[Haruhi (AU) / Doctor Who] Anywhere in This World (Mikuru-POV)

[Brian]

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.

[Arakawa]

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.

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.

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...

... 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?

[Arakawa]

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.

[Arakawa]

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!

[sarsaparilla]

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.

[Brian]

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.

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

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?)

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. ^_^;;

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...

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. @_@

[Arakawa]

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.)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

[Arakawa]

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.

[Muphrid]

"... 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?

"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?

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

"it,"?

"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.

"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,"?

"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.

Hopefully 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.

"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).

"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..."

"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.

In 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.

In 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?

At 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?

Correct. 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.

Each 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!

[Arakawa]

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).

[Brian]

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. ;)

[Arakawa]

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

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.

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*.

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.

[Muphrid]

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.

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.

[Brian]

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.

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. :\

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.

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.

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

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*.

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).

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.

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

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.

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.  <_<

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.

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!

[Arakawa]

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.