[Haruhi] K:BDH chapter 57

[Brian]

Aaand ... I should probably post this, shouldn't I?

Edit: Some revisions.
Edit2: Further revisions.

[alethiophile]

Oh hey I feel happy now.

Spoiler: ShowHide

"Realistically, while you always need to do your best, there are moments where the right thing to do is nothing. That doesn't mean 'idly stand by' -- you have to be there for your friends -- but sometimes people can handle their own problems, and it's best to let them do that."

Should that be 'moments when'? Might be stylistic, but it made me blink.

how could they expect to intimidate anyone if the rumors were true, and their operations were easily shut down by a high school student.

Question mark?

"Another outside force acted to cause further problems to your organization to promote aggression between them."

'them' doesn't seem to have a clear referent here. Am I just missing it?

Was it possible to overdose on cuteness? If it was, he'd probably already died of cuteness.

Repeats 'cuteness'; sounds a bit awkward.

Thoughts: Wow, Kuyou is both hilarious and adorable. And Taniguchi...just...Taniguchi. Heh.

Most wonderful.

[Empyrean]

This chapter rules. :)

Spoiler: ShowHide

Since the idea of him being a scapegoat didn't particularly appeal, blaming someone else.... Well, that had a certain appeal."

Repetition of "appeal" here.

Sorry, we need to work on that communication gap; it looks like you're trying to work with a ball of sugar that's twenty times as far across as the Earth is wide.

Either the math is wrong here or I missed something. Light can travel about 300,000 km in one second. A single rotation is a little less than 1/1000th of a second. The distance would be a bit less than 300 km.

"Well, Mikuru had said that proportion was the key, so Kuyou still didn't understand why that would be problematic."

Oh, Kuyou. So much adorable.

"He mumbled something else before gazing down-- Yuki had some sympathy for the other entity when their lips contacted and her eyes become unfocused, drifting shut. The boy ended up putting an arm around her before she could collapse, struggling to process the sensation. From her revised perch on the dark-haired entity's head, next to the decorative flower Shinobu had picked out, Ryouko exclaimed in surprise, hopping toward Yuki."

[spoiler]

The bit about deciding to try to find the special hell so they can accompany Kyon there is awesome, too. :D

"I guess it's nice to sometimes see craziness that doesn't have to involve us, though you know?"

Comma should be after "though" instead of after "us."

"well, if Kyon's too busy to give you a much-needed bright slap and wake you up, I'll do it myself!"

I think "Bright Slap" should probably be capitalized.

Smirking as though he were some kind of hero, Taniguchi sauntered over to his desk and dropped into his seat.

Taniguchi is freaking boss, and he knows it. In most other chapters, this would be my favorite scene, but nothing tops Kuyou finally getting "entanglement" with Kyon.

Realizing what her own role in the whole mess logically agreed

Not sure what this means.[/spoiler]

[Brian]

Oh hey I feel happy now.

Sorry about the delay. :p

Spoiler: ShowHide

Should that be 'moments when'? Might be stylistic, but it made me blink.

I've seen it both ways, but changed to 'when'.

how could they expect to intimidate anyone if the rumors were true, and their operations were easily shut down by a high school student.

Question mark?

Oop; yes. :x

"Another outside force acted to cause further problems to your organization to promote aggression between them."

'them' doesn't seem to have a clear referent here. Am I just missing it?

Changed 'them' to 'our organization'.

Was it possible to overdose on cuteness? If it was, he'd probably already died of cuteness.

Repeats 'cuteness'; sounds a bit awkward.

Changed second one to 'it'.

Thoughts: Wow, Kuyou is both hilarious and adorable. And Taniguchi...just...Taniguchi. Heh.

Most wonderful.

Hooray!  Thanks for the feedback. :)

[Brian]

This chapter rules. :)

Glad you enjoyed it. :p

Spoiler: ShowHide

Since the idea of him being a scapegoat didn't particularly appeal, blaming someone else.... Well, that had a certain appeal."

Repetition of "appeal" here.

Changed the first one to 'seem like his idea of a good time'.

Sorry, we need to work on that communication gap; it looks like you're trying to work with a ball of sugar that's twenty times as far across as the Earth is wide.

Either the math is wrong here or I missed something. Light can travel about 300,000 km in one second. A single rotation is a little less than 1/1000th of a second. The distance would be a bit less than 300 km.

I think I calculated an area a light-second across, actually.  Kuyou's comment is revised to be 'around a thousand rotations'.

That should be enough cookie.

Kuyou: never enuff cookie, need moar cookie

...yes, well. >_>;

"Well, Mikuru had said that proportion was the key, so Kuyou still didn't understand why that would be problematic."

Oh, Kuyou. So much adorable.

I had fun with that part. :p

The bit about deciding to try to find the special hell so they can accompany Kyon there is awesome, too. :D

^_^;;

Comma should be after "though" instead of after "us."

Reworded.

I think "Bright Slap" should probably be capitalized.

Nah, haven't been capitalizing other trope names.

Taniguchi is freaking boss, and he knows it. In most other chapters, this would be my favorite scene, but nothing tops Kuyou finally getting "entanglement" with Kyon.

I had a surprising amount of fun with that bit. :P

Realizing what her own role in the whole mess logically agreed

Not sure what this means.

I have a bad habit of starting one sentence and finishing another....  Reworded.  I'll have the revised chapter up shortly. :p

Thanks for the feedback! :)

[Empyrean]

Nah, haven't been capitalizing other trope names.

In this case would just "Bright" be capitalized since it's a person's name? It's your call either way, really.

[Grahf]

I'll try and C&C later, but there's one thing that I absolutely must get off my chest now.

Spoiler: ShowHide

I will never, ever be able to read the giant space cookie part of this chapter without the introduction to Also Sprach Zarathustra playing in my head. I'm still debating whether this is a good or bad thing, leaning towards good, with a dash of funny.

[Empyrean]

I'll try and C&C later, but there's one thing that I absolutely must get off my chest now.

Spoiler: ShowHide

I will never, ever be able to read the giant space cookie part of this chapter without the introduction to Also Sprach Zarathustra playing in my head. I'm still debating whether this is a good or bad thing, leaning towards good, with a dash of funny.

Now, in my mind, the perspective starts in darkness behind the cookie, and slowly rotates around the side in a brilliant flash of light as the sun becomes visible while the music plays.

Actually, this seemed like it was... not quite right. "Despite that, when she tried to merge a simple mass of sugar and brown sugar -- a spheroid only as far across as light could travel in a mere thousand rotations."

We've got the distance fixed, but "sugar and brown sugar" is not really a cookie recipe. I realize that Kuyou is perhaps not the greatest chef of our time (although this is subject to change if she manages to bake a planet-sized cookie using the sun) but there should probably be some flour involved at some point, especially since she managed to get it all over herself.

[Specular]

Customary late-arriving C&C:

Spoiler: ShowHide

"So ... what do you know about 'Saki-nyan?" Tsuruya wondered.

Missing (or extraneous) single quotation mark.

"Not just him, but his other girlfriends, too," the heiress clarified.

"...right," Ichiro said slowly. 'Other' girlfriends?

That's... not something that she can pass off as a verbal tic xD.

[Scene from Sasaki's PoV]

Sasaki's narration feels different from her previous ones. Perhaps less analytical?... That's not it. I think the expression I'm looking for is "less reserved". Her thoughts in this scene lack of the super-ego-suppressing thing from before, which I think correlates with the improvement in her circumstances. I don't know if I'm making much sense of myself on this one :P.

She could only imagine how upset Kyon would be if she'd gone to handle it alone, especially if she made a mistake.

Or her father and the kumichou – she doubted they'd be pleased with her, either.

She has her priorities straight, no doubt about it xD.

"I am his subordinate, and he is your subordinate. Therefore, I am your subordinate, too."

I can't help but be reminded of French feudalism: "le vassal de mon vassal n'est pas mon vassal." /unrelated

"Asakura," Yuki answered quietly.

"Asakura" → "Asakura Ryouko". I like the way it is now, though.

Despite that, when she tried to merge a simple mass of sugar and brown sugar – a spheroid only as far across as light could travel in a mere thousand rotations – it didn't work the way she'd hoped. That was a sufficiently small quantity, wasn't it? Even so, strange effects that were much less pronounced when Mikuru did it became evident.

After mixing in the other components at the correct ratio, then arraying it in a layer the correct distance from the sun for the right amount of time, she ended up consistently getting something very cookie-like, but it somehow wasn't quite right, either.

Is Kuyou saying that she made a cookie fifty times as big as Jupiter (volume) and used a G-class star as an oven!? Wait a minute. She said "consistently getting" which mean she did it several times!!? O_O

Mmmm... Is there something wrong with me if after the initial surprise I think that was something adorable of her?

In fact, from what Kuyou could observe via Ryouko, Kyon had just finished a round of that entanglement Kuyou wanted to try with Suzumiya Haruhi and the Other that tried to harmonize – Michikyuu Kanae.

With "a round" she means the three of them at the same time? IINM Kyon, Haruhi and Kanae were in their way home at the time, so I wonder how they did it without getting caught. On the other hand, considering the powers at their disposal (Roof-hopping, Flight and Teleportation, respectively), it's possible that they made any random rooftop an improvised "make-out point" xD.

Kyon raised his eyebrows, then smiled. "I can't really be surprised that my sister gets along with beings like you and Ryouko can I? I said at one point she reminded me of Haruhi enough I shouldn't worry about her so much ... and I guess that's true!"

"Asakura" instead of "Ryouko" in Kyon's dialogue. Although, I think he has being calling her by her given name for a short while now.

He hesitated a moment, then gave her a warm smile – now that was an effect more interesting than even making cookies! What an amazing sensation! She wanted to feel it again, so when he took her hand hand and warped space, she was extra mindful of the precautions that Yuki and Ryouko had explained human bodies needed against some of the subatomic particles that evidently weren't helpful to most physical forms at that scale.

Repeated word.

He hopped to the ground, not surprised when Kuyou followed him. He was also not surprised when Shinobu appeared – that woman was absolutely a ninja – and gave him a polite greeting. "Kyon-dono, I'm afraid that Haruka-chan isn't in at the moment. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Er, I know that Tsuruya-hime is out," Kyon sighed, scratching the back of his head anxiously. "Ah ... I was hoping to wait until she got back to talk to her."

"Ah," Shinobu said quietly, looking mildly anxious. "Haruka-chan does mean well," she said softly.

It gives me the impression that Shinobu jumped a little too quickly to the conclusion Kyon knew about Tsuruya's initiative related to the Sumiyoshi-rengo. Perhaps changing Kyon's line to "Ah ... I was hoping to wait until she got back from Osaka to talk to her"?

"Is there anything that I can offer to help you, in the meantime?" the woman asked, one hand dabbing at her eyes. Looking to Kuyou, she pursed her lips. "Or perhaps you, young lady? You must have been in a kitchen recently – you've gotten sugar and flour all over yourself."

Kyon realized he hadn't even noticed ... that girl did seem to love her cookies

Considering the color of Kuyou's hair and her school uniform, I wonder how Kyon failed to notice that. Perhaps because of poor illumination, after all rooftops are relatively dark places at night if the building in question is taller than the surrounding structures (in some cases regulations demand aircraft warning lights, but that's pretty much it) /nitpicking

The shorter girl looked up at him coolly, while Tsuruya blushed and and giggled nervously. "Shall we go in?" he asked, gesturing to the gate.

How about "intently" instead of "coolly"? Also, "and and" → "and"

Yuki didn't mind whatever Tsuruya's cook brought them. Mikuru was a better cook by far, but the food was still 'good' in any case.

Mikuru is making it hard for everyone in the Brigade to really enjoy someone else's cooking, seriously.

After enjoying the meal – technically, the company, more than the food, but Yuki had read that both components made the meal – Kyon checked his PDA and grimaced. "Alright," he sighed. "I should probably get home. As much as we talk about worrying people, I imagine my parents must be getting worried about me, too."

What!? Nobody took pictures of Kuyou in that getup? Shame on them.

"Um," he coughed, once Tsuruya finally broke the kiss with a cough. "Uh– Thanks...."

Small reiteration (maybe).

[Scene at porch of Kyon's home]

I...
I.....
I can't talk about this scene without turning myself into a gushing fanboy with a joygasm. I tried, but at the moment I just can't.

* Specular saves post and takes a long break from the keyboard.

Taking her previous trains of thought into account, I wonder if Kuyou is going to correlate dressing up with getting kissed. Also I can't wait to see how the previous discussion between Kuyou and Ryouko is going to progress from here.

I think this scene is a good occasion for the return of the SEP-field. If Kyon arrived home later than expected because of the unplanned dinner at Tsuruya's place, it's possible that his mother (or his sister) was paying attention to the porch.

Considering the previous evening, being joined by Haruhi and Tsuruya at the train station was a positive follow-up, in Haruhi's mind.

"by Haruhi" → "by Kyon"

"Aw, come on, Suzumiya!" he protested. "I'm already in trouble with Yanagimoto-hime – I don't need you giving me a hard time, too!"

IIRC, that's the first time Kyon hears Taniguchi using the honorific "hime" when talking to or about Yanagimoto. I was kind of expecting a reaction from Kyon's part due to the fact he does the same thing in Tsuruya's case.

If you make a nice girl cry because you're ignoring her and mooning over some girl from middle school

Most likely it's just me, but that wording at first made me think Taniguchi was saying Kunikida is pining for a girl that is currently in middle school instead of someone he knew since that time.







This chapter strongly seems to advocate for a simple and direct approach to deal with things: Tsuruya with the Sumiyoshi-rengo, Sasaki with her mother, Kuyou with Kyon and finally Taniguchi with Kunikida. My suggestion is that the chapter's title should reflect this.


It's amazing how two entities as unique as Ryouko and Kuyou devote a great deal of their interactions to discuss about seemly ordinary affairs: Romance, cooking, friends, clothing, job, etc. What makes it particularly interesting is the realization that the process that lead them to that is not ordinary at all.

Kuyou's interactions with the universe at a human scale manage to convey the pure and complete fascination of a child and it's very endearing to see her take delight of each step forward. What I like the most is how her innate perception of what is or is not "harmonic" is the driving and guiding force of her character development, forging a real personality in the process instead of simply making her blindly "copy and paste" a convenient persona and call it a day.

Ryouko's progress is very interesting too. Unlike Kuyou, she was built with highly developed social skills but I get the impression that her understanding was cybernetic at best (the original definition of the word related to theory of control in dynamic systems) until the moment of her "emotion chip" update (a.k.a. chibification). If I have to put it into words, it's something along the lines of "what specific input should I provide to the system to get this specific response?... Killing 'Kyon' in the most gruesome way available within human capabilities and then provide the 'observation target' with detailed information about it? Let's go with that!" (BTW, this is the reason why I think Asakura was so keen in killing Kyon with a knife in the first novel instead of simply stopping his heart or something with data manipulation).

Now Ryouko is a real participant of the social interactions she used to handle with ease and this perspective shift makes her previous knowledge an advantage or a disadvantage depending on the situation. For example, Ryouko can advise Kuyou about the thousand of nuances that make up human behavior and customs, and Kuyou provides her drive and fresh insight in subjects Ryouko wouldn't think twice otherwise. At least this is my take on their mutualistic "savvy full-time chibi, energetic half-time chibi" relationship.

Also:

Spoiler: ShowHide

I can't fail to mention how awesome Taniguchi was in this chapter by being himself, which is something I'm sure no one in-universe saw coming. Personally I didn't and I'm very glad of that.

In most other chapters, this would be my favorite scene, but nothing tops Kuyou finally getting "entanglement" with Kyon.

*brofist*

Nah, haven't been capitalizing other trope names.

In this case would just "Bright" be capitalized since it's a person's name? It's your call either way, really.

I didn't know that. IINM, the term comes from this character.

I will never, ever be able to read the giant space cookie part of this chapter without the introduction to Also Sprach Zarathustra playing in my head. I'm still debating whether this is a good or bad thing, leaning towards good, with a dash of funny.

Now I'm very tempted to make a parody of this video.

[Halbarad]

Man, I've been out of the C&C game for too long. Trying to kick the rust out of those gears. @_@

Spoiler: ShowHide

And somehow after that, one of his men had borrowed a weapon from another branch, assaulted the Kowa-Keigo, and then the NPA had gotten involved, and the Sumiyoshi-rengo had lost billions of yen in potential profits.

There are three "and's" strung together in this sentence. Should probably break up the sentence into multiple, or find an alternate conjunction.

If even the esteemed Hiko had failed -- been captured, set up by the Yamaguchi-gumi and then handed over to the police -- how was Nakamura Ichiro to accomplish anything?

Minor point, but I'd kind of expect to see a first name for Hiko here. Doesn't have to be fixed, but if he really was 'esteemed', I can't imagine he kept that much anonymity inside his own organization.

swirling a glass of water in one hand and wondering how he was going to get out of this one.  Of if he would, really.

Or if he would, really.

One of them looked particularly average, except for her flat expression -- the other was taller, grinning with only the faintest hint of nervousness in her expression.

I'd splice this with a semicolon rather than an em-dash.

And if they did, if he failed laughably, letting himself be taken in by ordinary high-school students ... well, it was a bit of a long shot, but if he was so pathetic that it wasn't _worth_ significantly punishing him....

Hmm... not sure that it's not worth significantly punishing him, but if he misjudges things this badly, I can see him expecting his superiors to take him off the issue entirely.

"Where are my manners.  These times strain civility, don't they?"

Should be a question mark ending the first line.

Ichiro interrupted the not-very-loyal guard, furrowing his brow.

'Not-too-bright' I could see, but I'm not sure I see him being disloyal here.

They were sending _hit-squads_ after the boy,

No hyphen needed here.

"Mmm, yeah!  They interfere with study time, and dating!"

Don't need the comma after 'study time', since there are only two things being mentioned.

"Partially," the smaller girl said quietly.  "Another outside force acted to cause further problems to your organization to promote aggression between you and our organization."

Repetition of 'organization'; maybe 'group' for the second one?

On Monday, come to meet with my father at Tsuruya towers

Towers should be capitalized for consistency.

-----

One note on this scene in general, and apologies for not having a more clear fix for it. The dialogue between Nakamura and Tsuruya is rather choppy and awkward; Tsuruya seems to have a habit of replying to Nakamura with almost-but-not-quite non sequiturs. This section in particular is what really caught my eye:

"Well," Ichiro said slowly, "we seem to have a poor record when it comes to encounters between our forces."

     The heiress shrugged, her grin widening the tiniest bit.  "Kyon-kun's pretty good," she agreed, before dropping comfortably into one of the two seats opposite Ichiro's desk.  The other girl blinked, then quietly followed suit.

     The guard returned hesitantly, bearing a tea service and still looking confused.  After squeezing around the smaller girl's chair, he set it on the desk and retreated the way he came.

     Ichiro poured tea into the waiting cups and then took one.  "Now -- since you came all this way ... what can I do for you?"

     "I like you!" the heiress cheered, grabbing a cup and hefting it, then pausing and glancing at her companion.

     The shorter girl examined the cup, not reaching up to touch it, then gave a tiny nod.

     "You're being very helpful, so far!" she continued, sipping at her cup politely before setting it back down.  "However....  As bad as things are, while Kyon-kun is pretty amazing, we really have other things to worry about.  So -- I want to ask if it's possible to make this whole thing stop.

     "Quietly, of course!  Hmm, so, it's difficult, but our kumichou is content to let things continue as they are.  I don't want to go against him, but it's troublesome for Kyon-kun if things continue like this."

I understand what Tsuruya's getting at in the first response, but it's kind of oblique -- basically, that Kyon's responsible for all of the losses they've taken, although since she's only speaking about Kyon it's not immediately apparent. And for the second response, she just kind of brushes past Nakamura's actual question. She does work her way back around to it, granted, but with the extra paragraph breaks between that question and her answer to it, it feels choppy.

The negotiation proper seems fine, though.

I hope it's not too much trouble, but once I'm transfered, can I ask for help studying?"

Transferred.

Then, naturally, Sasaki vowed to herself, _she_ would be part of that effort, too!

Could lose the first comma here.

That 'club' was _very_ important to her, already!

And the one here.

Then, naturally, Sasaki vowed to herself, _she_ would be part of that effort, too!  That 'club' was _very_ important to her, already!  As scary and upsetting as things had been lately, the promise of that instilled her with too much confidence and happiness to let herself feel down!

     When she got home, feeling light on her feet, she immediately announced to her mother, "I'm dropping out of my school tomorrow to transfer to Kitago!"

The transition here is a little abrupt; we go from walking with Kyon/Haruhi/Kanae to instantly interacting with mom at home. I'd recommend either a scene break here, or at least a line mentioning where she parts ways with them.

I can't really _stop_ you from making your own choices on highschool...."

High school should be two words.

Tsuruya was almost astounded at how successful she'd been!  She had been afraid it would break down into a fight!

I'd combine these into a single sentence; you've got a long section here with a ton of exclaimed sentences. I understand Tsuruya's excitable, but of the 8 (possibly 9, depending on how you count a split dialogue piece) sentences starting from this point, only three use periods. It's not wrong, per se, but there are enough here to jump out and grab my attention as being unusual.

neither of them could determine if it was positive or negative without participating it

without participating in it

everything was at such a strange scale compared to what she was used to it was hard to judge

I get what this is trying to say, but it comes out sounding kind of muddled. Maybe "given how vast the differences in scale, it was hard to determine what was appropriate"?

I'm just worried, you know?  We rely on one-another,

'one another' doesn't need to be hyphenated. It also occurs a bit further up in the chapter this way as well.

Shinobu-san decided Suou-san needed a bath for some reason.

Well, not really just 'for some reason'. Kyon did realize she was covered with flour just before Shinobu took her away, so he knows why Shinobu thought she needed a bath.

that girl would cause whatever guy she ended up with _worlds_ of diffuculty, she just _knew_ it!

Difficulty.

Usually he was the peace-maker, so Yanagimoto

Just 'peacemaker' is fine, no hyphen required.

Kyon's expression was his normally unimpressed look

I'd just simplify this to "Kyon wore his normal unimpressed look"; it feels a bit awkward as-is.

the shorter boy stepped closer to Sakanaka -- he was slightly taller than the singer

I'd point this up a little - "he was only slightly taller than the singer".

Also, Sakanaka's reactions here are a little weird, unless she heard Taniguchi from out in the hallway. Kunikida hasn't even said what the 'difficulty' is (only that it has to do with Taniguchi), and she's already falling over herself to agree with whatever Kunikida wants? Don't get me wrong, the scene is awesome, but it feels like Sakanaka should still be somewhat nervous about what Kunikida's asking until he gets a little more specific about what he wants.

Um, if Taniguchi-baka is behaved, maybe we can form a study group!

A little odd; perhaps "if Taniguchi-baka is well-behaved" or "if Taniguchi-baka behaves".

even smirking despite the title

Technical quibble, feel free to ignore. Name suffixes are generally called honorifics; you could refer to it in quotes to note the irony. ("even smirking despite the 'honorific'.")

Kyon just shook his head while Haruhi grinned, giving Yanagimoto a wink when no one was looking.

I can assume it's Haruhi winking here from context, but it's a little unclear; might help to clarify this a little.

[JonBob]

Any actual corrections I found have  been addressed by others.

Spoiler: ShowHide

I found myself really enjoying this chapter. From the hilarious space-sized cookie baking to Kyon's special hell to Taniguchi being GAR, it went very fast. About the only bump is Sasaki deciding to join them at Kitago. It just felt... dunno, off? Maybe like Specular said "less reserved". Maybe it was how suddenly she went from hearing about it to telling her mom.

Oh, a second bump in my reading/enjoyment was during the kissing scene on Kyon's porch. How couldn't Yuki hear what he was mumbling? Granted, there was a lot there to distract me from that little aside, but it's still there.

[Brian]

Actually, this seemed like it was... not quite right. "Despite that, when she tried to merge a simple mass of sugar and brown sugar -- a spheroid only as far across as light could travel in a mere thousand rotations."

We've got the distance fixed, but "sugar and brown sugar" is not really a cookie recipe. I realize that Kuyou is perhaps not the greatest chef of our time (although this is subject to change if she manages to bake a planet-sized cookie using the sun) but there should probably be some flour involved at some point, especially since she managed to get it all over herself.

250 brown sugar, 250 sugar, 250 cream cheese, 250 shortening.

Mix.

5 salt, 5 vanilla extract, 5 baking flour, 15 hot water (mix separately).

Add in; mix.

750 flour.

Mix.

250 chocolate chips (or butterscotch).

Vegetarian, but not vegan friendly.

I'll add some of the other masses to the description for Kuyou; just used my normal recipe off the top of my head, which does start with two sugars. :p

[Brian]

Customary late-arriving C&C:

Hooray!  C&C!

Spoiler: ShowHide

"So ... what do you know about 'Saki-nyan?" Tsuruya wondered.

Missing (or extraneous) single quotation mark.

Nope; it's there because Tsuruya is intentionally omitting the first 'Sa' from Sasaki's name.

"...right," Ichiro said slowly. 'Other' girlfriends?

That's... not something that she can pass off as a verbal tic xD.

Fortunately, probably not a big deal to spill that to this guy. :p

Sasaki's narration feels different from her previous ones. Perhaps less analytical?... That's not it. I think the expression I'm looking for is "less reserved". Her thoughts in this scene lack of the super-ego-suppressing thing from before, which I think correlates with the improvement in her circumstances. I don't know if I'm making much sense of myself on this one :P.

That's kind of what I was going for with that shift in her portrayal -- so aces! :D

"Asakura" ? "Asakura Ryouko". I like the way it is now, though.

That one's intentional, too.  Yuki isn't just treating Ryouko like a buttmonkey (though she is upset about that whole 'stabbing' thing).  As part of Haruhi's plan, Ryouko gets treated better when she's nicer and more helpful, so....

Is Kuyou saying that she made a cookie fifty times as big as Jupiter (volume) and used a G-class star as an oven!? Wait a minute. She said "consistently getting" which mean she did it several times!!? O_O

Alternate spaces (shadow-songs) are convenient!

Mmmm... Is there something wrong with me if after the initial surprise I think that was something adorable of her?

Kuyou: "I made you a cookie nebula."  ._.
Kyon: "Aww, that's cute.  Did you eat it already?"  :p
Kuyou: "It collapsed into a neutron star."  ;.;
Kyon: "...."  O_O;;

In fact, from what Kuyou could observe via Ryouko, Kyon had just finished a round of that entanglement Kuyou wanted to try with Suzumiya Haruhi and the Other that tried to harmonize – Michikyuu Kanae.

With "a round" she means the three of them at the same time? IINM Kyon, Haruhi and Kanae were in their way home at the time, so I wonder how they did it without getting caught. On the other hand, considering the powers at their disposal (Roof-hopping, Flight and Teleportation, respectively), it's possible that they made any random rooftop an improvised "make-out point" xD.

And Kuyou's convenient 'don't notice me' field.  I changed 'round' to 'session'.

"Asakura" instead of "Ryouko" in Kyon's dialogue. Although, I think he has being calling her by her given name for a short while now.

He's getting more used to her, yeah.

Repeated word.

Fixed.

It gives me the impression that Shinobu jumped a little too quickly to the conclusion Kyon knew about Tsuruya's initiative related to the Sumiyoshi-rengo. Perhaps changing Kyon's line to "Ah ... I was hoping to wait until she got back from Osaka to talk to her"?

That works.

Considering the color of Kuyou's hair and her school uniform, I wonder how Kyon failed to notice that. Perhaps because of poor illumination, after all rooftops are relatively dark places at night if the building in question is taller than the surrounding structures (in some cases regulations demand aircraft warning lights, but that's pretty much it) /nitpicking

I'll expand on that a bit.

The shorter girl looked up at him coolly, while Tsuruya blushed and and giggled nervously. "Shall we go in?" he asked, gesturing to the gate.

How about "intently" instead of "coolly"? Also, "and and" ? "and"

Changed to 'without flinching', and fixed.

Yuki didn't mind whatever Tsuruya's cook brought them. Mikuru was a better cook by far, but the food was still 'good' in any case.

Mikuru is making it hard for everyone in the Brigade to really enjoy someone else's cooking, seriously.

A decade plus of experience is rather a lot to compete against. ^_^;

Mikuru: "Be good, or be good _at_ it!"

After enjoying the meal – technically, the company, more than the food, but Yuki had read that both components made the meal – Kyon checked his PDA and grimaced. "Alright," he sighed. "I should probably get home. As much as we talk about worrying people, I imagine my parents must be getting worried about me, too."

What!? Nobody took pictures of Kuyou in that getup? Shame on them.

Oooh, good point.  Tsuruya would remember to do that for Haruhi's collection.

"Um," he coughed, once Tsuruya finally broke the kiss with a cough. "Uh– Thanks...."

Small reiteration (maybe).

Will drop it.

* Specular saves post and takes a long break from the keyboard.

^_^;;

Taking her previous trains of thought into account, I wonder if Kuyou is going to correlate dressing up with getting kissed. Also I can't wait to see how the previous discussion between Kuyou and Ryouko is going to progress from here.

I think this scene is a good occasion for the return of the SEP-field. If Kyon arrived home later than expected because of the unplanned dinner at Tsuruya's place, it's possible that his mother (or his sister) was paying attention to the porch.

I can't help but think that Nonoko wouldn't bat an eyelash.  She probably _would_ interrupt, but only because she'd want to play with them.  Amusing thought, though.

Considering the previous evening, being joined by Haruhi and Tsuruya at the train station was a positive follow-up, in Haruhi's mind.

"by Haruhi" ? "by Kyon"

Oops -- yes.

IIRC, that's the first time Kyon hears Taniguchi using the honorific "hime" when talking to or about Yanagimoto. I was kind of expecting a reaction from Kyon's part due to the fact he does the same thing in Tsuruya's case.

Hmm.  I'll add a little bit, but mostly Kyon would take that in stride.  It's Haruhi's PoV, after all.

Most likely it's just me, but that wording at first made me think Taniguchi was saying Kunikida is pining for a girl that is currently in middle school instead of someone he knew since that time.

Changed to 'girl you met in middle school'.

This chapter strongly seems to advocate for a simple and direct approach to deal with things: Tsuruya with the Sumiyoshi-rengo, Sasaki with her mother, Kuyou with Kyon and finally Taniguchi with Kunikida. My suggestion is that the chapter's title should reflect this.

Hmm.  'The Path of Most Resistance'?  I'll think about it a bit.

[entity observations]

I've tried to make Kuyou a fun character, so I'm glad that works; I also pretty much agree on the take on Ryouko.  The issue in my mind is that Ryouko understands emotions in a mechanical sense, but doesn't feel them in any meaningful way.  Haruhi changes that, so Ryouko suddenly has to deal with the capacity to experience those emotions.  In a way, her and Kuyou are both feeling out how things work with regard to emotions.

Kuyou knows she's 'attracted' to Kyon, and likes the whole 'harmony' thing.  Finding out that physics allow cookies was an eye-opener, too.  Between the two of them, they learn a lot about living a 'normal' life.  However, the real purpose of it all isn't just to turn two entities into athropomorphic cute girls, but by developing common ground/language, this actually amasses a huge library of common terms.  It's a venue for communication between an interface and the MQCE.

I like the layers of purpose, and that Ryouko's actually forgotten which one should be her priority, and is just enjoying playing with Nonoko and otherwise experiencing things she wouldn't have. :p

Also:

I can't fail to mention how awesome Taniguchi was in this chapter by being himself, which is something I'm sure no one in-universe saw coming. Personally I didn't and I'm very glad of that.

I had fun with that part. ^_^;

In this case would just "Bright" be capitalized since it's a person's name? It's your call either way, really.

I didn't know that. IINM, the term comes from this character.

Hmm.  For (relative) subtlety, going to go with not capitalized.

Okay!  Thank you very much for the feedback!  A bit to sort through. :p

I'll think over the chapter title a bit, too.

[thedarkfreak]

Haven't posted here as I haven't had time to do a thorough read of the chapter, and at this point, I figure most of the stuff I'd catch has been caught already.


Still...

Alternate spaces (shadow-songs) are convenient!

For some reason, I can't help but imagine the rest of the Chorus being perplexed at what Kuyou is doing with all her shadow-songs.

Kuyou: "I made you a cookie nebula."  ._.
Kyon: "Aww, that's cute.  Did you eat it already?"  :p
Kuyou: "It collapsed into a neutron star."  ;.;
Kyon: "...."  O_O;;

This made me giggle incessantly for about ten minutes straight.  I'm still chuckling xD

[Brian]

Man, I've been out of the C&C game for too long. Trying to kick the rust out of those gears. @_@

Uh-oh!

Spoiler: ShowHide

There are three "and's" strung together in this sentence. Should probably break up the sentence into multiple, or find an alternate conjunction.

Cut it into two sentences.

If even the esteemed Hiko had failed -- been captured, set up by the Yamaguchi-gumi and then handed over to the police -- how was Nakamura Ichiro to accomplish anything?

Minor point, but I'd kind of expect to see a first name for Hiko here. Doesn't have to be fixed, but if he really was 'esteemed', I can't imagine he kept that much anonymity inside his own organization.

I never gave him a last name elsewhere in the story.

Or if he would, really.

Ah, right.  As usual, if I don't respond to a comment it's because I used it.

Hmm... not sure that it's not worth significantly punishing him, but if he misjudges things this badly, I can see him expecting his superiors to take him off the issue entirely.

Hmm, will rework that.

'Not-too-bright' I could see, but I'm not sure I see him being disloyal here.

Maybe 'obedient' was the word I was going for.  They weren't following his instructions until he stressed them, but 'bright' works, too.

Repetition of 'organization'; maybe 'group' for the second one?

Used group for the first instance instead.

One note on this scene in general, and apologies for not having a more clear fix for it. The dialogue between Nakamura and Tsuruya is rather choppy and awkward; Tsuruya seems to have a habit of replying to Nakamura with almost-but-not-quite non sequiturs. This section in particular is what really caught my eye:

<scene>

I understand what Tsuruya's getting at in the first response, but it's kind of oblique -- basically, that Kyon's responsible for all of the losses they've taken, although since she's only speaking about Kyon it's not immediately apparent. And for the second response, she just kind of brushes past Nakamura's actual question. She does work her way back around to it, granted, but with the extra paragraph breaks between that question and her answer to it, it feels choppy.

The negotiation proper seems fine, though.

Huh.  My brain isn't cooperating on a fix for that at the moment; I'll have to take a look at some point after sleeping.

Then, naturally, Sasaki vowed to herself, _she_ would be part of that effort, too!  That 'club' was _very_ important to her, already!  As scary and upsetting as things had been lately, the promise of that instilled her with too much confidence and happiness to let herself feel down!

     When she got home, feeling light on her feet, she immediately announced to her mother, "I'm dropping out of my school tomorrow to transfer to Kitago!"

The transition here is a little abrupt; we go from walking with Kyon/Haruhi/Kanae to instantly interacting with mom at home. I'd recommend either a scene break here, or at least a line mentioning where she parts ways with them.

That discussion was en route to her home.  Should have been a bit more organic, so how about this:

Then naturally, Sasaki vowed to herself, _she_ would be part of that effort, too!  That 'club' was _very_ important to her already!  As scary and upsetting as things had been lately, the promise of that instilled her with too much confidence and happiness to let herself feel down!

     They had reached the gate to her home at that point.  Though she was eager to rush inside and share her news, she also wanted to give her sincere farewells to those who had gone through the trouble to walk here there!

     After waving goodbye to the trio, she opened the gate, feeling light on her feet.  As soon as she had opened the door and kicked her shoes off, she immediately announced to her mother, "I'm dropping out of my school tomorrow to transfer to Kitago!"

I'd combine these into a single sentence; you've got a long section here with a ton of exclaimed sentences. I understand Tsuruya's excitable, but of the 8 (possibly 9, depending on how you count a split dialogue piece) sentences starting from this point, only three use periods. It's not wrong, per se, but there are enough here to jump out and grab my attention as being unusual.

I'm okay with it.  Tsuruya was really anxious that she was going to get into some kind of trouble on top of her normal excitability.

I get what this is trying to say, but it comes out sounding kind of muddled. Maybe "given how vast the differences in scale, it was hard to determine what was appropriate"?

Hmmm.

I'll poke at it.

Shinobu-san decided Suou-san needed a bath for some reason.

Well, not really just 'for some reason'. Kyon did realize she was covered with flour just before Shinobu took her away, so he knows why Shinobu thought she needed a bath.

Oh, yeah.  'after her baking experiment' cooks up some delicious irony. ;D

Also, Sakanaka's reactions here are a little weird, unless she heard Taniguchi from out in the hallway. Kunikida hasn't even said what the 'difficulty' is (only that it has to do with Taniguchi), and she's already falling over herself to agree with whatever Kunikida wants? Don't get me wrong, the scene is awesome, but it feels like Sakanaka should still be somewhat nervous about what Kunikida's asking until he gets a little more specific about what he wants.

Wow, I totally overlooked that:

Almost flooring Yanagimoto, the shorter boy stepped closer to Sakanaka -- he was only slightly taller than the singer -- and said, somewhat haltingly.  "W...well, maybe we could help them?  They ... are our friends, and I have to look out for, um, poor Taniguchi, after all!"

     "Huh?" she responded, bewildered.  "Er--  W...we should, I suppose, but, um, how?"

     Yanagimoto was tempted to break in, but Kunikida -- once Tanugichi had prodded him enough -- managed to maintain some momentum.  "T...that is, we could, um, go out ... with them, so they could make up--  Er, if you'd, uh, go out with me--"

     "Yes!" Sakanaka yelped, standing straight, eyes wide as she stared into Kunikida's face.  "That's--  Naturally!  That would be wonderful, wouldn't it?  Er, to help our friends?"

     "R...right," Kunikida agreed awkwardly.

Kyon just shook his head while Haruhi grinned, giving Yanagimoto a wink when no one was looking.

I can assume it's Haruhi winking here from context, but it's a little unclear; might help to clarify this a little.

Easy to fix:

Kyon shook his head in disbelief before turning his attention to his homework; Haruhi just grinned, giving Yanagimoto a wink when no one else was looking.

Whew -- thanks for the feedback! @_@