room in this one to give her limitations.

So I've started work on an alternate version of the fic where Yutaka going Mary Sue and kidnapping Haruhi is made into a background for Kyon and Yuki wandering the huge slider bureaucracy trying to get her back.
That gives a lot more breathing room, turning Yutaka into more of a background element, and we get to know her more based on how she presents herself to other sliders.

Actually, I'd disagree with that. Yutaka going Mary Sue in any capacity is a bad call. There's a difference between knowing what needs to be done and actually pulling it off - Yutaka can easily know what strings she needs to pull, but actually getting things to work the way she needs them to should require some effort - especially given that she's dealing with actual people. The biggest irritating factor with Mary Sues is that they never have to struggle to achieve their aims.

People are too complex to be manipulated that simply, and if they're -not- that complex, they're too shallow to be interesting (and given that these are established characters that -are- that complex, they're being mischaracterized if they're that shallow.) If Yutaka needs to control the situation, she needs to do it by controlling the environment or the setup, not by controlling the characters.

If you can't execute your premise without Yutaka effortlessly manipulating the Haruhi cast like puppets, then yes, your premise is unworkable. Just on the basis of what you've said, though, there's no reason she has to - if she's made enough preparations and controlled enough of the environment, she can force the SOS-dan into her scenario regardless. She's just going to need to fight to try to keep her planned scenario going, since the SOS-dan should recognize that this is very, very wrong and start actively working to break out of it.

And if they have no hope? You're in the wrong place for C&C. Much like Brian, I'm not a fan of hopeless situations.

[Arakawa]

And if they have no hope? You're in the wrong place for C&C. Much like Brian, I'm not a fan of hopeless situations.

Which is why if this is ever going to work, it's going to end up as the first k chapters of a (perpetually unfinished) longer fic, as opposed to a story with an ending.

Well, again, thank you. I realize posting this thing as my introduction here was a gutsy move. But it is the concept that I was having the most trouble with, and getting that first chapter torn to shreds was helpful. What drove me to write it, even? It was like reaching for the forbidden radioactive candy.

[Brian]

Well, again, thank you. I realize posting this thing as my introduction here was a gutsy move. But it is the concept that I was having the most trouble with, and getting that first chapter torn to shreds was helpful. What drove me to write it, even? It was like reaching for the forbidden radioactive candy.

If we don't reach, we can never achieve.

And nothing is as desirable as that which we are told we cannot have.

So you dared to dream. :)

Beyond that, while it's great to learn from the mistakes of others, sometimes we have to make our own in order to learn the most.  So, consider it more than anything an opportunity to grow!  If you're still interested in C&C, then I'd be happy to go through a chapter or two and go over the technical side of things, since it seems that Hal's gone over structure pretty well.

I may have a few suggestions of my own, depending, but before we get to that, are you more interested in thoughts on how to revise this story, or a different approach to the same situation?  Or both, really; you do have the option of pointing out something that you think is a particular area you'd like comments and focus on.  Any particular areas you'd like advice or commentary on specifically?

[Arakawa]

If we don't reach, we can never achieve.

And nothing is as desirable as that which we are told we cannot have.

And I have the storytelling non-achievements of Haruhi herself to show me how much can be achieved using nothing but gumption. (And unusually helpful assistants running around behind my back.)

Hmm... *imagine my avatar making a bashful face* let me think this through...

On your part, I guess the effort that won't be wasted, and will be greatly appreciated, would indeed be general writing style advice. Any stylistic mistakes I made, perhaps repeatedly? e.g. what I consider to be stylistic errors in my own work would be things like:

Long, poorly constructed sentences. Schizophrenic alternation between American and Canadian spelling (you don't have to run off and check for it, but that kind of thing tends to jump out at some people). I have trouble making sure important stuff stays onstage. I like to write scenes where characters talk at one another without listening, leading to misunderstandings; but I'm not very good at making said scenes work.

(The last one isn't a problem with this fic specifically, but it's definitely a recurring danger factor for me so far.)

I think Yuki says "Oh." at one point in the version I uploaded. *bangs head against table* I think that gives a concise summary of how much is wrong with the fic just now. But I'm curious for more feedback, since you say you have thoughts on the concept.

I'll give my own thoughts on what I'm *trying* to write now, just to compare notes.

As I mentioned, as a first step I'm trying to rewrite the story with a framing device of Kyon and Yuki wandering through a fleshed-out version of the slider bureaucracy. So instead of "dangerously Mary Sue-esque slider invades the plot of Haruhi" (which is the best I could accomplish by just polishing what I have right now) it would at least become "Kyon and Yuki wander around a strange setting looking for someone to complain to about Mary Sue-esque slider". Then with the right tweaks in emphasis it might become at least passable as a parody, although saying 'oh, it's a parody now' seems somewhat dishonest at this stage.

So even if I did that, it still leaves the "Mary Sue slider" problem in full force.

To make the fic work I'd need to fix the mechanism by which Yutaka defeats Haruhi. Since it results in an unresolved/downer ending I need to be extremely clear how it works, and how it depends on actual established character traits - because if it doesn't, then the defeat doesn't say anything about the characters, just about the willingness of the writer to hash and rehash plot contrivances. (And if a downer ending is completely unacceptable, I still need to fix the mechanism so that I can be clear why it *doesn't* work.)

Given the reasoning below, whatever rehash I do of the foolishness that goes on with exposing the Brigade members' identities is going to take a backseat role, if at all.

EDIT: I mean if Yutaka suitably prepares Haruhi beforehand she could accomplish her goal just by getting everyone in one room (for no reason other than because she likes the shock value) and handing over to Haruhi the envelope that she was threatening everyone with in the current version.

Somewhere above, Halbarad mentions doing much more work on the notion I raised that the boundary between Haruhi's conscious mind and her subconscious (the part of her that everything strange gets blamed on) isn't as clear-cut as everyone assumes. This leads first and foremost to the potential that Haruhi keeps making Freudian slips about her powers without realizing, makes assumptions about Brigade members that seem like random snap judgments when she thinks about them consciously (but actually make sense if you take their identities into account), and embarks on ridiculously impossible projects because she knows that she can just rely on Koizumi's connections and Yuki & Mikuru's powers to take care of things for her. This last notion seems to be briefly played with in canon, somewhat, obliquely, maybe. I can dig up the passage in the earlier novels that brings it to mind.

I could even split that idea out *first* as a practice fic (although I'd need to figure out a suitably one-off plot for it) since it seems like a neat notion that deserves to exist unsullied by the presence of slider-Yutaka. And I still haven't thought through all the potential implications of the idea.

Now when you look at Haruhi's position without the qualification of obliviousness, it seems frankly ridiculous. She has three of four desired strange beings in her group, but gets absolutely no excitement out of this. Instead of exploring the universe or whatever that Hare Hare Yukai song is about, their job is to play baseball with her, act as living furniture for the clubroom, make tea, play dress-up, set up party games, do her odd jobs, I'm making this sound like babysitting because it is. This would result in severe frustration - which, taking this perspective, wouldn't decrease when the Brigade members try to distract her with further babysitting-type tasks. It would instead just be a vicious circle.

So thus we answer the question of why Yutaka would even be permitted to manifest in Haruhi's universe, as a supernatural being directly hostile to her. Like the espers are said to represent Haruhi's 'conscience' that destroying the world is wrong, Yutaka only gets to enter the universe when she figures out that she can be a living embodiment of Haruhi's cognitive dissonance; and she has to carefully play that role in order to not get spontaneously booted.

Now the question is whether Yutaka can take advantage of this in any way. From here on the premise is shakier. If she can make Haruhi so frustrated with the situation that Haruhi is ready to wish for almost *any* way out, she can then interpret that as permission to stick her in a box with her collection of Haruhi alternates, and proceed to do so. At least initially that would be a strange adventure, but then...

Again, the problem for Yutaka would then become, if she has a hundred Haruhis who ended up in a box because of an ill-advised wish for interesting things to happen, they're going to be invoking all of their powers to get out of the box and into a better situation, whether consciously or unconsciously. It's essentially an overload of reality-warping power that Yutaka has to discharge by finding some way to let the Haruhi alternates out temporarily, and use them for tasks that happen to suit their personality/personalities. If I deal with all the problems above, the most I can do for this one is to raise the question during Kyon and Yuki's wanderings, then perhaps deal with it in a separate fic.

Not sure if this will inspire any commentary (it's extremely iffy to be posting concepts that one may or may not be able to execute on), but thanks for the opportunity to think aloud.

[Muphrid]

I meant to comment on this earlier.  Let me just say a few words.  Something I notice is your tendency to point out things that fandom tends to attach a lot of significance to but the characters don't.  Haruhi "reading" Kyon's mind, for example, or that Nagato obeys Kyon's orders over Haruhi's.  These are subtle things that, when done without being pointed out, tell the reader we've got some of the details of a Haruhi story right.  When explicitly mentioned, though, it becomes a bit overdone.

Overall, I feel this story needed some clarity.  For most of it, we don't even have any idea what the slider intends to do.  She spends the most of the tale screwing around with a goal that is undecipherable to Kyon or anyone else.  For a tale from Kyon's perspective, this presents some issues.  It means Kyon has nothing to do but react.  Kyon needs an objective.  There can be an overarching goal of keeping the status quo and such, but there should also be something concrete.  That's going to depend on what our slider's goal is in turn, for there's always an ultimate goal and steps to achieve it.  The ultimate goal for Yutaka is clear.  The steps to achieve it are more nebulous to me.  I think, on a structural level, breaking it down so that she has to achieve x and y before she can do z and then unleash her final plan will give your efforts a better feel.

Based on your comments, I feel like you're fixated on the idea of "original character = Mary Sue" too much.  Yutaka is your character.  Now, an intentional examination of the Mary Sue phenomenon is all well and good, and if that's what you want to do, go for it.  But even without that, what is Yutaka intended to be?  A traveler out for revenge?  A well-intentioned defender of the multiverse who sees no other choice but to cage Haruhi?  Something in-between?  How she feels about Haruhi trashing her dimension is important.  Once that's figured, the limitations needed to have a dramatic story should become apparent.

I hope that's some food for thought.

[Dracos]

*spots new forumer*

Welcome to the boards, Muphrid.  :)