[FFML] [Lime] The Eclipse of Haruhi Suzumiya

[Brian Randall]

And time for the next chapter.  I think.  There's a third now, I think?

Hard to tell -- gmail says they all have the same subject line, so
they're all in the same thread.

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Henry Cobb <henry.cobb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The next morning when my sister yanked me off my bed I awoke without
> remembering my dreams and also without evidence of nocturnal
> emissions. Whatever had possessed me the previous night seemed to have
> passed. I was probably just letting my teenage hormones run away with
> me. So what if Mikuru Asahina was a little eccentric? Even her play acting
> was nothing compared to Haruhi Suzumiya's wall to wall insanity.

I think 'play-acting' can be hyphenated.

> On my walk up the hill to school my thoughts turned to the third new girl
> in my life, the shy tiny bookworm known as Yuki Nagato. What had she meant
> by the warning from her master, who was Haruhi's brother?

I think you mentioned ret-goning this in a later post.

> "Hey Kyon!"
>
> "Morning Taniguchi," I turned and stopped to let my friend catch up with
> me. Then I remembered that he had attended junior high with Haruhi and had
> therefore known her for several years longer than myself. I walked
> alongside him for a moment then asked, "What's miss Suzumiya's brother
> like?"

There should be commas before Kyon and Taniguchi's name -- and 'Miss'
as an honorific is capitalized, I believe.

Considering that we know Kyon has known Haruhi for less than a month,
I think you can drop 'for several years' and be just fine.

> "Oh," That explained it then. Haruhi's older brother must have already been
> in the Yakuza when she was in junior high and so would have been
> unmentionable. She had developed her schizophrenia in response to the
> strain and the shame. And now her brother is a Yakuza boss who has sent
> Yuki and perhaps Mikuru to keep tabs on her.

That speech indicator thing I'm always whining about.

> "What is it Kyon?" Taniguchi kept watching me as we walked along.

Missing a comma before Kyon's name.

> "Sorry, it's my mistake. I got things mixed up." It had to keep Taniguchi
> out of this mess. It would be best to slowly back away from the situation
> myself. Even if I had no concern for my own life, I never wanted to see my
> sister or parents lying in pools of their own blood.

It had to keep  -- I had to keep (though, the idea of Kyon's narrative
using 'it' instead of 'I' suddenly struck me as _hilarious_.  I may
use that).

> Fate was of course not so kind.

I think that 'of course' is a parenthetical that should be separated
with commage.  Or maybe just could be.  Somehow, it seems that it
flows better without commas if the phrase is 'naturally' instead of
'of course'.

You can probably ignore me with prejudice on that one.

> I didn't want to respond, but I didn't want her to grab me by the collar
> and bang my head against her desk again either. I turned in my chair to see
> her beaming face, "Who is here?"

No speech indicator.

> "As you say," I forced down my urge to make a fruitless attempt to talk
> common sense into Haruhi. My family was at stake after all.
>
> Haruhi seemed taken aback my minimal response and after a moment's pause
> rose from her seat, "I'll go look!" She ran from the classroom.

Hmm, this part of the dynamic is strange....  Seems like Haruhi's got
expectations for Kyon's behavior, and he's not quite matching up.  Not
falling short, but....

It's interesting that when Haruhi _might_ be god, Kyon treats her like
a normal person.  But when she _is_, Kyon refuses to believe it, he's
terrified of her, because she has to be something awful that still
fits into his world-view.

Kyon: Sasaki's influence.

Evidently.

> Doubt gnawed at my ankles every step to the clubroom. Even if Mikuru was a
> professional call girl, Yuki was clearly out of her depth. As I climbed the
> steps I imagined my sister's dead body if I continued with this charade and
> Yuki's dead body if I didn't. In any case the only dangers to Haruhi came
> from her own insanity and her brother's connections, and I couldn't do
> anything about either of those.

Are you familiar with 'enjo kosai'?

Ah, none of your readers will be either. :\

I have to admit -- I can't recall how Kyon became convinced that his
family would die if he didn't do what Haruhi wanted.  I think it may
have been related to the brother that no longer exists (somehow ... I
had influence over this?).  I do remember you replied to me and
explained it, but I just don't remember seeing it in the narrative.

> As I entered the clubroom I saw that the only people there were Yuki
> sitting by the window and reading and Mikuru, sitting at the table.

I think you can put a comma after 'Yuki' and 'and reading'.  Also, you
can probably remove one (or both) instances of 'sitting'.

> Mikuru smiled as she saw that I couldn't pull my gaze away from her as she
> relaxed into her professional persona.

repetition of 'as' (multiple simultaneous events in a single line).
The first could be replaced with 'when', or the second could be
replaced with 'while'.

> Another riddle. I turned back to Mikuru, "Well I get bored. Do you play
> games?"

Can't see why she bothered with that answer.  Given his response, she
may as well just say 'not really', or something way more cryptic and
off the wall.

> "But of course. However what should we do when Haruhi suddenly
> arrives. Wouldn't it be safer to go to a hotel after club hours?"

I think you want a comma after 'However'.  And that second line is a question.

> "Are they jealous of your master's attentions?" Mikuru asked.

The guy who doesn't exist anymore?

> "I have only done what I have been told," Yuki read through the booklet
> that came with the game and then made a correct move.

'Correct' feels awkward here; I would go with 'valid' or 'legal'.

> At that moment Haruhi burst in with her mysterious transfer student in tow,
> a freshman boy named Itsuki Koizumi. In spite of this being his first day
> in school he had the proper uniform already and unlike most boys at the
> school had his collar buttoned and his tie in place. Most likely to
> minimize the amount of uninked skin he had to show, I suspected. She said
> that he had already agreed to join the club and he responded by asking what
> the club was about. She gave her spiel about finding aliens, time travelers
> and espers and he took it all in stride. He bowed to Mikuru then turned to
> shake my hand.

'in school' 'at school' in the second sentence.  You can probably just
drop the second one.

> Mikuru tripped as she rose from her chair and caught herself on the table
> with an artful jiggle. I pulled my glance away to look at Itsuki's face
> which remained in that pleasant smile, with his eyes mostly closed. He was
> either gay or a very cool customer indeed.

Koizumi: Or ... incredibly NOT gay!
The fangirls will cry, but that's actually not an inversion, going by
Disappearance.
Kozumi: What about being a girl?
...that ... works.

> Yuki froze rather than flinching back as Haruhi reached over to snatch away
> her glasses, then returned to reading without even adjusting her
> posture. Perhaps it was only the threat of the male touch that horrified
> her.

Yeah, that train of thought's got a healthy destination.

> "I must have done that incorrectly," I put my toothpick back in the center
> of the table. The last thing I wanted was to tempt fate and Mikuru's threat
> of the love hotel. If that was what Mikuru wanted she could just do that
> walk and I would have followed her anywhere.
>
> "Very well," Haruhi gathered the toothpicks back again, "We can have one do
> over if you must."

...interesting.  There's no way around the fact that Kyon just let
everyone at the table know he'd rather not be with Mikuru.  Haruhi
allows a reroll, but no one else reacts?

Also, if it's luck (or is supposed to be), how can any part of it be
'incorrect'?  I get what you're going for, but it feels awkward; you
may want to revise section a bit.

> Haruhi took a moment to warn me before our two groups split, "This is not a
> date Kyon. If you have fun with her then you will die!"

Comma before 'Kyon'.

Haruhi: Hilariously, none of that was hyperbole, and I wouldn't be responsible!
Yuki: ...sorry.

> Far from being the date Haruhi had warned about, Yuki kept always out of
> arms length as we walked along. I briefly considered asking her about this
> master she so feared, but settled on a question about what I knew of her
> interests, in order to break the ice so to speak, "You read a lot of
> books?"

'always out of arms length' -- 'always an arm's length away'?

> "What will you do then?"

do then -- do, then

> "I was alone most of the time, but sometimes travelers would leave behind
> books."

And clothes, and money, and bones....

> She opened the book and rapidly flipped through the pages, stopping to
> almost smile at different pages.  Then she looked up and said, "Thank you,"
> before turning back to the book.

Okay, I know I said I'd stop mentioning the speech indicator thing --
but in this instance, I'd like to point out you did it correctly.
This is the sentence structure you want! :D

> My ploy had failed.  I had expected her to look up her home in the table of
> contents or index and skip directly to that page. Instead she was stopping
> at pictures of mountains all along the length of the nation. She couldn't
> have lived on every mountain in Japan so she must just like looking at
> terrain photos.

Comma before 'so', I believe.

> She looked at the five books for a moment then picked up one of the three
> she had selected, walked over to the shelves and slid in back into
> place. She returned to the table, put the picture book on top of her other
> two selections and slid my first selection in my direction, "You check out
> that one please."

slid in -- slid it

> "If it was that easy then everybody would have spotted it already, wouldn't
> they? We need a firm baseline of the known knowns so we can spot the
> unknown unknowns."
>
> "Very well. Apology accepted. You can live. Now let's split up into teams
> of three and two again."

O_o?  She decided that was him apologizing?  Sure....

> "No."
>
> "Are you questioning my orders underling?"

Comma before underling.

> "Your suggestion is acceptable. Yuki," Haruhi turned to the shorter girl,
> "I want a full report by Monday of anything you find that is a known
> mystery in these books."
>
> "Understood."
>
> "Yuki," I turned to her, "Are you sure you can carry all those books? I can
> drop some of them over at your place later."

Mmm, I can't remember.  When did he start calling her Yuki instead of Nagato?

> "I helped her fill out a form for a library card. Now let's split up
> again." I was ready this time to go one on one with any of the three, even
> Mikuru. Not in that way, but in terms of lines of questioning that would
> move me closer to my goal.

Eh?  Your Kyon inexplicably gains courage to do things he tells us he
couldn't earlier in the same chapter.  "I'm frightened of the Yaks!
What about my family?!" -> "I must kill the Yak boss that scared
Yuki."   And then: "Mikuru is too much for me to handle!  Please,
Haruhi, let me go with anyone else at all!" -> "I can handle Mikuru."

I'm cool with different interpretations of a character, but
consistency is key.  I think you just need to show us where/why Kyon
gains the resolve he does.

> I hit the jackpot.
>
> "This isn't a date you two," Haruhi told Mikuru and Itsuki, "I expect a
> full report when we get back here in two hours!" Then she put her arm
> through mine and lead me off.

Comma before 'you two'.

I have to say, that line REALLY weirded me out.  Haruhi telling
Mikuru/Itsuki that it wasn't a date?  Why would she care?

But then, I realized that actually makes absolutely perfect sense.  It
lets her conceal her jealousy under the guise of enforcing
Brigade-wide policy.

The big win is that she doesn't tell _Kyon_ that he's not on a date with _her_.

Well played!

> Walking arm in arm with a girl, was I'm afraid a rather unusual situation
> for me to be in, outside of a few times in junior high. I decided to
> start on my line of questioning, "So how was the search this morning?"

Sasaki again!

> Infamous was more like it I thought. I kept feeding her questions about her
> family and fortunately she was such an egotist that she never even asked
> about mine. Did she even know what my real name was? Better if she didn't.

like it I thought.  --  like it, I thought.

This is exactly the same as the speech indicator gripe, but now it's
thoughts instead of speech.  Also, since this is first person, you
have the relatively rare option of just omitting the 'I thought'
entirely.

> "The sunset," She looked directly into the sun without protection. As usual
> the girl had no common sense. "It always leaves me with a mixed feeling,"
> she continued, "Fond memories and a strange sense of emptiness. Like
> there's something I've forgotten," She turned to me, placed her hands on my
> shoulders and started to lean up on her toes to reach my face.

Seems abrupt.  Kyon's also got a real lack of reaction internally
while it's happening.

> "Kyon you idiot!" Haruhi poked me in the chest, "How dare you make me
> forget what time it is!" She pulled out her phone and hit a speed dial,
> "Koizumi! Are you still with Mikuru? Just go home then. I got sidetracked
> and it's all stupid Kyon's fault. I'll see you two Monday at the
> clubroom. Brigade leader out."

Hmm, I always grouse about tsundere haruhi characterizations.
Remember, she's a Genki Girl -- and a Jerkass with a Heart of Gold
(though that comes later).

> For a moment I was almost jealous. She had just met him and she already had
> his number on her cellphone. Wait, had I just almost kissed her? How
> suicidal was I? I thanked whatever guardian angel it was that had made my
> sister save her own life by calling me just then.

No, Kyon, you didn't.  _She_ almost kissed _you_.

> -HJC
> No knifing this time sorry. Murder by duct tape in the next chapter. Quack!

Adachi: Who wants to talk about MURDERS!? :D

Okay.  An interesting chapter with some amusing parts, too.

Thanks for sharing!

-- 
Brian Randall
--
I write fanfiction. Too much of it. You can read it here, thanks to a
kind grant from the Larry F foundation:
http://www.florestica.com/brandall/
--
Together. Allegiance or death. BIGFIRE!
--
Haiku of my lament:

Forgive my spelling,
my U.S. education,
is the source of blame.