[FFML] [SHnY][Dark] Downfall: Act I -- Betrayal

[Henry Cobb]

On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 7:12 PM, Brian Randall <durandall at gmail.com> wrote:
>     A quiet cough roused him from his distraction, and he tiredly
> moved his eyes over to the esper behind him, standing just at the edge
> of the pool of light, his face softly shadowed.
>
>     Mikuru had gone ahead, a few steps ahead of Haruhi herself, so it
> was just the two of them, now....
>
>     Still, he couldn't find the energy to move.

Who was the previous target of a male pronoun or name before this last line?

Mixing third person narration with the internal state of a single
character is always a pain.

>     He started, realizing he'd almost forgotten his presence somehow,

And in the last few seconds also?
>     Difficult?  Kyon thought it was more like _impossible_.

What Would Tanigawa-sama do here? Use fancy formatting or instead use
a reference that's so absurdly off in left field that it's out of the
ballpark? Not that styles of others should ever constrain your own
best judgement.

> "Okay," he
> sighed, leaning closer than he would have liked to the other boy to
> whisper.

He's sighing out Okay, or does the sigh occur later. Perhaps a break
up, this sentence could use?

>          -Asahina Mikuru

No fancy envelope this time?

> She could still focus on and get through
> her lessons, but it was sheer tedium, and only the consolation of
> seeing that he was upset too was able to keep her from screaming in
> frustration about the entire thing.

This sentence is so long and twisty that it's almost Cobbian.

>     Angry, she turned course without hesitation.  If Kyon wouldn't
> bother with school, she _absolutely_ wouldn't.  Club meetings were
> canceled on behalf of Yuki anyway, so what did it matter?

Changed course?

The first fanfic writer to show how the world works from inside
Haruhi's head will deserve an award of some kind. We know how
improbably Kyon thinks, so they'll need to push past that mark.

>     He said nothing else as they rounded the gate corner, and could
> see Kyon's form ahead, jogging down the street.  She watched him turn

Why hop between two watchers here? What is gained?

>     Still confused, and feeling that the girl lacked the implied
> urgency of her summons, he agreed anyway, following her across the
> street to the cafe.  He started slightly, but didn't really complain
> when she took his hand and pulled him through the archway to the
> outdoor seating area.

She's clearly a ringer. The message was _not_ to escape Haruhi, but
instead to escape the real Mikuru.

> It was silent for a moment,
> him trying to understand her motivations while she seemed to put
> something together in her head.

I kinda want to put "with" before him, but mostly I want to break this
sentence up.

>     Slipping onto the train behind Kyon without being spotted was
> trick[i]er than she'd expected -- and getting off was harder still ...
> but thanks to a tide of salary-men, she and Itsuki had found enough
> cover to pursue undetected.

Again with the sudden unexplained shift of pronouns.

>     "W...what?" he managed, confused.  As much as he wanted to like
> the idea of Mikuru confessing to him, that was just too much -- too
> forward.  This was more in line with that strange copy he had seen in
> the mansion over the winter break!  But ... he couldn't just pull down
> the front of her sun dress and stare at her chest to look for the mole
> and it wasn't low cut enough for him to see as things were.

So he missed all the clues up to this point?

-HJC