Soulriders 5.0: Legend of the Unending Games

And as promised, after the recent unpleasantness involving Kyonko, a drugged bento, and some out-of-the-box thinking by Asakura, I went off to work in the opposite genre and tried to come up with the most waffy and starry-eyed story I could think of. Special thanks need to go out to Murphid because this story didn't really come together until chapter 4 of 'The Coin' came out, giving me this idea to switch the fic to Mikuru's perspective, which obviously changed the setup a lot.

"Highly experimental initial arc" means that I'm not sure if this is going to be a long fic or not at this juncture in time.



If you don't mind giving feedback on this, there's a couple of things I'm worried about:

• Accented letters in place names: are they rendering properly?
• Mikuru(big)'s narration style, and the fact that she's the one narrating this (as opposed to a younger version of Mikuru). Obviously I'm trying something odd and ambitious here. Is it working? There are a few possibly rough spots where one paragraph eight year old Mikuru is in her house and the next paragraph Mikuru(big)'s attention has wandered and she's informing you about some nonsense, like the fact that Fujiwara at thirty years old is actually a nice guy to have a couple of beers with.
• Do you find anything in this chapter actively ludicrous? If so, I need to know now because the next chapter will be at least four times as ludicrous.

And of course after writing this I've become curious: are there any other (decent-length, decent-quality) Mikuru-POV fics out there?

EDIT: Now updated with a revised chapter 1, the first part of chapter 2, and a tweaked version of Brian's fanfiction stylesheet. (publicate.sh is the UNIX shell script I use to produce the HTML version) Creative Commons disclaimer is given in Chapter 1 at the moment - Brian, please tell me if you want it at the beginning of every chapter.

EDIT: Second part of chapter 2 uploaded. -- Haruhi's excessively jerkass (to the degree of being sociopathic) behaviour will be rewritten (based on C&C) to clarify that she is severely stressed out and thus temporarily uninterested in basic rules of politeness.

I'm not familiar with Doctor Who so I'm probably missing a lot of stuff here, but after reading it through once here are my thoughts:

It's wild and wacky but in a positive way, and there are a lot of hints to a larger story behind what is shown here. Yes, it is interesting right off the bat, and quite upbeat. On the other hand, there is something in it that I can't quite put my finger on at the moment, that nonetheless makes me feel slightly melancholic (New Game Plus did that as well, much more forcefully) ...

... oh my, now I understand! I'm actually feeling pity for an omnipotent Haruhi! If she can have anything that she wants it soon loses any meaning (we hold some things in high esteem because they are rare and hard to come by, and although something as ubiquitous as air to breathe is necessary for us it is still mundane) and if she is utterly peerless in power then she is also ultimately utterly lonely. Gah, why do I always think like a killjoy, please ignore me!

I thought that Asahina's future would be much more removed from our time, more like a thousand years than a hundred. Even then, the given description doesn't sound futuristic (although I can see the danger in trying to extrapolate from current trends the scene goes in the opposite extreme and the 'future' part becomes just an Informed Property of the setting).

Concerning your specific questions, the diacritics are shown properly (I checked, they are actually coded so they should be fine on all platforms).

It is rather hard to untangle the POVs of child!Asahina and adult!Asahina from the narration. The action is described in such a detail that one automatically assumes that the narration is real-time, but on the other hand many insights and notions seem to be provided by adult!Asahina. I don't find the voice too implausible but it does indicate one (unintended?) fridge horror: if this person (child and adult) is the same as the Asahina in the books, then the conditioning that she underwent before being sent to her mission qualifies as severe (but apparently reversible) brain damage. Unfortunately, that is something that I have actually contemplated at some point (and indirectly commented in The Shadow, where the 'unconditioned' alternate Asahina had a personality that diverged rather far from the canon).

Ludicrous? No, I think that you've managed to capture one rather interesting aspect of what Haruhi could be. She is unpredictable but predominantly positive, but at the same time a bit frightening because it's quite clear that she isn't a human (in the conventional sense of the word at least) any more.

I'm afraid that I can't provide any meaningful sentence-by-sentence CC.

Quote from: sarsaparilla on September 20, 2011, 04:00:03 AM
I'm not familiar with Doctor Who

At the moment you don't have to be familiar with Doctor Who. I just slapped a crossover tag on it because the parallels at this point are so obvious it would be insulting to any Doctor Who viewers in the audience not to acknowledge it.

This chapter is basically an almost-complete-and-then-some re-enactment of (i.e. is stolen from), say, minutes 4:20 through 9:00 or so of 'The Eleventh Hour':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRv59GJVSlQ

Man, that Scottish girl's cheeks are way too puffy for her to be an analogue to Mikuru.

The main difference here is that Haruhi isn't quite as rude as the 11th Doctor, and tries to avoid melodramatically spitting things out into the sink... then again Matt Smith's character is actually an alien with a medical condition that requires him to eat *something* weird whereas Haruhi is just roleplaying...

Quote from: sarsaparilla on September 20, 2011, 04:00:03 AM
I'm afraid that I can't provide any meaningful sentence-by-sentence CC.

That's all right, everyone contributes what they have and we all get along :-)

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 12:16:20 AMShe made a partially successful attempt to wipe the soot and grime off her face with the back of her hand. This gave me a good look at her. Judging by the face plus her uniform, she must have been Japanese and judging by the expression on her face, she must have been around fifteen years old.

Expression indicates age?  (You can drop 'the expression on', I think.)

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 12:16:20 AM"Nice to meet you," (here I needed a bit of a pause to realize that wasn't exactly true, and to decide what to call her,) "Haruhi. I'm Michaela."

Double-offset?  Shouldn't use both parenthesis and quotation:

"Nice to meet you...."  Here I needed a bit of a pause to realize that wasn't exactly true, and to decide what to call her.  "...Haruhi. I'm Michaela."

(etc.)

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 12:16:20 AMthis grumble grumble I'd

Hm.  Not used to seeing sound effects in narration quite like that.

I want to say it feels a little awkward?  It may grow on me, I dunno.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 12:16:20 AMHaruhi grabbed the first thing she could reach this time, which turned out to be an onion. She peeled half of it, took a bite, and tossed it away.

Far more edible than you have most likely been led to believe.

I liked the part with Haruhi catching the knife, showing that even if she seems inconsiderate, she doesn't want people around her hurt.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 12:16:20 AM"Due to lack of confidence in yourself! Honestly, any bipedal sentient humanoid being can fry bacon. You have that power within yourself, but you've locked it away just by thinking that you can't have it. It always amazes me how good humans are at not believing in themselves. Then again, I'm not exactly a saint in that regard either..."

Hehe.

I have friends who insist that my ability to turn ingredients into food is black magic of the darkest sort.  These people are challenged by boxed macaroni and cheese....

Haruhi: Are you sure they're bipedal, sentient humanoids?
They could actually be Broodax.  I wouldn't be that surprised.
Haruhi: They're almost certainly Broodax.  They cannot fry bacon.
Because pigs aren't naitive to their planet?
Haruhi: Turns out it's actually against their cultural values.
...right.  Enough of that.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 12:16:20 AM"Look, if you don't like it you don't have to eat it! You didn't eat all the other stuff I gave you just fine!"

*snrk*

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 12:16:20 AMIf you read eyewitness accounts of my brother's trip to the past, by the way, please take this into consideration. He's not a bad person, just very much a product of his own time. On top of that, he was also stressed, impatient and somewhat desperate at the time, so there wasn't much opportunity then for him to show some of his more redeeming qualities. If you somehow end up in Montréal one day and his thirty-or-so-year-old self is around, I recommend him to you as a very fun guy to have a beer or two with, if you enjoy having beers with random people. He's settled down nicely, is what I'm saying.

I thought Fujiwara was a younger brother?

Also, this does say that Fujiwara was mistaken about a thing or two, or--  *eyes timeline discussion elsewhere*

Mm.  Wibbly, wobbly, timey-wimey.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 12:16:20 AMAnd of course after writing this I've become curious: are there any other (decent-length, decent-quality) Mikuru-POV fics out there?

Decent-length, yes, decent-quality....

• http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6254986/1/The_Anagram_of_Suzumiya_Kurumi -- Best of the lot, solidly medicre with moments of very good, followed by some epic wall-bangers.
  
• http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6757103/1/The_Entities_and_the_Individual -- 1: Author tract-ey.  2: wut
  Anything else is just Mikuru/Yuki or Mikuru/Itsuki (bleah!) fluff.
  
  Hmm.  No other real thoughts on the story, though it was nice -- feels a bit like it's addressing some of the deficiencies in NG+, actually, with pointing out that Haruhi's friends with Sasaki.
  
  Kind of curious to see where this is going; I think the viewpoint kind of works, if you're going for an 'unstuck in time' feel, but also it doesn't actually wander that much.  You could mix things up a bit (I guess) by bringing in more of Mikuru's observations from the future (the canon timeline, I guess) as well?
  
  Not sure.  Anyway, I liked it; thanks for sharing.

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 02:49:21 PM
Expression indicates age?  (You can drop 'the expression on', I think.)

Oops. This is *very* problematic actually, since I then go on to establish that fifteen-year-olds in the 2080s are more likely to be humourless, workaholic stuck-up sonsofbitches along the lines of Fujiwara. So only if someone were to show up in Mikuru's backyard scowling and/or sneering would she immediately think 'teenager'.

I'll drop it.

Actually, if someone else ends up C&Cing this chapter at any point, can they try a careful look at the whole scene where Mikuru calls Haruhi a teenager and there's this whole digression on late 21st century teenagers, and count how many times it contradicts itself? I got sort of tangled up in the who thinks what about whom there.

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 02:49:21 PM
Hm.  Not used to seeing sound effects in narration quite like that.

I want to say it feels a little awkward?  It may grow on me, I dunno.

For some reason I see Mikuru as a very sloppy storyteller. The challenge is going to be to show that without implying that the actual author is a very sloppy storyteller.

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 02:49:21 PM
Far more edible than you have most likely been led to believe.

Desho? Actually I'm perfectly aware of this fact. (The trick is getting the oniony goodness to end up in your mouth as opposed to in your eyes.) But (a) she also rejects perfectly edible tomatoes and (b) there's a bit of an image issue with the most powerful being in the universe munching away happily on an onion. Veering into HP Lovecraft territory just a little, I'd say.

I have no way to establish this in the actual story without omniscient narration, but that's also the reason Haruhi rejected the red-peppers-on-stale-bread rubbed-with-garlic combo. She actually liked the taste there, but -- again -- she wants Mikuru to think of her as a benevolent fairy type, not some boisterous ogre who munches stale bread. Buttered watermelon is the sort of food a friendly fairy might go for, dontcha think?

As for the egg-frying method, no problems with that? I hope I did a decent job establishing that Haruhi chose it because it's a nice easy method to be teaching Mikuru, not because she doesn't know any more delicious methods.

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 02:49:21 PM
Mm.  Wibbly, wobbly, timey-wimey.

Yep, I'm merrily making the Fujiwara situation even more complicated than it already is in the books, and then doing a narrative end run around the whole thing since it doesn't have anything to do with the main arc. This saves me from my poor understanding of probably the most complicated unresolved in-canon mystery so far.

Fortunately, unlike Doctor Who there's a good reason as to why time is so wibbly-wobbly in the story. I'll give you one guess as to who that reason is.

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 02:49:21 PM

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 12:16:20 AMAnd of course after writing this I've become curious: are there any other (decent-length, decent-quality) Mikuru-POV fics out there?

Decent-length, yes, decent-quality.... <snip list of fics>
Anything else is just Mikuru/Yuki or Mikuru/Itsuki (bleah!) fluff.

Thanks for the info. Now I will proceed to completely ignore it until my own rendition of Mikuru comes together somewhat.

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 02:49:21 PM
Hmm.  No other real thoughts on the story, though it was nice -- feels a bit like it's addressing some of the deficiencies in NG+, actually, with pointing out that Haruhi's friends with Sasaki.

Crack fics don't have deficiencies. Crack fics are by definition crack fics. Ya either huff it or ya dont. Some people are huffing that Rickrolling of Haruhi Suzumiya thing (actually, a depressingly large number of people are huffing it, probably since it comes in such small doses that they don't realize they're huffing something akin to asbestos mixed with cat droppings). Some people huffed NG+, some got squicked by it. Wait, is 'huffing' even the right word for what you do with cocaine?

If I were addressing deficiencies in NG+, rather than Haruhi/Sasaki, I'd first be more concerned with fixing the fact that Haruhi's circle of interest seems to have narrowed significantly, from exploring the universe to getting into Kyon's pants. Actually, that's *exactly* what I'm doing in this fic. Go figure.

But yeah, Haruhi minus interest in her surroundings plus self-awareness plus teenage hormones equals instant squick. As 'Kyonko Doesn't Want to Play Today' showed that much more blatantly.

As for Haruhi being friends with Sasaki, that seemed like an obvious thing to establish, without going into any details. (I was actually more concerned about establishing that eight-year old Mikuru doesn't have long hair!) Again, I ended up with a nice end run around another complicated subplot I don't understand yet, especially given the info in novels 10/11 that I still need to digest. I'm partial to the notion that, whatever misunderstanding/conflict exists between the girls in the books, their natural end state is going to be as two sides of the same coin. Namely, they're both omnipotent, but their worldview and concerns are so different that their powers never end up conflicting.

Actually, it'd be interesting to see this Haruhi getting into a mess that she can't fix, and then Sasaki stepping in to restore normality.

Quote
Kind of curious to see where this is going; I think the viewpoint kind of works, if you're going for an 'unstuck in time' feel, but also it doesn't actually wander that much.  You could mix things up a bit (I guess) by bringing in more of Mikuru's observations from the future (the canon timeline, I guess) as well?

I'm keeping the 'unstuck in time' notion toned down a little since Mikuru(big) is going to play even more egregious tricks on you later on. Like attempting to narrate the entirety of chapter three whilst getting more and more drunk in the process. Thing is, the deal with the narrator is actually that classified information.

Actually, I'm vacillating between one or two possible paths for the ending, but the most promising one involves the wholesale theft of classified information by Haruhi from the Kyon: Big Damn Hero universe. How ticked off do you get by well-attributed plagiarism? We're doing the fanfiction schtick here, but still...

I guess I'll just write the damn thing and then you can decide if the ending ticks you off or not.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PM

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 02:49:21 PM
Far more edible than you have most likely been led to believe.

Desho? Actually I'm perfectly aware of this fact. (The trick is getting the oniony goodness to end up in your mouth as opposed to in your eyes.) But (a) she also rejects perfectly edible tomatoes and (b) there's a bit of an image issue with the most powerful being in the universe munching away happily on an onion. Veering into HP Lovecraft territory just a little, I'd say.

I have no way to establish this in the actual story without omniscient narration, but that's also the reason Haruhi rejected the red-peppers-on-stale-bread rubbed-with-garlic combo. She actually liked the taste there, but -- again -- she wants Mikuru to think of her as a benevolent fairy type, not some boisterous ogre who munches stale bread. Buttered watermelon is the sort of food a friendly fairy might go for, dontcha think?

Eh, sorry.  Just meant to echo an observation from my own experiences.

OTOH, I could kind of see Haruhi going for something odd, like peanut butter and pickles, or peanut and onion.

I didn't catch that Haruhi was trying to pass herself off as a fairy godmother type figure, actually; mostly I caught her largely 'Doctor' like behavior, and assumed it was just generic wackiness (mostly).

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PMAs for the egg-frying method, no problems with that? I hope I did a decent job establishing that Haruhi chose it because it's a nice easy method to be teaching Mikuru, not because she doesn't know any more delicious methods.

That seemed fine to me.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PMFortunately, unlike Doctor Who there's a good reason as to why time is so wibbly-wobbly in the story. I'll give you one guess as to who that reason is.

I'm going to say Kyon.  (Or Haruhi, in response to Kyon.)

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PMThanks for the info. Now I will proceed to completely ignore it until my own rendition of Mikuru comes together somewhat.

Understandable.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PMCrack fics don't have deficiencies. Crack fics are by definition crack fics. Ya either huff it or ya dont. Some people are huffing that Rickrolling of Haruhi Suzumiya thing (actually, a depressingly large number of people are huffing it, probably since it comes in such small doses that they don't realize they're huffing something akin to asbestos mixed with cat droppings). Some people huffed NG+, some got squicked by it. Wait, is 'huffing' even the right word for what you do with cocaine?

Me?  Personally?  My adjective of choice would be 'dispose of'.

Among users, the term is 'snort'/'snorting'.  This is the more common method of intake, though not actually the most effective.  Cocaine can also be ingested in powdered form/mixed in drinks (though, if you're not a hardened junkie, your stomach will probably reject it) or rendered and injected.

Cocaine can also be sprinkled on tobacco (or other smokables) and consumed that way, or in refined form (as ... 'crack', lawl).

'Huffing' is for forms of consumption where the product gives off fumes or vapors, like paint/glue.

And before you ask, volunteer work at a rehabilitation clinic.

Yeah, I ... have issues with Superstarultra and his trolling antics, but that's an entirely different (and very tired) story.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PMIf I were addressing deficiencies in NG+, rather than Haruhi/Sasaki, I'd first be more concerned with fixing the fact that Haruhi's circle of interest seems to have narrowed significantly, from exploring the universe to getting into Kyon's pants. Actually, that's *exactly* what I'm doing in this fic. Go figure.

I actually have a complete and official explanation for that.  I like the ambiguity in NG+ to let the reader figure out how Haruhi got a Bad End before that for their own, but will probably have to address specifics in the other half of the story -- the shorter 'Dress Up', which explores Nagato and Haruhi meeting.

I just need to finish it.

At some point. >_>

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PMAs for Haruhi being friends with Sasaki, that seemed like an obvious thing to establish, without going into any details. (I was actually more concerned about establishing that eight-year old Mikuru doesn't have long hair!) Again, I ended up with a nice end run around another complicated subplot I don't understand yet, especially given the info in novels 10/11 that I still need to digest. I'm partial to the notion that, whatever misunderstanding/conflict exists between the girls in the books, their natural end state is going to be as two sides of the same coin. Namely, they're both omnipotent, but their worldview and concerns are so different that their powers never end up conflicting.

Actually, it'd be interesting to see this Haruhi getting into a mess that she can't fix, and then Sasaki stepping in to restore normality.

If by 'girls' you mean specifically Sasaki/Haruhi, there's ... not much conflict between the two of them.  Haruhi is jealous of Sasaki being close to Kyon, and Sasaki is aware of that and admires Haruhi (from her own past), so avoids being around Kyon with a vague promise that they'll all be friends even though she doesn't plan on seeing him again (yeah, right!).

They speak ... one time?  Haruhi knows her name and ... evidently suspects that more went on between Sasaki and Kyon than he lets on (or realizes).

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PMI'm keeping the 'unstuck in time' notion toned down a little since Mikuru(big) is going to play even more egregious tricks on you later on. Like attempting to narrate the entirety of chapter three whilst getting more and more drunk in the process. Thing is, the deal with the narrator is actually that classified information.

That'll be interesting.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PMActually, I'm vacillating between one or two possible paths for the ending, but the most promising one involves the wholesale theft of classified information by Haruhi from the Kyon: Big Damn Hero universe. How ticked off do you get by well-attributed plagiarism? We're doing the fanfiction schtick here, but still...

You can't plagarize K:BDH, I don't think; it's covered under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license, and thus I am not able to deny anyone the right to use it within the limitations of that license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Serious.  You just need to disclaim it (and, also, include a mention of the license -- though you probably want to say it applies only to the elements borrowed from K:BDH).  Something like:

'Kyon: Big Damn Hero is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.'

That's all anyone who wants to use any part of K:BDH needs to do to:

• to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  
• to Remix — to adapt the work
  

  Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 05:24:23 PMI guess I'll just write the damn thing and then you can decide if the ending ticks you off or not.

  Well, if you want my permission anyway, I'll probably be fine with it. :)

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 07:44:02 PM
If by 'girls' you mean specifically Sasaki/Haruhi, there's ... not much conflict between the two of them.  Haruhi is jealous of Sasaki being close to Kyon, and Sasaki is aware of that and admires Haruhi (from her own past), so avoids being around Kyon with a vague promise that they'll all be friends even though she doesn't plan on seeing him again (yeah, right!).

Great, then! So there's nothing to end run around in the actual books, thus far. I was actually thinking of fanon people create where there *is* some serious conflict between the two warper girls. Or the K:BDH storyline where Sasaki is (put into the position of?) a primary threat to the Brigade because if she finds out about Haruhi's powers she will most likely erase them.

Must be a wonderful feeling to have fanon you wrote coming back to bite you on the behind.

The "I wonder how Sasaki-chan is doing" line is still important because given the amount of fanfiction where they're in conflict, it pays to joss the notion that the two of them are *naturally* going to be at odds with one another.

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 07:44:02 PM
I'm going to say Kyon.  (Or Haruhi, in response to Kyon.)

I said one guess -- you're thinking way too hard about this. I'll just show you this, I'm planning to edit it down and use it as a header quote or something in some later chapter:



I also had Haruhi joss the notion that she created the universe the night of the baseball game. It doesn't *really* square with the "Haruhi = The Doctor" parallel and it would be *so* boring for a variety of reasons.

About the attribution:share alike for K:BDH, will comply with that. Just wanted to double-check; even with Creative Commons, if you were to state right off the bat that you're somehow repelled by the notion, I'd know that it might be worth searching for some other way to resolve the arc. It's basic politeness.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 08:27:49 PMMust be a wonderful feeling to have fanon you wrote coming back to bite you on the behind.

You mean being jossed by canon?

I was a bit sad I guessed wrong, but then again, my presentation in that story was more appropriate for a slice-of-life/sci-fi adventure, so I don't regret it.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 08:27:49 PMI also had Haruhi joss the notion that she created the universe the night of the baseball game. It doesn't *really* square with the "Haruhi = The Doctor" parallel and it would be *so* boring for a variety of reasons.

Unless you spin it off as 'everything in canon is in a simulation/strange 'side' reality' things, yeah.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 08:27:49 PMAbout the attribution:share alike for K:BDH, will comply with that. Just wanted to double-check; even with Creative Commons, if you were to state right off the bat that you're somehow repelled by the notion, I'd know that it might be worth searching for some other way to resolve the arc. It's basic politeness.

Well, I appreciate that, so thanks. :)

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 08:46:28 PM

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 08:27:49 PMMust be a wonderful feeling to have fanon you wrote coming back to bite you on the behind.

You mean being jossed by canon?

No, I meant people basing their impressions of Haruhi off stuff you wrote and not off the actual novels!

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 09:04:06 PMNo, I meant people basing their impressions of Haruhi off stuff you wrote and not off the actual novels!

As flattering as that would be, I don't think it happens. :p

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 09:12:39 PM

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 20, 2011, 09:04:06 PMNo, I meant people basing their impressions of Haruhi off stuff you wrote and not off the actual novels!

As flattering as that would be, I don't think it happens. :p

I think I'm phrasing it wrong. I'm talking about fanfiction writers specifically. Doesn't it often happen that someone decides to write a Haruhi fanfiction, except instead of doing their research off the novels they read other people's fanfiction and make stupid mistakes that would be averted if they were paying attention to the novels?

Iterate for several rounds and you get some guy writing a fic with severely flanderized characters who directly contradict canon because they are based on some one-off divergence by a much more skilled writer. And they don't even realize the fact.

Very odd. I seem to remember reading you complaining about this somewhere. Basically, I only brought this up because I was feeling sort of bad about my impressions of Sasaki being skewed by your K:BDH arc which deals with her. (Although I reacted by completely rejecting the notion in that arc, which was sort of lucky. Still.)

Oh, I see....

Yes, that would be annoying.  In Haruhi, that's mostly the reason for the physically violent tsundere Haruhi, and the (way more than in the novels) buttmonkeyism of Kyon.  Huh ... I'd hope I didn't influence people too much like that.

Accursed fannon!

It's amazingly prevalent in Ranma, where many writes have not read the manga, only other fics. -_-

QuoteI mean, having an imaginary friend counts as childish behaviour, right? So I figured always reminding my parents I had an imaginary friend would be a good way to stop them from calling me "precocious" so often.

This seems a bit informal for Asahina, to be honest.  My impression of that stems mostly from "I mean..."  There are a couple other places where I get that feeling, but since it's a general thing, let me talk about that more later.  I just wanted to point out one place I noticed it for example's sake.

QuoteAnd thinking that I needed to be less precocious never stopped them from leaving me home alone as they drove my older brother to cram school, then drove around I don't know where else, almost every weekday evening.

Do they have cram schools in Montreal?

QuoteNo, really, I swear! One minute everything was quiet and I was just watching the sun about to disappear behind some rooftops and thinking I might need to get out into the backyard and chase the neigbours' vicious stripey cat away from our bird feeder. Then the next minute there was this bright flash like you get with a camera, and someone's mostly bare legs were sticking out of the juniper bush. Which was now on fire.

The first sentence is a bit long.  I'd suggest ending it at "quiet".

QuoteLuckily I remembered we had a fire extinguisher in the house, and how to use it, and I put out the fire. There was a surprised shout at this coming from the vicinity of the legs as the bush got doused with foam, and a panicky moment for me when the bush was no longer on fire but the extinguisher still kept throwing suds at it! It seemed impolite to keep pointing it at the strange person then, but I didn't know how to turn it off and I didn't know where else to point it.

That first comma isn't needed.  Two "and"s put together in that first sentence there read a bit awkwardly.

QuoteFinally I realized that I could point the fire extinguisher at the neighbours' cat who dawdled about watching this surreal scene, and thus solve two problems with the same fire extinguisher.

"And stay away from our birds!"

This just needs a "two birds with one stone" play on here.  Heh.

Yay! I guess if my parents were here, they'd take this opportunity to call me precocious, right?

QuoteI stared at the figure which emerged, which I guess wasn't very polite of me. I couldn't see her face clearly because she was all covered in... stuff... either dirt or soot, it was actually kind of hard to tell. She seemed to be wearing the remains of a Japanese girl's school uniform. And stockings; she'd evidently lost her shoes at some point. She staggered as though she was finding it difficult to maintain her balance. A frightening suspicion occurred to me at that point.

I'm not sure if it's something she should be able to distinguish right away--that it's a Japanese uniform as opposed to someplace else's.

QuoteHow do I know? Um... I guess I forgot to tell you my family lives in Châteauguay just across the river from Montréal Island.

Just for pacing of the sentence, I'd suggest a comma before "just".

QuoteThat... sounded like a deal. Wow, I wish it this easy to get my mom to stop ranting at me like a tape recorder.

It's 2080s.  I don't know if she'll know what a tape recorder is, but this is fairly forgivable.

QuoteHaruhi's eyes fell on the first edible thing she saw, which was a watermelon this time. We were kind of saving that thing, actually. Tomorrow dad was going to take a day off so we could go hiking, and we'd come back home and eat the watermelon once we were finished.

I think you want "Dad" instead of "dad".


As you can tell, I kinda just wanted to read the thing after picking apart the first few lines.  To echo sarsaparilla, the narration puzzles me a bit.  At times, it reads like that of a snarky eight-year-old.  I like that child, but in the back of my mind, I'm definitely wondering how she can turn into the Mikuru Asahina we know.  Even from the perspective you say it should come from, something seems...off.  Adult Asahina trying to emulate her younger self's thought processes I approve of.  I guess I just can't see how it all fits together yet.

Again to echo sarsaparilla, There are also things to consider about how out of touch with the modern world Asahina seems to be in the books.  2080s doesn't feel like it's far enough out to do that.

Looks like fun, though.  Keep it rolling.

Quote from: Muphrid on September 20, 2011, 10:47:54 PM
Do they have cram schools in Montreal?

They do in the 2080s. By that point basically Montreal is to Tokyo as New York is to London.

Since this won't affect the fic presentation very much I'll just outline my preferred future history for Canada. It might help me with keeping the actual fic consistent to it:

Basically after going into longterm economic stagnation the Canadians redrew their provincial boundaries and split off lots of independent city-provinces. (i.e. they applied the Province of Toronto proposal across the whole country) The country as a whole then grew a backbone and figured out how to weasel out of the onerous provisions in NAFTA, and they wound up using the increased leverage on their remaining natural resources (oil, gas, hydro, &c) to lever their country out of the doldrums by importing personnel and industries wholesale from Asia. (Did you know Canada has a standing offer to join OPEC? They'll never take it because it would amount to giving a huge middle finger to the United States, and the current establishment doesn't want to do that.)

Toronto and Vancouver got mostly a huge influx of middle class Chinese people; Montreal got a more or less equitable cross-section of Japan because the guy effectively running it at the time must have been a former otaku, I guess (he actually financed a remake of K-On! on the side where the girls were aspiring subway buskers in Westmount), and Fukushima Daiichi ended up being much worse than people expected so Japanese emigration rates shot way up. Japanese-type cultural institutions got set up, including cram schools, which the French and Anglophones in the city also started to make use of.

Think how Dubai is currently importing Westerners to do all the mind work for them, and Indians to do all the hard work. The Canadians also improved on the idea with this horrid imperialist practice called 'onshoring' where they buy a company or division wholesale, fire everyone who doesn't want to move to Canada, and move everyone else over. (I heard similar horror stories regarding some tech companies where a division was effectively being disbanded by forcing everyone to either move to India or quit. Naturally everyone quit. The difference with onshoring is that moving from China to Canada might not be quite as unpleasant, so people actually ended up doing it.)

It sounds desperate, but at this point the United States is still kind of complacent and so the Canadians are left trying to singlehandedly armwrestle essential manufacturing industries away from China to regain economic sovereignty. Globalization is so 20th century now.

This was how the time machine ended up in Montreal: the tech company that the inventor worked for (who Haruhi was actually tutoring when still in high school) got a division split off and onshored to Edmonton, until the Canadians realized that the smartest guy in their newly-bought division was actually inventing a machine to drill invisible holes in time, not in oil sands, and the whole thing got classified and shuffled off to a military facility in Mirabel.

Economically, Montreal is the cultural capital and also the centre of a small but lucrative national defence industry. The Golden Horseshoe remains the financial capital and is a huge manufacturing and tech hub. (Due to increased immigration rates it starts to creep up on New York in terms of population.) Vancouver is sort of a remainder bin for industries which still need to be connected to China by convenient sea lanes. (As opposed to its current primary economic activity of importing stuff from China, unpacking it, and putting it on trains that go out to Eastern Canada.) Alberta is trying to switch its economy from oil extraction to something a bit more exciting, and the main occupation of Calgary's city government is to try to one-up Toronto and Montreal while having less than a quarter of the population of either city.

It's weird, but the future is supposed to be weird. Then there are the cultural changes which led the Canadians to start doing this stuff. (Which mostly affected a small cross-section of society that could make all that weird and politically impossible nonsense start happening. Most of it only really got off the ground by the 2040s, which is why Asahina refers to it as a decade where everything seemed possible and nothing seemed easy.) Of course, an eight year old is going to care about precisely none of these historical details.

Quote from: Muphrid on September 20, 2011, 10:47:54 PM
This just needs a "two birds with one stone" play on here.  Heh.

I considered it, but it'd be a bit of an unfortunate joke in this context since Mikuru's motivation in dousing the cat is to protect birds, not kill them, with stones or otherwise :-)

Quote from: Muphrid on September 20, 2011, 10:47:54 PM
I'm not sure if it's something she should be able to distinguish right away--that it's a Japanese uniform as opposed to someplace else's.

Point. I guess if I had to defend it I'd say she's an eight-year-old in Montreal in 2080s, where the majority of Asians she sees are Japanese. So if she sees an Asian in sailor uniform she's far more likely to guess 'Japanese' than, say, Korean or Filipino.

EDIT: I mean it's better than just saying "she looked Japanese" which would lead a reader who knows none of the above backstory to think she's able to tell Japanese from Chinese from Korean on sight. Which might be completely impossible to do, depending on what sort of face Haruhi actually has.

Quote from: Muphrid on September 20, 2011, 10:47:54 PM
It's 2080s.  I don't know if she'll know what a tape recorder is, but this is fairly forgivable.

This is I guess a cultural peculiarity. There's so many different SSD-based recorders and PDAs and specialized implants and I guess with the discussion in the books where Nagato claimed it was simple to build a computer that doesn't rely on a conventional storage hierarchy, Maxwellian computing has been invented already and they don't much resemble present-day computers anymore on the inside. Rather than have to call essentially the same device different names depending on what technology exists under the hood, they just use 'tape recorder' after the common ancestor.

Which is how the expression survives another century. I'm fairly sure there's already archaisms like this in the English language, though I can't think of a good example off the top of my head. I know the Japanese still write the character for 'chariot' when they mean 'automobile', but it's a peculiarity of kanji that archaisms like that crop up much more easily...

Quote from: Muphrid on September 20, 2011, 10:47:54 PM
Even from the perspective you say it should come from, something seems...off.  Adult Asahina trying to emulate her younger self's thought processes I approve of.  I guess I just can't see how it all fits together yet.

I'll be curious to see if it's off because it's just off, or because it's written to be consistent with the wham reveal in the final chapter... I'm not sure I'm quite skilled enough yet to be pulling it off properly.

Quote from: Muphrid on September 20, 2011, 10:47:54 PM
Again to echo sarsaparilla, There are also things to consider about how out of touch with the modern world Asahina seems to be in the books.  2080s doesn't feel like it's far enough out to do that.

I just figured out how to deal with that issue (i.e. to have that part of canon work even though the 2080s are superficially just a remix of the second half of the 20th century and Asahina should get more of a 'different but mostly eerily familiar' vibe from Japan). Especially with the way my story works, even if her origin point was in the year 3000 it would still be difficult to justify her *not* receiving extensive training in Japanese culture beforehand.

QuotePoint. I guess if I had to defend it I'd say she's an eight-year-old in Montreal in 2080s, where the majority of Asians she sees are Japanese. So if she sees an Asian in sailor uniform she's far more likely to guess 'Japanese' than, say, Korean or Filipino.

EDIT: I mean it's better than just saying "she looked Japanese" which would lead a reader who knows none of the above backstory to think she's able to tell Japanese from Chinese from Korean on sight. Which might be completely impossible to do, depending on what sort of face Haruhi actually has.

Sorry about that; I meant to retract that comment when I read further and she described the interior furniture choices.  It struck me as utterly plausible, by that point, that she would recognize clothing as seeming to be Japanese in origin.

I think I can recall most of Mikuru's slips.

In Boredom: She has no idea how baseball works.
Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody: I think she mentions that their computers don't rely on physical components.
In ... I forget the island episode: Mikuru's not familiar with how boats float, because they don't use them in her time.
In Endless Eight: I can't recall it verbatim, but Mikuru has a reaction of something like, "so that's what you wear" when put in the kimono.  She also makes a reference to the technology of the telescope not being that different from one only a few centuries earlier when they're ... ufo searching, I think.
Sigh: (I may be remembering this falsely) She's unfamiliar with the camera.

That's all I can think of that would indicate much about her environment, but some of it could just be her not knowing about things in general.

So, I actually got around to trying (with trepidation) to consume a small slice of buttered watermelon. It's... fairly obvious that the two things do not enhance one another. So on one level it's like you're eating raw butter (yeugh) and on the other it's like you're just munching a watermelon.

Then again, one person I know who I suspect is a mutant is actually capable of enjoying butter in its raw form. So it's not necessarily something you need Time Lord tastebuds to appreciate.

Quote from: sarsaparilla on September 20, 2011, 04:00:03 AM
She is unpredictable but predominantly positive, but at the same time a bit frightening because it's quite clear that she isn't a human (in the conventional sense of the word at least) any more.

Just realized this indicates I'm moving vaguely in the right direction, then. More or less this exact sentence could be used to describe the Doctor.

Quote from: sarsaparilla on September 20, 2011, 04:00:03 AM
Even then, the given description doesn't sound futuristic (although I can see the danger in trying to extrapolate from current trends the scene goes in the opposite extreme and the 'future' part becomes just an Informed Property of the setting).

Ironically Doctor Who suffers from that exact problem, though those people have the excuse of a tight budget... so when they need to film a London suburb in 2050 they go to a London suburb in 2005 and just film that, exactly as-is.

As for fixing this problem, well, Brian suggests that I have some wiggle room...

Quote from: Brian on September 20, 2011, 02:49:21 PM... but also it doesn't actually wander that much.  You could mix things up a bit (I guess) by bringing in more of Mikuru's observations from the future (the canon timeline, I guess) as well?

Now that I'm becoming a bit more comfortable with how Mikuru's voice works, I may be able to add further digressions to the existing chapter, to drive home the point that the Future is Still Weird. I don't know, I did a bunch of unrelated world-building a while ago and so I'm just using a canned setting I had lying around (as you might guess from the way I can spew forth irrelevant detail about it). I have one or two more futuristic societies in my head, but they're all far more likely to actively interfere with Haruhi's abilities if granted a chance to time travel.

Incidentally, the fact that Canada has unusually good fortunes in this story could indirectly be blamed on Haruhi. I assume when she heard Asakura got "transferred" there, she went and clicked around on Wikipedia or something, thought "man, what a boring country. Why couldn't Asakura have got herself transferred someplace more interesting?" and then promptly forgot about it. But as a result, the fabric of plausibility was subtly altered and then... I only bother to bring this up because I won't be able to work it into the story because in-universe these kinds of things are usually brought up by Koizumi. And not only is Koizumi completely out of the loop but...

What. I actually have zero screen time planned for the guy. Haruhi sort of shouts one line at him near the end, and that's it. This digression wasn't useless then. I'm not sure... should I be searching right this second for an inconsequential scene to write him into, or is completely sidelining Koizumi like this worthy of a medal?

To avoid intimidating C&Cers with a huge 20,000 word blob I'm splitting the next chapter into three parts and posting them sequentially. I've attached the first part of chapter 2 at the top of the thread (next to the previous attachment, to take advantage of the generous new 20-file limit). Again, I'm not certain as to what sort of effect some of the story elements have, and I'm curious to hear your feedback.

I hope Brian doesn't mind my stealing his stylesheet from him in the interests of slightly greater readability at the moment (technically speaking, I should probably add a Creative Commons attribution, now that I think of it)... I'll probably end up changing the 'light' background colour to something other than sky blue.

I've updated the stylesheet to use a more standard black-on-white look for the 'light' setting, and added a Creative Commons disclaimer to the notes for Chapter 1. (Um... I'm not sure that I lifted the stylesheet from K:BDH specifically, but it should be basically identical across all of Brian's recent fics, right?)

Anyhow, if anything about this charade bothers Brian, he can just tell me and I'll revert the stylesheet experiment. I'm a bit worried that the current look is still a bit too similar to his fics, and could maybe be taken (unintentionally) as an attempt to pass my work off for his... *nervous* I'm thinking of whether I can add any appearance tricks that will make it obvious that was not the intent...

I've also revised Chapter 1 with a bunch of everyone's suggestions. Thank you for the kind help so far!

As always, I cannot comment the use of language other than that it is very readable and well paced. The overall story seems to be moving out of my area of experience, to a degree that I'm having trouble trying to follow the logic, and there's some technical stuff that flies straight over my head. This might be an issue of my complete ignorance of the other crossover part (Dr. Who).

The separation of POVs of child and adult Mikuru looks even more blurred than before. I just kind of forgot to even track the issue.

I must say that I very much like this particular version of Haruhi. The amalgamation (I suppose) of traits works and creates an interesting blend. Independent, irreverent, crazy awesome and clearly not bound by such petty things as the laws of physics or even logic. For some odd reason the image of Cheshire Cat floats to my mind.

I'm sorry that I cannot provide any constructive criticism, I'm just not qualified for that.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 26, 2011, 06:39:46 AMI hope Brian doesn't mind my stealing his stylesheet from him in the interests of slightly greater readability at the moment (technically speaking, I should probably add a Creative Commons attribution, now that I think of it)... I'll probably end up changing the 'light' background colour to something other than sky blue.

The .css isn't covered by the creative commons license; that code comes before it.  In any case, I'm not actually worried about it -- you're entirely welcome to use the stylesheet, or modify your own copy as you see fit. :p

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 26, 2011, 08:57:46 AMI've updated the stylesheet to use a more standard black-on-white look for the 'light' setting, and added a Creative Commons disclaimer to the notes for Chapter 1. (Um... I'm not sure that I lifted the stylesheet from K:BDH specifically, but it should be basically identical across all of Brian's recent fics, right?)

All of my fics use the same stylesheet: http://pishoque.net/brian/stories.css

Again, if you didn't want to put your story under the CC disclaimer, you don't have to publish it under the share and share alike agreement -- that's for the content of the story, not the details of how it's displayed. ^_^;;

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 26, 2011, 08:57:46 AMAnyhow, if anything about this charade bothers Brian, he can just tell me and I'll revert the stylesheet experiment. I'm a bit worried that the current look is still a bit too similar to his fics, and could maybe be taken (unintentionally) as an attempt to pass my work off for his... *nervous* I'm thinking of whether I can add any appearance tricks that will make it obvious that was not the intent...

Whichever you like; I'm under the impression you're not using the .css file (or creating your own), but just including the settings in your own .htm.  I haven't taken a look yet, so that's just a guess. >_>;  It doesn't at all bother me if it looks the same -- all fics on ff.net share the same 'styles' after all, in that sense. ;)

I haven't had the time to read yet; I'll try and offer some comments today, but may not get around to it until later ... all that furniture to assemble when I get home. @_@

Quote from: sarsaparilla on October 26, 2011, 03:46:34 PM
As always, I cannot comment the use of language other than that it is very readable and well paced.

This third of the chapter was originally 3,000 words of almost unbroken continuous exposition. I was desperate enough to get rid of that problem (Mikuru is definitely not Kyon!) that I ended up introducing an OC to handle most of it through dialogue, then for the filler dialogue I needed to bring in all the chronobabble :-/

Speaking of "Mikuru is definitely not Kyon", I'm afraid there might be a couple of subtle Kyon-isms buried in the text. (A problem somewhat similar to what happens in 'The Coin', and I guess a perennial hazard to watch for with any Haruhi fic using first person non-Kyon POV + Tanigawa's non-offset dialogue trick.)

Quote from: sarsaparilla on October 26, 2011, 03:46:34 PM
The overall story seems to be moving out of my area of experience, to a degree that I'm having trouble trying to follow the logic, and there's some technical stuff that flies straight over my head. This might be an issue of my complete ignorance of the other crossover part (Dr. Who).

Actually, there is no Dr. Who content in this chapter aside from the explicit shout-out. The chronobabble in particular isn't based on Dr. Who chronobabble in any way. (The actual series is awfully lax with the 'science' part of its science fiction, and none of the official television writers for it would ever have bothered to establish a mechanic in such detail, when the next writer to come along is going to obviously completely ignore it and invent some contradictory mechanic.)

The time travel physics in this chapter is going to need more work; it's intended... well, not to make immediate sense, but at least have a logical core that can be puzzled out in hindsight.

The goals I wanted to achieve with the technical stuff are, in order of decreasing priority:

• Deliberately convey the notion that time travel is confusing (easy, mission accomplished).
• Hammer in the idea that Haruhi is able to pull things off that ordinary time travellers cannot. Maybe the heavy-handed irony of the OC saying "the time planes won't do X just because your friend wants them to" was a shade too subtle to stand out amid the chronobabble?
• Have the time travel physics actually make some sense and foreshadow the overall plot. Not quite there yet, as far as I can tell.

Quote from: sarsaparilla on October 26, 2011, 03:46:34 PM
I must say that I very much like this particular version of Haruhi. The amalgamation (I suppose) of traits works and creates an interesting blend. Independent, irreverent, crazy awesome and clearly not bound by such petty things as the laws of physics or even logic. For some odd reason the image of Cheshire Cat floats to my mind.

Amalgamation? Hmm... it does seem like Eleventh Doctor DNA got mixed in at some point. Genetic compatibility does exist on some level:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UMka1YlrqQ

Quote from: sarsaparilla on October 26, 2011, 03:46:34 PM
I'm sorry that I cannot provide any constructive criticism, I'm just not qualified for that.

Again, we contribute whatever we feel like contributing :-)

As you might guess from the above comments, it was helpful just to get an impression of which story elements you felt inclined to echo back, and how well they came across. After I've finished the rest of the chapter, I'll take another crack at the time travel physics part of things.

Quote from: Brian on October 26, 2011, 05:46:20 PM
The .css isn't covered by the creative commons license; that code comes before it.  In any case, I'm not actually worried about it -- you're entirely welcome to use the stylesheet, or modify your own copy as you see fit. :p

Okay, I'll consider it to be in the public domain and not bother with disclaiming this component of things.

Quote from: Brian on October 26, 2011, 05:46:20 PM
It doesn't at all bother me if it looks the same -- all fics on ff.net share the same 'styles' after all, in that sense. ;)

Right, but the ff.net look is shared among thousands of people, whereas you're the only person I know who has the particular combination of an 80% text column, centred titles, and a button at the top to switch light/dark. If I were to encounter someone else's fic (with the same elements), I might get confused (for about two seconds) into thinking you'd written it. Conceivably, some other person might get confused for longer.

But anyways, if you don't mind I'll keep publishing as is with the stylesheet.

Quote from: Brian on October 26, 2011, 05:46:20 PM
I haven't had the time to read yet; I'll try and offer some comments today, but may not get around to it until later ... all that furniture to assemble when I get home. @_@

I suppose I should (belatedly) wish you a happy housewarming!

And I've updated the disclaimer, and also added a bit to chapter 2 that elaborates on what Mikuru attracting "minor strange occurrences" means. I thought about it and decided that if I left it vehemently unexplained, it might get misconstrued by immature minds as some sick form of implied fan service :-[

Spilling every third cup of tea is quite enough arbitrary humiliation, in my opinion.

Quote"... well, there's nothing classified about the generalized theory of time planes," M. Viau countered, glancing at the passersby, "it might be a bit unusual to find someone attempting to simplify such an obscure physics topic and teach it to a ten-year-old, but that's just the sort of ordinary odd thing you see every day. So as long as we don't go blurting out that we've got a real working time machine up in Mirabel we'll be in the clear, won't we?"

Ordinary and odd?  I take this to be intentional?

Quote"The point of a question like that is to learn to figure out when your understanding of reality is too simple. If your mental picture of the manifold has an inconsistency loop, that means you need to resolve the contradiction by inserting additional timeplanes into your model; so a functioning grandfather paradox would need to have two timelines, and a causal loop that cycles back and forth between them, producing a manifold different from the one in the original problem. Keeping that in mind, how did your thought experiment work out? There should be something you ended up missing along the way...."

I'm not sure this semicolon after "model" is quite right?

Quote"So, let's hear it." he concluded.

"it,"?

Quote"Mikuru-chan, there's a slight problem developing," she announced, "with our plan to gather a tour group!"

It seems awkward to break the dialogue at "developing".  Stopping right after "Mikuru-chan" would feel more natural.

Quote"I would like to challenge you to a game of Ten Fingers." the Silent Witch had opened her mouth to say to my friend.

I think that ought to be "Fingers,"?

Quote"Incorrect. According to my analysis of your thought patterns, declining a challenge is what you consider to be 'for chumps'." the Silent Witch had countered.

And the same sort of thing here.

QuoteHopefully if Michaela helped slap some sense into the younger version of the alien, the younger version would spend less time playing Ten Fingers and more time mailing out invitations. Then the older version wouldn't have to regrow fingers, or for that matter take business trips to the past to slap some sense into her younger version... wait....

It might stand some clarification here:  "hopefully" is from the older Haruhi's point of view.

Quote"You do know that passing through a brick wall is possible due to the quantum tunneling effect, but of course it never actually happens in real life?"

I've not heard many other physicists refer to it as the quantum tunneling effect (or even as an effect in so many words).

Quote"You do know that starting next week you'll be in residence at the Bureau. Time to say goodbye to your family; well, except on weekends. They're also switching in a new tutor. Apparently I don't have the proper clearance to even mention a few crucial aspects of the situation, doesn't matter that I already know everything and we could save a load of time. People up there don't think the immutable rules of time travel are enough, keep inventing more rules to make themselves feel important! I feel sorry for you, I don't think you're particularly looking forward to this."

Some sentence structures here are weird, particularly starting with "doesn't matter..." and "keep inventing..."

Quote"Well, it's a problem with your supervisors all right. That's a serious negative side of being trained into their caste, you get jittery if you're forced into a position that you can't guarantee in advance you'll be super-competent at. It's not entirely clear what super-competence in training a time traveler even entails. And I don't understand how these people can be so perfectionistic without exploding."

I suggest a dash or a colon after "caste".  Also, perhaps "such perfectionists" instead of as written.  "perfectionistic" seems a bit odd.

QuoteIn case you're wondering, my older brother has a proper English name which I will drop from the story to maintain some sense of privacy. We will say for the sake of continuity that the nickname 'Fujiwara' was coined by my father, after some clan of humorless Japanese regents. I'm still not sure where exactly that brainstorm came from, perhaps from the time he'd discovered my brother's staggeringly involved notebook of possible marriage arrangements, but the nickname stuck.

QuoteIn case you're wondering, my older brother has a proper English name which I will drop from the story to maintain some sense of privacy. We will say for the sake of continuity that the nickname 'Fujiwara' was coined by my father, after some clan of humorless Japanese regents. I'm still not sure where exactly that brainstorm came from, perhaps from the time he'd discovered my brother's staggeringly involved notebook of possible marriage arrangements, but the nickname stuck.

Is him being the older sibling part of the timey-wimey ball?

QuoteAt which point I would attempt to tackle him for acting so stupid, which was a futile struggle we could at least laugh at together. But that was an ugly joke of his, it was, he claimed I'd stolen the idea for my imaginary friend from a Doctor Who episode, and he'd coined the nickname 'The Dancer' for my friend because my description of her had focused a little too breathlessly on how gracefully she'd moved about the house. The more I thought about it, the more I concluded that 'The Dancer' was a compeletely stupid name for someone like Haruhi, what was Fujiwara thinking?

Is it a bit weird that they're watching Doctor Who (or are at least familiar enough with it) even in this time period?

QuoteCorrect. There are endless complications that will need to be taken care of if such a scenario is going to happen. It has some slight advantages in my opinion. Whoever we end up sending, the scenario requires them to stick out like a sore thumb, but for reasons that do not lead to their being discovered as a time traveler.

I suggest a stronger word than "happen".  Perhaps "...taken care of to implement such a scenario."

Or actually, since the other words in the paragraph are just as casual, perhaps not.

QuoteEach time the fork is struck, be so good as to say 'classified information' in Japanese. We will being by handling the case of when you know you are not permitted to say something, but wish to say it anyway.

"being" -> "begin"


Temporal mechanics, to borrow a phrase from Star Trek is certainly very interesting.  I agree with your interpretation here about localized disturbances between time planes that can be isolated and thus made null.  I've always considered that the nature of the universe is quantum, and as such, even with two timelines, one can't make a stable grandfather paradox because eventually, over enough iterations (as in a timequake), a statistically improbable event will emerge that breaks the loop--or, at least, leads to a significant change.  I get the feeling this is the kind of thing you were thinking about with the nature of timequakes:  that something statistically improbable ends the looping and seals the instability in some permanent way.

It's a bit difficult to know exactly how it is you see the mechanics of time travel here; the story is told well enough that it's not necessary to have all that explained right away.


I have my suspicions about the identity of the Hag in the Other Room, but it's far too early to be certain.  You've crafted a detailed scenario regarding the circumstances around Mikuru's childhood and the time travel organization.  The only thing that still nags at me a little bit is that Michaela still feels like a snarky kid.  Perhaps it's your intention to transform her or to show that the Mikuru we know is, in some way, put-on.  Conversely, it may be you see no real disconnect there at all, and it's my mental image of this character that's mistaken.  I admit, I'm still not entirely sure what to make of her, so don't take that as a major criticism.  Keep up the good work!

Incidentally, does anyone have a Japanese edition of the Haruhi novels (or know a convenient way to obtain them), by any chance?

As a point of curiosity, I'm trying to dig up something to verify that canon!Mikuru (as opposed to my version) is either definitively Japanese or definitively foreign-looking. Kyon refuses to provide a description beyond 'light brown hair' (rendered as orange in the illustrations/anime), instead mostly describing his extreme moe overload from looking at her. The closest I've come is a phrase stating that the Disappearance version of her is 'just an ordinary foreign senior', but it could just be a translation of something like 留学生, which wouldn't be 100% conclusive -- I'm not sure if 留学 connotes specifically foreign exchange, or just any change of location done for the purposes of study. (Though I'm coming up blank right now as to which Asian ethnicities other than the Japanese have naturally brown hair...)

To be clear (although it should be reasonably obvious for the chapter), the scenario I have in mind for Michaela Jennings fitting into Japan is that she passes herself off as the Caucasian-looking child of an interracial couple, which is not unheard-of. (And since she conspicuously hangs around with the daughter of the Tsuruya clan, people aren't particularly inclined to pry into her family history.) Currently this is taking tremendous suspension of disbelief on my part to write, for a variety of reasons.

Anyhow, it's becoming an increasingly thorny issue for me to investigate. Particularly as I need to rationalize why the Bureau would finally agree to send Michaela instead of an Asian candidate, of which there would be no shortage in Montreal (whether you came looking now or in the 2080s).

I think you may be thinking about it a bit too hard.  :/

I ... may be able to dig up a copy of the novels in Japanese, though I wouldn't be surprised if someone else here could do it faster.

Still....  Haruhi doesn't list her as having 'foreign' qualities when she first describes Mikuru -- honestly, I don't get the impression she sticks out from anyone else in the school.  If anything about her were different enough to stick out (visually) , I'd expect that Haruhi would have caught onto it immediately.

From a storytelling standpoint: Are you planning on exploring the role of ethnicity and the dynamics of race relations?  If not, it's just a detail, and you can handle it however you want.  I don't (from here) see how it adds much of anything to the story.

Write whatever explanation works best for you, and not whatever makes you need to strain your own suspension of disbelief. ;)

The below is indeed far too much thinking, but there is a fairly horrifying possible squick I want to avoid.

Quote from: Brian on October 27, 2011, 09:18:27 PM
Still....  Haruhi doesn't list her as having 'foreign' qualities when she first describes Mikuru -- honestly, I don't get the impression she sticks out from anyone else in the school.  If anything about her were different enough to stick out (visually) , I'd expect that Haruhi would have caught onto it immediately.

I actually have no problem with seeing Haruhi grabbing the school's resident Caucasian as a mascot without so much as commenting on the fact. The only issue is that Haruhi might've used Mikuru to fill the 'mysterious transfer student' slot, but that's answered obviously by the fact that Mikuru has been in the school for one year by then, and is thus no longer a recent transfer student. It's perfectly logical to want your mysterious transfer students fresh and hot, when they're still mysterious! (Kyon, what the hell are you cringing at?) Since Haruhi is already being weird, this aspect of things is easy to stretch.

It might even gel with the computer society blackmail scenario. I'm not precisely sure of how such a scenario might play out in real-world Japan, but Mikuru being only half-Japanese might make Haruhi's blackmail threat that much more horrifying. (My guess is that it would be hushed up in public, but that the Computer Society members would face serious problems behind closed doors.)

My actual problem is that the way the other students treat Mikuru starts to seem a bit weird.

Quote from: Brian on October 27, 2011, 09:18:27 PM
honestly, I don't get the impression she sticks out from anyone else in the school.

That's a very weird idea to me. Putting aside the question of ethnicity -- she already sticks out by virtue of the way she has the attention of the school's male population.

Actually, it's a bit weird. On the one hand, Haruhi picks her as a fan service mascot and it's stated by Kyon that any male student who takes advantage of her can expect swift and merciless retribution from the other male students. On the other hand, there's plainly something that keeps her at the margin of school beauty status -- Haruhi suddenly castigating her as "only appealing to hardcore weirdos" during the filming of the movie comes to mind.

And I seem to have a vague and weird impression that Taniguchi actually ranked Asakura higher (during the brief period she was at North High). He certainly seemed to be far more enthusiastic about Asakura even though he's equally unlikely to hit it off with either girl... Great. Now I have to re-read specifically Taniguchi's dialogue and recheck how he describes Mikuru. Sounds like fun *sarcasm*.

Quote from: Brian on October 27, 2011, 09:18:27 PM
From a storytelling standpoint: Are you planning on exploring the role of ethnicity and the dynamics of race relations?  If not, it's just a detail, and you can handle it however you want.  I don't (from here) see how it adds much of anything to the story.

Precisely because I'm not planning to explore this issue, I want to deal with it delicately... so the issue is not so much adding stuff to the story as not taking anything away from it. The image of Haruhi crashing into a backyard in some completely off-the-wall location and finding Mikuru is a solid start to the story, but as we move closer to canon events we get the image of Mikuru the half-Japanese girl being fawned over by the entire male population of North High. Which, without some kind of additional nuance, is just plain ugly. Heck, it definitely squicked me. I'm trying to figure out if there's some way to deal with it besides forcing the reader to take a deep breath and declare "okay, since Haruhi is also an anime and I, the viewer, had absolutely no ability to determine what race the people were by looking at them, I'm just going to pretend that the characters in the fanfiction have exactly the same problem."

(This fails to work well, in my opinion, for the same reason as retconning Tsuruya as ninkyo dantai went off so beautifully in K:BDH. If Tsuruya is a ninkyo dantai heiress, this implies Kyon has neglected to tell us this fact over 11 novels, which actually makes perfect sense -- it's very likely to be something that would inspire respectful treatment, while being completely taboo to mention explicitly and that people would indeed be only half-conscious of.

Imagining that Mikuru looks foreign, and that Kyon has neglected to tell us this fact, instead dancing around the issue endlessly, falls flat in comparison. On its own it would be a very hackneyed idea for an AU. But if I can find in-novel evidence that this is the case -- and I do need the original Japanese because I don't trust the translation I have to capture such nuances -- then I at least know that Tanigawa thought it was plausible and try to reverse-engineer his thinking on the matter.)

And even if I'm not going to bother with nuancing my approach, I need to figure out how this is supposed to work in order to have some basis for later writing interactions with Tsuruya, the rest of the school, &c.

I should post a Nanoha screenshot at some point which conclusively illustrates my frustration with how some anime (fails to) properly encode racial differences even when they are actually somewhat significant to the story.

Moreover, I want to handle the racial dimensions carefully for another reason. If my approach is too tone-deaf, it's going to be even more tough to import certain themes from Doctor Who which happen to skirt such issues. For instance (I'm not using specifically this one, though, don't want to spoil anything) the Doctor displays a bit of a superiority complex (which can easily be construed as a racial superiority complex) which takes him to some very nasty places:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-9tuPVzobI

EDIT: Great, and Waters of Mars has the Doctor trying to pull off exactly the same trick for rewriting history that's discussed in my chapter. "The details are different, but the story is more or less the same..."

The particular theme I want to import, isn't a race-relations or race-superiority theme, but it would help to have the ethnicities straight for it to come off effectively.

Anyhow, at this point in story planning it's more or less impossible for the events to be taking place anywhere other than Canada, so I can't easily re-edit to make Mikuru an Asian again. (Um... it might become more clear why I can't move it outside Canada when I post the next snippet, or by Chapter 3 at the latest. This issue came up for me while writing the second third of Ch. 2, FWIW.)

I actually have quite a range of options for precisely what Mikuru's appearance is (there's plenty of Caucasian ethnicities Michaela might descend from who have an eyefold, for one thing - I can think of examples even in my family - and that might be passed off as hybrid American-Japanese despite being neither; and, failing that, by the 2080s it's mostly plausible to have Asian-looking people around who are culturally completely European or American), but I have to figure out in what ways canon constrains me.

QuoteActually, it's a bit weird. On the one hand, Haruhi picks her as a fan service mascot and it's stated by Kyon that any male student who takes advantage of her can expect swift and merciless retribution from the other male students. On the other hand, there's plainly something that keeps her at the margin of school beauty status -- Haruhi suddenly castigating her as "only appealing to hardcore weirdos" during the filming of the movie comes to mind.

I'd taken this to mean that she was so admired that anyone making a move on her would be dealt with out of jealousy.  In this way, she was kept apart like a statue to be worshiped.  Not wanting to get involved with anyone probably didn't hurt matters in that respect.  At least, that's how I interpreted those bits.


In a racial context, I definitely see the conundrum.  Michaela loses some of her apparent disadvantages if she's fully Asian instead of mixed, and some of the contradictions and peculiarities of her upbringing are lost as well.  Especially considering how that background lends itself to a unique perspective, it's a tough choice.  Hand-waving it that no one noticed or remarked about it does seem unsatisfying.  Perhaps she can be raised in a strangely mixed sort of environment without being ethnically mixed herself?  I think this is more-or-less what you propose.  It may be the best of both worlds.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 27, 2011, 11:14:44 PMI actually have no problem with seeing Haruhi grabbing the school's resident Caucasian as a mascot without so much as commenting on the fact. The only issue is that Haruhi might've used Mikuru to fill the 'mysterious transfer student' slot, but that's answered obviously by the fact that Mikuru has been in the school for one year by then, and is thus no longer a recent transfer student. It's perfectly logical to want your mysterious transfer students fresh and hot, when they're still mysterious! (Kyon, what the hell are you cringing at?) Since Haruhi is already being weird, this aspect of things is easy to stretch.

It might even gel with the computer society blackmail scenario. I'm not precisely sure of how such a scenario might play out in real-world Japan, but Mikuru being only half-Japanese might make Haruhi's blackmail threat that much more horrifying. (My guess is that it would be hushed up in public, but that the Computer Society members would face serious problems behind closed doors.)

My actual problem is that the way the other students treat Mikuru starts to seem a bit weird.

I ... don't understand what you're trying to get at here.  I've spent a few minutes trying to work it out, but I just can't follow; in Japan, being less than full Japanese will typically cost you respect, not earn you any form of protection.  Well, this was truer twenty years ago than it is today, but still.

Realistically, if Mikuru were visibly non-Japanese, and it was also an issue at Kitago....  No, I just can't see it.  If Mikuru were obviously a foreigner or looked visibly different (beyond being attractive), Haruhi might actually question if Mikuru could be used for the blackmail role.  As a foreigner, her word would just be worth less, making her a worse candidate than Yuki -- not to say that it couldn't work, but--  I just can't see those provisos both lining up.

This requires both Mikuru to be visibly different AND there to be active prejudice in the setting ... neither of which feel right to me. :\

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 27, 2011, 11:14:44 PM

Quote from: Brian on October 27, 2011, 09:18:27 PM
honestly, I don't get the impression she sticks out from anyone else in the school.

That's a very weird idea to me. Putting aside the question of ethnicity -- she already sticks out by virtue of the way she has the attention of the school's male population.

I should have been clearer her -- I meant to say ... Haruhi would mention anything about her that was significantly different as a justification to keep her around (without impinging on Koizumi as the transfer student) -- absolutely, in my mind, Haruhi would have pinned the 'exotic beauty' label on Mikuru if she didn't blend in -- and then likewise followed up the (in my mind incredibly iffy) blackmail scenario with veiled references to Mikuru's 'foreigner' family doing much worse than the authorities.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 27, 2011, 11:14:44 PMActually, it's a bit weird. On the one hand, Haruhi picks her as a fan service mascot and it's stated by Kyon that any male student who takes advantage of her can expect swift and merciless retribution from the other male students. On the other hand, there's plainly something that keeps her at the margin of school beauty status -- Haruhi suddenly castigating her as "only appealing to hardcore weirdos" during the filming of the movie comes to mind.

Reading between the lines, I'm almost positive that Kyon is the 'hardcore weirdo' that Haruhi is referencing there. -_-

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 27, 2011, 11:14:44 PMAnd I seem to have a vague and weird impression that Taniguchi actually ranked Asakura higher (during the brief period she was at North High). He certainly seemed to be far more enthusiastic about Asakura even though he's equally unlikely to hit it off with either girl... Great. Now I have to re-read specifically Taniguchi's dialogue and recheck how he describes Mikuru. Sounds like fun *sarcasm*.

Taniguchi mentions Asakura as an 'A++' and 'the best of the first year'.  He never compares her to Ryouko because as far as we know, he doesn't meet Mikuru until the baseball game (after Ryouko is in Canada).

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 27, 2011, 11:14:44 PMPrecisely because I'm not planning to explore this issue, I want to deal with it delicately... so the issue is not so much adding stuff to the story as not taking anything away from it. The image of Haruhi crashing into a backyard in some completely off-the-wall location and finding Mikuru is a solid start to the story, but as we move closer to canon events we get the image of Mikuru the half-Japanese girl being fawned over by the entire male population of North High. Which, without some kind of additional nuance, is just plain ugly. Heck, it definitely squicked me. I'm trying to figure out if there's some way to deal with it besides forcing the reader to take a deep breath and declare "okay, since Haruhi is also an anime and I, the viewer, had absolutely no ability to determine what race the people were by looking at them, I'm just going to pretend that the characters in the fanfiction have exactly the same problem."

(This fails to work well, in my opinion, for the same reason as retconning Tsuruya as ninkyo dantai went off so beautifully in K:BDH. If Tsuruya is a ninkyo dantai heiress, this implies Kyon has neglected to tell us this fact over 11 novels, which actually makes perfect sense -- it's very likely to be something that would inspire respectful treatment, while being completely taboo to mention explicitly and that people would indeed be only half-conscious of.

Huh.  Actually, I always consider Tsuruya to be from a yakuza family in everything I write.  It's just not something she advertises.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 27, 2011, 11:14:44 PMI should post a Nanoha screenshot at some point which conclusively illustrates my frustration with how some anime (fails to) properly encode racial differences even when they are actually somewhat significant to the story.

And in the universe of Hayate the Combat butler, you can tell that someone's poor just by looking at their face, no matter how finely they're dressed.  <_<

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 27, 2011, 11:14:44 PMI actually have quite a range of options for precisely what Mikuru's appearance is (there's plenty of Caucasian ethnicities Michaela might descend from who have an eyefold, for one thing - I can think of examples even in my family - and that might be passed off as hybrid American-Japanese despite being neither; and, failing that, by the 2080s it's mostly plausible to have Asian-looking people around who are culturally completely European or American), but I have to figure out in what ways canon constrains me.

My head hurts.  I'm sorry, I read all of that, and I still don't understand why it's so important for your story.  I do understand that it's important to you, so I'm sorry I can't help.  This conversation has taken (to me) a turn for the utterly bizzare and counfounding.  I'll have to excuse myself now, as it's just moved beyond me.

Good luck!

Hmm... well, the fact that you're so confused does tell me that my assumptions on the issue are coming from a very different place, which may very well be wrong, or I might be noticing something you aren't which I just can't seem to express properly, I honestly don't know. I'd say this was important for me to have found out... trust me that I have a headache probably to match or exceed your own.

One point I could make is that since Japan is a homogenous culture, issues of ethnicity come up so rarely that generally one doesn't have to think about them at all (either while being Japanese, or just while writing fanfiction set in Japan), unlike in North America. That makes it extra difficult to determine how people might react when such issues do come up, as with the blackmail scenario if we pretend Mikuru is foreign... if the accusation is made, are the computer society members let off more easily? or are they not treated well because by picking on the foreigner they're making extra trouble for everyone, forcing the authorities to think about things they normally have the luxury of not thinking about?

Your point that Haruhi would in fact mention out loud Mikuru's foreign-ness is a good one, and I have to think about how that changes my version of the canon timeline, and whether I need to steer clear of that scene or acknowledge it directly...

For what it's worth, based on my impressions of feedback so far, people aren't having much of an issue with the required suspension of disbelief? If so, I'll just keep that aspect as-is, perhaps editing a bit to make sure (by how I handle her interactions with the other people in Montreal) that Mikuru comes across as painfully cute and an outlier wherever she is. Since I'm writing from her POV, and I didn't see her as particularly self-conscious of this fact, I completely failed to think about this question. And it was by failing to do so, that I suddenly found myself staring at the unintentional squick of "this story seems to imply that the author thinks Caucasian girls are prone to inducing moe overload in Japanese high school students" >_<

I think I've nailed down a scenario for foreign-Mikuru (with the working assumption that the line in Disappearance does actually say she is a 'foreign senior'). It actually gives me a basis for explaining how she becomes friends with Tsuruya, so -- talking through this was helpful -- I do hope the fact that this conversation reveals further weird and probably inaccurate details of my worldview isn't turning you off the actual story...

My end goal is that, reading the final story, people won't have to think about / be confused by this kind of stuff.

Okay, I found a Japanese edition of the novels, and the word used to describe Disappearance!Mikuru is 見知らぬ which obviously has absolutely nothing to do with foreign-ness. It has to do with the fact that Kyon doesn't know her. And yet it got translated as 'foreign'.

Whatever translation team did my English version is not very good.

Which part of the novel is that in?  I think I'll check my copy when I get home for that part.

This is immediately after Kyon's first meeting with the alternate Nagato, after she hands him a sign-up form for the literature club. He then goes on to sum up the situation he's found himself in:

QuoteI grew silent, Nagato-style. In many ways, it turned a little cold. There was a limit to all my faked courage.

Nagato had turned into a bespectacled book-loving girl. Asahina-san had turned into a foreign senior. Koizumi had never transferred to North High, probably still studying somewhere else.

What on earth was this?

Foreign can also mean 'unknown'.  Contamination is usually because of 'foreign' elements, for example.  It doesn't actually have to mean 'culturally' or 'racially'.  In context, this instance of Mikuru is foreign compared to the one he knows.

Somewhat related: I remember when I was very, very young being confused by an interview on television with an illegal alien (described only as 'alien').  My four-year old mind couldn't understand how the public did not yet know we'd already gone past a first-contact situation.

Oops?

Yeah, using "foreign" in that context isn't wrong, but the phrasing they used could've been sharpened quite a bit.  Asahina had turned into what, a stranger, right?  I can't think of anything more simple or straightforward than that.

Okay, here's the second part of Chapter 2 (attached at the top of the thread, as opposed to here).

As you might guess, I had the chapter written a while ago, and spent most of my time banging my head against the characterizations. Still not entirely satisfied. My concern is that the variant of Haruhi presented here is far too unlikable compared with the one in Chapter 1. If you find her comparable to year1!Haruhi, then I'll know I need to do a few more rounds of rewriting. This would actually be a good thing about which to be arbitrarily brutal in your commentary :-$

EDIT: (remembers that Year1!Haruhi was effectively a molester) Well, I didn't mean in that sense, but you get the gist of my fears.

QuoteI had to lean against my knees to catch my breath a little, while Haruhi just tossed her hair back with her hand dramatically, all the while wearing a downcast, Saturnine smile.

Leaning against knees, so she's...what, doubled over?

Repetition of "while," also.

Quote"... but seeing as you at least brought a book by the right author, I'd be quite happy to sign it for you! ..."

It seems odd that this woman (who seems to be the author) would refer to herself as "the right author."  Perhaps "a book I wrote" or something?

Quote"Exactly." Haruhi rejoined, taking large bites of her current slice of cake. "He just sidled up out of nowhere and started bitching about his life and how awful his boss was, and eventually I snapped and shouted at him that she couldn't be all that bad to justify wasting my time with his complaints. He asked 'would you like to see for yourself?' and I barged in and discovered that his boss was actually an alien. At which point we caught the thread of a huge, messy interplanetary conspiracy which we followed across twelve different star systems, right back to Earth, to Peru..."

I think you want "Exactly," instead of period (full stop, etc.).

Quote"The only equipment you really need -- duct tape for taping up what shouldn't be moving but does, WD-42 for greasing what should be moving but isn't, and a dual-adjustable tuning fork to resonate things that refuse to resonate properly." Haruhi explained as though rattling off a memorized joke, "More complicated repairs you probably want to leave to a specialist."

WD-42?  Eheheh.

Quote"Acknowledged."

Seems an odd word for any of the players to use here.

Quote"I never understood how you managed to adapt that recipe from 'so awful my life was flashing before my very eyes' to 'refreshingly light and fluffy' in the space of fifteen minutes." Jon wondered.

And "minutes," probably.

Quote"Unfortunately, there's something else we need to check before that." Jon added.

And "that," as well.

Quote"Prostethic knee." Haruhi explained to me without missing a beat.

And "knee,".


Oh, clever clever.  We don't actually see what's going on.

I think Haruhi's behavior here is excusable here, given that we're catching her at a different time and we know that eventually she'll act differently.  Jon seems a reasonable "companion" for her as well.

Dumont seemed to be talking a lot like an interface.

Quote from: Muphrid on November 06, 2011, 06:00:14 PM

QuoteI had to lean against my knees to catch my breath a little, while Haruhi just tossed her hair back with her hand dramatically, all the while wearing a downcast, Saturnine smile.

Leaning against knees, so she's...what, doubled over?

I see that did not come out at all right.

Will reword!

Quote from: Muphrid on November 06, 2011, 06:00:14 PM

Quote"... but seeing as you at least brought a book by the right author, I'd be quite happy to sign it for you! ..."

It seems odd that this woman (who seems to be the author) would refer to herself as "the right author."  Perhaps "a book I wrote" or something?

Yep, that's Mrs. Dumont for you.

What's off is that this makes the reader doubt for a second that she's the author, I guess? This is (I now realize) easily fixed by actually having the people in the lineup do something and pay attention to this woman that arrives (and act slightly taken aback that she singles out Haruhi for some reason).

Quote from: Muphrid on November 06, 2011, 06:00:14 PM
I think you want "Exactly," instead of period (full stop, etc.).

Judging by how frequently I did that, I was having a bad comma day :-/

Quote from: Muphrid on November 06, 2011, 06:00:14 PM
WD-42?  Eheheh.

Was that a bit too much, I wonder? (Especially with the subsequent Silence in the Library shout-out, couldn't help myself >_<)

Quote from: Muphrid on November 06, 2011, 06:00:14 PM

Quote"Acknowledged."

Seems an odd word for any of the players to use here.

Hmm... the characters here might disagree. They tried to act in-character on previous occasions and it led to some fairly epic and pointless arguments.

I'm not sure whether to change it or not....

Quote from: Muphrid on November 06, 2011, 06:00:14 PM
I think Haruhi's behavior here is excusable here, given that we're catching her at a different time and we know that eventually she'll act differently.  Jon seems a reasonable "companion" for her as well.

I just figured out why Haruhi kept refusing to be written likably in this one.



So now that I'm more aware of this dimension of things, I can write it into the chapter a little more explicitly so that it becomes obvious why Haruhi's behavior seems so blunt and inconsiderate.

Quote from: Muphrid on November 06, 2011, 06:00:14 PM
Dumont seemed to be talking a lot like an interface.

Thank you very much for that C&C; it seems to have jogged my brain nicely on some of the tricky issues I was facing, and therefore was supremely helpful :-)

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on November 06, 2011, 07:28:51 PM
I just figured out why Haruhi kept refusing to be written likably in this one.

And now I've figured out why my first idea as to how to fix this is fundamentally wrong. Essentially, the fix I suggested (play up the 'Haruhi is tired and stressed out' angle) would work if I was trying to get it across that Haruhi is currently floating somewhere on the INTP end of the personality spectrum, but given that such a notion has absolutely nothing to do with either Haruhi or the Doctor... the more I think about it, the more wrong it seems, actually. Sure, a Haruhi stressed out as all hell might display some staggering dysfunctions, but as written they're ridiculously close to the sorts of dysfunctions I'd display in a similar situation. There's probably more suitable characters to use this sort of approach on.

So this has to do with thinking I've been doing regarding my most recent spectacular failure of empathy on the forum, actually ._. -- my own character is a discussion for another time (namely for when Brian logs on and needs to consider the question of whether he's willing to tolerate my further presence here), but essentially that incident has given me an important bit of feedback as to precisely how I'm Doing It Wrong (in writing as well as in personal interaction), at a spectacular cost.

This also means that a bit I thought was fairly strong (Haruhi giving an obfuscated description of her current situation), is actually insanely OOC, but in general this portion of the chapter is going to need a lot more work than I previously thought.

Do you think that the core trigger (her being stressed out and irritable) is what to keep, or was that principally to fuel the reactions she had to it?  If the former, then this is a way for Mikuru to understand Haruhi's character better, and any choice is a valid choice (provided you feel it's consistent).  If the latter, then that can be sticky, since if you decide those reactions are out of character, it will make you restructure things a good bit.

...well, that's how I see things generally, anyway.  I'll be interested to see how you're thinking of revising things.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on November 10, 2011, 09:24:39 PMSo this has to do with thinking I've been doing regarding my most recent spectacular failure of empathy on the forum, actually ._. -- my own character is a discussion for another time (namely for when Brian logs on and needs to consider the question of whether he's willing to tolerate my further presence here), but essentially that incident has given me an important bit of feedback as to precisely how I'm Doing It Wrong (in writing as well as in personal interaction), at a spectacular cost.

*eyeroll*

Arakawa, if I had a problem with you being here, believe me, you would know.  I left to clear my head out, and to encourage you to stay, because you're a valuable member of the fanfiction community here.  In fact, I still am grateful to you for providing Muphrid with C&C, as I cannot!

I may be vexed, but still appreciate your contributions on behalf of others.  Considering that all of the conflict is between you and I specifically, wouldn't it be more logical to think that I'm the one with issues, not you?

--I'm not back, because I have to do a lot more thinking, but I can't leave you feeling or thinking things like that.   Makes me feel ill.  -_-

Let me be the emo drama queen on this one; you continue being a functional, contributing member of the scene.

It needs you.  Just like I happen to need space at the moment.

More will have to wait until some future junction; in the meantime, let me thank you again for your commentary elsewhere, and apologize if my reactions have impacted your writing.

/me vanishes again.

Quote from: Brian on November 11, 2011, 01:12:40 AM
I may be vexed, but still appreciate your contributions on behalf of others.  Considering that all of the conflict is between you and I specifically, wouldn't it be more logical to think that I'm the one with issues, not you?

It's a complicated issue. Sure, I'm aware of how you've reacted in the past to other people vexing you, but I also seem to have a set of personal flaws that, unless I watch them carefully, seems custom-designed to trigger a reaction in you. However, they aren't likely to be pleasant for anyone else to deal with, either. I can certainly see calmer people than you just talking to me, running into the same problems, and quietly deducting a point or two in their estimation of me before quietly resolving to avoid me in future. In that sense, I can definitely admire that fact that you don't hold your opinions back.

On my end, when you're in the mood, I definitely owe a clear explanation of what I like about your writing that makes me interested in coming here to C&C it, among other things. I did make it through all 48 chapters of K:BDH so far, for instance, while quitting other superficially similar epic-length nakama-fests by other authors partway through out of sheer indifference (thinking in particular of such stuff as the Shinji-warhammer fusion, Partially Kissed Hero, &c &c), so from where I stand you seem to be doing something very right that the other authors aren't bothering to do.

And I did consider joining Soulriders based solely on the fact that you mentioned it as a smaller and more constructive community than ff.net, so hopefully that's an action which speaks to my respect of you.

Quote from: Brian on November 11, 2011, 01:12:40 AM
--I'm not back, because I have to do a lot more thinking, but I can't leave you feeling or thinking things like that.   Makes me feel ill.  -_-

Ah... that was not the intent here. I was trying to figure out whether you would feel relieved or not if I were to limit my presence on the forum for a while (was still going to update my own story and comment on Murphid's no matter what though, since you'd essentially bowed out of those threads earlier on). I seem to have guessed wrong :-|

Quote
More will have to wait until some future junction; in the meantime, let me thank you again for your commentary elsewhere, and apologize if my reactions have impacted your writing.

In this case the impact is going to be for the better, actually, but apology gratefully accepted since your response makes it much more clear where I stand right now.

On to writing.

Quote from: Muphrid on November 10, 2011, 11:15:18 PM
Do you think that the core trigger (her being stressed out and irritable) is what to keep, or was that principally to fuel the reactions she had to it?

The point that I was trying to get across is that after rereading my most recent fragment, I noted that a bunch of my own negative traits had crept into my portrayal of Haruhi, to such an extent that it indicates I haven't thought the character through and I'm sort of defaulting to a couple of stereotypes and a healthy dose of projection. A couple of the dysfunctions displayed here would probably be more interesting on some other character, say, Koizumi.

(... that's a definite character discussion thread entry in the works, by the way.)

Now as for who this Haruhi really is, the whole fact that she apparently has Time Lord biology at this point does give me a lot of leeway in terms of characterization. (For people unfamiliar with Doctor Who, she would effectively be the same character as in chapter 1, but as though played by a completely different actress doing a completely different interpretation, resulting in a different exterior personality.) However, if I'm going to have an incarnation in this chapter who is an inversion of canon!Haruhi in some aspects, I need to figure out some intentional logic according to which I can do that.

I can probably do this relative to a few fixed points: she's probably feeling quite aimless and bitter, is playing a Doctor Who-type scenario she doesn't really care about (which isn't even brought about by her powers; however, she's not inclined to break the rules at this stage to get out of it), she's somewhat nostalgic for her Brigade days (probably to the extent of looking at them through rose-tinted glasses), and also I happen to know what her previous Time Lord incarnations were doing. I just need to express all this in slightly more Haruhi-like fashion.

Which might not diverge from the current chapter that much, but it's really the feel of the thing I need to fix, not so much what she does during the chapter. It's important to get the characterization right here, because in the next segment it'll probably make the difference with Haruhi coming up with an ingenious, well-intentioned, and slightly-flawed plan to make Mikuru's life better (without having to forcibly retcon her entire timeline, which would be tantamount to erasing the Mikuru she knew from existence in favour of an 'improved' version -- yep, Murphid, you did point that out on 'the Coin' thread as something that might not be a good use of Haruhi's power), and communicating it to Mikuru properly, or with Haruhi coming up with the same plan, now appearing well-intentioned but completely misguided and heading into total squiiiiiiick, with Mikuru having the wrong impression about what's going to happen based solely on Haruhi's attitude.

I don't know, wild, whirling words. You can tell I'm still wrestling with this.