[Haruhi][Rewrite] Downfall

[Brian]

If it's stylistic, it's fine just to say so and leave it unchanged. Just because I'm pointing it out doesn't -require- that it be corrected, just that I'm pointing out something that's technically not correct. If there's a good reason for leaving it as is, go for it.

Yeah, but this bit of stylism was mostly cleared out already because it didn't seem to be widely accepted.  I use it also in Our Inevitable Fate, and it seems to work better there.  Then again, the fact that different characters (there) use different names for one-another can make it hard to read ... but Cobb didn't like it, and that just encourages me to keep it because, really?

Screw Cobb and his 'Haruhi is more interesting as a lovecraftian horror' approach to things.  :p

Well, the intent isn't to kill the style, necessarily, it's more that everyone else is name-dropped first, then the descriptors diverge. Koizumi just caught my eye since he wasn't - and if that's intentional, to make him stand out from everyone else, by all means leave it in. It's not a major fault, just something that caught my eye as slightly odd. Perhaps that was your intent!

Yeah, but stylism isn't good when it makes the story impenetrable.

Your call there - to echo previous commentary here, I'm just pointing out things that look strange or odd. If they're strange or odd by design, that's fine.

Okay -- I'll revise Act I to use custom names instead of consistent ones.  (Well, they'll be consistent per character, I guess.)  Makes the jarring 'Itsuki' in Act II more pronounced.

Uh, no, not the subtext I was aiming for.  She couldn't care less about classes, but likes the fact that Kyon's there.  Kyon is the good, school is the bad.

Suggestions?

I'd suggest bridging her relief at having Kyon present into the first sentence. The tone seems to take a somewhat positive note with the whole 'reassuring' angle, then the next sentence kind of drops that positive tone on its face, and we don't get a pick-up (and a kind of half-hearted one) until she continues on to talk about being reassured by Kyon directly. The half-hearted return is okay - it's a sucky situation, so there's not a ton to be positive about - but I think what's causing the dissonance is that it seems to say 'Stuff is not so bad! The same stuff blows. But it's manageable because Kyon is there!' The sudden change in tone with a full stop is kind of like hitting a wall and stopping dead, at least in my mind.

Or perhaps I'm just heavily overanalyzing. @_@

Well, I'll take a look at that after I fix the names.

Actually, no.  Because Koizumi thinking of himself as 'Koizumi' instead of by his given name ... hmm.  Well....  On third thought, that actually does hammer home the 'mask' aspect.  How creepily fitting.  o_o

Anyway.  Didn't go with honorifics, since to me they jar in third person.  Yuki is Nagato, except in Haruhi's PoV, and Mikuru is Asahina, except in Haruhi's PoV.  Koizumi is Koizumi across the board.  For extra creep/sees-her-as-not-a-human-factor, in Koizumi's PoV sequence, Haruhi is Suzumiya.  (Huh, I just realized this means that even Kyon thinks of himself as Kyon.  Hm.)

Now, to revise that awkward bridge....

Haruhi didn't want to admit it, but now that Yuki was sick, sitting behind Kyon was actually one of the more reassuring parts of her day.  She could still focus on and get through her lessons, but it was sheer tedium; she couldn't care less for the lessons.  The real consolation was the fact that he was just as upset about circumstances as she was -- that was the only thing that kept her from screaming in frustration about the entire state of affairs.  Seeing him struggling to deal with the tedium while distracted by concern for Yuki made Haruhi feel less alone.

There we go.  That better?

[Halbarad]

Yeah, but stylism isn't good when it makes the story impenetrable.

True, but the particular point in question here (leading off with a reference to Koizumi as 'esper') isn't really that - again, this is fanfiction, we know the players in the game. =P Leading him off as 'a voice' works, though.

Part of it is that leaving him just as 'the esper' kind of highlights his distance from the rest of the group, which is why I both point it out as sticking out and don't really push that hard to kill it. =P

Okay -- I'll revise Act I to use custom names instead of consistent ones.  (Well, they'll be consistent per character, I guess.)  Makes the jarring 'Itsuki' in Act II more pronounced.

That was a part of why it seemed like a better call that way. I do think it'll have a good effect on the impact of Act II.

Now, to revise that awkward bridge....

Haruhi didn't want to admit it, but now that Yuki was sick, sitting behind Kyon was actually one of the more reassuring parts of her day.  She could still focus on and get through her lessons, but it was sheer tedium; she couldn't care less for the lessons.  The real consolation was the fact that he was just as upset about circumstances as she was -- that was the only thing that kept her from screaming in frustration about the entire state of affairs.  Seeing him struggling to deal with the tedium while distracted by concern for Yuki made Haruhi feel less alone.

There we go.  That better?

Looks fine. Got a repetition of 'lessons' in there, though, and I might alter slightly to 'she couldn't care less for the lessons/(lectures) themselves', since that helps to extend the hook that it's something else that makes the day Okay.

[Brian]

Alrighty -- fixed the repetition as per your suggestion.  Thanks, Hal! :)

[Gotonis]

No, I don't believe we have, or at least in the forums. You may have read one of the reviews I wrote for In Your Dreams on ff.net, but otherwise no.

Well -- nice to meet you.  Especially thanks for the feedback!  Do you have any stories of your own you'll be sharing with us?

Actually, that's why I came here. An anonymous reviewer on ff.net pointed me here after helping me with a prologue I had posted and in response to my fishing for betas.

Yeah, if you can, set Word to 'plain text' -- you've got something that converts word into htm and then from there into bbcode, I think; tons of 'font' and 'size' tags....  Curious.  You can probably accomplish this just by saving a single file as plain text (not rich text), and then using that one file as a scratchpad for your replies.

I use notepad++ myself, but I think Word gives you a better output if you're uploading to ff.net (barring the use of Markdown or the like).

I just decided to ignore Word for replies and post as plain text for quotes from the original text.

Also, I'm not sure what the disconnect was with the tenses. I think I subconsciously convert narration to present. I also have been known to switch between past and present frequently; interpret that as you will.

By the way, I see what you were doing with PoVs. You pulled it off rather well, it just seemed rather odd.

I figured I'd make some really bad corrections. I'm actually happy about this; I think C&Cing is going to be rather helpful in pointing out my weaknesses and stylistic fallacies.

Her fingertips traced... on a picture of her and Kyon together

I'd take the on out. The subsequent 'him looking... slightly less annoyed....' seems like it could be worded a bit better. I'd either add a with or go with 'a picture of her and Kyon together in which he looked....', or something along those lines.

I can't understand what you're trying to say here.  I changed 'on' to 'over' since it was a bit stiff.

Right.
I was trying to say a couple of things. 'Traced on' seemed a bit redundant. Also,

On a picture of her and Kyon together, him looking...slightly less annoyed

is grammatically incorrect. I'd go with 'a picture of her and Kyon together in which he looked slightly less annoyed...'

Good job with that chapter. Sorry for going so grammar intensive, especially considering how much of it could just be stylistic.

It's fine; I couldn't use all of your comments, but still appreciate that you took the time to make them. :)

Yeah, sorry about all of the incorrect comments. As I believe I said before, I'm new at this, and my past vs present could use some work, to say the least. I'll be rereading the other two acts for corrections to post so I can justify posting my story.


By the way, is it considered bad form here to make extensive quotation tunnels?

[Brian]

Actually, that's why I came here. An anonymous reviewer on ff.net pointed me here after helping me with a prologue I had posted and in response to my fishing for betas.

Will be looking forward to that, then.

Also, I'm not sure what the disconnect was with the tenses. I think I subconsciously convert narration to present. I also have been known to switch between past and present frequently; interpret that as you will.

Okay, noted.  Not really a problem.  One of the things I really like about C&Cing on a forum or with a community is the fact that if a correction is wrong, someone else will usually catch it, and ideally, everyone can benefit from the explanation.

Like so:

I figured I'd make some really bad corrections. I'm actually happy about this; I think C&Cing is going to be rather helpful in pointing out my weaknesses and stylistic fallacies.

:)

I was trying to say a couple of things. 'Traced on' seemed a bit redundant. Also,

On a picture of her and Kyon together, him looking...slightly less annoyed

is grammatically incorrect. I'd go with 'a picture of her and Kyon together in which he looked slightly less annoyed...'

Oh, I see.  Will fix that, then.

Yeah, sorry about all of the incorrect comments. As I believe I said before, I'm new at this, and my past vs present could use some work, to say the least. I'll be rereading the other two acts for corrections to post so I can justify posting my story.

While appreciated, there's no rule about having to comment before you can post your own stories. :)

By the way, is it considered bad form here to make extensive quotation tunnels?

Not really ... we're pretty relaxed in general.  As long as it's not hard to reply to, then it should be fine.

[Grahf]

Haven't had much of a chance to actually provide in depth grammatical corrections for anything, sorry about that.

Did notice one thing in the epilogue:

Note: Gentle reader, you may enojy or ignore this small performance, as you see fit. :)

Some personal thoughts are that I enjoyed the extended ending feeling of it, I think that for me at least the epilogue added some content to the final section that I felt was somewhat lacking in the original iteration.

One thing that's more up in the air for me at least, is:

Spoiler: ShowHide

The fate of one Koizumi Itsuki. I notice that in this case you make it clear that he did get out of the situation that Haruhi left him in, while in the original version you more or less left him to his fate. I realize that his treatment might be one of the more divisive things about this fiction, but personally -- and I do mean personally here -- I was happy enough to see the bastard burn. He essentially took the confidence of his friends, and then used it to usurp a position of power AND eliminate them from the plot at the same time.

I know that you've mentioned that you've been particularly hard on Itsuki, and since I know where the root of that comes from (you know that which must not be named) I find it understandable, if a little unfair in some cases. But I just feel that the Koizumi here has done something so utterly reprehensible that him getting out of the situation just seems well, wrong. I know that he hasn't been forgiven by any stretch, and I know that Haruhi feels bad about what she did which speaks more to her development as a character than to the idea that he somehow didn't earn exactly what she gave him.

I dunno, maybe I'm just more spiteful than I'd really like to admit, but that's my view on it anyway.

[Brian]

Haven't had much of a chance to actually provide in depth grammatical corrections for anything, sorry about that.

Did notice one thing in the epilogue:

Note: Gentle reader, you may enojy or ignore this small performance, as you see fit. :)

My spelling is just going downhill these days.  No idea what's going on with that. >_<

Some personal thoughts are that I enjoyed the extended ending feeling of it, I think that for me at least the epilogue added some content to the final section that I felt was somewhat lacking in the original iteration.

One thing that's more up in the air for me at least, is:

Spoiler: ShowHide

The fate of one Koizumi Itsuki. I notice that in this case you make it clear that he did get out of the situation that Haruhi left him in, while in the original version you more or less left him to his fate. I realize that his treatment might be one of the more divisive things about this fiction, but personally -- and I do mean personally here -- I was happy enough to see the bastard burn. He essentially took the confidence of his friends, and then used it to usurp a position of power AND eliminate them from the plot at the same time.

I know that you've mentioned that you've been particularly hard on Itsuki, and since I know where the root of that comes from (you know that which must not be named) I find it understandable, if a little unfair in some cases. But I just feel that the Koizumi here has done something so utterly reprehensible that him getting out of the situation just seems well, wrong. I know that he hasn't been forgiven by any stretch, and I know that Haruhi feels bad about what she did which speaks more to her development as a character than to the idea that he somehow didn't earn exactly what she gave him.

I dunno, maybe I'm just more spiteful than I'd really like to admit, but that's my view on it anyway.

Well....

Spoiler: ShowHide

My dislike if Koizumi isn't exclusively from that one horrible doujin, though that didn't help; I mostly dislike him just because (at least on the surface) Kyon does.  Hum.  Hal and I need to have that character study discussion to expand on that.  Anyway.

I wasn't changing the outcome to actually be nicer to Koizumi -- in the original concept, he wasn't left to burn forever, either.  There just wasn't a good way to bring it onscreen.  Even then, it's not me, the author showing mercy to him, it's more that Haruhi has to be particularly vindictive and resentful to leave things at that.

Forever is a very long time -- and what I can see her doing when she was upset, well....  There's no good reason to keep it up when the thing that compelled her turned out to be as untrue as everything else he said--  She wanted him to suffer because she had been led to believe that Kyon, Mikuru, and Yuki were killed -- and it was because of Koizumi's manipulations that it happened.  When she found out they were alive, continuing that punishment (and keep in mind, Haruhi thought she was going to die, too) didn't seem to have a purpose anymore.

I like to think that Koizumi was vastly humbled by the horrifying brush with a terrible fate that he had ... plus, it's probably fine for him to apply his 'treat her as more than human' view on thing to Kuyou.  So ... yeah. :x

And thanks for the comments. :)

[Halbarad]

Act II!

I seem to be noting a lot of places to play up the awkward relationship between Haruhi and Koizumi a lot here; certainly, it's good as it stands, and likely using all of the points I suggest would probably be overkill, but I'm not finding a lot of other errors so I'll at least include those.

Spoiler: ShowHide

It really felt almost exactly like watching the control center at NASA

"really felt almost exactly like" is an awful lot of modifying words. You could certainly drop 'really', and could even stand to lose 'almost exactly' without sacrificing much.

if I tried to undo it at that point.

Strikes me as a tense error. Should be if she tried to undo it at this point, since (as far as she knows) any real action she could take would be in the present.

Itsuki spent a great deal of time teaching me how important it was to be aware of my limitations.

Looked at this, thought about it for a moment, realized it was really good. I like the hidden emphasis that it's Koizumi doing things to her, not him helping her do things (i.e. 'helping me become aware' etc.) Going to look out for more good/bad examples of this throughout this act.

Better than forgetting, being unable to grow, I suppose....

Ironic, given that she really -hasn't- had any chance to grow. Koizumi's leashed her too well to allow for that.

I'm really making a lot of comments that aren't particularly constructive and more along the lines of 'that bastard esper!', aren't I? =P

I wasn't sure what to feel about that, but once the experiment was done,

Merely a suggestion here, and this might just be due to my interpretation of the setup as it stands. It strikes me that this is less Haruhi not knowing how to feel and more that it makes her uncomfortable, but she doesn't want to contradict or make things difficult for Koizumi, so she clamps down on it. It's fine as written, but it might be something you could expand on if you feel like making some of the awkwardness between the two of them more explicit.

As Itsuki said, I really needed to focus on my powers more than anything else.

Another possible point to expand on, although this one is kind of just reinforcing some of the groundwork already laid - that Koizumi has basically laid out all the boundaries and rules by which she has to live now. The one thing I can think that might be good in here somewhere (and this would be a decent place) is to see some spark of the old Haruhi, that would never put up with such a thing, but that she crushes that spark back down out of guilt - at least before her little trip into the past, anyway.

Those days, we got to meet with doctors and scholars

Semi-questionable tense - I'd use 'these' instead of 'those'. Tense in this chapter is a bit odd to me, for some reason - I want to read it as present, but when I actually look it's past.

I think part of the issue may be due to foreknowledge; I know there's a major change in outlook coming, but this is being written from the PoV of a Haruhi that sounds like she's still enmeshed in Koizumi's web, so there are some points that seem like they should be present tense (mostly suppositions) rather than past - so if it's being written in past tense, it seems like it can't be very far in the past.

He was one of those rare people who saw me for _me_.  Like--

Obvious that she was going to say Kyon here, but the omission of Koizumi is notable and makes me smirk. =)

When I first started out, I tried to make things flashy ... just

I'd suggest 'When I first started out with my abilities'. It's a little ambiguous, although the context does clear it up.

I had always thought she was cute -- her face was not suited to the scowl she sent at me.

These two ideas seem a little too disparate to connect with an em-dash; I'd suggest "I had always thought she was cute; the impression was only reinforced by how out of place the ugly/nasty scowl she sent me seemed."

Also, you have two uses of 'cute' in this paragraph. Maybe 'charming' or 'adorable' for one of them?

Are you going to get rid of me for being a bad toy,

This is a little out of place; Nonoko doesn't really have a reason to say she feels like Haruhi's toy right now, since she hasn't seen Haruhi in three years. The sentiment is good, though; I'd just reword: "Looking for a new toy to play with? One you can just throw away when you get bored with it, like you did to Nii-san?"

several hours walk from any cell phone signal

several hours' walk

---

Note for this scene in general: are they attracting any attention from onlookers at all? I'd assume that by this point, Haruhi's got one of the most recognizable faces in the world, if she's been doing so much to 'improve mankind'. Seeing her argue in the street with a girl five or six years younger than her would draw a crowd, I'd think - not just attention from one of Koizumi's goons.

Easy to solve either way; Haruhi can just do something like a Somebody Else's Problem field (people see them but don't pay attention), or meet Nonoko in some place where they're not terribly likely to see many other people - a quiet residential street, for example. The latter also makes it more pointed when the goon shows up, since why the hell would there be one in such an out of the way place?

I'm sorry, Itsuki.

     I had to go back and look.

Suggestion given the change in tone for the scene; I'd alter the last line to: "I had to go back and look -- to find the truth for myself."

The me from them hadn't

'me from then'. Might also clarify as 'the me from back then' - although you have that phrase in the very next line, I notice. Maybe 'my past self'?

Kyon had tried to hit me once.  In defense of Mikuru.

The second sentence here is a fragment, although this is easily dodged as stylistic. For technical accuracy, though, I'd just splice with an em-dash - no wording changes needed.

when he was finally able ... forced, really ... to tell me the truth

This begs a bit of a question. We know -when- Koizumi popped the trump card on Haruhi, obviously. We also know some of what he said to her (the whole conspiracy thing). Why did he feel it was 'necessary' to tell her at that specific time - or at least, what did he tell her to make it seem like it was necessary?

It might not need clarification, but seeing this line does prompt the question.

"Mikuru-chan is my toy!" the me from back then had cried.

At that moment, thinking of Nonoko's words ... I wanted nothing more than to help the Kyon of that time hit the me from back then.

Repetition of 'me from back then'. Suggest 'the person I had been' or 'my past self' here.

Why did a time traveler, who should have known....

Seeing this brings up a question that had been bugging me earlier, but could have been set aside if Haruhi wasn't clear on what the other Brigade members were.

She knows that Koizumi is an esper (obviously, since she knows about the link.) She knows that Mikuru is a time traveler, and to do so would have to have been told. Presumably, then, she's also aware of Yuki as an alien and Kyon as a normal schlub. This does bring up several questions, although it's more with Koizumi's story than with the narrative as a whole.

1. If Koizumi traveled back to be John Smith, how? Why would the time travelers (who it's unclear whether Koizumi cast as one of the 'enemy groups' or not) extend such a favor to him, even under the mantle of predetermination?
2. If Yuki was the primary conspirator against Haruhi (as she stated to Nonoko), why would it have been necessary to break out the trump card while she was sick? (Possible explanation: she'd just had her trust in Kyon shattered by Mikuru, and with Yuki sick and Kyon unable to interfere, he actually -could- use it then. Still looks a little odd.)
3. If Yuki was the prime motivator in the 'plot' against Haruhi, why would the time travelers be helping her, if they were cast as such? Basically, it should look to Haruhi (now) like the time travelers were basically allied with Koizumi: they helped set him up as John Smith, and then through Mikuru they set things up so that Kyon could be disposed of. The really nasty part of that is that even without hearing or seeing much further, Haruhi could feasibly already have a good reason to feel even more angry at Mikuru for basically betraying Kyon to his death (particularly since she's obviously not dead herself) and to be ready to ream Koizumi when she gets back, since it appears that his allies (at the very least) set Kyon up to die just so Koizumi could use the trump card.

Sorry, I started that last point in one place and it ended up going somewhere else - but the final destination makes more sense, and I'm not sure exactly how I got the beginning now. @_@ Hopefully you see what I'm getting at, though - this now looks like a conspiracy between Mikuru and Koizumi to get rid of Yuki and Kyon. Haruhi might not have taken the time to consider much of this before, but all of this is based purely on what she knows about Mikuru and what Koizumi's cover story is - even without looking in the past, she could have worked this much out.

Admittedly, most of this doesn't hold up for long anyway if she believes what Mikuru(big) has to tell her, but she's sharp enough to work out a lot of this on the fly, I think. You might just end up discarding the whole thing - the scenes work as presented, I'm just trying to apply a bit more logic to Koizumi's story as more facts come to light and see what comes out of it.

I could return to the barest instant before I had left

Shouldn't this be the barest instant after she had left?

I climbed the staircase at the side of the great lawn

I'd just say 'the staircase next to the bleachers' - this is all being done out in the sports field, I thought, so there should be a set of bleachers off to the side.

Haven't seen the anime for this, though, so if it's shown differently there by all means discard this.

Her working with some conspiracy?

Awkwardly worded. I'd suggest 'Was she working with...'

Then, even though it was difficult, he'd taught her to enjoy it, and to leave the past behind.

Man, esper-san is blind/dense.

And the esper roasts. In this fic, at least, I can't say it's terribly undeserved.

[Gotonis]

I think I see why you mentioned another medium for posting replies. I had a reply for ActIII/Epilogue almost ready to post, and then managed to misclick and hit backspace, unmaking the post completely -_-.


I feel like before I was making a lot of grammar corrections that may have just been stylistic fallacies on my part, and probably missed something more important. I also like I'm going to make the same corrections this time. Let's find out.


Act III

She had...willed whatever she had done to Kyon to happen to her. Why hadn't anything happened?

I see what you're trying to do with the ellipsis, what with the stuttering and all; however, I feel like the stutter would work better as 'She had willed whatever she had done to Kyon to happen to her. Why...why hadn't anything happened?', or something like that.

...she wanted to endure that, too.

It looks like she wants to endure that fate along with something else. I'd replace the [comma] too with herself.


Right, I'm just going to ignore the section with the Sky Canopy Dominion interface of uncertain nomenclature. 1.077*1011 seems like it's supposed to be scientific notation and is just missing a carrot between the 10 and 11, but that assumption is probably wrong.
I don't know. She should be talking in a more broken language, but not doing so is forgivable due to both ease of reading and writing.

Would I hurt, just as much?

The 'I hurt' construction isn't incorrect; however, 'it hurt' would be better in this specific situation, as you'd been using the end as the subject. The comma looks like it's trying to split the question into a question of t/f and a question of magnitude. I'm not sure how to correct this; if you want to recombine the question I'd go 'Would it hurt me just as much as it had hurt him?' or something like that.

A stray thought replaced... sun-dress.

I think someone else brought the issue up earlier, but again, should there be a hyphen in sundress/sun dress?


I kind of like how when Haruhi's observing Kyon's room she includes the bed in the list of things in the room. However, I think there are slightly better ways to phrase it while making that point.

I guess it's a guy's room, at a glance?

At a glance this looks grammatically awful. Further analysis seems to support this.


Oh hey, another sun-dress.


Haruhi's analysis about whether it's daytime or not seems...


It seems weird to see Nagato addressed as Yuki, but Haruhi's always called her that.


Oh hey, Kyon facepalming. Where have I seen that before?


Also, I just realized. I think everyone in that room is supposed to have feeling for Kyon considering how you set it up.
Not that there's a problem with Nagato not caring about that, but considering that she's a combination...

It's strange to think of Mikuru as someone with enough confidence to chastize someone

I don't think chastize is a word.

There was so much to ask.... I couldn't think of where to begin yet, so reached for something inconsequential until I could settle down.

I think it should be 'so I reached for something inconsequential....'


Right. Now I'm not sure. Is this Adult!Mikuru or just Mikuru? The 'I'm older now' makes it look like she went to future or something for a few years then rejoined them. (For the record, where did that notation for variants come from?)


For the record, it's Sky Canopy Dominion, not Sky Canopy Domain.


Wouldn't Nagato's emotional state be due to the circumstances of the resplitting of the realities into...never mind. I'd reword that a bit though.

he is still my friend...

How does that answer Haruhi's question?
Of course, if you're going for a mysterious air for Nagato then that works.

....since she's not you," he admits with a cautious smile.

I know I'm supposed to stay away from tenses and such, but I think you may have slipped into present.


The whole thing about there being no original Kyon in that world is incorrect. Remember that everyone's memories were only changed for one year into the past. Kyon is still the same Kyon in both worlds, he just has a year's worth of different memories.
I'd suggest giving him a doppelganger resembling that of the manga Disappearance of Nagato Yuki(-chan), but that explanation would break down as soon as Nagato were to combine with the now unbroken version of her and leave.

I don't like that to them

Wait, what?

even if they forgave me

For what exactly? Not actually doing anything to them? Wouldn't she have realized by now that she did nothing wrong to them, and that they're supporting her?


Now, there's a problem with the two of them trying to make up a year and a half of learning in half of one. Doesn't Japan go year round? I mean, Haruhi's powers, but...
However, they're also switching to the U.S. education system...
That's confusing.

It's the master bedroom, so there's more space, there!

Second comma. Burn it.


END ACT III


Epilogue

Probably, the funniest part was when Mikuru and I were both not thinking about a compromise, and making him feel conflicted by encouraging him to get closer to the other.

Meh, I'm not entirely sure about the structure of this one. I think I had some suggestion on how to fix it before, but I forget what that was. However, I think that replacing the and with a but (instead) fixes it.

She liked being with us, and not in that sense.

It works grammatically, but I think that a but works better than the and.


Wait, so am I correct in assuming that Kyon is practicing bigamy? I think I found the squick you had mentioned.
It's rather...strange, especially considering how possessive Haruhi can be.
It's your story, and you're changing characterization anyway, so whatever.

But...with Kyon, Mikuru, and Yuki all there, that was what really mattered to me.

I think here you're making their presence a condition for something else to be what really mattered to Haruhi. I'm not sure how to fix it, but...

For all his claims not to be a genius, he picked up language and communication skills amazingly well, so pretty much took the 'easy route.'

so he pretty much took the 'easy route', which I don't think needs quotes.

I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with my studies at first, but I enojyed school.

Well, at least you're consistent with your spelling errors, barring the correct versions.


For the record, are you sure about Kyon's surname being before Haruhi's? I think that the speculation puts his name after some unknown person in the introduction order but before Taniguchi. I think that they had alternating m/f overlaid on top of Kanji-betical order.
For the record, 'Tanigawa' is actually in the list of possibilities for his name in this scheme. I'm not sure if the included possible starting pieces of names include stuff before 'Suzu', however.
Oh wait, you're the author.
I'd double check. It's not defined, so putting a detail about Kyon's surname being before 'Suzumiya' seems almost dangerous.


Right. I didn't really see much wrong with the epilogue, or either of the last two for that matter. Good job on this.

While appreciated, there's no rule about having to comment before you can post your own stories.

It's really more I found that I couldn't start a new topic without posting something first. As soon as I made my first post the 'New Topic' button appeared.


That, and I felt that I should try to help you guys out before asking for help.


Ok, Prologue and Ch. 1 of my stuff will be up momentarily.are up.

[Brian]

Act II!

I seem to be noting a lot of places to play up the awkward relationship between Haruhi and Koizumi a lot here; certainly, it's good as it stands, and likely using all of the points I suggest would probably be overkill, but I'm not finding a lot of other errors so I'll at least include those.

Yeah, I'll read over this once before replying, and figure which points benefit most from Koizumi-doubt.  It seems to me probably anything after the Nonoko encounter will be fair game.

Spoiler: ShowHide

"really felt almost exactly like" is an awful lot of modifying words. You could certainly drop 'really', and could even stand to lose 'almost exactly' without sacrificing much.

Simple is good.

Strikes me as a tense error. Should be if she tried to undo it at this point, since (as far as she knows) any real action she could take would be in the present.

Hmmm....  Not sure.  I could drop everything after 'undo it' and sidestep the entire issue.  I think I'll go that route -- there's another 'point' reference a few lines up, so this also avoids some repetition.

Looked at this, thought about it for a moment, realized it was really good. I like the hidden emphasis that it's Koizumi doing things to her, not him helping her do things (i.e. 'helping me become aware' etc.) Going to look out for more good/bad examples of this throughout this act.

I thought this was one of the better moments to capture it, but it's generally positive to have them more up front than later; as it goes on it's kind of just hammering things in to the reader, and there's no real reason to be _too_ subtle given the final reveal.

Ironic, given that she really -hasn't- had any chance to grow. Koizumi's leashed her too well to allow for that.

I'm really making a lot of comments that aren't particularly constructive and more along the lines of 'that bastard esper!', aren't I? =P

Well, I think we share a bias, but it does reinforce that the scenes evoke what I wanted.  Plus, you know me, I'm resistant, so you also are pushing me to play devil's advocate and not go overkill here.

I wasn't sure what to feel about that, but once the experiment was done,

Merely a suggestion here, and this might just be due to my interpretation of the setup as it stands. It strikes me that this is less Haruhi not knowing how to feel and more that it makes her uncomfortable, but she doesn't want to contradict or make things difficult for Koizumi, so she clamps down on it. It's fine as written, but it might be something you could expand on if you feel like making some of the awkwardness between the two of them more explicit.

This seems like a good place for it, actually.  Digressing into character-study mode a tiny bit, I think Haruhi enjoys winning/success, but would hate having things just handed to her.  I know I've touched on it ... pretty much in every fic I've written where she's aware of her power, but I'll see what I can do to evoke that plus a sense of guilty neccesity over things.  Also, while she wouldn't mind being recognized as superior, I think the implications of worship wouldn't sit well with her -- especially if (as above), it's something she feels she hasn't earned.

This strikes me as a really good point to expand, in retrospect.  To show more of her being unsettled enough to investigate Nonoko, who she's been avoiding since the end of Act II.  It also leads into her tutoring, so that could work quite nicely.

I wasn't sure what to say about that.

     Any time I was praised for what I did with the powers, I got the sense that I was almost invisible, and it was the powers that everyone was really interested in.  Of course, as Itsuki always reminded me, that was part of why I had a responsibility to use those powers for the benefit of everyone.

     While I could use them for myself, I tried not to go overboard; I never feel like I'd earned whatever the powers accomplish.  And it's hard to see those powers as 'fun' considering what I'd done with them the day Itsuki had to wake me up to the fact that I had them.

     That thought looming, once the experiment was done, I teleported the pair of us back to Japan -- to our apartment.  He went to his office to catch up on his notes and missed messages while we were away.  For myself, I banished my exhaustion, and since it was afternoon there, teleported myself alone to the street outside of Hayate-kun's house.

As Itsuki said, I really needed to focus on my powers more than anything else.

Another possible point to expand on, although this one is kind of just reinforcing some of the groundwork already laid - that Koizumi has basically laid out all the boundaries and rules by which she has to live now. The one thing I can think that might be good in here somewhere (and this would be a decent place) is to see some spark of the old Haruhi, that would never put up with such a thing, but that she crushes that spark back down out of guilt - at least before her little trip into the past, anyway.

Alright -- the spark could be a good touch, too.

I didn't take money anymore, though; money was pretty meaningless to me by that point.  I would have liked to have kept going to school, myself.  As Itsuki said, I really needed to focus on my powers more than anything else.  I wished I could have the freedom that other people did, just going to school or having simple jobs without concerns for....

     That wasn't really a choice for me, though.  With power comes responsibility, and considering the damage I'd done by being careless, wouldn't I be a monster to put my own wishes ahead of everything -- and everyone -- else?  I couldn't afford to be that selfish -- never again.

     So instead of going to school, those days, we got to meet with doctors and scholars to discuss whatever we really wanted to know more about, anyway.

Those days, we got to meet with doctors and scholars

Semi-questionable tense - I'd use 'these' instead of 'those'. Tense in this chapter is a bit odd to me, for some reason - I want to read it as present, but when I actually look it's past.

I think part of the issue may be due to foreknowledge; I know there's a major change in outlook coming, but this is being written from the PoV of a Haruhi that sounds like she's still enmeshed in Koizumi's web, so there are some points that seem like they should be present tense (mostly suppositions) rather than past - so if it's being written in past tense, it seems like it can't be very far in the past.

Gotonis mentioned similar.  Is it just that everyone's used to me doing first-person present-tense, I wonder?

Anyway -- revised the above and just dropped the 'those days.'  Also replaced 'wanted' with 'needed.'

Obvious that she was going to say Kyon here, but the omission of Koizumi is notable and makes me smirk. =)

Haruhi: "It takes epic guilt-motivated work to maintain this level of denial."
Koizumi: "There, there, Haruhi.  I don't think anyone can blame you for killing all of your friends but me, but if it bothers you, just keep following my instructions, and everything will work out just fine."
Haruhi: ;_;

I'd suggest 'When I first started out with my abilities'. It's a little ambiguous, although the context does clear it up.

Just dropped that bit entirely, since it jars against her feeling guilty about having her powers.

I had always thought she was cute -- her face was not suited to the scowl she sent at me.

These two ideas seem a little too disparate to connect with an em-dash; I'd suggest "I had always thought she was cute; the impression was only reinforced by how out of place the ugly/nasty scowl she sent me seemed."

Alright.

Also, you have two uses of 'cute' in this paragraph. Maybe 'charming' or 'adorable' for one of them?

Just dropped the second.

Are you going to get rid of me for being a bad toy,

This is a little out of place; Nonoko doesn't really have a reason to say she feels like Haruhi's toy right now, since she hasn't seen Haruhi in three years. The sentiment is good, though; I'd just reword: "Looking for a new toy to play with? One you can just throw away when you get bored with it, like you did to Nii-san?"

I'm not sure that really fits, either.  Well, thematically, yes, but wording-wise....  So, revision is good.

"What do you want with me?" she snapped, her dark eyes hardening further.  "You threw Nii-san aside like a _toy_, so do you plan on treating me the same?"

Note for this scene in general: are they attracting any attention from onlookers at all? I'd assume that by this point, Haruhi's got one of the most recognizable faces in the world, if she's been doing so much to 'improve mankind'. Seeing her argue in the street with a girl five or six years younger than her would draw a crowd, I'd think - not just attention from one of Koizumi's goons.

Easy to solve either way; Haruhi can just do something like a Somebody Else's Problem field (people see them but don't pay attention), or meet Nonoko in some place where they're not terribly likely to see many other people - a quiet residential street, for example. The latter also makes it more pointed when the goon shows up, since why the hell would there be one in such an out of the way place?

I mentioned people were looking, yeah.  Easy to revise Haruhi to finding her in an otherwise-empty street, though.  The 'SEP' effect from Haruhi comes uncomfortably close to mind-control, something she'd abhor after everything (also, would raise the question of how the goon spotted her).

So, back up to the opening paragraph of this scene:

I held together through Hayate-kun's lessons easily enough, but when they were done, I didn't even bother to walk out.  I spent an instant to know where she was -- not in a bath, or somewhere else private -- and sent myself there.  We were standing on the sidewalk of an otherwise empty street downtown, in a residential district not far from a cram school.  At a guess, she was headed back towards where I still remembered that she and Kyon lived.

Suggestion given the change in tone for the scene; I'd alter the last line to: "I had to go back and look -- to find the truth for myself."

Dropped the 'for myself', but otherwise used that.

Hmm.  This raises issues with tenses, in retrospect, since 'I'm' is present.  Hmm.  I'll let it slide for stylism.

'me from then'. Might also clarify as 'the me from back then' - although you have that phrase in the very next line, I notice. Maybe 'my past self'?

There's no good term without going into spanner-slang. :\

The second sentence here is a fragment, although this is easily dodged as stylistic. For technical accuracy, though, I'd just splice with an em-dash - no wording changes needed.

Alright.

when he was finally able ... forced, really ... to tell me the truth

This begs a bit of a question. We know -when- Koizumi popped the trump card on Haruhi, obviously. We also know some of what he said to her (the whole conspiracy thing). Why did he feel it was 'necessary' to tell her at that specific time - or at least, what did he tell her to make it seem like it was necessary?

It might not need clarification, but seeing this line does prompt the question.

O_o?

Koizumi: "Haruhi, you have vast powers, and by using them wrong, you killed three of your friends.  It's okay, though, because they were all evil and plotting against you."
Haruhi: "I don't buy it."
Koizumi: "Also, I'm John Smith.  Remember when I helped you draw that symbol?"
Haruhi: "...I think I hate myself. ;_;"
Koizumi: "Just take my advice, don't think about it too hard, and everything will work out fine."

So ... it wasn't because he felt he had to.  It was just an opportunity for him to remove the competition from the field.  (Even bigger jerkwad Koizumi, yes, I know....)

Repetition of 'me from back then'. Suggest 'the person I had been' or 'my past self' here.

Which then moves the repetition issue to the next sentence, which you omitted from your quote. >_>'

Revised that to just be 'me' instead of bothering to include a chronological reference -- she can feel the guilt directly.

Seeing this brings up a question that had been bugging me earlier, but could have been set aside if Haruhi wasn't clear on what the other Brigade members were.

She knows that Koizumi is an esper (obviously, since she knows about the link.) She knows that Mikuru is a time traveler, and to do so would have to have been told. Presumably, then, she's also aware of Yuki as an alien and Kyon as a normal schlub. This does bring up several questions, although it's more with Koizumi's story than with the narrative as a whole.

1. If Koizumi traveled back to be John Smith, how? Why would the time travelers (who it's unclear whether Koizumi cast as one of the 'enemy groups' or not) extend such a favor to him, even under the mantle of predetermination?

Doesn't predetermination really cover all the justification they need, though?  That also makes things worse for Haruhi, since according to the future, her friends couldn't be saved (by Koizumi's story).

2. If Yuki was the primary conspirator against Haruhi (as she stated to Nonoko), why would it have been necessary to break out the trump card while she was sick? (Possible explanation: she'd just had her trust in Kyon shattered by Mikuru, and with Yuki sick and Kyon unable to interfere, he actually -could- use it then. Still looks a little odd.)

Ah ... nope, don't see direct implications that Yuki was the primary conspirator.

"Your brother was planning to betray me -- he was working with Yuki and enemy groups behind my back to get rid of me!  What I did ... the reason I can even live with myself at all ... is because it was subconscious on my part to defend myself!  It really _was_ self-defense!  ...but at the same time ... if I understood my powers better, he wouldn't have had to--"

To me, this implicates Kyon more than Yuki.  I can revise this and make it even clearer, if it's not working for you.

Admittedly, most of this doesn't hold up for long anyway if she believes what Mikuru(big) has to tell her, but she's sharp enough to work out a lot of this on the fly, I think. You might just end up discarding the whole thing - the scenes work as presented, I'm just trying to apply a bit more logic to Koizumi's story as more facts come to light and see what comes out of it.

It's not a good story, no, and Haruhi (it should be fairly obvious) knows something isn't right about it, but lacks the wherewithal to do anything about it until after encountering Nonoko again.

I climbed the staircase at the side of the great lawn

I'd just say 'the staircase next to the bleachers' - this is all being done out in the sports field, I thought, so there should be a set of bleachers off to the side.

Don't recall there being bleachers.  Staircase up to the main building, then.

And the esper roasts. In this fic, at least, I can't say it's terribly undeserved.

:D

Alright -- thanks a ton for the feedback, Hal.

[Halbarad]

A couple of clarifications:

Spoiler: ShowHide

I wasn't sure what to say about that.

     Any time I was praised for what I did with the powers, I got the sense that I was almost invisible, and it was the powers that everyone was really interested in.  Of course, as Itsuki always reminded me, that was part of why I had a responsibility to use those powers for the benefit of everyone.

     While I could use them for myself, I tried not to go overboard; I never feel like I'd earned whatever the powers accomplish.  And it's hard to see those powers as 'fun' considering what I'd done with them the day Itsuki had to wake me up to the fact that I had them.

     That thought looming, once the experiment was done, I teleported the pair of us back to Japan -- to our apartment.  He went to his office to catch up on his notes and missed messages while we were away.  For myself, I banished my exhaustion, and since it was afternoon there, teleported myself alone to the street outside of Hayate-kun's house.

Minor suggestion (and easily discardable): if you want to show Haruhi with a bit more of that spark from the next suggestion, consider changing 'always' to 'constantly' in the second sentence. Shows some of her dissatisfaction with the way Koizumi treats her.

I'm not a nice person at all.

There's also some tense oddity here: 'accomplished', 'it was' rather than 'it's'.

Gotonis mentioned similar.  Is it just that everyone's used to me doing first-person present-tense, I wonder?

Anyway -- revised the above and just dropped the 'those days.'  Also replaced 'wanted' with 'needed.'

I don't really think so? It's more that there's a sense of immediacy to what Haruhi has to say, so I want to interpret it as present tense. It doesn't feel like a memoir for some reason.

It works as it is - the story is communicated just fine and the tense doesn't really detract at all, just throws me off on closer examination - which most readers won't bother with.

There's no good term without going into spanner-slang. :\

Douglas Adams was right. The real issue with time travel is tenses.

So ... it wasn't because he felt he had to.  It was just an opportunity for him to remove the competition from the field.  (Even bigger jerkwad Koizumi, yes, I know....)

Oh, I know it's because it was actually convenient for him - this is just picking more holes in his story. Apparently what he told Haruhi made it sound like he -had- to tell her at that point, and the question that's bugging me is 'why? what makes that point significant or -require- that he pop the card there?'

Again, doesn't really need story clarification, just something I wonder, I wonder.

To me, this implicates Kyon more than Yuki.  I can revise this and make it even clearer, if it's not working for you.

That actually strikes me as -less- plausible, though. Might be my own view of Haruhi impinging here, but I can't see her buying (even in this circumstance) that Kyon was masterminding some kind of plot against her. Participating in one? That could be swallowed, but not running things; if nothing else, he's too much of a slacker to keep something like that going. It'd need some other person to be the real driving force behind it, and with the emphasis on Yuki in a couple of spots, that's why I was under the impression that it was her plot and Kyon was pulled into helping her with it.

[Muphrid]

For Act II:

Our narrator (there isn't a good hint to who she is until "even though my presence meant ... everyone else could [make a mistake]) is in some kind of control center, overseeing...something.

It really felt almost exactly like watching the control center at NASA in one of those movies, except instead of windows, there was a bank of enormous monitors.  I could read the graphs a little bit, and had a fair understanding of what it all meant, but I didn't really get all the details yet.  I would, even though I didn't really need to.  I just hadn't yet, since I'd been so busy training....

I'm confused by "windows"--as many times as I've watched Apollo 13, I don't recall windows in Mission Control there, but you may be drawing on some other source that's more accurate to something modern?

Haruhi talks about how the consequences of losing her self-control.

With Itsuki's help, I was ... still upset, but they deserved better than that.  It was too far, but ... things would go horribly wrong if I tried to undo it at that point.

What was too far?  If anything, I'd think what she should emphasize is that, while she could go back and change the event, she couldn't guarantee there wouldn't be other, more damaging consequences.  At least, if I remember Koizumi's argument correctly.

I shouldn't tamper with my own mind.  If I were to make a mistake, who then could fix it?  I shouldn't tamper with things that are delicate, or that no one at all understands yet -- like time travel.  I shouldn't make things that can behave unpredictably or dangerously without my supervision.

"who then" seems all right, but maybe "who else" instead?

It was strange how the details from things that have happened over three years ago could still gnaw at me.

I suggest "had happened"?

Koizumi has been giving Haruhi guidance--they're on a first-name basis--but Haruhi hesitates to show affection for him publicly.  At least, not too much.  Telling.

If a black hole formed, then I'd prevent anything disastrous -- absolutely, I'd prevent anyone getting hurt.  If the machinery broke, I could fix that ... though with time, they wouldn't really need me at all.

I think I probably commented on this the first time.  A black hole of any terrestrial size would evaporate and disappear well before it could do any damage.  At least, that's the theory.  I can appreciate the idea that, with a reality warper at one's disposal, no one sees the need to rely solely on theory to protect them.  If they happen to be wrong and a black hole doesn't evaporate fast enough to prevent catastrophe, it would look a bit silly.

----

Haruhi and Koizumi have an apartment together.  Haruhi goes to Hayate's house.  Haruhi remarks on how tutoring allows her to keep feeling normal--it's a remarkable point that she wants to feel normal, one that isn't explored at that exact moment.  Perhaps that's later?

I realized I was still wearing the semi-formal suit and skirt, so before I knocked, a thought shifted it into more casual jeans and a loose blue shirt.  Another thought removed the makeup from my face and let my hair relax from the command I'd given it to stay as if permed.  For the final touch, a falling leaf shot on an unusual trajectory straight to my fingertips before it became a gold ribbon.

"shifted it" -> "shifted them" or some other plural for agreement.

I didn't take money anymore, though; money was pretty meaningless to me by that point.  I would have liked to have kept going to school, myself, but there wasn't much point.  As Itsuki said, I really needed to focus on my powers more than anything else.

Point and point, though used in different senses.  That might make it all right.

Haruhi doesn't bother with school, preferring something more free form.  This also means she's isolated from peers, which would strengthen Koizumi's hold over her, wouldn't it?

"Ah?" he started, blinking.  He recognized me and gave me the friendly smile that told me he hadn't learned to be afraid of what everyone knew I could do -- like his parents had.  He was one of those rare people who saw me for me.  Like--

Like Koizumi?  No, like Kyon.  Her guilt and positive view of him leak through despite what ideas about him Koizumi's poisoned her mind with.

Hayate relates how he met Nonoko, and Haruhi puts aside those uncomfortable feelings, promising to speak with Nonoko later and square things away.

----

Haruhi teleports herself to Nonoko's location on a street near Kyon's home.  They have a staring contest for a while.

Well ... he might say such words, but I don't recall that he would ever use so much venom.  I knew, of course, from what Hayate had said, but I felt somehow the question needed to be asked.

Would this be better with "I knew why"?

She called him 'Brother,' not 'Kyon.'  He confided in me once that he'd always wanted her to call him that again ... and it was only after....

Oh, poor Nonoko.  That sometimes we only honor our loved ones as much as we should after death--it tugs at the heartstrings, man.  Haruhi is right to be affected by this.

"People ... aren't toys, Nonoko.  That was an accident," I told her gravely.  "If you think I'm like that ... that I would intentionally do such a thing....  But even then ... even if he deserved better...."  I trailed off, and had to use Itsuki's words, when my own failed me:  "He was plotting behind my back, you know.  Itsuki told me that -- he once suggested that I was dangerous, and should be killed."

Haruhi is hesitant, yes, but there are a lot of ellipses here, and in the piece in general.  While I'm not saying this is what you should do (because while I notice there are a lot of ellipses, they don't particularly bother me), you could do something like this:

"People ... aren't toys, Nonoko.  That was an accident," I told her gravely.  "If you think I'm like that -- that I would intentionally do such a thing....  But even then, even if he deserved better...."  I trailed off, and had to use Itsuki's words, when my own failed me:  "He was plotting behind my back, you know.  Itsuki told me that -- he once suggested that I was dangerous, and should be killed."

Really, only some of them seem like they could be replaced with different punctuation, and I know how much that has to suit taste.

Again, I think it's very good, very telling that Haruhi can't express the belief that Kyon betrayed her in her own words and has to paraphrase Koizumi's flat and factual explanation.  She accepts that Koizumi thinks this way and has taken it as fact even without feeling convinced of it on the inside, or that's how I read it.

"And that makes it right?!" she exclaimed, standing rigid, hands balled into fists at her sides.  Somewhere, down the street, one of Itsuki's men began moving towards us.  I recognized him by the earpiece and his quick stride, so a thought sent him somewhere else -- a beach in Hokkaido several hours walk from any cell phone signal, or other people.  It was a safe place, though; he'd be fine, and I didn't want that interruption.

I think, of long o sounds are ou, then it's Hokkaidou, but it's not like anyone I've seen writes it that way.

Again, telling:  Koizumi can't have known Haruhi would be there, so he must've had Nonoko under surveillance.  Haruhi doesn't make this connection quite yet, though.  That's later.

I just--  I never would have done a thing if he hadn't tried to move against me first!  But....  What had I really hoped for, confronting her like that?  Why would she insist that it wasn't true?

Is it "why would" or "why wouldn't"?

In truth, I find the end of this scene a bit empty.  Haruhi understands that she must win this argument with words, not force.  She wants Nonoko's forgiveness, and confronting the girl with the truth is logical.  If Nonoko can accept that Kyon did plot against Haruhi, then they can come to understanding.

But then, suddenly, Haruhi considers the possibility that Koizumi was wrong.  The switch in thinking goes like this:

This was a fight I needed to win with words, not force.  But the truth....  The truth of it....

How long had I been trying to avoid thinking about this?  How long had I just accepted what I was told, because it was easier than facing....

I feel like there's a vital component missing to Haruhi's thought process.  It might be that I misinterpreted the "would she insist" part above, that Haruhi is genuinely surprised by Nonoko's unwavering belief in Kyon--but if so, it makes her estimation of Nonoko a lot more nuanced.  What did Haruhi expect?  That Kyon's sister was angry with her despite knowing how Kyon tried to betray her?  And is there good reason to tell Nonoko about that betrayal at all at that point?

If I haven't misunderstood, then what it seems to me is that something about Nonoko says needs to strike a chord with Haruhi.  Again, Nonoko's absolute, unwavering belief in Kyon is the key.  Haruhi could convince herself that she used to feel the same way, which is why it's so difficult to argue because when she does, she has to use Koizumi's words.  On an intellectual level, she can believe Kyon betrayed her, but not on an emotional one.  I think this is what you intended to do; it just doesn't hit me because Haruhi changes her mind so fast, in my opinion.  Personally, I can see Haruhi recalling how Koizumi dropped the ball on her and how she vehemently rejected it, only to accept it later because she couldn't stand the possibility she'd erased Kyon, Asahina, and Nagato for no reason at all.  Nonoko's certainty here could remind Haruhi of her own back then.

There's another way to go about it instead, where Haruhi feels that doubt and then dismisses it, choosing instead to prove Nonoko wrong by seeing what happened for herself to give her argument all the more surety, but again, I don't think this is what you intended.

And, it could be this is all fine, and I'm just making too much of a small thing, so don't worry about it too much if what I say there doesn't resonate.

----

Haruhi goes back to Sigh.

Pathetic.  The me from them hadn't had the courage of Kyon's sister when she glared at me.

"Them" -> "then"

Haruhi rewiinds a good bit to find out when Kyon became angry.  I guess she's trying to figure out when Kyon might've gained the nerve to move against her?

I let the scene play forward again, intangible.  Yuki herself walked right through me without reacting.

This briefly gives the impression the scene was intangible, but only briefly.

The image of Kyon stormed away.  I had no need to watch my past self tremble and numbly record over the footage that had angered him once he left -- I remembered it well enough.  No need to watch myself think nothing except that he had been right for hours.

Interesting that even back then, Haruhi realized she had been in the wrong.

----

And the tape plays into Haruhi acknowledging that she had feelings for Kyon.  She follows Koizumi and Kyon, realizing that what Koizumi said about that time doesn't appear to be true.

But that image of him ... that was more like the Kyon I remembered.  He looked more haggard, angry at his situation, and upset about Itsuki pressuring him.  And why wouldn't he?

Perhaps "why wouldn't he be"?

I didn't know what to feel -- after encountering Nonoko, then going back and making myself look at this....  I wanted someone to tell me that it was okay; to hold me and give me what I needed to somehow feel better -- to have everything somehow be okay.  I couldn't run back to Itsuki, though -- not yet.  No matter what I wanted ... I needed to find the truth.

Not sure what to do about this repetition.

I didn't immediately recognize the woman in the room, staring at the costume rack with a sweet smile -- frozen, like all time was for the moment.  She was dressed well enough, and looked like a very attractive young teacher.  Something about her seemed familiar, and I studied the unknown for a while before resuming time.  She would introduce herself to Kyon, wouldn't she?

I feel like this might be more natural if it were "unknown person"?

"I swear to you," Mikuru said, her voice surprisingly gentle, sorrowfully sympathetic.  "Suzumiya-san ... never have I done anything to act against you or Kyon -- everything I've ever done was to preserve the stability of the time-planes.  Truthfully, I can't act here, in these times ... physically, I can't have any effect.  Only through information can I provide any impact ... that's simply a limitation of classified--"

Kyon-kun?

"Suzumiya-san ... would Kyon kissing someone else truly do such a thing?  Would it be so destructive and dangerous to you?"

And again.

Something about this scene too seems incomplete; Haruhi doesn't press Asahina about how she survived.  I'm not sure if, were I in her position, I would believe her--that Kyon and Nagato couldn't be saved--without knowing that detail.  But, perhaps it's largely irrelevant.

----

Haruhi doesn't realize just how significant the difference in John Smith's voice from Koizumi's is.  She does figure out that Koizumi's men must've been following Nonoko.  Only now does she realize Koizumi's lied to her--not just that he was mistaken about why she erased Kyon, but that he absolutely lied.  And knowing that Kyon is the true John Smith seals the deal.

----

Perspective change.

Koizumi is a slick bastard but feels his manipulations are for good.  Nevertheless, he has to keep Haruhi under control.  No sympathy here for trying to throw all the memorabillia away and keep Haruhi's mind off Kyon, necessary though it may be to preserve his interests.

Jealousy.  Koizumi knows that Kyon would survive with Haruhi even if the world had changed.  Good times.

Haruhi challenges him on why Nonoko is important and the last thing John Smith said to her.  Koizumi handles these questions as best he can, growing increasingly uneasy.

She paused for a moment, while he could still open one eye, the other already squinted shut against the pain, looking at him with an empty, regretful expression.  It was hard for him to think straight, and he was sinking to the ground -- staying upright was too hard.  There was smoke, faintly, the scent of--

I think the modifies get a bet jumbled here in the first sentence.  Until we get to him it feels like Koizumi is looking, especially with the focus on Koizumi's eyes.  Perhaps, instead of "looking", try "and looked".


I wonder why you chose to go back to third-person here.  It seems to me that this scene could be done from Haruhi's perspective, with her scornfully realizing how pathetic his excuses are.  Then again, I know that would be very, very intense.

[Brian]

I ommitted some of your comments because I couldn't find a constructive way to reply to them.

I think I see why you mentioned another medium for posting replies. I had a reply for ActIII/Epilogue almost ready to post, and then managed to misclick and hit backspace, unmaking the post completely -_-.

That's ... pretty much it exactly. >_>;

I feel like before I was making a lot of grammar corrections that may have just been stylistic fallacies on my part, and probably missed something more important. I also like I'm going to make the same corrections this time. Let's find out.

You also like?  Is there a missing 'feel' there? :p

She had...willed whatever she had done to Kyon to happen to her. Why hadn't anything happened?

I see what you're trying to do with the ellipsis, what with the stuttering and all; however, I feel like the stutter would work better as 'She had willed whatever she had done to Kyon to happen to her. Why...why hadn't anything happened?', or something like that.

Moved the ellipsis between 'willed' and 'whatever'.

...she wanted to endure that, too.

It looks like she wants to endure that fate along with something else. I'd replace the [comma] too with herself.

That's correct?  She wants to endure what Kyon did, feeling it's deserved after what she's done.

For flow, replaced 'too' with 'as well'.

Right, I'm just going to ignore the section with the Sky Canopy Dominion interface of uncertain nomenclature. 1.077*1011 seems like it's supposed to be scientific notation and is just missing a carrot between the 10 and 11, but that assumption is probably wrong.

Hmm, the <super> tag seems to not work at all.  The caret will go back in.

The time reference is measuring time in rotations of a black hole at maximum velocity, a kind of running gag/reference to Kuyou's characterization in K:BDH.

I don't know. She should be talking in a more broken language, but not doing so is forgivable due to both ease of reading and writing.

...and also because she directly states that what was preventing clear communication is now resolved.

Would I hurt, just as much?

The 'I hurt' construction isn't incorrect; however, 'it hurt' would be better in this specific situation, as you'd been using the end as the subject. The comma looks like it's trying to split the question into a question of t/f and a question of magnitude. I'm not sure how to correct this; if you want to recombine the question I'd go 'Would it hurt me just as much as it had hurt him?' or something like that.

Well, she expects something unpleasant.  I think just omitting the comma will work for that.

I think someone else brought the issue up earlier, but again, should there be a hyphen in sundress/sun dress?

Nope.  Will fix that.

I guess it's a guy's room, at a glance?

At a glance this looks grammatically awful. Further analysis seems to support this.

...and?  I don't understand what's wrong.  I'm not even going to try to fix it if you can't give me more information on what the error is.  A somewhat smart-alecky comment saying, "You got it wrong!" and nothing else....

Anyway.  Overcoming my irritation, I notice that there is an issue with repetition on 'at a glance,' so will omit the second instance.

I don't think chastize is a word.

Difference between British and American spellings of the word:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chastize

Right. Now I'm not sure. Is this Adult!Mikuru or just Mikuru? The 'I'm older now' makes it look like she went to future or something for a few years then rejoined them. (For the record, where did that notation for variants come from?)

Assuming one-way trip and no paradox, adult.  Then again, it's been three years, so even the small one would have grown up.

And I don't know.  Coders, I guess.

For the record, it's Sky Canopy Dominion, not Sky Canopy Domain.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to -- it's a translation issue with some fuzziness around it -- like arguing about the 'Data Thought Entity' vs. 'Data Sentience Entity.'  Internal consistency trumps accuracy.

he is still my friend...

How does that answer Haruhi's question?
Of course, if you're going for a mysterious air for Nagato then that works.

Ah, that's a good chance for me to expand on Yuki's answer and have it be a bit more complete -- thanks for the catch.

....since she's not you," he admits with a cautious smile.

I know I'm supposed to stay away from tenses and such, but I think you may have slipped into present.

Nope, that's an actual tense error.  Fixed.

The whole thing about there being no original Kyon in that world is incorrect. Remember that everyone's memories were only changed for one year into the past. Kyon is still the same Kyon in both worlds, he just has a year's worth of different memories.

No, I don't agree, sorry.  While memories could have been changed and etc., then there's a genuine paradox.  Namely, that Ryouko can't do anything in the disappearance universe because she would have gotten erased.

Anyway -- even if I'm somehow wrong, for the purposes of this story, as Yuki explained, another reality was created to house the segments of the temporal loop that Kyon occupied.  In other words, as I see things (and how it does work for this story), Ryouko was erased in the prime reality, but not the Disappearance universe.  I don't feel any need to commit myself to a more depressing interpretation.  (Sadly, this is not the first time I've had this discussion, but the last one compelled me to always accept mine over the other, as it's too depressing and is a poor fit for the proper tone of the novels, IMO.)

Here's the line:

"To prevent a collapse of causality, it was required that events that happened in an alternate future still happen -- therefore, reality itself was split, and a second stable copy came into being," Yuki elaborated.

I don't like that to them

Wait, what?

I'm sorry, this isn't constructive commentary.  Presumably there's something wrong here, but you're not telling me what.  Try to avoid just being snarky or throwing out disdainful comments 'for the lulz,; that is not what this community is about.

As it is, your tone is setting my teeth on edge.  If I'm becoming dismissive to your comments, it's because I find your tone insulting, so, sorry if you did that on accident.

even if they forgave me

For what exactly? Not actually doing anything to them? Wouldn't she have realized by now that she did nothing wrong to them, and that they're supporting her?

Guilt isn't perfectly logical.  She feels bad, so blames herself.  Obviously they don't, but three years of dealing with what she had isn't healed in a day.

Now, there's a problem with the two of them trying to make up a year and a half of learning in half of one. Doesn't Japan go year round? I mean, Haruhi's powers, but...
However, they're also switching to the U.S. education system...
That's confusing.

I don't even know where to begin with this one....

It's the master bedroom, so there's more space, there!

Second comma. Burn it.

Dropped the 'there' as well.

Probably, the funniest part was when Mikuru and I were both not thinking about a compromise, and making him feel conflicted by encouraging him to get closer to the other.

Meh, I'm not entirely sure about the structure of this one. I think I had some suggestion on how to fix it before, but I forget what that was. However, I think that replacing the and with a but (instead) fixes it.

This looks like a job for an emdash.

She liked being with us, and not in that sense.

It works grammatically, but I think that a but works better than the and.

Went with 'just' and added emphasis to 'that'.

I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with my studies at first, but I enojyed school.

Well, at least you're consistent with your spelling errors, barring the correct versions.

You do realize what sort of response to your own fic you're engendering here, right?  I'm trying to be polite, but my patience is severely strained at this point.

I'm not going to reply in kind, but I think you should be aware of just what a jerk you're portraying yourself as.

While appreciated, there's no rule about having to comment before you can post your own stories.

It's really more I found that I couldn't start a new topic without posting something first. As soon as I made my first post the 'New Topic' button appeared.

That's to encourage people to post in the 'introductions' thread, I think.

Ok, Prologue and Ch. 1 of my stuff will be up momentarily.are up.

I'll let my temper cool off before I have a look.  I don't think you'd appreciate the tone of comments your own C&C has engendered.

Thanks for trying, sorry I'm too pissed off to be more grateful.

[Gotonis]

Right. It would seem that in my attempts to befriend people by being helpful, I have managed to display myself as annoying and snarky.  I sincerely apologize.

I don't like that to them

Wait, what?

I'm sorry, this isn't constructive commentary.  Presumably there's something wrong here, but you're not telling me what.  Try to avoid just being snarky or throwing out disdainful comments 'for the lulz,; that is not what this community is about.

As it is, your tone is setting my teeth on edge.  If I'm becoming dismissive to your comments, it's because I find your tone insulting, so, sorry if you did that on accident.

Yeah, I don't know. That line seemed rather confusing, but I wasn't sure how to explain. Again, I apologize for my tone. I guess at first I was being extra careful about it, then as things seemed to get relaxed I stopped listening to myself before I spoke. You don't need to apologize; it was my fault completely and I have no excuse.

I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with my studies at first, but I enojyed school.

Well, at least you're consistent with your spelling errors, barring the correct versions.

You do realize what sort of response to your own fic you're engendering here, right?  I'm trying to be polite, but my patience is severely strained at this point.

I'm not going to reply in kind, but I think you should be aware of just what a jerk you're portraying yourself as.

Yeah...
Don't use sarcasm. Got it. For some reason that seemed more like lightly witty in my head, but looking back...
I'm sorry. This REALLY wasn't my intention.

Right now I'm just wondering how I can redeem myself. I see how far out of line my tone was, and I'll try not to do it again in the future.

[Brian]

A couple of clarifications:

A couple replies.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Minor suggestion (and easily discardable): if you want to show Haruhi with a bit more of that spark from the next suggestion, consider changing 'always' to 'constantly' in the second sentence. Shows some of her dissatisfaction with the way Koizumi treats her.

Heh, I think I should stop where it is, though.  'Constantly' makes it a bit too obvious, I think. >.>;

I'm not a nice person at all.

We should make a club!

...oh, wait, we already did.  :3

There's also some tense oddity here: 'accomplished', 'it was' rather than 'it's'.

Aha, thanks for the catches.  I kept slipping into present tense when I do the corrections.  ;D

There's no good term without going into spanner-slang. :\

Douglas Adams was right. The real issue with time travel is tenses.

...would Haruhi know spanner-slang?  I think she might, but I can't expect the readers to. :p

Again, doesn't really need story clarification, just something I wonder, I wonder.

Those eyes are worrying me....

That actually strikes me as -less- plausible, though. Might be my own view of Haruhi impinging here, but I can't see her buying (even in this circumstance) that Kyon was masterminding some kind of plot against her. Participating in one? That could be swallowed, but not running things; if nothing else, he's too much of a slacker to keep something like that going. It'd need some other person to be the real driving force behind it, and with the emphasis on Yuki in a couple of spots, that's why I was under the impression that it was her plot and Kyon was pulled into helping her with it.

Yeah, it's not a perfect story.  I'm okay with Koizumi's story being flawed, but Haruhi trying to make herself go along with it because she's that horrified over the idea of hurting Kyon/Yuki/Mikuru, even if it was in 'self defense.'