[Haruhi] In Your Dreams

[Brian]

I'm not an expert on that aspect in particular as I don't need anything like that, but I believe that the recommended way to approach lucid dreaming (past keeping a dream diary, whose purpose is again motivation, to make you pay attention to your dreams) is to take some particular reality check, like that 'closing mouth and breathing' (although I might choose another one), and then repeat it at regular intervals throughout the day. If you don't condition your mind to do that regularly during your waking hours, it certainly won't remember to do it while you're dreaming.

I think I'll continue using it.

I may be blunt due to the aforementioned lack of empathy I am experiencing at the moment:

It does come out that there is a lot of pressure from both you and Arakawa to ensure that Hal and I present lucid dreaming to your expectations.  This is influencing the story substantially--  There may come a point where we simply choose to break with reality in favor of keeping the story a story, instead of thinly veiled research.

Actually, you already have something in your chapter that ties into the lucid dreaming thing brilliantly:

My blank stare speaks volumes, so the woman clicks her tongue and clarifies, "Mindfulness in all things, Kyon-kun!"

It's slightly unconventional, but Kyon trying to just work on his mindfulness (and there's dozens of well-known exercises to do that) would quite plausibly help with the lucid dreaming aspect of things. Given that you don't specify which book he's reading (so it could easily be made out to contain similar advice), and you're free to take liberties with the specific details of the subject... well, I'd be tempted.

Very well.  I will rework that scene to include his reflections on applying it to what he has so far learned.  I believe that, plus the idea of him recovering his pictures of Haruhi should be sufficient to cover his learning the proper mindset and some motivation.


To address Arakawa's lengthier reply:

Kinda late for this (two word explanation: kinda hoping to sit out this round of forum drama), but a very small bit of C&C for Brian nevertheless...

One wonders at the forum that does not contain drama.

There's... something just a bit off about that one, stylistically. It's in no way necessary to reword, but it seems to me like "established a plan for" and "provide much for the Brigade" might be reworded to use some different words.

Will reword, then.

It's fairly rare when my ideas make it to being genuinely considered by our chief, so achieving another 'win', and not even being there to see the results?

I can sort of put my finger on one interesting possibility for what Tsuruya-san was about to say in her scene, but not quite. Curious to see if my guess is going to be correct. (It probably won't, it's already established that I have a talent for reading things out of other people's stuff that they never intended.)

Tsuruya said exactly what she had intended to.

Considering the annoyance of our transfers....

I assume that refers to transferring from train to train (to bus)? Anyhow, it could be clarified along the lines of "annoyance of having to {transfer / transfer to a different train / change trains} every so often" / "annoyance of having to transfer every so often, dragging our luggage onto a different train"... (it just took me a second to parse your original version which just said 'transfers', making me pause and have to think 'what transfers?').

Yes; this is clumsy.  Will reword again:

Considering the annoyance of our transfers, moving from train to train....

Note: my rewordings are quite possibly rubbish. I'm throwing out five of them at a time in an attempt to be constructive, while still making it clear that I'm not actually insisting you do anything with my comment if you don't want to.

Yes; in a different state, I would appreciate this effort from you.  I realize I should encourage this, because it is a constructive behavior on your part; I am simply not able to properly respect it for what it should be at this precise moment.  The shortcoming is with my current perceptions, not your suggestions.

Yet another dissection to the waking-up process, based on some personal experience (I've spent more time typing all of the thoughts after this point than I have editing them, so feel free to glean whatever you find useful/interesting/suitable and completely ignore the rest):

As an interjection, that is actually drawn from what I believed to be a lucid dream of my own.  Quite probably, given the explanations I am seeing here, I was mistaken, and it was merely dream.  I have already revised it as per Sarsaparilla's objections.

List of details about LD and how they could be worked into the story.

This level of detail becomes too technical and detracts from telling the story.  While the information is interesting, and probably useful elsewhere, I cannot find a place for it here.

This is where I'd put a list of encouraging notes on what I liked about this chapter, but unfortunately I'd have to take sides in the whole "Kyon's mental processes were adjusted by Haruhi" thing. I liked this chapter, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next (even with the Hinamizawa stuff the pacing -- prior to Brian's hasty edit, see below -- works well at getting the plot to the point where things start to get really interesting), but I think you can understand why I want to carefully consider the issue before I can say something meaningful about it.

This is a lot of hulaballoo.  The original intent was just to lampshade the fact that it's not reasonable to expect a normal person to pick things up this fast.  It just happened that the excuse homed in on one of the things that squicked Sarsaparilla.

The detail is not at all important to the story beyond explaining that Kyon is capable now.  In the revision, he achieves this on his own, because no form of mental 'assistance' can be provided without squick.

I would caution that, given the above discussion, it might be good to sort out what the rules are regarding how Kyon and Haruhi are able to affect each other's experience in the shared dream. (Fortunately, the whole "what sort of reality would the contents of a shared dream even possess?" issue strikes me as a very interesting and legitimate philosophical question worth raising in a story, rather than some minefield of squick potential.)

Hal and I have been discussing this for several months at this point; we have a fairly solid plan, and my personal suspicion is that it will very, very quickly jump the rails and leave both you and Sarsaparilla very disappointed that we are not 'accurate' enough, in favor of actually telling the story we set out to.  I only mention this to properly set expectations.

So, this is just one possible way to structure things, though. (One upside is that it ends the chapter in exactly the same state as the existing version.) In this outline, Kyon becomes lucid twice in one night... completely on his own (which is more-or-less plausible if he doesn't have any preconceived notion that he can't do it), and once the next night (possibly with some as-yet-undefined assistance from Haruhi; possibly due to the exercises he's been doing).

Unfortunately, I'm actually quite satisfied with the final scene.  Those are more extensive revisions than I believe the story actually needs.

I don't believe in offering gratitude when it's not genuine, but I do recognize and respect the effort that you and Sarsaparilla have put into your replies.  I will most likely give you genuine thanks when I am capable of feeling such, as I believe you deserve it, despite my current incapability.  But I won't pretend something I cannot currently feel.

[Arakawa]

But on the whole, comparing your experiences with mine makes one thing clear -- lucid dreams reflect the mind of the dreamer, and the rules of one person don't apply to another.

This point bears emphasis, I guess. While it's possible to write the way in which Haruhi and Kyon get to their dream in a more or a less "realistic" fashion (namely, there's a number of objective facts as to what sort of information they're likely to encounter on the topic, and to a much smaller extent there are a few issues of the actual physiology of sleeping and waking -- which vary from person to person to such an extent that it's sort of difficult to even be unrealistic about them), but once they're in the dream it's a question of psychology, and so more or less anything goes, independently of what other people claim is or isn't supposed to happen in a dream. And that's even before you bring Haruhi into the picture...

Thus anything to do with the mechanics of their dream, you can easily use as (an apparently slightly dangerous, but) a potentially extremely effective storytelling tool, since these mechanics can easily be considered to reflect their psychology and worldview on a very deep level.

You find creating easier than transmutating, for me it's the opposite. You can close your eyes and not see anything; I can't, and trying to do that is one of my two most basic reality checks (the other is flying which I can always do in a dream just by stretching my arms on the sides like wings).

The mechanics of flying are for me so different from dream to dream that basing a reality check on them is essentially impossible :-(

The other divergence I have from sources which try to explain to me how my dreams 'should' work, is that in general I seem to have a working mental model of machines, computers, &c. Thus the famous "light switches don't work" reality check... doesn't ever apply to me. And far too many of my dreams involve sitting in front of a computer doing something, which requires the computer to behave in a consistent manner. In general, I find that even printed text works well if I defocus from seeing the actual letters and words and just perceive the meaning on the page directly. (*recalls a number of extremely surreal dreams where I dreamt that I was holding my smartphone, reading replies to my stuff from people on various forums*)

Now for Brian's response...

It does come out that there is a lot of pressure from both you and Arakawa to ensure that Hal and I present lucid dreaming to your expectations.  This is influencing the story substantially--  There may come a point where we simply choose to break with reality in favor of keeping the story a story, instead of thinly veiled research.

In general, a bunch of what was brought up by me and sars seemed like it might strike you as vaguely neat to incorporate, if it didn't require such complicated changes to the story as planned. I'll keep bringing things up as they occur to me, though, since there's a slight chance that something might be both simple enough to include and apropos to the story.

As noted, your approach to things is perfectly valid. I'm slightly disappointed with myself for being unable to present my share of the feedback with the correct emphasis -- as just a pile of information which I thought might be relevant given the direction I thought the story was taking, that you and Hal are free to glean or ignore as you prefer.

Yes; in a different state, I would appreciate this effort from you.  I realize I should encourage this, because it is a constructive behavior on your part; I am simply not able to properly respect it for what it should be at this precise moment.  The shortcoming is with my current perceptions, not your suggestions.

...

I don't believe in offering gratitude when it's not genuine, but I do recognize and respect the effort that you and Sarsaparilla have put into your replies.  I will most likely give you genuine thanks when I am capable of feeling such, as I believe you deserve it, despite my current incapability.  But I won't pretend something I cannot currently feel.

As I think I said earlier, my emotions are to some extent permanently cut off from my psyche in a manner somewhat similar to what you describe, so for once I can relate to your state of mind directly as opposed to intellectually... and (skipping a lot of useless psychological ramblings on the matter) I'll just accept your thanks as being genuine, and wish you good luck with recovering into a more pleasant state of mind...

EDIT:

As an interjection, that is actually drawn from what I believed to be a lucid dream of my own.  Quite probably, given the explanations I am seeing here, I was mistaken, and it was merely dream.  I have already revised it as per Sarsaparilla's objections.

The boundary between a lucid and an ordinary dream is extremely blurry, so convincing yourself that your experience was one or the other kind of thing based on our comments is probably unnecessary... Moreover, if you have a personal experience, that is far more solid as a starting point than research or forum advice, simply because you'll be aware of details in your experience at a level such that we wouldn't ever be able to get across to you with respect to our experiences... the part where Kyon sits up is entirely plausible (as explained, I believe that it's actually an issue of physiology relative to the sleepwalking...sleep-paralysis spectrum), and the fact that I have a completely contrasting experience, in the end, probably only highlights how much liberty you have with the matter.

[Brian]

Changelog:

Revised scene with Nagato on the phone; ideally this will not be squicky, as it no longer involves mental manipulation of any kind.
Revisted scene with Kyon cutting wood and carrying water; on Arakawa's suggestion turned it from a throwaway reference to philosophy into genuine insight into improving the habit of reality-checking.
Revised the scene with Kyon's missing phone to show Kyon's motivation/confidence in the process improving.
Revised Kyon waking up from lucid dream; he's now confused and tangled in his sheets, giving his aunt possibly more reasons to be amused when she looks at him.
Added a few bits to the final scene to try and make it a bit 'cuter'.

Will sleep now.

Edit: Attached old version accidentally.  This is the correct one.

[Arakawa]

One last thing to add.

Hal and I have been discussing this for several months at this point; we have a fairly solid plan, and my personal suspicion is that it will very, very quickly jump the rails and leave both you and Sarsaparilla very disappointed that we are not 'accurate' enough, in favor of actually telling the story we set out to.  I only mention this to properly set expectations.

In general, the further the story progresses, the less need there is to conform to real-world mechanics given Haruhi's involvement. Prior to their actually starting to work on the topic, there was a bunch of information I thought the characters might be likely to be aware of if they've researched the topic, so I pointed that out since it's fairly objective what sorts of claims are commonly made about lucid dreaming. Until Haruhi shows up, we could conceivably argue back and forth about whether Kyon is experiencing a realistic lucid dream or not given who he is as a person, since he's presumably dreaming independently of anything Haruhi is doing. But once Haruhi shows up, given that the content of a shared dream somehow exists neither completely in Kyon's mind nor completely in Haruhi's, it's almost like they're just in some pocket universe which might follow lucid-dream-like rules because Haruhi wants it to (*looks at revised chapter*, in fact, in the latest revised version you basically lampshade the notion via Nagato actually being able to detect the space hosting the dream), but not necessarily be exactly like a lucid dream, or in some respects it might well be nothing like a lucid dream. I'd consider what happens after this chapter to depend much more on Haruhi's intent in starting this whole exercise than on research or anything like that.

[sarsaparilla]

I don't have any remarks to that version other than it seems to work in all respects. There's nothing to make me feel apprehensive. You may have taken some of my suggestions even more literally than I expected; as mentioned several times by now, this is an issue where there's a lot of personal variation.

At the moment I honestly don't know whether I should apologize for causing so much unnecessary work, and possibly having undue influence. I'm probably having an emotional lockdown as well; that's not unusual and will go away after a while anyway.

[Brian]

Umph.  It occured to me during my nap why we have such a disconnect on this, Sarsaparilla.  When one of my shards takes conscious control away from me--  That thing that squicks you is actually a constant fact of my mental state, and that's probably part of why I am not able to see it as 'squick' when it really disturbs you (and trying to would lead me to hating myself).  Also why I include such things incidentally, and the concept of gestalting strikes me as 'neat' (it is in fact, a personal aspiration) instead of 'creepy'.  I simply don't have that mental privacy that you so value.

Take now, when I 'wake up' after an episode and feel like an ass at what I did when my emotions were suppressed.  I guess I was relatively constructive, but I wish I had been much, much more polite about it.  Unfortunately, I have to accept what happens during these periods as my responsibility, since those are all parts of me....  Yes; not constructive to hate parts of myself. -_-

So, now that I'm capable, let me assure you both (Arakawa, Sarsaparilla) that I'm feeling guilty, and grateful beyond words that you both stuck with it and offered constructive criticism anyway.

Arakawa: Your detailed suggestions were welcome, and I wish I had been better able to receive them.

Sarsaparilla: Your insight into the details of lucid dreaming is fascinating, even if I may not have a use for them all.  In this instance, your influence has not yet been undue, as it all revolved around what was intended to be a trivial detail (and somehow, was not at all trivial).

I don't speak for Hal, naturally; I expect he's gleaned an idea or two from this as well.

Anyway.  Thank you again for both your comments and forbearance.

Edit: Clarifying.

[Arakawa]

Hmm... I've been thinking personally as to why I don't share sarsaparilla's squick regarding mental modification. Obviously it's not at all for the same reasons as Brian... but in the end, I see it as some very fine gradations of acceptability, where sars sees the issue as completely black and white.

* Arakawa ponders, of all things, a Touhou/Madoka fic to explore the question (whether mental modification is better seen as horrifying or empowering) in greater detail. Only marginally more likely to happen than a 'Spring of Drowned Man in Panda Suit' fic, though.

Unrelated question for Brian: not entirely sure (my Internet searches didn't bring anything up) -- by gestalting, I can only guess you mean the notion of two separate consciousnesses becoming integrated into one?

[Brian]

Or more than two -- but yes.

[Arakawa]

Or more than two -- but yes.

Interesting. In the general sense of, say, two unrelated people combining into one, I'd say that might be vaguely squicky from my perspective, due to the fact that it might be extremely difficult to see how the process could be reversed. Certainly not a decision to be taken lightly. (Extremely shallow realizations of the notion such as the Fusion Dance in Dragonball aside.) When the shards being combined were originally the same person, though, such objections are probably beside the point...

EDIT:

Spoiler: ShowHide

I only just now realized that novels 10/11 had the latter case of gestalting applied to most of the cast, including Haruhi (whose awareness of the fact was somehow suppressed), with the merging of the alternate versions of each person from two timelines. Not to mention the whole "Haruhi exists as two people -- herself and Yasumi" bit, which is a can of worms the fanbase is probably going to be occupied with for a long time...

[Agasa]

Why hello there! I apologize if i didn't present myself yet in the appropriate forum section, if this is necessary. I'll do it shortly, after deploying my payl- I mean, giving my bit of C&C. I came here specifically for this, after all.

First: Haruhi describes Closed Space in the first paragraph (ch1) like she knows it very well, and experiences it when she sleep, as a dream. This contradicts with canon - Not only she's scared and surprised because she never saw it before in Melancholy, but Koizumi, in many occasions (the start of Disappearance comes to mind because i watched it recently) states that Closed Spaces now occur only when she's scared by a nightmare. She never experiences them directly in canon, except for that one time with Kyon; she'd never say they're fun to watch during her dreams because they're fueled by bad dreams anyways.

Second: some lines seem taken verbatim from canon (for example, "If there's something on your mind, spit it out!" in ch1 looks very similar to a line in Live Alive, i think there was another one but i forgot to note it down) - It's probably to give a throwback to canon, to make it feel more familiar, but to me it just feels cheap. You could do without. Sorry if this sounds too harsh. "Kyon-kun, phone!" in ch2 was cutely awesome, tho.

Third: Haruhi's characterization feels a tad bit off in the first chapter, apart from what i mentioned already, she does start a bit harsh, reminding me of the earlier, less sociable Haruhi of Melancholy. We're between Indignation and Dissociation, so i'd expect her to be a bit less tsuntsun. The inner monologue is perfectly fine, it's the words she says to Kyon that sound too harsh. Maybe it's just me, that came to expect a leveler Haruhi after being accustomed with K:BDH. Damn cross-canon contamination!
Also, from the time spent with Kyon's little sister and her comment on the kid when she first met her, I can infer she likes kids. I'm not sure about babysitting, but for her to have a so negative opinion of it sounds weird.

Fourth: You sometimes repeat stuff that's quite obvious if you know the canon, and adds nothing to the narration. I'll try to track the instances of this down, but for now i remember only one: "The more mature girl (even though they are the same age)" when talking about Miyokichi in ch2 could be changed in "The more mature-looking girl", or something to that effect.

Fifth: Plain old fumbled phrase, ch2: "I'm sure my cousins probably can't read the more complex kanji of the title anyway". Either he's sure, or he thinks that they can't probably read that. You can't be "sure" "probably", at least not if you're Kyon. Maybe Haruhi could...

Now something that is not critique :D :
First: What if Haruhi actually succeeds in doing a dream shared with Kyon? Koizumi will have a field day. If his predictions are anything to go by (and i hope Kyon finds a way to patch it), that way, that supernatural aspect will surely become commonplace. The universe will be on the verge of being toast once again. Yare Yare...

Second: Can i consider this a prequel to K:BDH? Pretty Please? You swapped Mion with Rika as the official Kei-wife, is the change plot-important?


Edit:I just finished the second chapter.
Blazing hilarious. I can imagine the scene. I can't imagine Haruhi slack-jawed in surprise, tho.
Kyon's "No, " is the most epic piece of dialogue i read in a while. Thanks for the read.

[Brian]

Why hello there! I apologize if i didn't present myself yet in the appropriate forum section, if this is necessary. I'll do it shortly, after deploying my payl- I mean, giving my bit of C&C. I came here specifically for this, after all.

Welcome; Dracos will be around to bitegreet you shortly.

Fourth: You sometimes repeat stuff that's quite obvious if you know the canon, and adds nothing to the narration. I'll try to track the instances of this down, but for now i remember only one: "The more mature girl (even though they are the same age)" when talking about Miyokichi in ch2 could be changed in "The more mature-looking girl", or something to that effect.

I think it's clear that Miyokichi actually is more mature, but that segment was slated for some minor revisions, so I will take another look at it when I get home tonight.  I don't personally have an issue with restating the canon to a slight degree in the opening chapters, or when reintroducing an element from the novels that hasn't been brought on-screen yet.  My major issue is that giving Miyokichi less attention right there makes her later involvement feel abrupt and out-of-the-blue.

Further, she doesn't have a greatly significant role in the story as planned, so it seemed fair enough.  I'm not trying to dismiss this critique out of hand, though.  Perhaps when I go over it again later, I will see that I've overdone it.  If so, I can probably make the observations more relevant by using them to bring Kyon's thoughts back around to Haruhi, which makes the last-minute remembering-the-book part feel more integrated instead of tacked on.

That might be a good compromise.

Also, as a note to myself, I need to finish revising to address Kyon's reasons for bringing up 'that dream' with Haruhi in his PoV.

Fifth: Plain old fumbled phrase, ch2: "I'm sure my cousins probably can't read the more complex kanji of the title anyway". Either he's sure, or he thinks that they can't probably read that. You can't be "sure" "probably", at least not if you're Kyon. Maybe Haruhi could...

Oops.  I can see how this got missed; I will make a note to address that, too; thanks for catching that error.

Second: Can i consider this a prequel to K:BDH? Pretty Please? You swapped Mion with Rika as the official Kei-wife, is the change plot-important?

I guess you could?  I can't say I would, but I won't stop you -- there's no intentional ties between this story and K:BDH beyond the personalities of the cousins; there's no polyamory here because it would not serve the plot.  In fact, chapter two does specifically state that Kyon's 'aunts' all have their own husbands, so it'd take some doing (I think).  The main thing is, because they're more normalized, Kyon's mother also has a less antagonistic relationship with Keiichi (note the 'An-chan' she greets him with).

Right; thanks for the commentary.  I need to take another look at the chapter over all and make sure my last round of revisions are smoothly/organically integrated, so I'll probably have yet another revision out later today.  (This is a bad habit I've gotten from work, where the engineers will give us as many as 27 revisions of the same software before it's 'done'.)  I greatly appreciate the time you took to leave these comments.

And the robots you faced. ;)

[Halbarad]

I'll reply to the points that apply to my chapter:

1) She actually -isn't- frightened during the Melancholy dream; Kyon even comments on it directly: "How come you don't look anxious at all?" The primary thing she shows in the Melancholy dream is curiosity and a measure of excitement - although whether that's simply because of the nature of the dream, the fact that she's conscious to experience it, or because Kyon is there to share it with her is open to debate.

And as far as further closed space formation goes, Koizumi does mention that it occurs mostly during the hours where she's asleep in Disappearance, but that doesn't rule out the possibility of her glimpsing the spaces in her dreams anyway. Most people have several dreams in a single night, so it's possible that a nightmare might spawn a closed space that she then sees in a later dream on the same night.

I'm not even going to try to argue that it's canon that Haruhi would be aware of closed spaces through her dreams, but canon certainly doesn't rule out the possibility that it could happen.

2) If this is the case, it's purely unintentional; I usually have to look back at the novels to get specific wording in scenes that I'm trying to reference. That being said, I'm not particularly concerned if there's some overlap here.

3) Haruhi is a bit harder-edged than might be expected, but she's also nowhere near as severe as she is early in the novels. Part of the goal of the story is to show her growing, and she needs a point to grow -from- as well as a point to grow -to-. And yes, K:BDH!Haruhi may be coloring perceptions a bit there; while she's a fun character, she's a long way from (and a lot softer than) her canon counterpart.

4) and 5) are more related to chapter 2, so I'll let Brian tackle those as appropriate.

[Muphrid]

Some belated remarks:

It's not like Haruhi hasn't shown increasing maturity as time has gone on -- really, I have to confess that my greater annoyance is that I finally established a plan for a Brigade activity that wasn't crazy, only to find out I couldn't even participate.  It's fairly rare when my ideas make it to being genuinely considered by our chief, so achieving another 'win', and not even being there to see the results?

Does the closing apostrophe on "win" go inside the comma?

"T-Tsuruya-san," Asahina-san protests, her face flushing crimson.

Aha, very brilliant.

"True story!" Tsuruya-san adds, waggling her eyebrows.  Then, releasing the other girl's arm, she leans closer to me and in a conspiratorial whisper adds, "Mikuru-chan stole my pillows in her sleep~!"

Mikuru.

A morose sigh escapes my lips instead of a triumphant cry when we crest the hill, and the school gates appear before us.  Yuki blinks at me, but says nothing -- so I offer her a mild smile and a shrug.

Nagato.

Aunt Mion pokes her head through the doorway as I blearily sit up and blink the sleep from my eyes.  She can't help but chuckle at the sight of her children -- the twins, Naota and Makoto -- as they manage to drag my unresisting form clear of the futon.  Matsuri, Aunt Rika's daughter, is the one who's glomped onto my leg with her best attempt at a death-grip, her dusty purple hair shadowing her eyes as she looks up at me.

Oh god, the twins both have twins.  What is wrong with this town?


I admit, the passages with all the cousins about are a bit difficult to parse, if only because I'm not as intimately familiar with them.  Being dumped with all the kids certainly seems fitting, but it also means that the unfamiliar reader should make notes, or a family tree, to make sure they can keep track of the children.

Shaking my head, I listen to the sounds of the other cousins in the distant reaches of Aunt Mion's home--  It's huge, but still nothing compared to Tsuruya-san's home.  The thump of approaching steps warns me of an imminent attack, so I brace myself.

Repetition of "home".


Overall, while the chapter is quite readable and logically constructed, I'm a bit concerned with how well the Hinamizawa crowd tie in with dreaming.  They form a backdrop for Kyon's efforts---a detailed, engaging backdrop---but as yet, they don't contribute anything of value to his efforts save to give Kyon a reason not to be in Haruhi's proximity.  The contribution is functional but not thematic, if that makes sense.

That said, I can see how trying to give them a thematic contribution might feel shoehorned and not be worth the effort to pull off.  Nevertheless, knowing the diverse and varied Higurashi cast, I can't help but wonder what insights they would have into dreaming.  Kyon isn't the type to ask for that much help, but he is lugging this book around.  He's already been noticed trying to do a reality check.

[Brian]

Some belated remarks:

Always appreciated!

Does the closing apostrophe on "win" go inside the comma?

Y...yes, it does.  That's right; I checked this with the Chicago Manual of Style last time.

"T-Tsuruya-san," Asahina-san protests, her face flushing crimson.

Aha, very brilliant.

Excellent. :)

Mikuru.

[...]

Nagato.

Oops--  Thanks for catching those.

Oh god, the twins both have twins.  What is wrong with this town?

In a nutshell, I'm poking fun at this anime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futakoi_Alternative

And otherwise having a laugh at fictional genetics in general. >_>

I admit, the passages with all the cousins about are a bit difficult to parse, if only because I'm not as intimately familiar with them.  Being dumped with all the kids certainly seems fitting, but it also means that the unfamiliar reader should make notes, or a family tree, to make sure they can keep track of the children.

Okay, this is partially intentional.  I want it to be daunting to a new reader, but not enough that they give up.  I want Matsuri, Rika, and Yurie to stand out and the rest to pretty much jumble together.  Shutaro gets his 'girls are icky' jokes, and Mion's a presense, too, but only those first three are really going to be important.

If someone's familiar with Higurashi, then that's a bonus -- but I also don't want it to get to the point where this is more crossover than cameo.  Thus, Yurie and Matsuri's screentime is most important; I'll touch on the goal I'm aiming for with Rika's character shortly.  Extra bonus for anyone familiar with the cousins from other stories, too -- but not required reading for this story.

Shaking my head, I listen to the sounds of the other cousins in the distant reaches of Aunt Mion's home--  It's huge, but still nothing compared to Tsuruya-san's home.  The thump of approaching steps warns me of an imminent attack, so I brace myself.

Repetition of "home".

Second will be 'house'.

Overall, while the chapter is quite readable and logically constructed, I'm a bit concerned with how well the Hinamizawa crowd tie in with dreaming.  They form a backdrop for Kyon's efforts---a detailed, engaging backdrop---but as yet, they don't contribute anything of value to his efforts save to give Kyon a reason not to be in Haruhi's proximity.  The contribution is functional but not thematic, if that makes sense.

Right--  I'm okay with that for now; at this point, they're just his family on vacation, and are there mostly to provide the afformentioned backdrop.  Some background elements may move to the fore in later scenes.

That said, I can see how trying to give them a thematic contribution might feel shoehorned and not be worth the effort to pull off.  Nevertheless, knowing the diverse and varied Higurashi cast, I can't help but wonder what insights they would have into dreaming.  Kyon isn't the type to ask for that much help, but he is lugging this book around.  He's already been noticed trying to do a reality check.

Well, it wasn't my original intent, but Rika can serve as a mentor role for Kyon; the bit where she reinforces his reality checks seems to map to that pretty well, and it's also fitting considering her training, etc.

My greater worry about giving the Hinamizawa crew (and the Higurashi cast, specifically) more screen-time is that it moves it from 'bonus material' to 'required reading'.  However, if I use just Rika, since I think her insight should be the most profound anyway ... that may work, and already be foreshadowed just by the 'wise shrine-maiden' bit.  I'm not sure; I'll have to see where I am in chapter four, which I'm not even worried about outlining at this point. :p

Thanks for the feedback; I'll try and get those other revisions I was looking at yesterday (courtesy of Agasa) finished soon.  :)

[Agasa]

One of those two "home" could be a "mansion" instead. I'm curious too about if the Higurashi characters are just to give a cozy friendly backdrop and a reason for Kyon to be separated from the Brigade, or have a more organic role in the plot. I can bring to mind two of them that have experience with dreaming, in a sense, (Satoshi and Satoko) but there's the risk of major squick even for me, and i'm not easy to squick.