[Haruhi] The Coin

[Arakawa]

Okay, *cracks metaphorical fingers, which I never actually do in real life* let's see what's happening here.

That's when I told him to read one of Mother's hobby stories. He didn't say a word after that.

Okay, that alleviates my earlier worries about how you handle Haruhi's parents.

That's why I wasn't about to walk into that dark, shadowy apartment with her, and I wasn't sorry to disappoint.

"My, you're so different now," she said, pouting. "Isn't there a little voice inside you, saying you can take just a little peek? We've been watching you for a long time, you know. There was a time you'd find this so exciting. It does excite you, doesn't it?"

"I wasn't sorry to disappoint" is kind of stilted; it seems to repeat the thought in the first part of the sentence, but doesn't really enhance the delivery that much. Either that or I misunderstand the sentence completely.

"saying you can just take a little peek" is also stilted. Maybe "begging for just a little peek" / "asking if you can take just a little peek" / endless similar variations

"there was a time you'd find this so exciting" --> suggest something like "There was a time when you'd have found this sort of thing exciting!" for the same reasons

"All right, if I can't interest you in privacy, we can speak out here." She held out her hand flat, and from nothing, a shimmering light appeared.

"held out her hand flat" -- I also get this, but, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, stilted (though not particularly wrong). Not sure how to revise this -- I myself would get fancy with "held out her hand as a shimmering light appeared from nothing, balanced on the palm of her her hand / {maybe to avoid repetition of hand} tips of her fingers" and then "the light formed itself into a teacup and saucer" (to avoid repetition). Again, not sure what to suggest specifically.

Maybe just "held out her hand, palm facing upwards, as a shimmering light appeared in it from nothing."

Anyhow I get the idea that flat on the palm of your hand is not a smart way to hold tea --

"Oh! I think I may have burned myself. How unpleasant. How do you learn not to do that?"

Asakura: "How do I not burn myself?"
Random passer-by: "You could start by not trying to balance the tea awkwardly on the palm of your hand?"
Haruhi (eyes narrow): "Serves her right for not making it the ordinary way."

-- as you are likely to spill it, I guess? I *think* that's the intent of that scene?

and I lurched on my feet and grabbed the railing. My fingertips brushed the edge of the porcelain saucer. The teacup wobbled and fell, shattering on the floor.

Action is sort of muddled and could be revised. She grabs the railing, but then she actually grabs the saucer and smashes Asakura's teacup? She "lurches on her feet" - I guess that means her feet hit the floor suddenly and she loses her balance?

It just occurs to me: the porcelain teacup + saucer thing is not exactly the standard for the Haruhi series. In both the clubroom and Yuki's apartment we clearly see them using Japanese style teacups. Asakura would thus be seen by Haruhi as affecting an English style of tea drinking, and that would have to be mentioned.

Haruhi: "Opportunity for Alice in Wonderland reference?"
Asakura: "Sure, it's about as apt as some of the *other* one's you've been making."
Haruhi (hostile): "No one asked your opinion. It'll definitely have to be one of those American horror reimaginings of the story, though."
Asakura: "... I'm afraid that's going to be difficult to pull off."

I'd planned to make something at home, but I hadn't stayed there very long, and it wasn't like I could sneak out at the theater to grab popcorn or anything else.

Popcorn puts me in mind of a movie theater, which made me confused until I realized you were talking about the play Mori-san was acting in. That's a... very few actual theaters I've been to have sold popcorn. I have no idea about the theaters where you are, and I have no idea about larger theaters or the theater scene in Japan (and your notion of one specializing in Western plays is entirely fanciful in any case, meant to allow you to make allusions within a corpus of literature you understand), but their experimental subject matter puts me in mind one of the small-to-medium indie theater in Toronto. A theater cafe in such a place would have probably tea/coffee and overpriced cheese and crackers, and various similar "nibbly stuff". Sandwiches if they were feeling particularly ambitions (e.g. in the Distillery District). Popcorn would be a definite no-no (it's designed to be gobbled up while sitting in your seat watching, which is acceptable at a movie, but definitely not while seeing a play). I assume this to be about par for North American cities.

Of course, Haruhi very likely doesn't know much about either Western or Japanese theatre facilities, but her ignorance is such a stumbling point given my (occasional) experience as a theatre goer that it took me a while to figure out what she was referring to.

Meh. This is another one of those weird personal sticking points. In summary, I find the notion of an experimental theatre selling popcorn during intermission to be fundamentally weird to even consider.

Even though Kyon had spilled the beans on everything, she found it very difficult to speak coherently without catching herself.

Tentative alternate revision "Even though Kyon had already spilled the beans on everything, she still found it very difficult to speak coherently without catching herself." I'm not sure if that's close to your original intent or not.

Umm... right now I've run out of time, but I'll probably resume C&Cing tomorrow morning. For now I decided to send the revisions I've done so far, so you at least know that I'm doing this.

Regarding your worries, the main thing I'd adjust is the emphasis of Haruhi's interactions with Nagato. (Basically, according to my interpretation of events, Nagato shouldn't even have to express that much reluctance to get Haruhi to back off by this point in canon. I get the feeling that Haruhi has a sense that Yuki is incredibly emotionally fragile, and she is unlikely to risk doing anything that might upset Yuki -- even without all the revelations in this section. A similar dynamic might be seen in Kyon's case, although there it's just Haruhi going out of her way to be accommodating where she wasn't before. Then again, YMMV in either case.)

I'll send a better explanation of what I mean later.

[Muphrid]

That's why I wasn't about to walk into that dark, shadowy apartment with her, and I wasn't sorry to disappoint.

"My, you're so different now," she said, pouting. "Isn't there a little voice inside you, saying you can take just a little peek? We've been watching you for a long time, you know. There was a time you'd find this so exciting. It does excite you, doesn't it?"

"I wasn't sorry to disappoint" is kind of stilted; it seems to repeat the thought in the first part of the sentence, but doesn't really enhance the delivery that much. Either that or I misunderstand the sentence completely.

"saying you can just take a little peek" is also stilted. Maybe "begging for just a little peek" / "asking if you can take just a little peek" / endless similar variations

"there was a time you'd find this so exciting" --> suggest something like "There was a time when you'd have found this sort of thing exciting!" for the same reasons

My feeling is that the first sentence needs something to end it, but I agree, as it stands it's a bit strange.  I'm going to have to ruminate on that one to see what works.  The other changes I agree with.

"All right, if I can't interest you in privacy, we can speak out here." She held out her hand flat, and from nothing, a shimmering light appeared.

"held out her hand flat" -- I also get this, but, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, stilted (though not particularly wrong). Not sure how to revise this -- I myself would get fancy with "held out her hand as a shimmering light appeared from nothing, balanced on the palm of her her hand / {maybe to avoid repetition of hand} tips of her fingers" and then "the light formed itself into a teacup and saucer" (to avoid repetition). Again, not sure what to suggest specifically.

Maybe just "held out her hand, palm facing upwards, as a shimmering light appeared in it from nothing."

Anyhow I get the idea that flat on the palm of your hand is not a smart way to hold tea --

I think it seemed easier to describe that than something more complicated, but given the issues with saucers in the first place, I'll probably just have a teacup materialize between her fingertips and leave it at that.

"Oh! I think I may have burned myself. How unpleasant. How do you learn not to do that?"

Asakura: "How do I not burn myself?"
Random passer-by: "You could start by not trying to balance the tea awkwardly on the palm of your hand?"
Haruhi (eyes narrow): "Serves her right for not making it the ordinary way."

-- as you are likely to spill it, I guess? I *think* that's the intent of that scene?

She burns her tongue sipping.  I'll add some more language to that effect.  I mean, we can get deeper into it as how Asakura views humanity as a curiosity like a person views an ant colony as a curiosity right before emptying a bottle of water over the mound to make the workers scurry around, but I imagine that part came across well enough.

and I lurched on my feet and grabbed the railing. My fingertips brushed the edge of the porcelain saucer. The teacup wobbled and fell, shattering on the floor.

Action is sort of muddled and could be revised. She grabs the railing, but then she actually grabs the saucer and smashes Asakura's teacup? She "lurches on her feet" - I guess that means her feet hit the floor suddenly and she loses her balance?

It just occurs to me: the porcelain teacup + saucer thing is not exactly the standard for the Haruhi series. In both the clubroom and Yuki's apartment we clearly see them using Japanese style teacups. Asakura would thus be seen by Haruhi as affecting an English style of tea drinking, and that would have to be mentioned.

Haruhi: "Opportunity for Alice in Wonderland reference?"
Asakura: "Sure, it's about as apt as some of the *other* one's you've been making."
Haruhi (hostile): "No one asked your opinion. It'll definitely have to be one of those American horror reimaginings of the story, though."
Asakura: "... I'm afraid that's going to be difficult to pull off."

Yeah, I'm willing to do away with the saucer as there was no special point to that.  The idea was yeah, it's like Haruhi is a couple inches off the ground or is disoriented enough that she has to find balance.  In grabbing the railing, she nudges the teacup off balance and it breaks.  That's all it should be.  I think I can get that across by emphasizing Haruhi's panicked reaction to Asakura's, er, demonstration?

I'd planned to make something at home, but I hadn't stayed there very long, and it wasn't like I could sneak out at the theater to grab popcorn or anything else.

Popcorn puts me in mind of a movie theater, which made me confused until I realized you were talking about the play Mori-san was acting in. That's a... very few actual theaters I've been to have sold popcorn. I have no idea about the theaters where you are, and I have no idea about larger theaters or the theater scene in Japan (and your notion of one specializing in Western plays is entirely fanciful in any case, meant to allow you to make allusions within a corpus of literature you understand), but their experimental subject matter puts me in mind one of the small-to-medium indie theater in Toronto. A theater cafe in such a place would have probably tea/coffee and overpriced cheese and crackers, and various similar "nibbly stuff". Sandwiches if they were feeling particularly ambitions (e.g. in the Distillery District). Popcorn would be a definite no-no (it's designed to be gobbled up while sitting in your seat watching, which is acceptable at a movie, but definitely not while seeing a play). I assume this to be about par for North American cities.

Of course, Haruhi very likely doesn't know much about either Western or Japanese theatre facilities, but her ignorance is such a stumbling point given my (occasional) experience as a theatre goer that it took me a while to figure out what she was referring to.

Meh. This is another one of those weird personal sticking points. In summary, I find the notion of an experimental theatre selling popcorn during intermission to be fundamentally weird to even consider.

Consider the popcorn properly excised.  As the general point of that was only to emphasize that Haruhi has missed opportunities to eat, I think I'll brainstorm on other ways to get that across.

Even though Kyon had spilled the beans on everything, she found it very difficult to speak coherently without catching herself.

Tentative alternate revision "Even though Kyon had already spilled the beans on everything, she still found it very difficult to speak coherently without catching herself." I'm not sure if that's close to your original intent or not.

Yes, that's much better.

Umm... right now I've run out of time, but I'll probably resume C&Cing tomorrow morning. For now I decided to send the revisions I've done so far, so you at least know that I'm doing this.

Regarding your worries, the main thing I'd adjust is the emphasis of Haruhi's interactions with Nagato. (Basically, according to my interpretation of events, Nagato shouldn't even have to express that much reluctance to get Haruhi to back off by this point in canon. I get the feeling that Haruhi has a sense that Yuki is incredibly emotionally fragile, and she is unlikely to risk doing anything that might upset Yuki -- even without all the revelations in this section. A similar dynamic might be seen in Kyon's case, although there it's just Haruhi going out of her way to be accommodating where she wasn't before. Then again, YMMV in either case.)

I'll send a better explanation of what I mean later.

Thanks, I definitely appreciate it.  It's interesting--your take on Nagato and Haruhi, that is.  I felt that, with Haruhi knowing Nagato was an alien, she would be less inclined to read human emotions and motives from Nagato's behavior.  Even so, these connections with the brigade members are important to Haruhi, and out of a combination of gratitude and respect, she's offering what she can. I didn't write it as Haruhi thinks Nagato is fragile, but now that you mention it, I think I should.  Fragility meshes well with the notion that a breakdown on Nagato's part set into motion the events of Disappearance.  In that sense, then, Haruhi would be concerned that Nagato is stable at the least or, more generally, that she's happy.  I'll have to figure out the right places to put those sentiments.  I'm a bit leery of having Haruhi become just this ray of total sunshine and daffodils, but that angle on her concern ought to be fine.

I'm not sure what you mean regarding Kyon, but I look forward to what further thoughts you have on that in any case.

[Arakawa]

Okay, I was hoping to get most of it done during the morning's subway ride, but that didn't pan out and I got sucked into the usual sort of hectic day I have -- so you're only getting the rest of the C&C now when I have time to finish it. Some of the stylistic suggestions below may be contentious, and best ignored; please use your own judgment.

In a way, she was the one member of the brigade who, after these revelations, I felt I knew the least about.

Umm... you could even make the case that Haruhi feels as though she knows even less about Yuki than she did before.

"You threatened them," she explained, "and now they are threatened."

Kind of... borderline and perhaps a bit too casual for Yuki (it makes the IDSE sound like an emotional entity). The underlying thought is that since it has been threatened, the IDSE no longer feels any benefit from inaction when it is not certain that a given plan will work -- inaction is, for whatever reason, now estimated to be just as risky as action. Yuki might want to express some thought to that effect (not going to trust myself to write accurate Yuki dialogue for you), though it might be difficult to do so without implying she's in a talkative mood.

say, a license plate hanging in the window

... trying to figure out what kind of license plate a person would hang in a bedroom window for sentimental reasons ... confused ... is this some kind of reference?

were unusuallly forceful.

'unusually'. (Note that if Mikuru or Kyon had secret stuff, Haruhi would probably be all over it in an instant.)

Haruhi's refusal to rush over to Kyon's house, just to deal with her dad: understandable. Just jumping into the situation could backfire in a lot of ways, and destroys the advantage that Haruhi can claim to never have done anything weird in Kyon's house, and be telling the level truth.

outside this apartment for all those concerned.

Seems to be a bit of an awkward phrase. How about just "a negligible amount of time will pass in all reference frames located outside the apartment" or something of that sort.

He's told that one a thousand times—it's the one where she gives him her number on the back side of a M\"obius strip, right?

A bit of LaTeX seems to have slipped into the final HTML, here and in other uses of "Mobius strip". Hmm... since I'm used to working in Markdown, I'm not sure how to fix that, but you should double check what's going on.

"And then he spent twenty minutes explaining topology to my sister because she choudln't pronounce M\"obius strip properly."

*remembers personal encounters with real-life topology nerds, groans inwardly*

Anyhow, typo: "chouldn't" --> "couldn't", as you might have noticed.

EDIT: and Mobius strip should be in quotes as so: "... to my sister because she couldn't pronounce 'Mobius strip' properly."

It was the next day, just about an hour after lunch.

I have a slight nagging feeling this transition was a bit easy to miss. Probably you need to add something to indicate that the previous conversation wrapped up, a bit fancier than, say, "And that was that, until the next day. Just an hour after lunch, I was taking a break ..." but in the same general vein.

since I could mess with time or search the whole spacetime continuum for answers if I really wanted to.

To reduce the impact of the redundancy ("time" ... "space-time"), you could expand "mess with time" into some more specific way of messing with time that doesn't make the sentence seem so stilted. Not sure what to suggest, though.

about a rainstorm that hit on a sunny day, even if not everyone's willing to deem it truly fantastic in origin."

Not sure... maybe "about that rainstorm hitting on a sunny day"? Only 30% sure that it's better.

But this was different. Had I a piece of phlebotinum in my hands, I wouldn't have to explain how it worked or why. I could leave that to experts and scientists to puzzle out, but in the real world, the big mystery was me.

As I understand the thought, it would be more clear if you wrote something like "If I'd found a piece of phlebotinum just lying on the ground somewhere, I wouldn't be under any obligation to explain how it worked or why."

More tentatively (just as an alternative which I'm not sure improves anything) you could end the second sentence as "..., but in the real world, the big mystery had turned out to be me."

without too much effort.

Well, without any effort at all, but whatever.

I'm just not in the mindset to go gallavanting around the galaxy right now.

Is it 'gallavanting', or 'gallivanting'? Can't quite remember.

Let me finish this assignment, okay? I just want something simple off my mind is all. Is that all right?"

It sounds like you wanted to write "something simple to take my mind off things". I'd also throw a "right now" in there:

Right now, I just want something simple to take my mind off things. Is that all right?

Okay, so in general I don't have much trouble with the interaction as it is. Same thing with the one with Mikuru -- Haruhi tries to get her help to cobble together a space travel mechanism that doesn't involve the use of her own powers, which unintentionally places Mikuru into a quandary and makes her even more reluctant to go. That's much more interesting than just some arbitrary excuse.

"Oh, well that's easy," I said. "I took her powers away."

The other end of the line went dead quiet.

Epic.

I think leaving it up to the reader's imagination as to just what is going on at the other end of the line really works here.

"Maybe you already have other plans?"

"..."

"A book?"

Oh, reading this again, I notice that Haruhi does in fact back off very quickly, and is actually the one to bring up the idea that Yuki might refuse to go.

All right then. Pointless to make a suggestion you're already adhering to, right? I guess the proper thing to say to this is "well done".

She was wrong. She was dead wrong. She didn't know anything about humanity; she didn't know anything about the brigade. They couldn't be blamed for having other things to do. All it would take was a tale of a planet far, far away, and the brigade would be with me; I was sure of it! I just had to bring back that story, and the excitement in their eyes would be the proof.

I let Yuki go. She could tell me all about the book she was reading if she wanted to. That'd be fine—at least for her.

I tossed my notebooks aside. I opened the window and looked up, into the blue sky. It would've been easier at night, but I had a healthy imagination. I didn't need to see the stars to know where I wanted to go. They shine even in daylight.

I guess it sort of works that Haruhi then rushes off on her own without the Brigade. It's certainly crucial for the story as it stands now (not going would take all the tension out of things); it's a very effective symbolic punch in the gut for her; however...

... the more I think about it, the more trouble I have with the notion that Haruhi rushes off for precisely those reasons you give, and doesn't really see it coming with regard to how she will feel at the end of the chapter. Especially since she's just had a whole scene of attempting to be considerate of everyone's feelings. (Once she's on the planet, it makes sense that she completely forgets about the symbolic import of what she's doing. However, getting her there is going to be extremely tricky.)

It's not too dissimilar from the problem Brian was having with 'Sympathy', by the way: the issue is that it's crucial to the story that things play out a certain way, but the motivation behind the actions that lead to that outcome needs a lot more work. (And I was rubbing salt into that wound by misunderstanding Brian's intent and suggesting that he could keep the motivations as-is and change the outcome >_<). As I think I explained to Brian in private, for me personally these sorts of things actually just generate indifference for the fic in question (perhaps not in a quality sufficient to nullify the positive aspects of the fic immediately), whose source I have difficulty interpreting. It took me a couple of re-readings to pinpoint the problem, and then to articulate it civilly.

A more demanding reader would possibly be tempted to drop the fic at this point.

So if anything needs serious work, it's actually not how the various Brigade members make excuses not to go, it's what rationale Haruhi uses to go off anyways. Let's get the line-by-line over, and I'll mull over some thoughts as to how that particular notion might be improved. But keep in mind that you know where the story is going, so you might be able to come up with an answer (or a way to dodge the issue) that wouldn't have occurred to me.

Frankly, while I like the symbolic gut-punch of Haruhi's first interstellar trip being taken without the Brigade, I have trouble seeing what sort of worthwhile scenario it might set up in the non-symbolic sense. Does Haruhi mope about because she's failed the Brigade, or does she come up with a way to make it up to everyone that is actually more troublesome?

Haruhi: "... I know! Rather than just a tourist trip like last time, let's find something really mysterious! Something even the IDSE would find remarkable!"

Yuki: "Phenomena that the IDSE finds remarkable are all things on the order of Suzumiya Haruhi, with the capacity to affect the entire universe. Combining two such phenomena in close proximity is inadvisable. I emphatically do not want to find out what happens to the overall structure of spacetime if you suddenly decide to jump into the inverted quantum pretzel wormhole, thank you very much."

{/crackfic mode off}

Anyhow, let's think carefully to avoid creating more forced tension along the lines of the one that bogged down your previous drafts. I like the outcome so far, I'm just concerned about the method used to get to it, and given your track record I'm slightly worried that it might be the setup to something vaguely groanworthy.

I put on the beat-up Tigers cap, and the room melted around me—this time to a smooth and even blackness, save for scattered pinpricks of starlight.

Also, the baseball cap? I know I complimented your use of these objects as motifs, so I am indeed still paying attention to this (well, to the extent that they jump to my attention; I don't bother tracking every single use). This one... doesn't really work. The baseball cap is the one Yuki turns into a spear to stab Asakura with, right? (I seem to remember that happening -- if there's another baseball cap then this motif is actually very confusing.) I think its earlier appearances make sense for what it's worth, but in this particular instance I don't even want to think about what this gesture symbolizes on the part of Haruhi, in case I invent some borderline theory that never occurred to you, and that causes me to dislike the character.

When I was younger, my family sometimes took me to the public pool.

Trying to remember: Haruhi is an only child, I think? (99% certain) "My family" in that context as opposed to "my parents" speaks to a reluctance to acknowledge this fact. It's something that jumped out at me very quickly, and I'm not sure if it was intentional or if it says anything meaningful about Haruhi.

I don't know when we stopped doing that, but I haven't forgotten.

"we stopped that" refers all the way to the beginning of the paragraph (to Haruhi's trips with her family). That's slightly awkward (my brain keeps telling me that 'that' refers to Haruhi's hold-your-breath-underwater amusement, and so then I trip over the 'we'). Maybe you should expand 'that' to repeat what exactly Haruhi is referring to? e.g. when we stopped these family outings, or similar.

Hmm... I'm running out of time again. I think I've pointed you to a potential stumbling point which you need to do some thinking about, though, so I have some breathing room with the off-Earth portion. It's your judgment regarding:

• What the flaws of this particular Haruhi are, that lead her to go off alone (which, intuition tells me, is a worthwhile end to the chapter, I just don't want to you 'force' this outcome). You need to determine flaws to make the story interesting, without making people stop caring about the character again.
• Whether the tension created in this chapter is going to be resolved in a worthwhile manner, or whether you're subtly painting yourself into a corner again.

I mean, I had an experience almost as gut-wrenching as Haruhi's recently. However, it had absolutely no real-life consequences. So inventing real-life consequences for it (by moping about / otherwise creating problems for myself) would have been the true defeat, and would have led me to lose respect for myself. If Haruhi did something similar, that would be a strike against her as a character and at this stage it would have led me to lose respect for the fic. In that sense I'm kind of hoping for some variation of "Haruhi overcompensates in trying to make it up to the Brigade", or another subplot on those lines; the main criterion is that Haruhi should dig herself into a hole in some fashion, but for reasons that don't make her look utterly pathetic as opposed to merely flawed.

I dunno. As with Brian's fic, I'm sending wild, whirling words by now. Hopefully (having learned a valuable lesson in that regard) I've taken pains not to phrase them too aggressively, and you can sort through them at leisure, without being distracted by the presentation.

That was an interesting chapter; please keep working at it carefully.

[Arakawa]

A bit of pre-emptive clarification I should add: much of the above criticism was speculation, based on the fact that I like the basic idea of Haruhi making this kind of mistake, but I can't really see what sorts of consequences it sets up for the story (well, I can come up with some examples which return it to the state of a tedious soap opera and are therefore untenable, and a bunch of 'overcompensation' subplots which are far too specific to be used to speculate on your intentions effectively). There's a strong possibility that you do have a worthwhile direction for this story, in which case your response to that part of my C&C should just be "I know what I'm doing, actually."

That would just leave the question of establishing Haruhi's motivation in going off alone. It's handled in basically two or three consecutive paragraphs, but those strike me as very important paragraphs to get right.

[Muphrid]

In a way, she was the one member of the brigade who, after these revelations, I felt I knew the least about.

Umm... you could even make the case that Haruhi feels as though she knows even less about Yuki than she did before.

Something to that effect will probably read a lot better than it does right now.

"You threatened them," she explained, "and now they are threatened."

Kind of... borderline and perhaps a bit too casual for Yuki (it makes the IDSE sound like an emotional entity). The underlying thought is that since it has been threatened, the IDSE no longer feels any benefit from inaction when it is not certain that a given plan will work -- inaction is, for whatever reason, now estimated to be just as risky as action. Yuki might want to express some thought to that effect (not going to trust myself to write accurate Yuki dialogue for you), though it might be difficult to do so without implying she's in a talkative mood.

Yeah, I think I felt caught here between specificity and brevity.  Is this something that might come across if, say, Nagato shot Haruhi a meaningful glance---to indicate that while it was Kyon who made the threat, the instrument of that threat is Haruhi?

...ick, I'm not real happy with that notion, either.  Unusually talkative might be the way to go.

say, a license plate hanging in the window

... trying to figure out what kind of license plate a person would hang in a bedroom window for sentimental reasons ... confused ... is this some kind of reference?

This wasn't a specific reference, but I felt I had to be specific in types of decorations.  Perhaps a reference would be more appropriate, in that case.

outside this apartment for all those concerned.

Seems to be a bit of an awkward phrase. How about just "a negligible amount of time will pass in all reference frames located outside the apartment" or something of that sort.

Reference frames, of course!  That's brilliant.

Though it may be that that has to be qualified with "inertial" reference frames.  Possibly.  Maybe.

"And then he spent twenty minutes explaining topology to my sister because she choudln't pronounce M\"obius strip properly."

*remembers personal encounters with real-life topology nerds, groans inwardly*

Anyhow, typo: "chouldn't" --> "couldn't", as you might have noticed.

EDIT: and Mobius strip should be in quotes as so: "... to my sister because she couldn't pronounce 'Mobius strip' properly."

Brian's really much better with some of these arcane rules than I--is it necessarily quotation marks that are prescribed here or emphasis?

It was the next day, just about an hour after lunch.

I have a slight nagging feeling this transition was a bit easy to miss. Probably you need to add something to indicate that the previous conversation wrapped up, a bit fancier than, say, "And that was that, until the next day. Just an hour after lunch, I was taking a break ..." but in the same general vein.

This is the result of trying to do something funny.  I was trying to ease the transition by having some of the dialogue that happens the next day come before the narration says it's the next day, so...yeah, I used to be in love with acrhonological order, but this is probably too odd to pull off correctly.  I'll try something more conventional to avoid confusion.

about a rainstorm that hit on a sunny day, even if not everyone's willing to deem it truly fantastic in origin."

Not sure... maybe "about that rainstorm hitting on a sunny day"? Only 30% sure that it's better.

Yeah, I have a feeling we're both thinking about the extra "that" that wants to creep in there, making "hit" -> "hitting" to avoid it and still coming off a bid odd.  I'll do some thinking on that one.

But this was different. Had I a piece of phlebotinum in my hands, I wouldn't have to explain how it worked or why. I could leave that to experts and scientists to puzzle out, but in the real world, the big mystery was me.

As I understand the thought, it would be more clear if you wrote something like "If I'd found a piece of phlebotinum just lying on the ground somewhere, I wouldn't be under any obligation to explain how it worked or why."

More tentatively (just as an alternative which I'm not sure improves anything) you could end the second sentence as "..., but in the real world, the big mystery had turned out to be me."

Do you like "be under any obligation" -> "be obliged"?

On looking at the last sentence, I think I'm inclined to space it out like, say, "I could leave that to experts and scientists to puzzle out, but in the real world, there were no pieces of alien spacecraft or bits of a battle waitress's time machine.  There was only one big mystery left in the universe, and that was me."

*squints*  Up to you if you like that.  I know sometimes these lines come out and seem great when first put down but later on, after you forget, you notice problems you didn't remember, so.

I guess it sort of works that Haruhi then rushes off on her own without the Brigade. It's certainly crucial for the story as it stands now (not going would take all the tension out of things); it's a very effective symbolic punch in the gut for her; however...

... the more I think about it, the more trouble I have with the notion that Haruhi rushes off for precisely those reasons you give, and doesn't really see it coming with regard to how she will feel at the end of the chapter. Especially since she's just had a whole scene of attempting to be considerate of everyone's feelings. (Once she's on the planet, it makes sense that she completely forgets about the symbolic import of what she's doing. However, getting her there is going to be extremely tricky.)

It's not too dissimilar from the problem Brian was having with 'Sympathy', by the way: the issue is that it's crucial to the story that things play out a certain way, but the motivation behind the actions that lead to that outcome needs a lot more work. (And I was rubbing salt into that wound by misunderstanding Brian's intent and suggesting that he could keep the motivations as-is and change the outcome >_<). As I think I explained to Brian in private, for me personally these sorts of things actually just generate indifference for the fic in question (perhaps not in a quality sufficient to nullify the positive aspects of the fic immediately), whose source I have difficulty interpreting. It took me a couple of re-readings to pinpoint the problem, and then to articulate it civilly.

A more demanding reader would possibly be tempted to drop the fic at this point.

So if anything needs serious work, it's actually not how the various Brigade members make excuses not to go, it's what rationale Haruhi uses to go off anyways. Let's get the line-by-line over, and I'll mull over some thoughts as to how that particular notion might be improved. But keep in mind that you know where the story is going, so you might be able to come up with an answer (or a way to dodge the issue) that wouldn't have occurred to me.

In part, it may be that I relied too much here on self-deception.  You read the first draft of chapter four, so you know there I overused that device.  The undercurrent that should be running through Haruhi's mind is, of course, that she really wanted someone else to jump up and down with excitement at the prospect of visiting another planet, just as she would, and the members of the brigade, for various, entirely understandable reasons, decline her.  There's a fear that, maybe, just maybe, she doesn't really know these people and what they want out of life.  I know there's a danger in overplaying that angle, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that, before the events of this story, Haruhi took as a tacit assumption that all the members of the brigade were like her in some way--eager to find mysteries in the world.  And what she fears here, what she's trying to avoid and deny, is that the notion that she misread them, the thought that she was wrong.

Now, as I said, I'm aware there's risk in this direction.  You can look back in this chaper and see where I lampshade the direction it was going toward, prior to the mistake that was chapter four.  It suffices to say that right now, it's not Haruhi's anger that I ultimately want to evoke.  Her anger is unsympathetic.  Her anger erases all the growth that she's experienced instead of building upon it.  Perhaps from Kyon's perspective it's something that could be done, but from her own pen, it seems like it doesn't work.  That's the gist of what I've taken from you and Brian in particular.  So I decided to work at a different question instead:

How would you feel if an entire race of espers had been created because you picked them for no reason?  If time-travelers from the future left their famlies and cultures to focus on you?  If aliens created interfaces merely to interact with and understand you?

Haruhi's very outward-focused.  The passage where she bemoans how she's the only mystery around is meant to emphasize that:  a world where there are no other mysteries to explore is one that Haruhi would find very sad--not boring in that angry, frustrated sense because even then Haruhi felt there must be mysteries just evading her sight--but sad.

Without getting into too many specifics, that's the basic thrust of where this is headed.  Haruhi can still find pleasure in conventional things--I know some emphasis has been placed on Haruhi's friendship with Sakanaka, and that's something I intend to visit--but I think there's an overriding image of the world in her mind:  that the universe should be full of mysteries and of people eager to explore them.  In part, I think Haruhi's gradual acceptance of society and people has stemmed from her broadening this view to include smaller mysteries and people who engage life with energy and awareness of how grand things are, even if they don't appraoch life the way Haruhi does.  I think (I think) Haruhi's acceptance of Sakanaka fits that mold.  The whole theory is a bit of a work in progress.

At any rate, I'm thinking that another way to play the last few paragraphs before Haruhi goes to the Piggy planet is, say, to have her acknowledge an uncomfortable thought--that she doesn't know the brigade as well as she believed--and feel compelled through fear to make an irrational decision, hence blinding her to the consequences of it.  Ultimately, that may be what I was actually going for, and I simply skipped too many steps in the thought process to get that on the page.  As always, though, I welcome your thoughts on that line of reasoning, as you're right--it's very crucial to pin Haruhi's thoughts down, to make the audience feel her decision is understandable.

Thank you very much for all that you've given.


Edit: ack, I got really hung up on that part and stopped going through the rest.  Oops.

Also, the baseball cap? I know I complimented your use of these objects as motifs, so I am indeed still paying attention to this (well, to the extent that they jump to my attention; I don't bother tracking every single use). This one... doesn't really work. The baseball cap is the one Yuki turns into a spear to stab Asakura with, right? (I seem to remember that happening -- if there's another baseball cap then this motif is actually very confusing.) I think its earlier appearances make sense for what it's worth, but in this particular instance I don't even want to think about what this gesture symbolizes on the part of Haruhi, in case I invent some borderline theory that never occurred to you, and that causes me to dislike the character.

Well, there's the baseball cap the old woman from chapter three gave Haruhi, and there's the cap that Asahina bought at the stadium; Asahina put her initials under the brim.

At this point, the cap is mentioned so people don't forget it's there.  It probably need not be mentioned here; there will be a much more effective use of it in the next chapter.

Actually, I kind of thought Haruhi would take it along just to protect her eyes from an alien sun.  But that may be too practical a use.

Trying to remember: Haruhi is an only child, I think? (99% certain) "My family" in that context as opposed to "my parents" speaks to a reluctance to acknowledge this fact. It's something that jumped out at me very quickly, and I'm not sure if it was intentional or if it says anything meaningful about Haruhi.

Yeah, I knew that, but "parents" does seem like the better word.


I think I've adequately addressed the remainder with the big response above.  That said, the sentiments you've expressed are definitely on my mind regarding the future structure of the story and the interpretation of those events I have planned that is truest to Haruhi's character--since she seems so difficult to figure out and pin down.

[Muphrid]

In other news, I don't drink tea, let alone with Japanese cups or anything like that, so I was prepared to just go with the cups and not worry about it, but then I saw this image in Disappearance, and it took me aback.  Are there saucers in this shot (in Nagato's apartment) atypical, then?

[Arakawa]

Ah, my bad then.

(See, this is why C&Cing alone is hard.)

*checks  Japanese style cups in closet*

Those came with saucers as well. Saucers are the default, actually.

I think what my stumbling point was, as far as I remember the difference between Japanese cups&saucers and English cups&saucers is that in England you can hold the saucer in one hand while standing and *sip* lift the cup off it repeatedly using the handle, which is very clearly what you have Asakura doing (?), but I don't remember seeing the Japanese style cups in the anime being used that way. The coaster seems to stay on the table.

In any case, don't trust me on this, try to look at an episode and check for yourself whether they ever walk around holding the saucer like with English tea, or if they leave it on the table as a sort of glorified tea coaster (so that its existence doesn't really register that well).

One thing I can definitely determine is that the cups in the picture (and my set of Japanese cups) are clearly much larger and heavier than the sort of cup-with-handle you can hold one-handed on a saucer, they're more like mugs without handles. Trying to balance them on a saucer in your hands (either one-handed or with both hands) when they're full of hot tea would be extremely awkward.

*looks at picture again*

No, the ones in the picture look sort of in-between-sized. I guess it's borderline. In the end, just go with something that makes sense for you.

[Muphrid]

I've completed revisions for this.  The transition scene after Haruhi leaves Nagato's is significantly tweaked, and there's a little bit of additional wording to clarify Haruhi's reasoning.  The ending is worded differently as well.

Edit:  naturally I find something else that needs fixing right after that.

[Brian]

Happens to me every time, for what that's worth. :x

[Anastasia]

I read this fic in one shot last night, up to the previous revision of chapter six. I like it on the whole. Haruhi is deeply flawed and going through one hell of a change, so I give her a lot of leeway. The main thing I'm wondering about is her final conclusion: It feels like it would be easy for her to stop thinking about herself as human. Chapter 6's visit to a new world absolutely cemented that. She played the mercurial god role to the hilt - to her they were just aliens and she did what she thought was right. She realizes that now too, so I'm highly curious to where this is gonna go.

Is that intended?

Disclaimer: I've only seen the anime and that was when it first came out. So my viewpoint is likely far different than someone who's kept more up on the series.

[Arakawa]

Okay, the tweaked justification, I'd say, is good enough at this point. I'm curious to see where this is going in the following chapters.

In the summers, that was the closest I could come to visiting an alien world. I don't know when we stopped going swimming, but I haven't forgotten.

Hmm... not really the correction I was expecting. The idea is still obvious (swimming with parents), but the fact that it's just 'stopped going swimming' (... in general?) is a bit of a stumbling point now.

It's what convinced me that that place was really something totally unlike home, unlike anything that could happen on planet Earth.

I'd simplify the beginning of that to "It convinced me that..."

There was a quick, chop-chop-chop sound.

I'd say the comma was unnecessary.

"Teleportation, flying, what's the difference?"

No problem with that line, but I just couldn't help myself:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Doctor!Haruhi: *eyebrow twitch* -- "You're so ignorant!"

(waves small notebook at Coin!Haruhi)

Doctor!Haruhi: "There are precisely one hundred and forty-seven different flying and teleportation mechanics that I've personally investigated, which have absolutely nothing to do with each other!"

Coin!Haruhi: "... did anyone ever tell you that you have way too much time on your hands?"

Doctor!Haruhi: "I was stranded on a technologically backwards planet for two years!"

Coin!Haruhi: "Couldn't you have just teleported yourself to a different planet?"

Doctor!Haruhi: "I had conveniently erased my own memory of the fact that I could teleport further than two kilometres!"

Coin!Haruhi: "...??"

Doctor!Haruhi: "... because it's more fun that way!"

Coin!Haruhi: "...."

No amount of world-changing power could keep her poisonous words out of my mind.

Not if I was the one who let them in.

Probably putting a "decided" in that last sentence (e.g. had decided to let them in) would make that thought flow more smoothly. Currently it has a bit of an oxymoronic ring to it.

In general, your Piggy planet scene is much better now that it's no longer a contrived play put on by Asakura, becoming just some random off-planet crisis.

The main thing I'm wondering about is her final conclusion: It feels like it would be easy for her to stop thinking about herself as human. Chapter 6's visit to a new world absolutely cemented that. She played the mercurial god role to the hilt - to her they were just aliens and she did what she thought was right. She realizes that now too, so I'm highly curious to where this is gonna go.

Personally, I have trouble seeing a different way for the self-aware Haruhi scenario to play out. She's not the type to become a thoroughly unrestricted, amoral entity (see: http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus.html), so it seems likely that she'd eventually come up with a set of arbitrary rules that keep her from having to confront any particularly difficult dilemmas, while still getting to have lots of fun. Attempting to do anything else would very likely strain her sanity.

Well, the other scenario I can think of was sort of hinted at in Hal's epilogue to Under Review: Haruhi's powers are sufficiently user-unfriendly that accomplishing anything significant without dangerous side-effects is extremely difficult. So obviously anything drastic like launching 'Singularity' (like she winds up being forced to do in *bleagh* Riddle of Kyon) is no longer in consideration and thus ironically Haruhi doesn't need to worry as much.

Obviously that's not the case in Murphid's fic. The powers here seem to take their cue from Haruhi's confident and stubborn streak, so as long as she's convinced that nothing is going to go wrong, nothing goes wrong, in terms of the million different adaptations that are probably necessary for her to be walking around on an alien planet like that. The human dimension, though, is of course something completely different.

EDIT: And I think for a world-changing omnipotent being to start considering themselves as not exactly human, is a fairly accurate evaluation of the situation :-) -- that's a long discussion, though.

[Muphrid]

Hmm... not really the correction I was expecting. The idea is still obvious (swimming with parents), but the fact that it's just 'stopped going swimming' (... in general?) is a bit of a stumbling point now.

I'm thinking "when we stopped going to that pool together" or something like that?

Probably putting a "decided" in that last sentence (e.g. had decided to let them in) would make that thought flow more smoothly. Currently it has a bit of an oxymoronic ring to it.

I realized that I said "I was the one who" twice in close succession there.  I'm thinking of just ending with "Not if I chose to let them in"?


In regard to what Haruhi is becoming, the concept of people questioning their humanity or seeing themselves as foreign is intensely appealing to me (I really liked that theme when I was writing Eva stuff), but I think I have something a bit different in mind here.  What Ana says makes me think that the buildup isn't entirely clear.  Haruhi realizes that she let Asakura plant a seed of doubt in her mind and that she acted on it without even realizing it.  Where that leads isn't toward a further abandonment of her humanity per se, but I think she would feel ashamed of herself.  (Bear in mind that this is I think because I've not been able to write any of chapter seven despite having it outlined.)  And, most importantly, I think it would start leading her toward the realization that just going out and finding aliens to play with isn't enough, isn't fulfilling by itself.

As always, this is a tricky balance :/ Trying to figure out how much to say about what's intended versus letting people present their interpretations unpolluted by what I think stuff should mean--I'm not sure if I've already said too much.

I will say that the depiction of Haruhi's powers (that they seem to accomplish whatever necessary secondary effects are needed automagically) may have stemmed in part from not wanting to get bogged down in Haruhi considering all those miscellaneous considerations.  I mean, she manages to save her own life without ever waking up that one time.  The necessary question, then, is if Haruhi has such boundless powers and can use them, what's keeping her from revamping the world?  Why wouldn't she?  All along, I've been trying to build up to an internal reasoning for that, too, as opposed to, say, "the powers just don't work that way" or anything like that.  There's still some fridge questions to be addressed there.  Why wouldn't she, say, keep people from dying or erase all evil or do something else that might seem altruistic?

To be honest, that's a tough, messy question, and the best I can think of is that, if Haruhi has the ability to retcon the universe, so to speak, she can let things play out unadulterated and then figure out and decide later.  That...may not be entirely satisfactory, either.

Thank you both for your thoughts; it's definitely compelled me to look ahead and think about the wrap-up to this story, which is certainly drawing nearer.  I mean, it's just seven, eight...nine might be shorter, then an epilogue?  Of course, given how much this story has changed from what I initially planned out, I'll be the first to say that's all subject to change.

And Brian, heh, it's always that way, isn't it?

[Arakawa]

Brian's really much better with some of these arcane rules than I--is it necessarily quotation marks that are prescribed here or emphasis?

I would guess that quotation marks are valid. My probably-flawed understanding of it: think about quoting things to use with X said "such and such stuff" - the quotes turn "such and such stuff" from a phrase into a noun that means a phrase - similarly quoting 'Mobius strip' turns it from a noun representing an object to a noun representing a bit of speech. Since you pronounce bits of speech and not objects, that seems entirely valid.

Yeah, that was a horrible explanation...

Do you like "be under any obligation" -> "be obliged"?

On looking at the last sentence, I think I'm inclined to space it out like, say, "I could leave that to experts and scientists to puzzle out, but in the real world, there were no pieces of alien spacecraft or bits of a battle waitress's time machine.  There was only one big mystery left in the universe, and that was me."

*squints*  Up to you if you like that.  I know sometimes these lines come out and seem great when first put down but later on, after you forget, you notice problems you didn't remember, so.

Sort of indifferent on whether you want to use my version or your version. Neither is bad, neither is particularly brilliant either.

Now, as I said, I'm aware there's risk in this direction.  You can look back in this chaper and see where I lampshade the direction it was going toward, prior to the mistake that was chapter four.

Sorry, just double-checking, by 'lampshading' do you mean this paragraph?

I realized a bit later that maybe not everyone in my shoes—with my powers and abilities—would've let something nagging at them go so easily. In the movies, that would've been the point when the invincible, all-powerful protagonist probes the mind of her friends and discovers that, as much as they may follow her and tolerate her, there are aspects of her personality and behavior they can't help but dislike. And in her arrogance, the omnipotent protagonist would punish her so-called friends for daring to criticize her, even though they never said anything—the only reason she ever found out was because she violated their minds. Then who knows what would happen. Maybe she'd erase them one-by-one until just the only person she couldn't bear to be without was left. Then, the question would be whether she'd follow through with her anger or had a shred of humanity left, enough to repent.

Wait, really? I just realized you might mean this bit about erasing everyone who makes her angry? Really?Okaaaay... yeah, that might've been sort of unacceptable. (Although it might've been par for, say, Meet the Suzumiyas or something.)

The stuff you're exploring now seems to be much more valid. I mean, Haruhi now having the power to give herself and her friends whatever they want is problematic enough in the human dimension without needing to have her actively work to destroy everything she spent eleven novels accomplishing.

Well, there's the baseball cap the old woman from chapter three gave Haruhi, and there's the cap that Asahina bought at the stadium; Asahina put her initials under the brim.

At this point, the cap is mentioned so people don't forget it's there.  It probably need not be mentioned here; there will be a much more effective use of it in the next chapter.

Actually, I kind of thought Haruhi would take it along just to protect her eyes from an alien sun.  But that may be too practical a use.

I guess Kyon ("I'll bring a flashlight because I don't have any breathing equipment") and Haruhi were thinking alike on that one in your earlier draft. (As an aside, I tried to imagine Haruhi interacting with the Piggies while wearing a baseball cap. It's sort of a ridiculous mental image -- I'm not sure if it's ridiculous in a good way or not, though.)

I'm thinking "when we stopped going to that pool together" or something like that?

Works well.

I realized that I said "I was the one who" twice in close succession there.  I'm thinking of just ending with "Not if I chose to let them in"?

Also works well here.

In regard to what Haruhi is becoming, the concept of people questioning their humanity or seeing themselves as foreign is intensely appealing to me (I really liked that theme when I was writing Eva stuff), but I think I have something a bit different in mind here.  What Ana says makes me think that the buildup isn't entirely clear.

Ah, personally I only riffed on that theme in my commentary because I've been thinking about it (looking ahead to where Haruhi might end up once she's lived past a normal human lifespan), but your fic clearly isn't focusing on that particular question :-)

Right now any question as to why she doesn't use her power in a human-type way (attempting to fix the problems / attain the goals that humans are always obsessing about) is going to be answered simply by "she's still figuring things out".

I will say that the depiction of Haruhi's powers (that they seem to accomplish whatever necessary secondary effects are needed automagically) may have stemmed in part from not wanting to get bogged down in Haruhi considering all those miscellaneous considerations.

I always assumed it was valid (as a rule of thumb) to assume that Haruhi's powers are nothing more than an extension of her personality. As in, after the baseball game (EDIT: the original one in canon where she supposedly gains her powers) she becomes so stubborn about what she wants to accomplish that the obstacles in her path start to suffer spontaneous existence failure... that's obviously not an actual explanation, but it seems to fit the way she functions fairly well.

[Muphrid]

This first draft of chapter seven is attached.  Again, my thanks to Arakawa for all the help of late.  Some ongoing concerns I have (which I feel, at this point, I've reached an impasse with):

Spoiler: ShowHide

Is the scene with Koizumi adequate?  I feel I may have shortchanged him here, and that the only solution is to expand significantly (in the mode of chapter five being expanded with Mori), but...I kinda want to get through this and not be slowed down by such a diversion when the point is made sufficiently by the end here.

Is the old woman needlessly cryptic?  Is her identity unduly clear by the end of the chapter?

Kyon's attitude toward Asahina (big):  I tried to find the right way to depict his mindset toward her here--something that's generally positive but still has some tinge of irritation (?) for the way she goes about toying with people as needed.

Is it too much of a cop-out to have the "future" be just a mock-up of the past?

Does Asahina (big)'s breakdown at the end follow logically?  I had to revise and twist that scene (and the cafe scene) around to be logical, so having gone through a lot of iterations and rethinking, I'm not sure if it ends up being clear.

[Arakawa]

EDIT: I really hope the following is useful instead of discouraging. But there's problems with the chapter that I just can't ignore, and I don't have the time to figure out the exact correct emphasis to use to talk about them in the necessary detail.

Um... before I C&C this, I just wanted clarification on how you handle Haruhi's recollections of the scene from Sigh where she exclaimed that Mikuru-chan was her toy. As it stands, it consists of a recap where she seems to gloss over the unpleasant aspects of that scene, to such an extent that it feels like she's still in denial. If that's actually the case, it could be lampshaded to make it clear that she's, to put it bluntly, lying to herself; if that's not what you want to get across... well, either way the scene needs work. As written, the way in which she glosses over these aspects was sufficiently distracting that I didn't even get to the part where she finally dwells on her own mistakes (for one paragraph) on the first try, and it makes the whole scene feel somewhat fake, like your Haruhi was trying to shove a differing interpretation of events down my throat to make herself look better.

For the purpose of the fic (since Haruhi has to be at least likable enough for us to tolerate her as the narrator) it would be good to fix the re-cap, keeping in mind that Haruhi may be genuinely unwilling to remember what happened. But she should realize that she can't afford to deny it completely. Being entirely blind to the situation is how she originally did the awful things she did. (There's a very ironic parallel to the fact that she was at the same time completely blind to all the supernatural things that were happening around her -- a huge potential punch in the gut for her to realize that. The kind of punch in the gut that might make you a better person to receive it. It's sort of an obvious clue that, unless she wants the situation to spiral into some overblown crisis, she should actually do something to deserve this awesome power she has.) So.... if I were tasked to rewrite your scene, I'd try to have her struggle a little between these two contradictory impulses, and maybe even get the huge punch in the gut. She does have the option of consoling herself at the end that she's improved since that time. And then once she goes to talk with the Brigade members, she can at least bother to notice the import of her interactions. Maybe actually take stock of the fact that Kyon actually trusts her to a surprising degree, considering how the other Brigade members are scared to shit of her, and of how much work she apparently has in front of her to actually be friends with most of them.

Or, to put it even more bluntly, Haruhi's recap consists of one paragraph of repentance, buried in the middle of seven paragraphs of complete and utter hubris. I think it might be good to consider whether/how to fix this before I look at the rest in detail, because, glancing quickly at the rest, I already see that it's going to heavily colour the remainder of the story. It's not that a Haruhi who's basically not able to face her past deeds is implausible, but it's kind of difficult to square with the rest of the story and, if you combine it with her genki attitude it starts to drift towards cosmic horror; the scene where she declares to Koizumi that she's not sure she even needs espers now becomes kind of unpleasant.

If you were wondering what the probable effect of the Koizumi scene is, as the chapter stands he comes out very well, at the expense of obliterating any sympathy we were developing for Haruhi. He finds himself staring down someone who (he... and now the reader... have every reason to believe) is an unreasonable, hubristic goddess who can't be reasoned with and must be manipulated, but (unlike Mori) instead of manipulating her to feel distress, leading to a dangerous situation, he manipulates her to calm down and successfully reins in her eagerness to disband the espers, at least for the moment. Much like Mori, such an approach still doesn't see Haruhi as a person, so much as an abstract liability to be minimized, but I have to identify with Koizumi given that after eleven novels of various nonsense, plus the situation he's presently facing in your fic, he doesn't really have any good reason not to display such distrust.

I'm really sorry if my C&C comes across as negative, but we seem to have run into a huge problem. (If Brian were to ask me if the fic were worth taking a second look at, as-is, I'd have to unequivocally warn him off.) I'm not sure how essential Haruhi's attitude to Sigh is for your characterization; my instinct is that this passage is just a failure to understand how difficult this level of character growth really would be for a person like Haruhi to integrate. As it stands, we have Sigh!Haruhi, who is awful, and your Haruhi, who's written as though she's a completely different character who thus doesn't have remorse for the actions of that other Haruhi in the novels, because they're not really connected (they don't have quite the same set of flaws, and certainly your character isn't as horrible as ), but obviously as the reader I have to assume that they are connected and that Haruhi is liable to do something stupid now, since the only thing she acknowledges that she did wrong was having insufficient advance knowledge about which kinds of contact lenses fly out when you whack Mikuru on the head, and then she goes and declares to Koizumi that she might not need espers anymore because everything is going to work out fine because she wishes it to... ugh.

As noted, Koizumi seems to have done his damned best to dodge that bullet. This is the first fic that has made me feel serious respect for what he's doing. (Aside: The Shadow of Haruhi Suzumiya came close, incidentally, in the sense that he at least turned out to have a damned good reason to be concealing the entire situation from Kyon, but it was extremely difficult to respect his actual actions in that fic. As noted in the fic, I really don't want to see that version of Koizumi when he's not smiling.)

I'd like to believe a version of your chapter is possible where Koizumi comes across the same way, but without Haruhi being quite as horrible. It's important to note that Koizumi's reasons to distrust Haruhi exists completely independently of what Haruhi herself is thinking. Again: objectively, the situation is that Haruhi might have grown (or she might not have grown), but either way she's only built an actual foundation of trust with Kyon.

(I realize I have yet to write a character thread entry on either Haruhi or Koizumi. Urk, procrastination.)

As noted, I think the chapter is entirely salvageable. It's not that Haruhi is a nice person who has completely rejected every aspect of her past self, but the way she's written makes me wonder if the exact opposite is true -- is she even capable of learning from her mistakes without needing some extremely drastic slap in the face, again? Which makes me expect that the fic is going to end with some Meet the Suzumiyas-style barely-averted horrendous disaster...

Out of time in terms of editing the above huge thing, so please, ignore any apparent negative emotions I may have accidentally expressed (no bad feelings were actually felt during my reading of the fic, besides a slight annoyance at Haruhi's character trying to misrepresent or mis-emphasize her earlier actions) and try to use this as perspective on what, in my opinion, doesn't seem to be working. Later (I need time to give this an unprejudiced look) I'll give a play-by-play of exactly how wrong I think Haruhi comes across in her flashback. There's a lot of really neat stuff in the rest of the chapter, but unfortunately the aforementioned problems are, to me, as written, an insurmountable distraction from it.