A wild plot bunny attacks Oroboro.
It's super effective!
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Random oneshot I thought up awhile back. Took me longer to write than I thought it would, thanks to the VN project and some other stuff getting in the way.
Blurb:
"One year after the first time, Haruhi wakes up in Closed Space again. But this time, Kyon isn't at her side..."
Haruhi reflects on the nature of dreams, how she doesn't remember most of her dreams, save for one that we all know wasn't a dream at all. This actually sounds pretty familiar. Hal and Brian felt Haruhi would remember (or fail to remember) her dreams to the same degree.
Haruhi finds herself back in closed space once more.
QuoteTaking a deep breath, I spread my arms and savored the sensation of this place. All my memories from the first time I was here are flooding back, in perfect detail. To be honest, this place kind of has a oppressive atmosphere, but that's okay. Even something slightly unpleasant like that makes everything more awesome in the end.
Tense: were flooding back, or perhaps just flooded back. Also, I tend to be careful about saying "this place" or that when the narrative is in past tense, but that's up to you.
An, not a, oppressive atmosphere.
QuoteHuh? Kyon's... not here? Spinning around, he isn't anywhere in sight. He's not sleeping by my feet like last time, nor anywhere else in my field of vision. I suppose there are plenty of shadows and places around corners he could be hiding. He could even be in the school, for all I know.
Now you slip into present tense for at least a while.
Haruhi manages to break into the building and finds nothing, no one in the club room, no sign of Kyon. Haruhi is pretty up-front about wanting to find Kyon around here, somewhere.
Haruhi finds a bike and is able to pedal away from the school without running into the boundary of the space. She goes to Kyon's house, throws rocks at his window to no avail, and climbs up a pipbe to find the house empty.
She turns on a light and wonders if this is really a dream, given the level of detail. She finds Kyon's homework and knows this is his room but is still uncertain it's a dream. To me, it's odd that she dismisses the problem of it being a dream. If it's a dream, then nothing she finds there is reliable. This goes to the general question of whether she thought Kyon was really in her dream (last year) or just a figment of her imagination in the first place. If he's real, then though he doesn't remember, that he kissed her means something pretty serious. If he's a figment, then it makes more sense that she expects him to be there as she revisits this dream, but it also means nothing actually matters.
Haruhi goes through the whole of the room to find Kyon's leather-bound journal in a hidden panel, but she hesitates to read it, thinking of how aghast she'd be if Kyon found something of hers to read through. For some reason, she also thinks Kyon would outright refuse to read such a thing himself, that he's "better than that". This point in particular I think goes by too fast to really sink in. We may believe Haruhi inwardly has a high opinion of Kyon, but she doesn't usually show that so openly. Treating the reader differently because she's the narrator here...well, you can do it, but the difference is noticeable.
Kyon takes that moment to walk in, accosting her, and Haruhi suddenly begins to cry. Haruhi describes it as "something she regrets more than anything else she'd ever done." This is a pretty strong statement. I like that she thinks to herself how it isn't fair, how she was about to put it back and had already made the right decision and was being punished for a misunderstanding, but before she even can explain that, she cries? I feel like the emotions are hitting a bit fast and without enough warning, really.
Anyway, Kyon believes her, seemingly out of the blue, and he reveals that the journal is really something from middle school that he hardly ever used. They talk some more, and again, the question of whether this is a dream or a reality comes up. Strangely, Haruhi thinks to ask Kyon this question, which he answers rather perfectly, I will admit, and Haruhi's reasoning for wanting that place to be real feels, in my opinion, true to her as well. Kyon's response is excellent. A kiss in situations like these has probably been done thousands of times. A pillow to the face is unique, and the ending is very good, too.
Overall, I think this can work. A little tightening of the logic, sequencing, and pacing would be a good start.
Vague impressions time!
We have Haruhi in a closed space, it's the one year anniversary of the Melancholy dream, and she wanted to go back and see it for herself. She notes that no one else is around, heads over to Kyon's house in search of him. She doesn't find him, then when she finally decides she's alone in the dream, she sees that she has all the details of Kyon's room down past what she could reasonably expect from a dream - and then proceeds to ransack Kyon's room looking for stuff.
She finds a journal, resolves not to read it, then is interrupted by Kyon himself showing up while she's holding the journal. He takes her word that she hasn't read it, then gets into a pillow fight with him - and then wakes up in her own bedroom while Kyon shows up from the closed space sequence in novel 11.
Overall:
Most of the piece was spent wondering "okay, where exactly is this going?" Haruhi encountering a closed space in her dreams is definitely something you can get mileage out of, but in this case she doesn't really do much with it - she spends almost the entire time looking for Kyon.
There are several threads that are started and then dropped later; for example, Haruhi's realization that she's seeing too much detail in the closed space for it to be a dream (like, for example, that she was able to find a secret compartment that Kyon built into the room that she had literally -no- way to know even existed from her experience in the real world). Is this a seed for her to realize that this isn't actually a dream? Possibly, but the fic ends without any kind of resolution to this either way; if this is intended as a one-shot it's beyond the scope of what you could reasonably cover, but it would be something to at least lampshade towards the end.
Another thread that feels fumbled is the journal itself; given Kyon's apparent anger about it, the fact that it gets handwaved as being something from his middle school days that wasn't even used feels like a lost opportunity (or a mischaracterization on Kyon's part, if he's actually lying about what's in it - but more on this in a bit.) My first thought on seeing this is that it's the journal that is/becomes the light novels themselves, and Kyon is panicking over whether Haruhi's actually read into it at all and found out about her own abilities. If that really is what it is, then Kyon manages to rattle off a convincing lie to Haruhi without breaking a sweat, when we have no canon evidence that he's ever directly lied to her before.
Characterization:
Haruhi definitely has her usual energy here, but lacks any real curiosity until she gets to Kyon's house, which seems a little off. She's managed to get into closed space again of her own volition, and recognizes it as where she was before, but what does it mean that she could dream the same thing again when she wanted to? What is this place? What else is there to find? Focusing on finding Kyon would certainly be a priority, but I don't think to the point that she'd lose sight of the place she was in, or not stop to take in more details about it.
As well, once Kyon shows up, she seems to place a lot more weight on his expressions/reactions and show her own emotions -far- more honestly than I'd really expect her to. She might realize that she was in the wrong to rifle through Kyon's stuff, but there are some easy counters, too, primarily: "it's my own dream, so why the hell can't I just do what I want in it? It's not like I've been going through your -actual- room, after all." While I do agree that she'd be nervous and upset at being caught, where I disagree is that I don't think she'd let Kyon see it.
From Kyon's side, I'm not sure he'd be that angry at finding Haruhi in such a situation, either. It's possible that what we're seeing is Haruhi misinterpreting his expression, but given his usual personality, I think he'd be a. shocked and slightly worried at being in a closed space with Haruhi again, b. amazed that she's in the process of ransacking his room for some reason, and finally c. irritated (but not necessarily all that surprised) by the invasion of privacy.
It's definitely possible that Haruhi is locking on to the anger/irritation and simply missing or ignoring the rest, but it seems out of proportion to what the situation really warrants overall - and although it can be tricky to show it from Haruhi's PoV, trying to include hints for the reader that Haruhi is blowing things out of proportion can help with that.
On the technical side, I didn't do a line-by-line, but even without doing so I noted a lot of issues with tense skipping back and forth between past and present.
On the whole, I didn't think it was bad, but it lacks much of a direction from the opening. To me, that shows throughout the story - there's no clear concept of why Haruhi is here or what she hopes to accomplish, and so the story feels a bit lost - just bouncing around between things that happen with no real sense of cohesiveness.
Thanks for the replies!
QuoteKyon takes that moment to walk in, accosting her, and Haruhi suddenly begins to cry. Haruhi describes it as "something she regrets more than anything else she'd ever done." This is a pretty strong statement. I like that she thinks to herself how it isn't fair, how she was about to put it back and had already made the right decision and was being punished for a misunderstanding, but before she even can explain that, she cries? I feel like the emotions are hitting a bit fast and without enough warning, really.
I'll note here that she's supposed to be fighting off tears, not actually crying. Bit of a difference, but I'll try to make that more clear. (If not change it entirely)
QuoteMy first thought on seeing this is that it's the journal that is/becomes the light novels themselves, and Kyon is panicking over whether Haruhi's actually read into it at all and found out about her own abilities. If that really is what it is, then Kyon manages to rattle off a convincing lie to Haruhi without breaking a sweat, when we have no canon evidence that he's ever directly lied to her before.
I considered having it be the novels in the beginning, but decided against it. This way it's just a small red herring, I guess, playing off of that expectation.
Quote
Haruhi definitely has her usual energy here, but lacks any real curiosity until she gets to Kyon's house, which seems a little off. She's managed to get into closed space again of her own volition, and recognizes it as where she was before, but what does it mean that she could dream the same thing again when she wanted to? What is this place? What else is there to find? Focusing on finding Kyon would certainly be a priority, but I don't think to the point that she'd lose sight of the place she was in, or not stop to take in more details about it.
Fantastic experiences are boring if you have nobody to share them with! Like going to a movie alone. I think I'll have Haruhi mess around a bit more before coming to the conclusion that it's just not worth it without Kyon there.
QuoteAs well, once Kyon shows up, she seems to place a lot more weight on his expressions/reactions and show her own emotions -far- more honestly than I'd really expect her to. She might realize that she was in the wrong to rifle through Kyon's stuff, but there are some easy counters, too, primarily: "it's my own dream, so why the hell can't I just do what I want in it? It's not like I've been going through your -actual- room, after all." While I do agree that she'd be nervous and upset at being caught, where I disagree is that I don't think she'd let Kyon see it.
Yeah, I can see that she's probably a bit too expressive. As for the "Is this real or not", part of it was because I needed justification for her to root through his stuff without seeming like too much of a bitch, even if she realizes it later. I'll try and make it more clear and better followed through.
QuoteFrom Kyon's side, I'm not sure he'd be that angry at finding Haruhi in such a situation, either. It's possible that what we're seeing is Haruhi misinterpreting his expression, but given his usual personality, I think he'd be a. shocked and slightly worried at being in a closed space with Haruhi again, b. amazed that she's in the process of ransacking his room for some reason, and finally c. irritated (but not necessarily all that surprised) by the invasion of privacy.
Kyon's side of the story is: Gets woken up at 3 AM by Koizumi telling him Haruhi's managed to get herself into her own closed space and he wants Kyon to go in and get her out. I don't really think there's any way I can portray that from Haruhi's PoV, though.
QuoteIt's definitely possible that Haruhi is locking on to the anger/irritation and simply missing or ignoring the rest, but it seems out of proportion to what the situation really warrants overall - and although it can be tricky to show it from Haruhi's PoV, trying to include hints for the reader that Haruhi is blowing things out of proportion can help with that.
She's definitely blowing it out of proportion, and I'll try to make that more clear.
QuoteOn the technical side, I didn't do a line-by-line, but even without doing so I noted a lot of issues with tense skipping back and forth between past and present.
I'm not sure
what possessed me to write in present tense, it just kind of happened. o_o. Oh well, it's that way now, I'll try and smooth it over.
Quote
On the whole, I didn't think it was bad, but it lacks much of a direction from the opening. To me, that shows throughout the story - there's no clear concept of why Haruhi is here or what she hopes to accomplish, and so the story feels a bit lost - just bouncing around between things that happen with no real sense of cohesiveness.
To be honest, I was vaguely aware of some of the issues you brought up already, but having them spelled out does a lot of good in being able to pinpoint and deal with them.
So, thanks again, and I'm off to give this round two.
Once more unto the breach!
...
Except later. Tired. -_-
As far as the tense thing goes, since you did write so much of the piece in present, that might be the most natural for you here. While it doesn't work for everyone's style of writing (I like to be able to have the character reflect in retrospect, and if they tell it in present then I don't know how to do that), it's not an uncommon thing to do, and it does simplify a lot of messy issues.