Hm...I'm not sure what exactly it is about this chapter, but I feel like it's one of your best thus far. Â It might just be my ego talking since I can see where you've taken Spanner's and my feedback to heart, but things really seemed to come together well here. Â Galus's explanation does a decent job of dispelling the confusion over his orders in the previous update, and Mikuru's role had me genuinely cheering for her. Â It's surprisingly nice to see her stand up and act assertive for a change. Â The battle between her and Yuki was entertaining too, and it's interesting to watch Yuki make sense of the situation and begin to attempt to reason her way to freedom. Â And Dr. Tofu? Â Heh, I didn't expect Jinnai to be a Ranma 1/2 fan.
Regardless, Jinnai's delusions about Makoto were an intelligent way to further Haruhi's misconceptions of El-Hazard and set-up the chapter's second battle. Â And what this fight lacked in destructive power it made up for in hilarity. Â For some reason Makoto and Haruhi's references to being top gym students made me laugh, and the images of Haruhi jump kicking Makoto and the two of them duking it out struck me as funny in a ridiculous (but good!) way. Â It's also amusing to see some of Jinnai's mannerisms rub off on Haruhi.
Additionally, I'm touched that you've listened to some of my advice about fight scenes and I think it's helping, but I'd also recommend using hyphens instead of commas to interrupt action with dialogue. Â Hyphens tend to offer a more abrupt and forceful break than commas which are more often associated with pauses.So, instead of:"That..." began Yuki Nagato, as she began to engage in rapid fire blasts of white pulsating energy at Mikuru, "is where you are," resulting in Mikuru screaming in dissonance while thrown about violently by the blasts, failing to dodge them outright, "wrong, Mikuru." Perhaps this?"That..." began Yuki Nagato, as she began to engage in rapid fire blasts of white pulsating energy at Mikuru- "...is where you are..." -resulting in Mikuru screaming in dissonance while thrown about violently by the blasts, failing to dodge them outright. "...wrong, Mikuru."Other than that, I don't have much more to say about this update. Â It was a pleasant read, and you also continue to surprise me with the direction the story takes. Â I assumed that the Phantom Tribe's master plan would take center-stage by now but it looks like you still have a couple chapters left before the finale. Â Good luck with your writing.
1) Is there any particular character that you feel I haven't given enough lines to given their importance within the El Hazard anime or within the Haruhi Suzumiya anime?
2) Would you prefer decompressed story-telling or compressed story-telling the rest of the way? The following scenes are on the bubble, so to speak, depending on your answer...
- A scene in which almost all of the protagonists talk amongst themselves about the Haruhi/Jinnai relationship/situation and how it impacts on the broader Alliance/Bugrom situation.
- A poignant Jinnai/Groucho scene that will take place AFTER the big confrontation between Haruhi and Jinnai.
- A Fatora/Haruhi comedy scene
- The length and size and style of the Haruhi/Rune Venus/Fatora peace negotiation
Which of the above would you like for me to keep, and which are you willing to shed in order to get a quicker resolution (unless you're fine with six more chapters of course)?
All right, Chapter 16!First off, let me say that I LOVED Jinnai's attempt to seduce Haruhi to the ways of Pure Evil Genius! His arguments were very compelling, and I loved seeing Haruhi's face mashed into the realization that her own methods tend to creep awfully far over the good/evil line from time to time.
(Just a nit I'd like to pick: you mentioned that the Computer Club president was tricked into touching Haruhi's breasts... actually, Haruhi tricked him into appearing to molest Mikuru, not Haruhi herself.)
Haruhi's counterargument was equally well presented, and Jinnai's insertion of the whole Makoto aspect was well-placed. If there was any weakness at all to be found, it was that Jinnai seemed to accept the idea of turning to a life of scientific exploration a bit too easily. It wasn't totally clear how such a thing would enable him to one-up Makoto, which, as he had just mentioned, seemed to be at the heart of his whole motivation. Â
(After I thought about it for a bit, I suddenly realized how this COULD enable him to trump Makoto once and for all, and a rather delicious victory at that. If you want me to share my idea, I'll send you a PM; there's certainly a strong chance it's already something you have in mind.)
And then... Haruhi pushes things just too far, and Jinnai plunges back into the Dark Side!
But Haruhi won't stand for it! It's a clash of wills like none other!Then, at the end, some more Mwahahah villiany courtesy of Galus, with sad snow girl Yuki putting up with his cruelty. Not as awesome as the Haruhi/Jinnai scene, but still good.This is a good example of a "talky" chapter that still keeps the audience riveted. There wasn't even a scrap of action to be had the whole chapter, but it was still a very good read.
2) Would you prefer decompressed story-telling or compressed story-telling the rest of the way? The following scenes are on the bubble, so to speak, depending on your answer... - A scene in which almost all of the protagonists talk amongst themselves about the Haruhi/Jinnai relationship/situation and how it impacts on the broader Alliance/Bugrom situation. - A poignant Jinnai/Groucho scene that will take place AFTER the big confrontation between Haruhi and Jinnai. - A Fatora/Haruhi comedy scene - The length and size and style of the Haruhi/Rune Venus/Fatora peace negotiation Which of the above would you like for me to keep, and which are you willing to shed in order to get a quicker resolution (unless you're fine with six more chapters of course)?
"Duke!" shouted the leader of the Black Knights of Zala to one of his men, "Take out the alien magnet man! Use your knife!" A knife? Hah, how is that any better than a bullet? One of the Black Knights that had previously been trying to kill Haruhi leapt towards me, holding a blade in his hands. When I tried to stop him, I suddenly realized his plan - the knife was made of glass! And he was about to strike me down with it! It took all of my concentration to simply hold back the guns and gunfire of the Black Knights... I was in no position to defend myself in close quarters combat on top of that. Thankfully, I didn't need to...
Chapter 17...This one started off a little bit weak. While Nanami's amazement of the progress Haruhi has made with her brother was interesting in chapter 15, seeing it again here seemed like it might be rehashing it a bit too much.I was also a bit befuddled at the inclusion of Ranma Saotome as the identity of Nanami's childhood tormentor. Her description of the bully doesn't seem to match the personality of the original Ranma very closely. While I don't place Ranma on the glorious pedestal some fanfiction authors do, there's definitely certain depths he won't step to. He's more inclined to beat up bullies than be a bully himself, and the only girl he ever (deliberately) picks on is Akane - and his reasons for picking on her are pretty complicated.So, the way that it comes across is that you created a character, and then just slapped on a popular character's name for the heck of it. That's not very good practice; if you're going to include an obvious cameo name, it ought to at least slightly match the character.To be honest, I had the same beef with Nanoha when she was first introduced as a heartless assassin; it's like you were just assigning a popular name for no good reason. Eventually Nanoha developed a bit and became a character that resembled her cameo source to a degree, so it wasn't so bad.If you're going to cameo a character's name, you really ought to include a bit of of the character's CHARACTER as well. Otherwise, as in my case, the reader will become confused.In this particular case, if you were going to create a bully character, and you really wanted to plug Ranma 1/2, you might have wanted to consider using a Ranma character that actually IS a bully - Pantyhose Tarou, for instance (though he's a little bit of an obscure character).Anyway, that's five paragraphs devoted to one little throwaway chunk of the story, so I'll move on. I was slightly disappointed with the Jinnai/Groucho scene. I assume this is the heart-to-heart you mentioned as a potential scene? It seemed more like Groucho talking at Jinnai and him railing at the world and wrestling with his own inner turmoil. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting from this scene - and it may be far more appropriate that Jinnai be able to work things through on his own than have a heart-to-heart anyway. Meh, I don't know what I'm saying; it's just a bit off, somehow. (Gawd, that's the most useless kind of criticism!)I was a bit lukewarm when you originally presented the idea of doing the peace summit on-screen, but this section actually turned out to be pretty entertaining. You did a pretty good job of creating interesting leaders to share their viewpoints. (I also chuckled a bit at the inclusion of "Megraton of Cyberia" as an aggressive and vengeful ruler; it was a cute cameo, and much more appropriate than the Ranma Saotome one.)(Oh, as a bit of a nitpick, the onset of the meeting seemed to indicate that Rune and Fatora were the only females present. In the summit that occurred during the first episode of the OAV, though, there was at least one other female leader that I can recall; there may have been more, as well.)Then, the terrorist incursion. I rolled my eyes a bit when one of the terrorist's whipped out a "wooden knife stick" to counter Kyon's magnetic powers. It just sounds so silly. I think a bit of research here might have been in order to pick an ACTUAL non-metal weapon. Or even just not to have mentioned the special traits of the weapon at all. Something like this, perhaps:I also took a page from Niel Stephenson's "Snow Crash" and made the knife from glass rather than wood; it's hard to imagine a slashing weapon made from wood being all that terribly effective. Of course, a glass knife would be harder to set on fire. Perhaps a wooden spear would be a better choice of weapon, or even a club. A "wooden knife stick" is honestly kind of hard to even picture. I kept imagining that the guy pulled out an ordinary twig that had had the end shaved to a point for roasting marshmallows. Then, Yuki appears and Haruhi transforms into Ifurita to fight her! And... gets utterly schooled before she can even make a move. Yuki seems to be pretty scarily powerful. If Galus know's Yuki is capable of this kind of thing, why doesn't he just have her slaughter all the good guys except for Haruhi? I honestly can't see any way that his plans can be anything but helped by the elimination of our heroes, and the summit leaders for good measure. This kind of thing is a bit troublesome in comic books, as well; the authors give the villians AMAZING powers that they could use to do pretty much whatever they want - and then send them off to rob a bank. Hopefully you have some reason in mind as to why Galus is holding back. And hopefully that reason goes beyond merely wanting to have the heroes broken at his feet so he can gloat at them.Anyway, all in all I'm afraid I have to say this chapter was a bit weaker than many of the ones you've done, especially when compared to the entertaining previous chapter. Still, the plot rolls on. I look forward to seeing what you have in mind now that Galus is luring our heroes (and possibly Jinnai, as well?) into his trap!
That said, I wanted to respond to a couple of your counter arguments.First off, the club you pictured is actually known as a "Nightstick", not a "Knife stick". An easy mistake to make if you've never actually read the term, but only heard it on television. Here's a Wiki article on the weapon. There are many different varieties, but if you scroll about halfway down the Wiki page, you'll see a picture of the tonfa-style nightsticks you probably had in mind. Now that I know what weapon you had in mind, the scene seems a lot less silly. Yes, a nightstick would be an effective counter against Kyon.
As for the Ranma thing, perhaps I didn't explain my discomfort carefully enough. It might just be me, but in a story that already embraces the crossover concept, if we see a famous name pop up attached to a character that resembles the original holder of the name, then I smile and acknowledge the character. If the character does NOT resemble the original, then I want to know why - and with no explanation provided, I'm left confused and a bit irritated.I acknowledge that there are many possible explanations as to why this Ranma Saotome is a bully. The original's actions certainly could SEEM like those of a bully at times - Ranma's "bullying" is pretty much Ryoga's whole motivation for following him, even if Ranma himself had no idea he was being a bully. (He was similarly "mean" to Ukyou, though she somehow made friends with him anyway.) Another explanation could be that this Ranma Saotome is just some poor guy whose sadistic parents named him after a manga character - it wouldn't be surprising if someone like that was picked on to the point where he became a bully in retaliation.My beef is that none of these explanations are provided. Only by talking with you personally, here on the forums, do I know that you pretty much just pulled the name out of a hat and assigned it to a random throwaway character. A random reader, assuming they have the same sort of mindset as myself, is going to wonder why you chose that name, and whether you were taking a mean-spirited shot at the original by attaching his name to a bully.I understand your motivations behind adding homage names like this. I just want to make you aware that doing it seemingly at random like this might not have the effect you intended. Nanoha Inverse worked, in part because the split name made it abundantly clear that this Nanoha was different, and in part because you greatly developed her backstory. Megraton worked, because he retained the aggressiveness and paranoia of the original character.
As for Yuki... I understand that she has great power, and that it might have been her turn to win. My concern is that by rendering her still able to use an ability like Time Stop (you say that's an actually canon ability from TMoSH? I'm only passingly familiar with Haruhi canon beyond the first anime season and the first novel) ...
Or, perhaps even more likely, Yuki consciously chose not to show off her more powerful abilities, knowing that Galus (whom she doesn't much like) would force her to use them explicitly if he knew she was capable of such power. Of course, if he didn't know before, then he knows now.
The main thrust I'm getting at is that you've put yourself in the awkward position now of convincing your readers that Yuki can't just stop time and kill anyone in the world whenever she (or, rather, Galus) wants to. And why she never used it before. These are questions your readers WILL have in mind while reading your fanfic, and if they're never properly addressed it could leave many with an unsatisfied feeling. You told ME that using Time Stop might drain Yuki to the point where she's unable to further fight. You did not tell the readers. Even if you did, though, consider that apparently she still has enough in her to Data Drain - so why not use that energy to walk up to a target and snap his or her neck like a twig? Anyway, enough on that - I'm sure you understand my words of caution by now. Don't give a power to a character unless you're prepared not only to tell the audience why she uses it, but also why she DOESN'T use it. (As my bank robber example indicated, many comic book authors are TERRIBLE at this.) Â
Lastly, I wanted to apologize for not addressing the Haruhi/Fatora scene.
I guess I didn't want to let you down even further, since I knew you probably wrote that scene with me in mind. Since you asked directly, though, I was pretty ho-hum about it. I felt that Haruhi was entirely too flustered by Fatora's proposal. Haruhi's a girl who's used to the unconventional - YEARNS for the unconventional, in fact. I'd think that she'd find Fatora's offer to be interesting (even if she didn't want to partake) rather than embarrassing. Even more importantly, Haruhi's an extraordinarily dominant personality, much like Fatora herself is. It was a bit disheartening to see her so meek in her refusal.
Her reactions to Fatora can make sense, of course. It more or less fits with Haruhi's desperate desire to make peace - since Fatora's one of the folks she has to convince, it makes sense that she'd be a bit careful in letting Fatora down easy. She's chosen diplomacy and debate as tools for convincing the alliance because the situation is so serious (old, non-serious Haruhi would have chosen tools like intimidation and blackmail to get her way ).
Anyway, I hope all this serves as constructive conversation, rather than just bringing you further down. The video, by the way, was cute. "Bunny demon" indeed...
Special Notes: I've created a heck of a lot of El Hazard nations out of thin air, since the only ones I know of are Roshtaria, Gannan, and Durasland (and three nations just doesn't seem like enough to me). If, however, there are actual canon El Hazard nations that I'm forgetting, I'll gladly put them in place in some of the fanfic nation names I'll come up with. So, I'm all ears there!