[Haruhi] The Coin

[Arakawa]

Again, the solution to this chapter not meshing with previous chapter is quite simple: Haruhi is shellshocked and the scope of the stadium incident startled her into being more considerate, in a way that Taniguchi being struck by lightning didn't. If you want to work with that idea it needs to be hinted at a little bit more that Haruhi is severely shocked at having to deal with a situation where Asakura is holding an entire stadium hostage, and that her shift in behaviour afterward is indeed the result of a minor epiphany about what she's doing wrong...

It seems mostly nailed down (depending on how the story goes from here), so my criticisms below are perhaps a bit more grouchy and vehement than they need to be.

They'd floating out of their seats far too slowly to be in danger.

How about 'They'd been floating'?

If any of us, the brigade of Tsuruya-san, were hurt, it'd be worse.

Probably "The brigade, or Tsuruya-san"? Bit awkward though. I don't think you need to specify Tsuruya-san separately since she's considered an 'honorary member' anyways.

"That's the spirit!" she cried.  "At times like this, you have to remember to treasure the days you have, you know."

That's probably the only Tsuruya-san part I found awkward. It's a bit sappy, unless she was also somehow shellshocked by recent events, which she isn't. My sense of Tsuruya is that she's generally... a bit too alarming to be taken as sappy. When she tells you to "treasure the days you have", I expect the Brigade to be in the midst of something particularly alarming being perpetuated by Haruhi which she's playing along with. That's not really the situation here.

(Note that the Disappearance-version Tsuruya doesn't hesitate to use martial arts to throw Kyon to the floor when she protects Mikuru, which shows nicely what she considers to be reasonable behaviour and how alarming she can really get.)

Not sure what sort of choice I'd be making to fix it.

He smiled to himself.  "No, no.  The person in front of me is just fine."  He leaned in.  His breath tickled my lips.  His fingers brushed the back of my arm, my elbow.  I closed my eyes, and—

HONK-HONK!

And while tires screeched outside the window, I hit my head on the roof of the limo for the second time that night.  I need to train myself not to do that—to jump from surprise or excitement in a motor vehicle.  It hurts.

"Let me guess," said Kyon.  "You got excited about something again?"

That's, um, nothing I want to describe in front of four other people.  I mean, not unless you're into that sort of thing, but—

I blinked.  The limo was idling.  The cabin was quiet.  Tsuruya-san and the others had disappeared.  "Where are we?" I asked.

"Kitaguchi Station.  At the very least, I had to come back and get my bike."

Bah, of course, I'd forgotten all about that.  Silly dreams.  They can be so out of touch with reality.  "What about the others?"

This just begs an 'okay, love is definitely a form of mental illness'-type comment somewhere.

The problem was there were black marker lines all over my forehead and cheeks.

How about "The problem was that there were..."

When the café staff started wiping down the tables and the neon sign in front flickered out, Kyon finished the last of his cup and looked squarely at me.  "Whatever those people try to do to you from now on, Haruhi, remember this:  they can't touch you.  They can't threaten you or intimidate you or anything else.  You have the power to change what they say even before it comes out of their mouths.  You have the power, as Moir-san said, to erase someone whose intentions are a danger to you or any of us in the brigade.  This is the power we've been reluctant to give you—no, this is the power I've been reluctant to give you, but now you have it.  Use it sparingly.  Use it wisely.  Don't be afraid, though."  He gestured to the others.  "None of us would be here if we thought you couldn't handle it."

Typo: Mori-san, not Moir-san.

If I were Kyon I'd also stress the point that Haruhi is perfectly capable of defending herself by means other than messing with peoples' free will and making them disappear. The only limiting factor, after all, appears to be her own imagination.

I snuck up to my room tossed it aside, and it landed on my bed upside-down, Mikuru-chan's initials plain as day.

I suggest "I snuck up to my room and tossed it aside. It landed on my bed upside-down..." &c

They didn't want me to feel threatened from Mori-san or Asakura, and that's enough for me.

I'd probably prefer 'threatened by' here...

I closed my fist over the coin and disappeared from sight.

Bit awkward to see "disappeared from sight" used by a first-person narrator who's alone in their bedroom. (Whose sight is she disappearing from, then?) I actually misread it the first time as the coin disappearing from sight, due to this exact issue.

Easiest way to fix this is to say "vanished into {whatever is appropriate given where Haruhi is actually is going, that doesn't spoil the next chapter}". You'll have to substitute the medium Haruhi is vanishing into, given that you're the one who knows what she's trying to do...

Strong point in your writing: I like how you use motifs both from canon (the way this story is coming together now, Haruhi gets to have a bit of an epiphany in the same stadium she had her last mega-epiphany in), and your own. You managed to bring both the titular coin and the baseball cap back in nicely.

Weak point: you still rely a bit on Comedic Timing and Misunderstanding (those tired screenwriter tricks), not to mention that whole romantic dream fakeout, as devices to keep the story going, such as Tsuruya interrupting Haruhi and Kyon at an inconvenient moment. Here it leads to a nice scene of the two communicating via texting and meaningful glances, though, which means that I'd actually keep this chapter as is. But keep this in mind for future writing and try to find a variety of other ways to build up the bulk of your narrative, please =)

Well, maybe you could make the point where Haruhi falls asleep a bit easier to find in hindsight.

I felt exhausted.  Between Asakura and finding all this out from Kyon Smith here, I think all the excitement finally caught up to me.  I ran through in my head a bunch of other things I wanted to know: when Kyon must've gone back in time to meet me, why he did it, how Mikuru-chan helped, why I would've given Koizumi-kun powers, what the relationship between Yuki and Asakura was, and more, but my thoughts started drifting.  The street lights passed us by at even intervals, rhythmic and hypnotic.

Maybe just put an ellipsis on the last sentence: "at even intervals, rhythmic and hypnotic..."

[Muphrid]

Again, the solution to this chapter not meshing with previous chapter is quite simple: Haruhi is shellshocked and the scope of the stadium incident startled her into being more considerate, in a way that Taniguchi being struck by lightning didn't. If you want to work with that idea it needs to be hinted at a little bit more that Haruhi is severely shocked at having to deal with a situation where Asakura is holding an entire stadium hostage, and that her shift in behaviour afterward is indeed the result of a minor epiphany about what she's doing wrong...

It seems mostly nailed down (depending on how the story goes from here), so my criticisms below are perhaps a bit more grouchy and vehement than they need to be.

I like that angle on it; I think I'll make some adjustments and play that up a bit more, at least at the start.  Once the big bombshells start dropping, I don't know how much that will fit, but I'll give it a go.

Most of the rest I'll take and adjust without further comment.  One thing that had been on my mind, though...

"That's the spirit!" she cried.  "At times like this, you have to remember to treasure the days you have, you know."

That's probably the only Tsuruya-san part I found awkward. It's a bit sappy, unless she was also somehow shellshocked by recent events, which she isn't. My sense of Tsuruya is that she's generally... a bit too alarming to be taken as sappy. When she tells you to "treasure the days you have", I expect the Brigade to be in the midst of something particularly alarming being perpetuated by Haruhi which she's playing along with. That's not really the situation here.

Kinda like I said, I was hesitant to have her be so...so...Tsuruya after what happened, but that may be the less jarring way to go.

Bit awkward to see "disappeared from sight" used by a first-person narrator who's alone in their bedroom. (Whose sight is she disappearing from, then?) I actually misread it the first time as the coin disappearing from sight, due to this exact issue.

Yeah, I see how it's kind of a perspective no-no there.  The location I had in mind for her to go wouldn't have any meaning to describe here.  Alternatively, I could change the order of what she does, but that would create a separation--well, it'd be out of order.  In absence of a specific place to put in here that would be meaningful, perhaps I could say the room disappears around her, yet she realizes to someone else it must look like she's the one vanishing?

Weak point: you still rely a bit on Comedic Timing and Misunderstanding (those tired screenwriter tricks), not to mention that whole romantic dream fakeout, as devices to keep the story going, such as Tsuruya interrupting Haruhi and Kyon at an inconvenient moment. Here it leads to a nice scene of the two communicating via texting and meaningful glances, though, which means that I'd actually keep this chapter as is. But keep this in mind for future writing and try to find a variety of other ways to build up the bulk of your narrative, please =)

Point well-taken.  How convenient Tsuruya's interruption is--it's something I'm definitely very aware of, and generally, the rule I try to go by is that the contrivance shouldn't have a meaningful effect on what happens, just how it happens.  Kyon was going to spill everything to Haruhi here anyway, so it works because it gives a more interesting scene for him to do it (and to give Haruhi some measure of initiative) than the alternative.  But that logic clearly has some limitations or shortcomings--the last version is a good example of that.  The logical leap that the contrivance doesn't have a meaningful effect on what happens is something that has to be scrutinized and picked apart to be sure that's actually the case.

Thanks again.

[Arakawa]

Kinda like I said, I was hesitant to have her be so...so...Tsuruya after what happened, but that may be the less jarring way to go.

I guess I was also influenced by the Kyon : Big Damn Hero scene where they go to bust a two-bit yakuza operation, and Kyon and Nagato are breaking bones left and right and it's generally a complete madhouse.

And Tsuruya just stands there laughing... and laughing... I know it was meant to be a silly takeoff on the "Tsuruya keeps breaking into laughter at inconvenient moments" notion but something about that detail struck me as strangely plausible.

Depending on how well you play it, it could even be a comforting source of reassurance that Tsuruya can witness an alien attacking an entire stadium of people, and still be Tsuruya two minutes afterwards...

EDIT: I'm probably giving bad advice, aren't I? Someone please come over here and slap me...

[Muphrid]

That's the thing:  it could be gold, but it could also be a big Fridge Horror moment--what kind of person starts laughing or being crazy as Tsuruya can be after what just happened in that stadium?  But all that said, I can't deny that that would be like Tsuruya.  I just want to find the right way to make it work.  Having it be darkly comforting is...almost there.

[Brian]

EDIT: I'm probably giving bad advice, aren't I? Someone please come over here and slap me...

I'm still out of reading this one because I don't trust myself not to snap at Muphrid when he doesn't deserve it, like last time. >_<

Erm.

Main issue is to make sure that you don't let my commentary have undue influence -- does the shift feel natural from the previous chapter?

As far as Tsuruya goes, there's nothing wrong with her acting out or doing things intentionally to defuse a moment she thinks would be problematic (or better deferred).  Maybe she wouldn't think it was funny, but would know that the situation needed levity.

Look at how she handled things at the start of the snow mountain mystery -- unless my memory is off, she played the drawing game (and did fairly badly) and then showed it off to the others first to break the ice.  So, an intentional tension-breaker on her part seems entirely feasible to me, here, too.  (If I follow what's happening, anyway.)

[Muphrid]

Well, given the gravity of what's happened, it seems reasonable to me that Haruhi would take the time to stop, pause, and consider.  As it is now, this revision gets all the facts out there to be dealt with, so the focus of subsequent chapters will be on some of the consequences that result from those facts.  Here, the brigade and Haruhi have shown trust in each other, so in that respect, I consider this revised chapter rather innocuous.  How I've retooled what's to come after it (which is actually pretty similar, on the whole, to what I had before, but the meaning is different) is probably the big thing.  I'm comfortable with this chapter being what it is, so long as what I do want to explore can come out in due time.

I've had, in the headers for each chapter when I finish revising them and put them up on FFN, that part of the overall theme is that Haruhi, though she may have become more amenable to the ordinary world, has long believed in things she wasn't sure existed, while the others in the brigade have had the luxury of knowing that Haruhi existed and interacting with her on a concrete level.  I will admit that, with the first version of this chapter, I was taking that idea toward its logical extreme.  Even so, I think that's a theme worth exploring.  I think that's a sentiment that would isolate Haruhi even now--yes, even the much more thoughtful Haruhi who has normal friends and does normal things, at least some of the time.  I still believe the temptation to find something truly phenomenal is there for her, and with more "mundane" activities contrasted against that, shouldn't she wonder--could she have convinced herself to be content with the ordinary world when that really just covers up disappointment instead?

Now, I know that interpretation may run counter to some feelings already expressed here.  The truth is that she does genuinely enjoy, for example, having met and befriended Sakanaka and so on, but I think the fear that she may have deluded herself would be a human fear and a forgivable one if painted the right way.

As far as how that sentiment touches on the rest of the brigade, I think, when you look at the kind of sacrifice it would be for someone like Asahina to go into the past--leaving her family, leaving her entire timeframe behind--Haruhi would understand on some level but also be a bit unnerved by it, to think so much attention was put on her when there are billions upon billions of other mysteries in the universe.  And let's say she can know all those mysteries down to the last bit of knowable information.  At some point, she would have to accept that, if she is indeed capable of such vast understanding of the universe as a whole, a point would come where she knew all there was to know, where there could be no mysteries to her.  It would put her in the same shoes as the rest of the brigade--all the mysteries are those you know to be true or have already ruled out as false.  There would be no more strange possibilities to contemplate, just the truth.

At any rate, that's the kind of scale and scope for the story that I want to have.  I expect that some of these issues I perceive and am interested in may be seen as uncharacteristic of the fictional people we know.  I fully concede the possibility and hope that I can learn to avoid such traps with more careful thought and consideration.  Overall, though, what I'm trying to say is that, while this isn't the kind and character of a piece I initially envisioned, I don't think that's a bad thing (I consider this whole process to have been very educational) and I still perceive great possibility for this piece to delve into the character of Haruhi and these larger themes of how one derives meaning from life (or any other pursuit).

[Brian]

Now, I know that interpretation may run counter to some feelings already expressed here.  The truth is that she does genuinely enjoy, for example, having met and befriended Sakanaka and so on, but I think the fear that she may have deluded herself would be a human fear and a forgivable one if painted the right way.

It's that very last bit that's the critical part.

I get that Haruhi would also probably become bored with infinite power, but the way the story was written so far, it didn't feel like it was leading up to that aesop.  The logical buildup to that would have been Haruhi playing with her powers more and more, and having less and less fun with them -- Taniguchi was a good lead in, but Mori's little Hannibal Lecture kind of derailed that route.

And now that I've made a point, to vehemently argue against myself:

Going back to something earlier, and back to the point of presentation, though (going back over one thing that still sticks out a bit to me):  At the end of chapter ... two, I think, there's the bit with Haruhi summoning Kyon, etc.  'Kyon was scared because of something I did that was irresponsible and careless (on accident); I will instead do something insanely drastic despite his repeated requests not to, and then ignore him.'

See, that was presented (it felt like) as 'Kyon's an idiot for not getting this, and I'm going to zap his friend reflexively in a fit of temper because I'm not getting my way,' not, 'Damnit, this should be amazing!  Why isn't Kyon the _least_ bit impressed or happy about it?  And now his stupid friend is keeping me from finding out why?'

So, same exact events; for characterization, one of them makes me rant that she's a psycho, and one of them makes me cringe and have a little more sympathy for her.  It's just a lot of the little tiny details in Haruhi's thoughts tend to lead away from being sympathetic.  One of the easy ways to make her sympathetic is to show her vulnerabilities.  This Haruhi doesn't show those vulnerabilities to almost anyone if she can help it, including the reader, which is ... difficult when she's the narrator.  Admittedly, my memory is fuzzy at this point because it's been a while; generally, it was the understated positives to counter her negatives that got to me.  She might have had a few earlier vulnerable points, but (unlike others, so this could be me), I didn't particularly feel that sorry for Haruhi when her coin-experiment didn't work because of her behavior.

Anyway ... if you wanted to play out the Haruhi having mistrust angle, I wouldn't have complained (nearly as much) if she were lashing out while her thoughts reflected that she was hurt instead of angry.  So, it could have been played that she acted angry, but her thoughts let the reader see, "Wait, this is the emotionally overloaded Haruhi lashing out, not just more of the same callousness she's been showing."  So for that....

Yeah.  Then the Ryouko thing could be played off -- I could actually see Haruhi being hurt by what she percieves as a lack of trust in telling her the truth on all of their parts, if it hadn't come across as 'you aren't what I expected and that's not fair.'  Too much anger, not enough hurt; instead of thinking that these were her friends and the rug was being yanked out from under her, she was instead using all of that buildup time to dismiss clues and drop jokes about Kyon being 'intimate' with 'some alien' (>_<).

From there, I wouldn't have had as much trouble with Haruhi deciding (probably based on something Yuki said) that since Ryouko would keep her word, she'd do it anyway.  It really is all about presentation.

I get the impression you don't really want to focus on the Haruhi/Kyon romance angle a lot for your story because it detracts from what you're interested in exploring, but you can just limit that to Haruhi aknowledging that she wants to show Kyon something amazing.  She doesn't have to admit any romantic interest to be capable of having positive thoughts towards him on occasion and wanting to broaden his horizons.

So, trying to suggest things that won't make you rewrite more and more.  So, yeah.  I just really need main characters that I can identify with and sympathize with in my stories, and with values dissonance, well....

Heck, Apology was written because I was having a minor crisis over Haruhi not being sympathetic enough in canon!  >_<  If anything I have to say is useful, great, but I think my main point is don't listen to me too much, it should be pretty clear from all these other threads I don't really know what I'm doing. ;)

[Muphrid]

Anyway ... if you wanted to play out the Haruhi having mistrust angle, I wouldn't have complained (nearly as much) if she were lashing out while her thoughts reflected that she was hurt instead of angry.  So, it could have been played that she acted angry, but her thoughts let the reader see, "Wait, this is the emotionally overloaded Haruhi lashing out, not just more of the same callousness she's been showing."  So for that....

This is probably the biggest thing I've tried to take away from the discussions so far; it feels like, with Haruhi, one has to be more careful with her emotional reactions.  Because she has done unsympathetic things in the past, I think the audience as a whole is more inclined to take negative emotions and feelings from her at face value and less likely to feel that that reaction may be covering something else up--at least, in comparison to a typical character.  I mean, it's like what you were concerned about earlier with the interactions between Haruhi and Kyon:  there was indeed some level of bite to them on Haruhi's part, which I'd meant as indicating that she was covering her feelings up (even to the audience!) rather than genuine dislike or contempt or what-have-you, but the magnitude of that and the lack of balancing out with at least some neutral or positive thoughts just ended up giving a counter-productive impression.  At least, that's how I see it now.

[Brian]

That's what I wanted to communicate, and I went way overboard on that count.  >_<

The audience can only go by the cues they're given.  Then again, I'm the exceptionally vocal minority. >.>

It is very much a YMMV issue, probably.  :X

[Muphrid]

So I'm not sure how this happened, but this is written.  And I had a list of things I was concerned about, but that was before I hit refresh, so let's just leave this as it is.  Next part attached below.

Edit: I've made some minor modifications based on my hard copy.  I still have some outstanding concerns:

Spoiler: ShowHide

If I knew enough about Japanese theater, I'd have preferred to use a Japanese play, but as it is, I stuck with something I knew.  Is The Crucible effective here?  Is the description of Mori's performance detailed enough?

I hadn't originally planned on diverting into Haruhi's take on the end of Melancholy, but at the time, seeing as that's the only other time when she's been in closed space, it seemed appropriate.  Does this take on what she would be feeling make sense?  Does it feel like a plausible extension of her mindset earlier in the story?

Is it acceptable to hint that Haruhi is still unsatisfied, still searching for something, without being specific at this point in time?

When I wrote this, I was concerned that Mori came off too combative and disrespectful, and while on re-read I didn't feel that was as much the case, I have tried to make Mori more sympathetic.  Does she come off well here?  Is it not too contrived that Haruhi decides not to turn her back into a normal person right at that moment?

Those are my main concerns, anyway.  I may make more changes in response to them, but otherwise I'm planning to have this finalized in the next couple days.

[Arakawa]

Sorry, this is actually based on your earlier version. Not sure, some of this might have been fixed in your revision.

if you're rigidly adhering to the dictations of how acting should be done from three centuries past or more?

Could be improved. First of all, might the word you're looking for be 'dictates'?

... if you're rigidly adhering to the dictates of acting from three centuries ago, or even further back?

She knew me well enough to pretend it was late in the day, so I'd press her into telling me what was on her mind.

Not entirely sure what 'pretend it was late in the day' is referring to.

"She is cold, your Honor," said another, a man who offered Mori-san's hand.

I assume the man is holding out Mori-san's hand to the judge? Seemed a tiny bit muddled the first time I read it.

That was awkward—talking about Koizumi-kun like he could go either way, following one path or another and we'd never be sure what he'd pick. I tried to avoid it.

Awkward 'avoid it' without any clear referent for 'it'. Maybe replace with 'avoid this line of conversation' or similar?

She was looking inward, at herself, more than me, and I have to admit, there was a little part of me that liked seeing her doubt herself, seeing a glimpse of confusion amid certainty.

Comma in "at herself, more than me" might be unnecessary.

That part of me gives me a chill, for that's the part that proves Mori-san right about who I might be at my worst.

Ehhh... ghhh... perfectly clear, but also kind of awkward. Might need to take another shot at rewording it.

I'm sure what Koizumi has done will come as some relief to all of us, for this is a moment long anticipated in our circles.

Trying to remember which specific action of Koizumi's Arakawa-san is referring to here.

We maintain stability of her thoughts

Perhaps 'maintain the stability'?

I know a little about acting. I know some of the most powerful emotions a person can muster come from memories that are close to the heart. I read about a voice actor once—in trying to channel her emotions, she thought back to her grandmother's passing, and she couldn't stop the tears from falling even after the exercise had ended. Mori-san had told me one big lie when she beckoned me three nights before, but the rest of it was believable.

Considering how objectively awful Haruhi's attempt to direct a movie was in 'Sigh' (and she shows absolutely no signs of improvement in Novel 9), I'm... a bit jarred by the irony of her pontificating about the dramatic arts like this, actually. Not sure what to do about this since it is

Canon!Haruhi's approach to film directing was and remains, quite honestly, one of aggressive and stubborn ignorance of obvious and basic principles.

like with my hair. I could've told him nothing about it, and that would've been fine, but I'd answered him. Then there wasn't any mystery in it, so I'd cut most of it off.

Hmm, how about "I cut most of it off right afterwards"?

What'd happened to me affected thousands of people all over the world every second of every day.

Umm... I had to reread that sentence. Initially I thought it referred to how Haruhi's emotional state affects the broader universe. You should probably change it to "What'd happened to me was the same thing that afflicted thousands of people..."

staring up into the face of a white giant.

Wait, white? If this is a deliberate divergence from canon, on account of the Celestial's weakened state or something, it should probably be lampshaded somehow by the espers... or its colour should be mentioned in conjunction with other signs or being sickly and weak... or something along those lines..

at night and in the morning, to measure the changes in the space overnight, as you sleep."

I'd prefer "measuring the changes in the space overnight as you sleep".

oizumi-kun told you that. It worked too well today.

'Today' I would assume refers to Haruhi's inaction during the stadium incident. Again, a bit of effort was needed to suss this out.

Nevertheless, this is nothing you chose for yourself.

Suggest 'this is not something you chose for yourself', or similar.

When I wrote this, I was concerned that Mori came off too combative and disrespectful, and while on re-read I didn't feel that was as much the case, I have tried to make Mori more sympathetic.  Does she come off well here?  Is it not too contrived that Haruhi decides not to turn her back into a normal person right at that moment?

Enhh... Mori is still nasty enough (teleportation is morally equivalent to electrocuting someone with a cattle prod? really?) that things balance out in this one. And for Haruhi it's sort of damned if she does, damned if she doesn't with respect to removing Mori's powers. Though with the way this chapter went, if Mori somehow ends up resenting Haruhi even more for taking away her esper status, it's going to be Mori's own damn fault.

I'd say things are fine as they stand.

It occurs to me: the way you handled the ending of the last chapter might be tweaked a bit to be more consistent with the notion that Haruhi is going to be visiting, one after another, the people who were trying to push her around, and then speaking her mind to them. Difficult to explain, but the problem I'm seeing here is that Haruhi makes this declaration, and then we have an extended chapter focusing on Mori-san which doesn't quite entirely fit with it. Only when we see her visit Asakura next, do we get what Haruhi is aiming at.

I rode the elevator to the fifth floor and knocked on the door with no nameplate, and sure enough, the thing that answered had a wide, inhuman smile.

"Why hello there!" she greeted me. "I've been waiting for you."

I get that Haruhi wants to do this behind the Brigade's back to some respect, and particularly doesn't want Yuki involved in this, but this feels a bit ugly given that you haven't shown any scene at all (yet) in between Yuki stopping Asakura, and this, where Haruhi and Yuki discuss the fact.

*goes to check*

Yep.

I mean, even if Haruhi doesn't want Yuki to be handling Asakura for her, wouldn't she at least be curious to talk to the alien about the stadium incident, as opposed to being satisfied with just getting everything secondhand from Kyon?

Then again, you flash back to a coffee-shop conversation with Koizumi that was precisely of that nature; I guess this chapter is all right if you end up revealing a similar conversation with Yuki in the next one.

[Muphrid]

Sorry, this is actually based on your earlier version. Not sure, some of this might have been fixed in your revision.

if you're rigidly adhering to the dictations of how acting should be done from three centuries past or more?

Could be improved. First of all, might the word you're looking for be 'dictates'?

... if you're rigidly adhering to the dictates of acting from three centuries ago, or even further back?

Yeah, the construction of that sentence bothered me, too.  And dictates does seem like an improvement.

She knew me well enough to pretend it was late in the day, so I'd press her into telling me what was on her mind.

Not entirely sure what 'pretend it was late in the day' is referring to.

It refers to how, when Haruhi found Mori at the station Wednesday afternoon, Mori almost lost the nerve and tried to excuse herself, saying it was late.  The line probably needs a bit more meat to it to be clear that that's what it's referring to.

"She is cold, your Honor," said another, a man who offered Mori-san's hand.

I assume the man is holding out Mori-san's hand to the judge? Seemed a tiny bit muddled the first time I read it.

Indeed.  Will add that.

That was awkward—talking about Koizumi-kun like he could go either way, following one path or another and we'd never be sure what he'd pick. I tried to avoid it.

Awkward 'avoid it' without any clear referent for 'it'. Maybe replace with 'avoid this line of conversation' or similar?

Yeah, I think above it says that she tried to avoid the thought, and that sentence is a bit reworked anyhow.

That part of me gives me a chill, for that's the part that proves Mori-san right about who I might be at my worst.

Ehhh... ghhh... perfectly clear, but also kind of awkward. Might need to take another shot at rewording it.

I had cut the part after "chill" because it's also said later on.

I'm sure what Koizumi has done will come as some relief to all of us, for this is a moment long anticipated in our circles.

Trying to remember which specific action of Koizumi's Arakawa-san is referring to here.

Revealing the truth.  Hm, what to do there...

I know a little about acting. I know some of the most powerful emotions a person can muster come from memories that are close to the heart. I read about a voice actor once—in trying to channel her emotions, she thought back to her grandmother's passing, and she couldn't stop the tears from falling even after the exercise had ended. Mori-san had told me one big lie when she beckoned me three nights before, but the rest of it was believable.

Considering how objectively awful Haruhi's attempt to direct a movie was in 'Sigh' (and she shows absolutely no signs of improvement in Novel 9), I'm... a bit jarred by the irony of her pontificating about the dramatic arts like this, actually. Not sure what to do about this since it is

Canon!Haruhi's approach to film directing was and remains, quite honestly, one of aggressive and stubborn ignorance of obvious and basic principles.

That's a good observation.  I'm going to have to ruminate on that one.

What'd happened to me affected thousands of people all over the world every second of every day.

Umm... I had to reread that sentence. Initially I thought it referred to how Haruhi's emotional state affects the broader universe. You should probably change it to "What'd happened to me was the same thing that afflicted thousands of people..."

That's fair.

staring up into the face of a white giant.

Wait, white? If this is a deliberate divergence from canon, on account of the Celestial's weakened state or something, it should probably be lampshaded somehow by the espers... or its colour should be mentioned in conjunction with other signs or being sickly and weak... or something along those lines..

Eheh.  I know why I made this mistake.  I've been in the habit of white giants as a device since working in Evangelion.  Do you think blue by itself would do, or bluish white?

When I wrote this, I was concerned that Mori came off too combative and disrespectful, and while on re-read I didn't feel that was as much the case, I have tried to make Mori more sympathetic.  Does she come off well here?  Is it not too contrived that Haruhi decides not to turn her back into a normal person right at that moment?

Enhh... Mori is still nasty enough (teleportation is morally equivalent to electrocuting someone with a cattle prod? really?) that things balance out in this one. And for Haruhi it's sort of damned if she does, damned if she doesn't with respect to removing Mori's powers. Though with the way this chapter went, if Mori somehow ends up resenting Haruhi even more for taking away her esper status, it's going to be Mori's own damn fault.

I'd say things are fine as they stand.

That passage, about the slippery slope and all--I can't say I was entirely happy with that passage.  I mean, what I feel like Mori should be shooting for is like using powers is a taste of the dark side, that more and more Haruhi will feel her abilities are innocuous even as she escalates.  Or that's what she fears.  It's a hyperbolic example (which is why I'm not sure I want to stick with it), but I feel the core emotion is not unjustified.

For a bit, I wondered if Haruhi would try to take Mori's power away as an act of compassion, but without Mori outright asking for it, such a choice seemed like begging for a disaster, and in some way, it'd be a violation.  I don't know if there's even a word for that kind of violation.

It occurs to me: the way you handled the ending of the last chapter might be tweaked a bit to be more consistent with the notion that Haruhi is going to be visiting, one after another, the people who were trying to push her around, and then speaking her mind to them. Difficult to explain, but the problem I'm seeing here is that Haruhi makes this declaration, and then we have an extended chapter focusing on Mori-san which doesn't quite entirely fit with it. Only when we see her visit Asakura next, do we get what Haruhi is aiming at.

I realized I neglected to say this:  when I had this planned out, what this chapter is now would've only been the first half.  As long as this is, I felt it couldn't be combined that way because the two parts are now too different, but I think that explains why this feels like it doesn't follow.

I think I understand what you're saying, though--right now, the end of 4 leaves people in the dark about what exactly Haruhi's going to do, and that's...dangerous.  It's risky.  I'd feared that starting with Mori would be fairly anticlimactic and tried to go for an ending that would less continuous or flowing and more of a thematic break.  I won't say I'm absolutely happy with that, either, though.  It's a use of vagueness and uncertainty that covers up something pretty mundane.  I can definitely see possibilities for tightening up the narrative there.

I get that Haruhi wants to do this behind the Brigade's back to some respect, and particularly doesn't want Yuki involved in this, but this feels a bit ugly given that you haven't shown any scene at all (yet) in between Yuki stopping Asakura, and this, where Haruhi and Yuki discuss the fact.

*goes to check*

Yep.

I mean, even if Haruhi doesn't want Yuki to be handling Asakura for her, wouldn't she at least be curious to talk to the alien about the stadium incident, as opposed to being satisfied with just getting everything secondhand from Kyon?

Then again, you flash back to a coffee-shop conversation with Koizumi that was precisely of that nature; I guess this chapter is all right if you end up revealing a similar conversation with Yuki in the next one.

Well, it wasn't my intention that she didn't especially want to involve Nagato.  What I wanted was for Haruhi to feel that the others had done enough, and now it was her turn to protect them.  I know there's one line there where Haruhi says she's not there to see Nagato, and I meant that to emphasize that, most of the other times she's been to that building, it has been to see Nagato, not that she didn't want to see her in particular or anything like that.  I guess that means the line could be clarified.

Frankly, though, starting off with a coffee shop flashback is much better than what I have written for the beginning of six.  Actually, trouble with that beginning (and grading...and more grading) had kind of put me off working through it.  So thanks much for that and all of this feedback, Arakawa.

[Arakawa]

Considering how objectively awful Haruhi's attempt to direct a movie was in 'Sigh' (and she shows absolutely no signs of improvement in Novel 9), I'm... a bit jarred by the irony of her pontificating about the dramatic arts like this, actually. Not sure what to do about this since it is

Heh, meant to write "since it is quite relevant to the content of the chapter". Sorry.

Eheh.  I know why I made this mistake.  I've been in the habit of white giants as a device since working in Evangelion.  Do you think blue by itself would do, or bluish white?

Hmm... bluish white might probably be fine. Just 'blue' is a bit... technicolor (it's a closed space, not a Blue Man group concert!). Maybe '<adverb/adjective> blue', with some fitting word instead of <adverb/adjective>.

That passage, about the slippery slope and all--I can't say I was entirely happy with that passage.  I mean, what I feel like Mori should be shooting for is like using powers is a taste of the dark side, that more and more Haruhi will feel her abilities are innocuous even as she escalates.  Or that's what she fears.  It's a hyperbolic example (which is why I'm not sure I want to stick with it), but I feel the core emotion is not unjustified.

No, based on that passage in your chapter I can understand the core emotion and the thought, but I also think it's fitting that Mori fails to express it cogently. I mean, if she were able to think clearly about the situation, she'd have come up with a way of getting her view across to Haruhi that.... wouldn't have exploded in her face quite so spectacularly.

As for having your split the chapter into a Mori part and an Asakura part... yeah, this seems to be a digestible size. Ugh, my own fic has the next chapter ballooning out of control at 12,000 words and likely to almost reach 20,000... :-P ... and I have no idea where to split it.

[Muphrid]

Heh, meant to write "since it is quite relevant to the content of the chapter". Sorry.

Ah, that does clear things up a bit.

Hmm... bluish white might probably be fine. Just 'blue' is a bit... technicolor (it's a closed space, not a Blue Man group concert!). Maybe '<adverb/adjective> blue', with some fitting word instead of <adverb/adjective>.

"Translucent," perhaps?  Hm, the Brown translation uses "shining."  That could be passable.

No, based on that passage in your chapter I can understand the core emotion and the thought, but I also think it's fitting that Mori fails to express it cogently. I mean, if she were able to think clearly about the situation, she'd have come up with a way of getting her view across to Haruhi that.... wouldn't have exploded in her face quite so spectacularly.

Okay, interesting.  I definitely like that interpretation.

As for having your split the chapter into a Mori part and an Asakura part... yeah, this seems to be a digestible size. Ugh, my own fic has the next chapter ballooning out of control at 12,000 words and likely to almost reach 20,000... :-P ... and I have no idea where to split it.

I think we've all been there.  When I got started in fanfiction a few years ago, I started off just writing, and that was fine.  The first chapter I wrote was about 6500 words, and that's fine.  Nothing too odd.  Then, I got all crazy about structure and where to divide scenes and on and on.  I started dividing chapters into numbered sections.  Maybe a section would be just a scene, or maybe it's take two or three scenes to get what I wanted across.  At any rate, after some experimenting, I eventually settled on sections that weren't more than 3000 words usually and no more than 6-ish sections a chapter.  All very rough, of course.  And with the exception of an 8-part, 23k-word piece of particular madness, that's about where it stayed.

Then I started Identity, this Ranma story, and the numbered sections...got longer.  Soon I had this 35k-word thing, and I wondered, you know, how could this happen?  And eventually, I wondered who would really want to read that much in one sitting?  Not many people.  So in Identity I still call those sections (or "acts"), but I give them titles now and post them separately, as if they were chapters.  And that seemed to work while I could keep up with that story.

But anyway, structure gets weird, as I'm sure you know, and it all runs in circles, since that 35k-word first chapter of Identity had 5 seconds in it, so in the end, the sections ended up as long as the chapters that I'd started with!  And while I do regard each story as having different structural needed, it's still something I find a bit amusing, if only to laugh a bit at myself for spending so much time thinking about it.  As has often been said, a story can be as long as it needs to be, after all.

[Muphrid]

The draft of chapter six is attached.  Some points in particular that I'm still uncertain about:

Spoiler: ShowHide

The scene with Haruhi and Nagato--does Nagato's coldness come off as reasonable?  To me, Nagato is unhappy that Haruhi would eat dinner rather than fix Kyon's dilemma.  Does it even make sense that Haruhi does that?

Initially, I had an extended scene where Haruhi resolved the problem of her father by going to Kyon's and pretending to have been there, resulting in a somewhat...intimate scene.  Given the clash that would pose against the above, I decided against it.  Does Haruhi's quick resolution of that problem seem sufficient?

Are the various excuses and reasons the brigade members give for being occupied reasonable?  In part, I felt that they weren't by themselves, which is why Haruhi excuses them--the idea being that, in her effort to be more reasonable and understanding, Haruhi obfuscates what she really feels.  There is a level of frustration there that she simply tries to bottle up.

The Piggy planet scenes are modified from the initial (terrible) draft of chapter four.  Since the circumstances are very different, does Haruhi's attitude toward being there feel appropriate?