The Genderbending of Haruhi Suzumiya [Spoilers Aplenty]

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Jintor

I'm trying to figure out a way to make as many Brutal Legend references as possible in the Alien route.

GUITAR BATTLE WAHOOOOOOO

(This should give you an idea of what the Alien Route will be like if Danchou doesn't give me an outline soon)

This is the best idea you've ever had, EdChief. We're totally going to work it in somehow.

Originally Posted by scify

To be fair, you were being intentionally vague about stuff. Example.

Of course, you shouldn't take that as confirmation that it IS Itsuko.

At the least, I will say that she has rather an obsession with Itsuko.

Originally Posted by dragon4dudes

After listening to Sound Around, a guitar battle would be awesome. And yes, I just listened to it.

Given both Nagatos' ridiculous guitar talent, yeah. Awesome.

[scify]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Of course, you shouldn't take that as confirmation that it IS Itsuko.

At the least, I will say that she has rather an obsession with Itsuko.

I thought that was pretty obvious after the breast rant. I sort of figured Midori had it out for Itsuko and Mitsuuru the most.

[swtrooper42]

Originally Posted by Jintor

GUITAR BATTLE WAHOOOOOOO

Have a sudden urge to write Live Alive.
I'd have to write it quickly before my manly passion from listening to Gurren Lagann music and rewatching the finale wears off.

[CatzCradle]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but for those who didn't know, I just found a delightful Seitenkan webcomic recently here:

http://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=66697

I've only had time to skim through it so far, and the art is very nice.

[DJ_RockmanX]

Originally Posted by CatzCradle

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but for those who didn't know, I just found a delightful Seitenkan webcomic recently here:

http://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=66697

I've only had time to skim through it so far, and the art is very nice.

Not bad. Nice to see you're still hunting for stuff.

[Heatth]

This was actually posted a few pages ago. (not that anyone cared )

I haven't read yet, but it is very recent (the first page is from Oct 31). Somtehing that called my attention were Mitsuuru's name, being called there "Minoru". I remember that being one of the firts optiones, back when the project was borning last year, but does someone use that name nowadays?

[DJ_RockmanX]

It's not. Someone should make that suggestion.

[Heatth]

Originally Posted by DJ_RockmanX

It's not. Someone should make that suggestion.

Done! Well, it is more like a question then a suggestion.

[Tyabann]

After five days of procrastinating, an update!

Ja-jaaaaan!

Spoiler for September the Sixth, Day 5: Flashes in Space (Restlessness/Melancholy):

Flashes in Space- Restlessness/Melancholy


It’s 11:30 and I have nothing to do.

Well, I suppose I could do my homework… no, no point in doing that today.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

It’s 12:30 and I have nothing to do.

…

Hell. Nothing is going to happen if I just sit in this room. I’ll go out. That’s what I’ll do.

And, making that sporadic decision in a way unlike myself, I open my closet, and, like usual, throw together something resembling an outfit.

There, now I just have to decide exactly what I’m going to do…

…The headphones draw my attention again.

Well. I suppose it wouldn’t be too much harm if I just wore them around my neck. I’ve seen that style in manga before, and if I happen to run into Haruhi while I’m outside, I can return them to her and be rid of the cursed things forever.

It wouldn’t be any harm.

I slip the headphones around my neck.


---


Flashes.

The sky flashes.

Every few seconds, lightning flashes across the grey sky, cutting it into a jigsaw puzzle.

With each flash, I see a memory within the flash.

And I think,

“Dammit!”

And so, once again.

I fall into memory.


---


Middle school really sucks.

...

I thought it’d be at least, like, ten times better than grade school, but, nah, no dice here.

You again? Ah, that’s even…

Still boring as all get out. Everyone talks about everyday, boring things. No one has stood up in class and announced that they have an alien in their refrigerator.

Haven’t you ever read manga? People normally keep things like that to themselves, you know.

Sucks, man. And this is why I drew my tanzaku on the football field.

Shakes things up a lot.

Wait, wait, how does this follow at all!?


The staff went nuts over it the next morning, and they called this huge assembly, lecturing us all, and encouraging the person responsible to come forward, etcetera, stuff we’ve all heard before.

The culprit never admits to it, of course. How could they? How could anyone shame themselves in front of a crowd of this size?

So, of course, I stood up in the middle of the principal’s lecture and loudly admitted my guilt.

Honesty is the best policy, after all.

The reaction from the crowd was friggin’ priceless, let me tell you.

...

The teaching staff, ‘course, made this big hullaballoo (that’s a great word, gotta remember to use it again) over it, called me into the office, and they all yelled at me for about an hour. (Something about stuck-out nails and hammers in there.) More than anything else, they kept asking my why I did it.

I didn’t tell them.

...

That hour was honestly the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. I had my game face on, so no one knew, but lemme tell you that I had to use all my fortitude (another great word, full of them today) to stop from bursting out laughing.

I... I’m finding it hard to relate to your sense of humor, kid.

In the end, there really wasn’t anything they could do to me. They gave me a warning, and let me go.

Now this is the problem with administrators.


The whole school was talking about me.

Don’t you see? Don’t you people see what I’ve given you?

I’m the alien in the fridge, the stuck-out nail. (I, however, am impervious to hammers.)

I’ve shaken things up. Shaken up your lives.

Shaken up mine.

...


It was only three days later that a girl confessed to me for the first time.

Are we supposed to be impressed by this?!

I figured that a bro gotta have his hoes, (and she was pretty cute), so I said, sure, why not?

I took her out to a movie on the weekend, bought her somethin’ to eat, typical stuff, you know, whatever.

IT WAS FRIGGIN’ BORING AS ALL HELL!

You have very little concept of relationships, kid.

What a useless girl. Nothing in her head but boys and clothing and cute things. Fluff for brains.

I dumped her after only four days. Not worth my time.

The day after, another girl confessed to me. And another.

And another. (All according to plan.)

Alright, I’m somewhat impressed... But you still have no concept of relationships.

I tried out them all. No luck, but what can you do? Hey, I bet if I date every girl in the school, one of them’s bound to be special. Maybe she’ll be a tentacle monster from Pluto. That’d be awesome.

...What?

And at this rate I might well have dated every girl by the time I graduate, heh heh.

...


Of course, then there are the people who object to me doing so.

A week and a half after I defaced school property, a bunch of yankee thugs cornered me behind the school.

Now, I’m the biggest guy in my year, but these guys are third-year students, bigger than even me, and well, let’s just say I came home that night with a swollen face and internal bleeding.

It was friggin’ humiliating, is what it was.

Friggin’ humiliating. What right to these delinquents have to beat me up? They stick out just as much as I do.

Then I realized: I stick out the most of all.

In other words, if they’re the stuck-out nails, I’m the nail that’s stuck out the furthest. No, not even then. I’m on a whole ‘nother plank of wood.

I had a date the next day, but I called her and told her that we were breaking up.

If I had known middle school life would be this hard, I wouldn’t have gone, ya know?

But isn’t this what I wanted?

...


---

Seasons changed, and a year and a half passed. Other things changed, too. Some didn’t.

I lost my first couple fights, back when I was shorter than those yankees. Now that I’m bigger than them, and better at fighting, I win easily.

Now no delinquent tries to touch me. It’s awesome. Empowering.

Congratulations.

I still pull epic pranks. My favorite one has to be the time when I broke into the school at night, and moved out every single desk into the hallways. That one took a hell of a long time to clean up. Of course, I had to do most of it myself, but, hey. Worth it.

How is this at all rewarding?!

I started weight training a lot. Whenever I look in the mirror, I see a being that is pure, concentrated maaaan.

Don’t get so full of yourself, kid.

My body that is pure, concentrated maaaan is why I’m still having girls confess to me, even though I’ve been labeled as a “dangerous delinquent”. To be honest though, I’m getting really, really bored with it.

No girl is worth my time. None of them are aliens or anything like that at all.

Maybe you should lower your standards.

Plus, none of them can compare to her. I think she was the only person who ever really understood, looking back.

I snuck into North High (without tripping a single alarm) the weekend before the new term started, and went through their records. Her name, of course, being fake, wasn’t listed. I kind of doubt she went there at all.

There are some times I think she was only a dream. But that’s almost wishful thinking, you know?

...


One day, I ditched class to stick talismans everywhere. I even stuck it on the principal’s forehead.

When asked why I did it, I told them it was to ward off vampires. Hey, vampires are a legitimate danger, you should commend me for doing you all a service instead of calling my parents.

Bah.

Others might interpret it as you trying to exorcise the principal, but either way you’ll just be seen as a troublemaker.

That was also the day that I met a girl I thought would finally understand what I’m trying to get at. She, too, thought that people needed to be kicked into seeing the truth of things, and she also agreed that the status quo was totally crap. She was also rather a delinquent, which kind of set me on edge at first.

I get this feeling that I belong to two worlds: In one, I’m popular, that is, a household name (and damn am I ever good-looking) but in the other, I’m feared and hated by most of the student body.

It’s kind of funny. I don’t want to fit in. I am the goddamn poster boy for not fitting in. But in a way, I do want to fit in somewhere. I want a place in the world.

Is this what it means to be human?

What’re you getting all philosophical about now? You’re a middle schooler… learn your place, kid.

But even though I didn’t belong to her world, I tried to make this relationship work. Hell, she even looked a lot like her.

When we broke up after two weeks, I took out my frustration by painting a masterpiece on the school roof. I got suspended for two weeks, too.

I guess artists are meant to suffer, huh?

The third day of my suspension, I met a girl from my class in town who was skipping school that day.

Surprisingly, she’s never asked me out, but she did that day. Maybe some kind of sympathy, I don’t know, who cares? I said yes. I don’t refuse anyone.

I won’t know if they’re worth my time until I date them, after all.

The girl started chatting about some vapid, girly thing, just like always, and man, did it ever piss me off.

No matter what I do, I can’t find any kind of meaning in relationships. All girls are the same, cheap, two-bit sluts.

For that matter, all humans are the same. Cheap. Uninteresting. Used shells.

I don’t want anything to do with ordinary humans anymore.

I don’t want to be human.

So I blew up in that girl’s face, and walked away. She probably cried, but I don’t know.

I no longer care.

God, just give me an alien already. A vampire, a ghost, a person from another dimension, I don’t care.

Making my own spice in life has refused to work. It’s because I don’t have any spice to begin with.

...


I stopped cutting my hair, and started gelling it into weird spikes. I thought it looked cool, and I hear having a pointier head helps make it easier for the aliens to contact you.

I even timed the number of spikes to the number of the day, hoping that someone would notice.

Paradoxically, I also hoped it would drive people off, but still, girls came. They always came.

So I started being as much of a dick in class as I could.

No one talked to me anymore. (All according to plan.)

I almost feel sorry for you.

I wanna make ‘nother tanzaku.

Almost.


---

All throughout middle school, nothing happened. No mysterious transfer students. I never got to see a UFO. I even spent seven hours staring at a pencil, hoping to awaken inside me latent psionic abilities. Didn’t work. Guess I don’t have the Force after all.

Physics are not going to bend to your will, kid.

Reality is unsurprisingly cruel.

...Wait, that’s...

I won’t give in, though.

I applied to the most depressingly normal high school in the area, North High. I figured if the aliens et al. were hiding anywhere, it would be somewhere where no one would think to look. Sound logic, courtesy of me.

Logic?

It wasn’t because that was where she went. Don’t misunderstand, yeah?

...

The school itself sat atop a long, steep hill, which was another reason why I chose it: I’d get a workout every morning. I want to remain pure, concentrated maaaan. Not that I have a reason to anymore, of course.

Keep telling yourself that.

During the opening ceremony in the auditorium, all the conformists around me had this look like they were setting sail on some wonderful new journey, you know, that stupid look. As for me, heh, well, I made damn sure that I was notorious enough for my legend to spread as far as the high schools. Plus, a lot of people from East Junior are going here. No new journey for me.

...Hold on...

All the guys are in blazers, a uniform I’ve never really liked, but all the girls are in the traditional sailor uniform, something not seen a lot these days. I gave a thumbs-up to the vice-principal when I passed him on the way out, though I don’t think he noticed.

...Why is this so...

The introduction to our homeroom class was, at first, more the introduction to the homeroom teacher. I didn’t even get to hear her name, since her voice was so dull that I fell asleep just by hearing the first syllable to come out of her mouth.

I am. So depressed.

...Hmm. This sounds so familiar, but it can’t...

Finally, it was time for the actual introductions. Mine was something several months in the making. It’s a masterpiece, if I do say so myself. Of course, I’m near the end, but that will make it all the sweeter.

......Prepared speech? Masterpiece? Oh, I can’t wait...

After the girl in front of me finished what was clearly a canned speech, I got up.

Hey, canned speeches have their value too, kid.

For those of you who haven’t heard of me… soon, you won’t be able to forget.

I graduated from East Junior High.
I don't have any interest in ordinary humans. If anyone here is an alien, time traveler, slider, or esper, please, come to my side! That is all.

That was all.

...

Everyone was staring at me. Even Canned-Speech Girl in front of me turned around, and I got my first real look at her face.

You’re...

Pretty cute. Nice ponytail.

Ponytail?

Bah, not worth my time. She’s gaping like the rest.

Who are you...?

And so began my wonderful high school life. And by wonderful, I mean boring as hell.

That’s just the way people are, and I have refused to be one of them.

The irony, however, is that no matter how hard one tries to escape their humanity, they cannot escape the simple fact that they are human.

What are you...?

This is the nature of my melancholy.

There’s no way...

The Melancholy of Haruki Suzumiya.

Haruki... Suzumiya?



What’s going on here?!

---

And then, unceremoniously flung from the world of the memory.

I woke up.

And here we have the first makings of what Danchou and I refer to as the "Square", possibly the most important concept in this entire novel.

Enjoy the read.

[Jintor]

More liek Holden Suzumiya, ammirite

[swtrooper42]

I figured that a bro gotta have his hoes, (and she was pretty cute), so I said, sure, why not?

Oh that Haruki. Always so amusing.

That was great. Really allowed me to get into Haruki's head. Great job Kaisos.

[Heatth]

Nice scene. Haruki was certanly annoying eh? And a delinquent too, it certanly fits. Hmmm, he could be the protagonist of a crappy shoujo, funny.

Anyway, I liked a lot all Haruki's rasonings. It shows how his logic is really weird. Similarly, Kyon's snarks were very good.

Anyway, is he remebering everything he is seeing? I wonder if he would ever realize what Haruki's tought about her(you should give her a name, you know) while dating other girls means for Haruhi.

A last comment, just to be picky: the introduction line is not the same as the one in the rewrite. The comrade thing is officialy droped? This mean it should be another edit in the rewirte?

[dragon4dudes]

Nice Kaisos. Five days of procrastination must have let the creative writing juices flow. Stop trying to praise, you can't.

There were some formatting issues, and I'm to lazy to go back and find them to correct. True dat. But that's small stuff. Riiiiiight

*e* I remember somewhere in the genderbent novels some character describing Haruki as a delinquent. cannot be trusted.

*e2* Holden was a pain.

[wittyusername]

That was indeed a good scene.

The hoes thing made me think of the witches-and-whores Bronove thing. Haruki doesn't need aliens, time travelers and espers when he's got a Ronove-voiced Kyon watching his back even if Kyon isn't really watching his back at all, it's probably more like the opposite of that!

Originally Posted by Jintor

More liek Holden Suzumiya, ammirite

Yes.

Yes, you are right.

[Smeghead]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

The introduction to our homeroom class was, at first, more the introduction to the homeroom teacher. I didn’t even get to hear his name, since his voice was so boring that I fell asleep just by hearing the first syllable to come out of his mouth.

Quick question, shouldn't the homeroom teacher be female?

[vivify93]

Yes.

Yes, she should.

Originally Posted by Kaisos

Hey, I bet if I date every girl in the school, one of them’s bound to be special. Maybe she’ll be a tentacle monster from Pluto. That’d be awesome.

This elicts the need for Tentacle MonsterXHaruki porn.

Also, who is Holden?

[dragon4dudes]

Holden Caulfield (probably just butchered his name) from Catcher in the Rye. I hope I referenced the correct person/character. There aren't many Holdens out there though, right?

[otai]

If I was in a mood for a drama-fest, I would imagine Haruki going to the extreme to search for his thrills, instead of tamely dating every girl in school. In middle school, he'll have tried smoking, drinking, going for home base with the girls and then fighting offended 'white knights' of the girls he dumped, and other testosterone infuelled aggressors. At the least.

But I'm never much in the mood for drama, so instead, I'll state my approval for an alien guitar battle. A guitar battle with guitars that are also chainsaws.

[Jintor]

Originally Posted by dragon4dudes

Holden Caulfield (probably just butchered his name) from Catcher in the Rye. I hope I referenced the correct person/character. There aren't many Holdens out there though, right?

Exactly.

It's funny because Kaisos hasn't read Catcher in the Rye.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by otai

If I was in a mood for a drama-fest, I would imagine Haruki going to the extreme to search for his thrills, instead of tamely dating every girl in school. In middle school, he'll have tried smoking, drinking, going for home base with the girls and then fighting offended 'white knights' of the girls he dumped, and other testosterone infuelled aggressors. At the least.

But I'm never much in the mood for drama, so instead, I'll state my approval for an alien guitar battle. A guitar battle with guitars that are also chainsaws.

Except I thought Haruki was interested in finding weird supernatural shit.