[dkellis]

Archive post updated.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

This was the first part written by someone before me. I hope I didn't butcher dkellis's stuff too much....

Minor note, to everyone who's editing as well: I'm used to using "sempai" (even though I've been trying to use "senpai", for the past few years), so you may need to search-and-replace all instances of "sempai" to "senpai". Habit is a hard thing to break.

As for the actual writing, well done. Added a lot more internal commentary, which fit very well.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

What I do is rewrite the novels, and what dkellis does is write directly from memory.

I think having him write some of the more difficult parts in advance so I can use them when I get there is working well so far.

That's pretty much correct: I read the B-T translations, fix them in my head, and then write my own version while using the original Japanese novels for reference in case I forget. (Which is why I'm irritated that I can't find anything other than volumes 1, 4, and 9. What the hell, Kinokuniya.)

The more difficult parts really are more difficult, and I've been jiggling my brain trying to figure out a way to make the events believable with Kyonko as a girl and Haruki as a guy. It's pretty amazing how many gender assumptions we (as a species subset of "urbanized humans") take for granted.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

The main issue is, we can make Haruki appear to be queen gay (happy affectionate disposition while molesting), or macho gay (His raw power is overwhelming!).

I should mention for full disclosure that when I wrote (or rather, carefully did not write) the crotch-grabbing scene, my intent was to show that Haruki doesn't care that he may be seen as gay, and using present societal shorthand, he may well be bisexual.

It's like calling Tomoyo from Card Captor Sakura "lesbian" because she's attracted to Sakura; it's technically correct, but it's not the whole story, skipping over a lot of subtleties. In Haruki's case, it's more that Here is something he wants to prove, and This is a way to prove it, and even if This is seen to be "gay", he doesn't care. He's a very direct thinker: where the rest of us would hesitate to do something because of all sorts of factors, like whether it looks gay or whether it's humiliating or whether it's even possible, Haruki is unburdened by such doubts.

This, incidentally, is also how I rationalized (read: fanwanked) Haruhi's boob-grabbing in the canon. It may well be completely incorrect.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

POLL: Ryou or Ryouta?

"Ryou", for convenience, since we're using it anyway.

Also, once again, it's easy to change names after the fact: search-and-replace is a great help.

(I think I'm now incapable of operating at full efficiency when writing on paper, since I keep reaching for CTRL+F (and CTRL+S) every time.)

Originally Posted by Jintor

While I'm here, I should probably note that I think that specific references can work, but only if they're well integrated and aren't just ridiculously gratitous. I threw in a few Star Trek references in my last editjob because, well, I thought they fitted. And nobody's bothered to complain yet.

I see Star Trek as something that has penetrated into general Japanese pop culture significantly enough to be referenced by Kyon(ko), so I have no real objections to it.

Mostly what I'm cautioning against is that if we're going to have Kyonko or Haruki (or anyone else) referencing something, it had better be plausible. For example, one reason I don't like the "Leeroy Jenkins" battlecry being inserted into the project is because if Haruki's going to make a reference to a MMORPG, it's likely to be a Japanese reference, and probably not WoW, but FFXI. (See: Naito, Gimp PLD.)

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To address the points raised while I was previewing this post:

I see the Genderswap SOS Brigade to have the goals of meeting aliens/time-travellers/ESPers yadda yadda, but More So, in that it is to spread excitement all over the world through its members.

It's the difference between "Oh wow, aliens do exist, that's so cool!" and "Oh wow, aliens do exist! Hey, Mr. Alien, get over here! You have to meet these people, it's awesome! No, you're not allowed to say no, you have to come! Over here, right now!"

I'm blanking on the proper term for this, but it's kind of like the original SOS Brigade, plus GUTS. Canon Haruhi's passion, turned up to eleven.