[Haruhi] The Coin

[Anastasia]

I read it, any comments back will be a bit. I need some time to process that chapter.

[Arakawa]

I'm in a low-C&C-time period, still, but let me just say that the improvements to Chapter 7 are substantial. Any nitpicks I'd have with the rewritten scene are just minor questions of how to convey the remorse without being quite so vehement with the self-castigation, but at that point anything I suggest has to do with differing character interpretations.

Chapter 8 is pretty heavy, but it justifies the work needed to make the character sympathetic beforehand, since Haruhi makes some clear and evident mistakes in it, which are justified in terms of how the story is playing out.

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Still, there could probably be tweaks you might consider making to either the outcome or the things leading up to it that cause Haruhi to act that way. Fundamentally, Haruhi decides to destroy the IDSE based on knowing that two of its representatives are bad eggs, and one of its representatives was treated badly to the point of nervous breakdown. Want me to make a similar argument about the human race?

And obliterating Kimidori first is necessary to the structure of the chapter, but also kind of nonsensical. If I needed to convey the flavour of serious damage being done, I'd have gone with something like "both of the hostile interfaces are now trapped in a pocket universe five metres in diameter, and it'll reach maximum entropy in fifteen minutes. They'd better start talking now if they want to convince Haruhi not to obliterate the both of them, and she's seriously thinking of erasing the entire IDSE since they insist on being too dangerous to coexist with." But this is assuming a more calculating sort of Haruhi. The point in general being -- she has omnipotence, and an extremely creative mind, but for some reason she reaches straight for the cosmic sledgehammer.

The only way to nullify that is if Asakura tries to bluff her into thinking the IDSE has her stolen her power and she has to act now and destroy it (if that's actually the case, it didn't come across too well; it feels like the situation is open to interpretation). If Haruhi's actions really are due to panic, I can definitely see how "Haruhi renounces her powers in some temporary fashion" would be the right note to end this story on.

(The scene with Taniguchi, on the other hand, comes across well. I assume you intentionally wanted to demonstrate Haruhi's lack of foresight on how he'd react. If Haruhi had foreseen that Taniguchi wouldn't take it well, she'd have probably left, reversed the subconscious-memory-erasing thing, given Taniguchi a few hours to come to grips with the situation, then come back. He might still want to hit her, but at that point it would be a more honest context for the sentiment, and there'd be a bit more chance that Haruhi'd be able to convince him to hear her out.)

Also the whole bit with Rooter is presented a bit confusingly. It made me think at first that they didn't notice the Haruhi had granted him powers, but then it turned out that was the whole point of the IDSE messing around with the Piggies in the first place, so I assume the explanation is that they couldn't duplicate his abilities in the replacement? Or is it that they know Haruhi did something, but they didn't manage to figure out what it was based on just the dissection? Colour me confused.

Don't know when I'll be able to do more detailed C&C :-(

[Brian]

Muphrid, I feel really bad about this at such a late hour, but I was chatting with Dunefar last night when I suddenly fridged on something major (in my opinion):

Back in chapter three (I think), why does Taniguchi throw a fit and consider violence vs. a known reality warper over a drink spilled on his uniform?  For reference, he only groused when he was thrown into a lake entirely and didn't know Haruhi had powers (and, incidentally, had much better justification to hold her responsible).

I realize if Taniguchi didn't do this, then your entire plot point of 'Haruhi angsts over hurting someone with her powers' falls short ... but in reflection, it's one of those factors that had me saying 'idiot ball'.

Anyway.  There's another comment here, but considering I can't read this first-hand, my advice is worth less than garbage; be prepared to ignore this comment with a vengeance.  I was given a brief summary of the events I hadn't read, and I wanted to point out something that (I feel) comes across as another unintentional, 'Haruhi is willing to trust complete strangers more than the Brigade' element.  Unless there was a miscommunication:

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Haruhi goes on her exotic space journey because you really liked that arc and wanted to include it.  Evidently, she also gives some piece of her power to Rooter.  (Er ... straining things, IMNSHO.)  She then comes back and based on Arakawa's comments, angsts about not taking Kyon on that journey.

This feels like a huge issue--  She feels bad about not including Kyon, and yet Kyon never enters considerations to 'have a piece of Haruhi's power'?  She's concerned about the imbalance, and she'll give some alien she's known for less than a day a chunk of omnipotence, but not Kyon?  Another instance of the solution being right in front of her, and Haruhi simply not going for it.

This is before Haruhi is evidently required to kill Kimidori/Asakura (which, also feels very, very wrong; I wouldn't be able to sympathize with an omnipotent murderer).  I can think of a dozen better ways for Haruhi to deal with the situation, right up to and including replacing the Rooter they dissected with a very convincing dummy and pulling him out of a convenient time paradox (yay, Crono Trigger!).  As I understand it, Haruhi has carte blanch with her powers, so there's no reason she can't have her cake and eat it too in this instance.

I feel that the 'alien planet' framework would be better for her to do things she couldn't get away with on Earth because her friends would freak out, including blaise violations of causality to prevent the space psychos from dicing up her alien friend.

I think based on your comments in thread that I get what you're going for, and I suspect it's:

[spoiler]Either because she 'had' to annihilate those two (or more likely, the reactions from the Brigade to it) that she comes to the 'can't be trusted with her powers' conclusion.  Let me just say for the record:

Someone who can figure it out without needing to use omnipotence as (in Arakawa's words) a Cosmic Sledgehammer is far more sympathetic, and Haruhi should be intelligent enough to go for that conclusion, and not just accept what was done and then do something worse.

IE., I don't see why Haruhi can't fix it, can't then also just 'ban' the IDSE from interfering with Rooter's home system, warn them that something bad will happen if they screw with things again (and leave it vague), and then come to the conclusion that 'playing with powers even with the best of intentions is dangerous because there are real jerks out there'.  Really, using this to have Haruhi figure things out when she didn't over nuking Taniguchi actually would cost me sympathy, not win it.

Let's not even go into the vague, poorly understood (on my part) mental violation issues that are referenced elsewhere, and how certain others in this forum would respond to that; I don't have enough of an image of how that's supposed to work to comment on it.

Anyway.  Haruhi throwing a temper tantrum and summoning Asakura/Kimidori (after she's finished fixing things, thereby preventing their opportunity to observe) to tell them, "And now I'm going to make it so you can _never_ observe my powers, because your approach sucked!" feels like it would be truer to her character.

I think that an entire chapter of recrimination over the reactions of the Brigade to her more-than-just-murder of Asakura/Kimidori would probably take this fic into wangst as I understand it; give Haruhi more credit than that and let her grow without those anvils being dropped on her.  If you feel this is beyond Haruhi ... then make her sympathetic by not knowing what to do about it and running back to the Brigade for help/advice.

Just my, well, probably way more than two cents at this point. :x

[/spoiler]

Um ... yes.  Going to leave it at that, sorry.  Can't think of anything else.  Best of luck, and I really, really hope this helps. :\

Edit: One of the difficulties here is that while I am difficult to squick,

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 'utter and irrevocable destruction' (especially of sentient beings) is

one of the things that does it.  So having Haruhi pull that on someone(s) for things that she does have the power to reverse....  Yeah, sorry. :/

[Anastasia]

This chapter's tough to review since the ending was one hell of a punch. Spoilers beyond this point.

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I thought the chapter started strong with Haruhi talking to her classmate. It was a good simple talk that helped her focus. I liked it and felt it did what it should do. The calm, reasonable classmate was a good counter-point to everything else that happened.

The club meeting afterwards was nice, as she tried to do right by her friends. I liked that her approach, and in particular how she got past Kyon's objection. That was a much needed high note after the last chapter or two, and it shows Haruhi trying to do better as best she can.

From there her meeting with Taniguchi is shakier. I understand why she did it and it makes sense from her PoV to try and make amends and take responsibility, but the fallout is considerable. I feel it's a fair mistake for her to make, but at the same time it was painful to read. The scene after with Kyon was much nicer, though, and a good counter-point again. This chapter had a good rhythm of up and down, on that note.

As for the last bits, I agree with Arakawa Seijio. I feel it's ultimately meant to be the final ingredient to what propels her end-story choice. In particular, I get the feeling the reaction of her friends to what she did is going to make Haruhi do something. Maybe she'll give up her powers or limit them, I'm not sure.

One idea did come to mind. If she's trying to do better by her friends and can split up her power, why not give everyone in the club some of it? If she comes to the conclusion they're her friends and what keeps her grounded, it makes a certain sense. A sort of Captain Planet approach, almost.

[Muphrid]

Okay, so there's a lot going on here.  First, for Arakawa, I think you hit upon something that had given me some trouble, so it doesn't surprise me that it puzzled you, either, in retrospect:

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Also the whole bit with Rooter is presented a bit confusingly. It made me think at first that they didn't notice the Haruhi had granted him powers, but then it turned out that was the whole point of the IDSE messing around with the Piggies in the first place, so I assume the explanation is that they couldn't duplicate his abilities in the replacement? Or is it that they know Haruhi did something, but they didn't manage to figure out what it was based on just the dissection? Colour me confused.

So, originally, I didn't plan for Asakura and the Entity to actually gain powers by cutting up Rooter, but then I realized if they didn't, then they still pose no significant threat to Haruhi--that's not just a problem for making things happen, but it felt like there would be no real tension, either.  In addition, the part where Asakura suddenly moves when time is supposed to be stopped was, uh, very appealing to me (like something out of a horror film; I really wanted to get some punch on that part).  I couldn't see her defying Haruhi's powers in such a manner without having a piece or fraction of them herself.

At the same time, though, that was at odds with the original idea--that something about the facsimile of Rooter is imperfect and Haruhi picks up on it.  I think at first I wanted that to be that Rooter would no longer understand Haruhi, but then I realized the Entity already understands human speech well enough and should be able to put that into any construct it creates.  So, fake-Rooter has no powers because (hand-wavingly?) the Entity couldn't create something else with powers, only "absorb" or learn them itself.

...I do realize how unsatisfying that may sound, so some additional wordage to get some of those details across (or a rethinking of how that all works) is almost certainly required.

I'm going a bit out of order here.

Still, there could probably be tweaks you might consider making to either the outcome or the things leading up to it that cause Haruhi to act that way. Fundamentally, Haruhi decides to destroy the IDSE based on knowing that two of its representatives are bad eggs, and one of its representatives was treated badly to the point of nervous breakdown. Want me to make a similar argument about the human race?

And obliterating Kimidori first is necessary to the structure of the chapter, but also kind of nonsensical. If I needed to convey the flavour of serious damage being done, I'd have gone with something like "both of the hostile interfaces are now trapped in a pocket universe five metres in diameter, and it'll reach maximum entropy in fifteen minutes. They'd better start talking now if they want to convince Haruhi not to obliterate the both of them, and she's seriously thinking of erasing the entire IDSE since they insist on being too dangerous to coexist with." But this is assuming a more calculating sort of Haruhi. The point in general being -- she has omnipotence, and an extremely creative mind, but for some reason she reaches straight for the cosmic sledgehammer.

The only way to nullify that is if Asakura tries to bluff her into thinking the IDSE has her stolen her power and she has to act now and destroy it (if that's actually the case, it didn't come across too well; it feels like the situation is open to interpretation). If Haruhi's actions really are due to panic, I can definitely see how "Haruhi renounces her powers in some temporary fashion" would be the right note to end this story on.

Several of you have remarked on the apparent overkill here.  I admit, to an extent I was going for punch, but even without that concern, I suppose it's best for me to just spell out where that whole angle is going:

[spoiler]Haruhi is omnipotent, and on further reflection, when the heat of the moment has passed, she will have the option to undo what she's done.

Granted, bringing people back from the dead is something I wanted to steer very clear of just for the moral and ethical mess I'd be walking into if I tackled it, but bringing a race of data creatures back from oblivion seems, in my mind, to avoid most of those concerns.

So, I don't want to completely deflect the criticism of the act:  what Haruhi does here is pretty extreme, but to me, the concern is whether her state of mind at that moment makes it an act we can comprehen, rather than it being something in the long-run that irrevocably reflects negatively upon her (because bringing the Entity back from the recycle bin somewhat mitigates that part).

As for whether the entire Entity should be subjected to that fate, that really goes to how you interpret "consensus to within one part in however zillion."  Perhaps that line in itself is not enough to suggest clearly that nearly all of the Entity is in agreement with what's happening and so all of the Entity is liable for it.

[/spoiler]

Outside of spoiler territory for a moment, regarding fridge logic:  I could say Taniguchi didn't fully appreciate or expect what Haruhi could do to retaliate against him back in chapter two, that the overall weirdness of what was happening really didn't sit well with him...but I admit I'm not wholly convinced by that line of reasoning, and why Taniguchi did what he did is a valid question I'll have to ponder.

Back into fun boxes we go:

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Haruhi goes on her exotic space journey because you really liked that arc and wanted to include it.  Evidently, she also gives some piece of her power to Rooter.  (Er ... straining things, IMNSHO.)  She then comes back and based on Arakawa's comments, angsts about not taking Kyon on that journey.

This feels like a huge issue--  She feels bad about not including Kyon, and yet Kyon never enters considerations to 'have a piece of Haruhi's power'?  She's concerned about the imbalance, and she'll give some alien she's known for less than a day a chunk of omnipotence, but not Kyon?  Another instance of the solution being right in front of her, and Haruhi simply not going for it.

She gives Rooter the power to pull off exceedingly simple parlor tricks--moving pebbles, for instance.  Enough to say there's something wild and mysterious going on but otherwise of little consequence.  Why she doesn't give that to Kyon--I admit, that is something I had never considered.  While I don't think Kyon would even want such a power, it's an idea that could cross Haruhi's mind, sure.

This is before Haruhi is evidently required to kill Kimidori/Asakura (which, also feels very, very wrong; I wouldn't be able to sympathize with an omnipotent murderer).  I can think of a dozen better ways for Haruhi to deal with the situation, right up to and including replacing the Rooter they dissected with a very convincing dummy and pulling him out of a convenient time paradox (yay, Crono Trigger!).  As I understand it, Haruhi has carte blanch with her powers, so there's no reason she can't have her cake and eat it too in this instance.

Right, so this kind of connects with Arakawa's comments above.  Really, I felt there was no reason for Haruhi to even feel threatened by Asakura unless she and the Entity managed to get a hold of the power Rooter had been given and learn from it.

...so I see there could be an apparent contradiction there, between what Haruhi giving Rooter being "inconsequential" and it needing to be dangerous enough that when Asakura and the Entity get it, that's grounds to go all-out and take the threat posed seriously.


The following speculation about what could happen next and how that plays into the ending possibilities I was considering is reasonable but not really the direction I was going to go for, so I'm not sure how much of it really applies to what's to come.  Then again, with what Ana has suggested, these may be points I'll have to consider more carefully.

And finally, for Ana:

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As for the last bits, I agree with Arakawa Seijio. I feel it's ultimately meant to be the final ingredient to what propels her end-story choice. In particular, I get the feeling the reaction of her friends to what she did is going to make Haruhi do something. Maybe she'll give up her powers or limit them, I'm not sure.

Ultimately, while I didn't intend this incident to be the final element that propels the end-story choice, this point does give me an idea on how to approach the beginning of the next chapter.  I'm glad the chat with Sakanaka and Haruhi's effort to forge a new relationship with the brigade went over well, also.

Thank you all for your thoughts once again.

[Brian]

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Haruhi is omnipotent, and on further reflection, when the heat of the moment has passed, she will have the option to undo what she's done.

[....]

So, I don't want to completely deflect the criticism of the act:  what Haruhi does here is pretty extreme, but to me, the concern is whether her state of mind at that moment makes it an act we can comprehen, rather than it being something in the long-run that irrevocably reflects negatively upon her (because bringing the Entity back from the recycle bin somewhat mitigates that part).

Umph.  I don't like to say this, but: We can only judge by what's written, not what you intend to write later.  If someone is squicked/bothered by this chapter, retconnning it in a future chapter doesn't address it well if they /ragequit here.

I think that this is another instance of you wanting to convey something to the readers and not managing to actually do it in the narrative.  Remember, only you know the blueprints for the entire story; we can only go by what's already written.  Sorry to be so critical, but I think this is an element of writing in general you may wish to focus on.

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Outside of spoiler territory for a moment, regarding fridge logic:  I could say Taniguchi didn't fully appreciate or expect what Haruhi could do to retaliate against him back in chapter two, that the overall weirdness of what was happening really didn't sit well with him...but I admit I'm not wholly convinced by that line of reasoning, and why Taniguchi did what he did is a valid question I'll have to ponder.

Ech.  This (and the 'why didn't Haruhi make the offer to Kyon?' question) really feels like it highlights my original 'characterization was a secondary/tertiary concern' issue (number one being 'Haruhi's powers', and two being 'style') on your priority list when you set out to write this story.

She gives Rooter the power to pull off exceedingly simple parlor tricks--moving pebbles, for instance.  Enough to say there's something wild and mysterious going on but otherwise of little consequence.  Why she doesn't give that to Kyon--I admit, that is something I had never considered.  While I don't think Kyon would even want such a power, it's an idea that could cross Haruhi's mind, sure.

The books actually point out that Kyon would have liked that specific power; he once spent an entire day trying to find out if he had it.  Would he want it after watching Haruhi abuse her powers as she has?  Maybe then he would refuse on the grounds of trying to provide a better example to Haruhi/lack of trust in his own restraint at that point.

Right, so this kind of connects with Arakawa's comments above.  Really, I felt there was no reason for Haruhi to even feel threatened by Asakura unless she and the Entity managed to get a hold of the power Rooter had been given and learn from it.

...so I see there could be an apparent contradiction there, between what Haruhi giving Rooter being "inconsequential" and it needing to be dangerous enough that when Asakura and the Entity get it, that's grounds to go all-out and take the threat posed seriously.

Why does Haruhi need to be threatened?  To justify the overkill?  These all seem to point to 'plot element is being forced', which leads naturally to: 'this plot element is not a good match for the story thus far'.  You didn't start this as a Cosmic horror story, and (going back to my last reply) I don't think it's served by abruptly becoming one; these things cost the narrator sympathy.

Just like how Haruhi's thoughts about bringing Taniguchi back from the dead if she absolutely have to -- these don't point to a capable, sympathetic character, but instead a being who sees all of creation (and all sentient beings in it) as toys to empower or dismantle as she sees fit for amusement.  I realize it's difficult to describe an omnipotent character and make them sympathetic, but the solution to that isn't bypassing character growth to justify their actions, IMNSHO.

Being upset about what Asakura/Kimidori did should really be plenty for Haruhi, shouldn't it?  Admittedly, all the way from your original prologue, and back to the issues with Taniguchi and Haruhi uncovered here, I have to admit ... I don't feel you have a very good grasp of the characters, and it really does feel (to me) that characterization's just not a priority for you in your writing, as opposed to exploring the actual mechanical limitations/potential of Haruhi's power.  :(

I think, in retrospect, that's actually the root of all my issues with this story, as characterization is always the primary concern for me in this fandom.  Certainly, it would explain our differing viewpoints on it.  Well, knowing why we disagree, I can say with confidence that you can completely ignore almost everything I've said so far, because my priorities in writing obviously differ greatly from yours.

I think at this point, the best advice I can offer is not to bother trying to fix characterization issues, and just follow your own instincts on the story you want to tell.  I really cannot see my advice having much positive bearing.  If it helps you, I'm glad.  If it doesn't ... well, ignore it.

Edit: Thought on the fridge issue -- at this point, it's a bandaid, but just say Ryouko pushed him to do that, too.  If you've decided the story needs a villain, that'd neatly fold that into the main thread.

[Muphrid]

I have put in some tweaks on chapter seven (mostly diction, grammatical, so not worth any special attention, but presented for completeness), and I've revised chapter eight to be, well, less cosmic sledgehammery.  My main concern there was to make sure the final scene still had dramatic impact while making the necessary and proper logical changes to the way the scene works, and I think this solution should be a step in the right direction.

[Brian]

I just realized....  You're not posting these to the FFML before ff.net, anymore?

[Muphrid]

No, I felt the extra complexity of trying to keep track of criticism from two different sources wasn't worth the hassle knowing what I could expect from Henry.  I also felt that, if I would frequently end up with multiple versions and revisions, it would get quite spammy on the list.

In retrospect, I realize now I could've sent off a revision there after making most of the fixes that would come up here and at least avoided the latter issue.

[Brian]

That explains it.

...somewhat amused/relieved I'm not the only one with issues with Cobb. >_>;

[Muphrid]

This is the final chapter and the epilogue.

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Chapter nine is somewhat technical in terms of stuff with powers, and while I do not find such matters inherently interesting, I felt some issues had to be addressed for logical consistency.  Nevertheless, I am concerned that it is much more technical than the rest of the work, so I'd be interested in how that comes across.

Beyond that, these two chapters should make my intentions, even if imperfectly executed as I expect, somewhat clearer.

[Arakawa]

In order to be quicker with feedback, I'll throw down initial thoughts. We'll see if I have time for more detailed stuff, but overall it struck me as a great ending to a reasonable story. I'm not sure why you labeled the last chapter an 'epilogue' since Chapter Nine would just cut off abruptly and leave too much unresolved on its own. (In my possibly-arbitrary opinion.)

Spoilery throughts:

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I think Haruhi telling herself that she was going to take the slow path to the future violates one of the foremost unspoken rules for talking to your past self. What if she wouldn't have opted for it otherwise? Haruhi's options are (a) erase her own memory (if she's really creative) and be free to make the decision on her own, which however implies that she gets it into her head to go back and tell herself something she didn't remember telling herself in the first place, (b) resign herself to carrying out the future as her future self explained it would be (it could be fun, but it's not necessarily a decision she could have arrived at on her own), (c) do something else, go back and lie to herself, (d) figure out some entirely new way to rape causality in order to avoid getting trapped in a decision made for her by a closed timelike curve.

In short, as Miss Manners would say "going back in time to meet yourself and telling yourself decisions that you yourself were going to make is bound to result in you putting yourself in an awkward situation. And even if you're okay with it on both ends of the conversation, it looks fairly unsettling to any bystanders. Avoid if at all possible."

There's a number of ways to fix this; I'd personally opt to reduce the information transfer to a "don't ask a lady her age"-type wink and a nod to the effect that Haruhi might look twenty-five, but she's actually much, much older than that... it's up to you if you want to figure out some way to do a full reveal without making it look like Haruhi's future self is forcing her into a decision, or decide on some set of hints that tells enough of the story while leaving some details to the reader's imagination.

Note that you could conceivably trick the reader into imagining a future for Haruhi that is more exciting than you would have come up with explicitly.

(EDIT: It also occurs to me, though I'm not sure what the implications are - it's not clear how much of younger-Haruhi's personality and outlook Haruhi would retain after living for so long. Sure, she might still be Haruhi, but the differences might be great enough that older Haruhi might be forced to put on a bit of an act to be recognizable to the younger Haruhi as herself. I mean, Haruhi couldn't even predict how her four-years-younger self couldn't react to something... I don't know. Something I'll be thinking about.)

Let's see, what else.

The notion is that Haruhi's powers are a self-licking temporal paradox is simultaneously really logical and -- I think Haruhi would (later on) feel a bit disappointed that there wasn't a more fantastic explanation for it all in the end. (And it's actually simple enough that some of the technical speculation around it is kind of superfluous, although I found it interesting.) It also creates some pretty good tension in that I wasn't sure whether Haruhi might opt to give up her powers by transferring them to the younger self entirely -- you might actually want to acknowledge the existence of that alternative.

Anyhow, thank you for that fic. Besides the accidental nasty CTC, if there's any squick lurking in this phase, my nose is insufficiently attuned to sniff it out.

And now for some thread derailment!

That explains it.

...somewhat amused/relieved I'm not the only one with issues with Cobb. >_>;

Confused as to what sorts of issues people have with Cobb. From looking at the FFML archives, he seems to start a lot of fics, I don't see the endings on FFML and I can't find a website, so I assume he loses interest in most of them and moves on to the next idea. His approach to characterization reminds me a bit of how I've seen some Lucky Star fic writers handle Lucky Star characters, by inserting them into a situation which has nothing to do with the original story (not that Lucky Star had a story...) and relying on the stereotyped interactions of the ensemble cast to produce an interesting and unexpected outcome out of the situation, which is fine with the Lucky Star girls who are precision-engineered to be cute and harmless, not so fine with the Haruhi cast who have significant personality flaws which benefit from a more careful treatment and seem to lose a lot if flanderized.

Though: don't get me started on his seitenkan stuff. (I did read the sequel to the original Kyonko fic which to me helped elucidate where the original thing was coming from. One thing I noticed is that it hews a bit close to the stereotypes of how thoroughly dysfunctional (from my point of view) love can get in modern society. Which makes me think that the squick is unintentional on Cobb's part. Zillions of abusive boyfriends pull this crap, why not Haruki?)

I didn't see anything particularly egregious on Cobb's part in terms of C&C or other interaction, though I have to say I wasn't exactly looking for anything egregious, just browsing randomly. I assume that the advantage of FFML is that most (some) of the drama gets confined to exchanges over personal email?

Why am I analyzing Cobb again? I haven't even read much of his stuff or interacted with him. I may be way off the mark. Meh.

*goes off to make time to work on own fic*

[Muphrid]

As far as the abruptness of the ending of nine goes, I can definitely see that.  I'm not sure what to do there as ten (the "epilogue") doesn't strike me as structured right for me to consider it a chapter similar to the others.

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Agreed completely on future-Haruhi not saying explicitly how she's going to live her life in the future.  I could go with saying just the hat hasn't skipped around and not saying what Haruhi was doing.

As far as future-Haruhi's behavior, that did occur to me about personality.  In that respect, oldest Asahina is somewhat more developed.  Perhaps the moment future Haruhi starts talking about how the hat has survived a few centuries is the time for any mask of acting like her younger self to slip a little, if going for the idea above.

Hm, your thought process on acknowledging the possibility of giving powers and removing them from herself is the opposite thought process from mine.  I thought by acknowledging that point, I would create an extra layer of complexity that I'd have to explain away--why Haruhi would choose to keep her powers.  I didn't want to go there, but in retrospect, that's a question that likely does need answering. (My answer:  Haruhi is no longer negative on her powers, and while she won't use them for sweeping changes in the world, she doesn't see the point in getting rid of them either, especially when they can protect her and the brigade from outside influences and harm...maybe?)

Does the CTC from future Haruhi telling Haruhi how she'll live her life feel palpably worse than the CTC formed by Haruhi giving powers to her younger self in 9?  In that, there was something I also deliberately left out--the idea of Haruhi altering her younger self's memory or, possibly, her younger self doing that all on her own.

I suppose I'd be interested in more focused thoughts on 9 in general if you have the chance, though there's no particular hurry in this respect, as I still need to do a final diction/grammar pass on 8.  In this, I really just hoped this ending had an air or kernel of believability and that it followed well enough to consider this whole back fourth of the story as having enough of a skeleton to stand on (that it didn't fall apart from the weight of what's come before, due to inconsistencies or what-have-you).  In context of the discussion earlier about which ending to choose,

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The ending written is more or less the ending I envisioned, as before.  The alternative of Haruhi sealing away her powers permanently, while attractive from a symbolic standpoint, I couldn't see fit to do from a practical standpoint (again, thinking about what other things could jeopardize the brigade, not having powers just seemed very risky).  The third option of Haruhi sealing her powers temporarily could've worked, but I felt it devalued her choice to liberate the Entity, as she would have to make the decision about her powers before freeing them.  Then it'd be odd.

As far as Henry Cobb goes, I just didn't feel I could have truly productive interaction with him.  His writing turned me off by the sheer flatness of it, making the process of critiquing his work a somewhat unpleasant for me, just for the effort needed to stay with it and not lose focus.  Aside from that, I really struggled to find a greater point to his work (particularly with "Taniguchi and Kunikida Are Dead") and...couldn't.  He could provide good catches on spelling and grammar and subtle logical errors of scene (when someone "sees" something that should be behind them, for instance)--useful stuff, but only so useful.  That's why I felt I couldn't engage him properly and be engaged in return.


Anyway, thanks very much for your thoughts, Arakawa.  Already I definitely see a couple things to be tweaked, but I'm happy that the overall gist seems to have worked.

[Brian]

Oh, on Cobb....  Spoilering it to minimize the screen-space this digression takes.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Confused as to what sorts of issues people have with Cobb. From looking at the FFML archives, he seems to start a lot of fics, I don't see the endings on FFML and I can't find a website, so I assume he loses interest in most of them and moves on to the next idea.

He does post somewhere.  I don't care enough to find out where, but I recall him mentioning it.  However -- you're not missing the ends of his fics.  That's actually how they generally finish.  He's currently doing some other story 'Score', I think--  But his characters seldom feel like the originals to me.  His Kyon has a lot of Kyon-like behaviors, everyone else is always a caricature with little (if anything) to do with the original cast.

Beyond that he doesn't like the idea of Haruhi as a character at all -- so he always replaces her personality with something he thinks is more interesting.  I wish I could disclaim that this was just my opinion, but he actually flat-out stated it in one of his e-mails.  Because of this, in my view, he always manages to recreate Haruhi as some strain of horrific monster.  When I asked him if he had some stance against making her likable, he basically told me: "If you want to read a likeable Haruhi, get into Ouran High School fanfic."

Though: don't get me started on his seitenkan stuff. (I did read the sequel to the original Kyonko fic which to me helped elucidate where the original thing was coming from. One thing I noticed is that it hews a bit close to the stereotypes of how thoroughly dysfunctional (from my point of view) love can get in modern society. Which makes me think that the squick is unintentional on Cobb's part. Zillions of abusive boyfriends pull this crap, why not Haruki?)

It doesn't bother me that the squick is unintentional on his part.  It does bother me that he doesn't care.  Beyond that, urg.  Don't get me started on how disgusted that whole thing made me.  Hopefully that will be the last time an e-mail inspires me to use the 'enraged/flipping over a table' ascii bit: （╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

I didn't see anything particularly egregious on Cobb's part in terms of C&C or other interaction, though I have to say I wasn't exactly looking for anything egregious, just browsing randomly. I assume that the advantage of FFML is that most (some) of the drama gets confined to exchanges over personal email?

He only ever sent me a single personal e-mail, and it was to ask me to co-write his 'Eclipse' fic, which was right when....  Come to think of it, I'm not positive, but I get a feeling he only really started posting Haruhi fiction because I did.  I wouldn't have any way to know about personal e-mails between other list members other than rumors that Lurker used to constantly flame people privately back in the day.

Why am I analyzing Cobb again? I haven't even read much of his stuff or interacted with him. I may be way off the mark. Meh.

Not ... that far off at all, really.

Aside from that, I really struggled to find a greater point to his work (particularly with "Taniguchi and Kunikida Are Dead") and...couldn't.

BAH.  The 'then suddenly: Lesbian Sasaki/Haruhi matchup!' ending really ticked me off on that one.  Made Sasaki come across as extremely unsympathetic for all of the Sasaki/Kyon shipping on her part before that travesty.

Bleah.  Puts a bad taste in my mouth still.  Almost everything he writes in the Haruhi fandom, I personally find distasteful.  His suggestion that I set New Game+ to the genderflipped universe because he thought it would be 'funnier'....  And that was the entirety of his C&C on it, too.  >_<

[Arakawa]

Well, that explained Cobb nicely. Personal conclusion: sort of an aggressive blandness (if you can call it that) that's fine from a distance, but irritating to work with up close.

Also, Muphrid, I forgot to mention it: the "Kyon writes 'The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya' novels, is therefore actually Nagaru Tanigawa" thing didn't really add anything, in my opinion. Not even bothering to spoiler tag it since I've only seen that done, um, two, maybe three times already and it didn't add much those times either. It's fine as a throwaway sort of thing, but is that really the right note to end the entire fic on? Moreover, the other times I've seen it done were in NG+ (in a rewound timeline where the corresponding events never actually happened) and some fic I can't remember (where he went to an alternate universe to publish it). Here he did it right in Haruhi's home universe which gave me a headache just thinking about -- um, yeah, headache.

Now, about the CTCs:

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I have no problems with "Haruhi is the one who granted herself powers." My problem was specifically with the "Haruhi tells herself what she's going to decide to do in the future", which runs into nasty free will issues. Memory-erasing is, to me, not a problem, nor is the "Mikuru(big) was forced to hide the fact that she was working with older-Haruhi all along to maintain the consistency of the timeline, so much of her interaction with younger-Haruhi is a charade". Yes, it kinda sucks, but it turns out well enough in the end and all parties understand what was at stake. Haruhi basically made the right choice here; if she made the wrong choice she would discover that there was nothing behind Mikuru(big)'s mask, and that was just the person she was dealing with, which would be a far more tragic outcome. (If I understand your logic correctly.)

(Brian should probably whack me if I'm wrong about this being basically fine.)

A completely different aspect you're not highlighting of Haruhi's choice to be the source of her own powers: from her perspective she's choosing between two different worlds: one in which her powers are a result of her own powers, and are thus fully understood (and known to be basically safe), and one in which (if she doesn't ever go back and grant the powers to herself) some other unknown factor did, for whatever reason, which would mean there was a definite mystery to explore, but there might be a nasty and unexpected surprise waiting in that world.

Haruhi might not realize this until after the fact, if at all, but it struck me as an interesting tradeoff.

Another way to convey Haruhi's decision to take the slow path without giving it away might be for older-Haruhi to start talking excitedly about the kinds of things she's going to see (with implication that they were observed in such detail via the slow path)... younger-Haruhi might join in the excitement without realizing the implication... and then older-Haruhi cuts herself off as she realizes she's about to give too much away, deflecting the conversation into a different subject. Not at all sure how workable that is, but just to throw another idea out.