The Coming of the First Ones - Chapter 1 notes

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Forty-eight

Since finishing “Before and After,” I’ve had the plan for this story in mind. That I started writing it this soon reflects, in my mind, the volatility of the creative process. What story comes out is what comes out, and we as authors have only so much control over it. Naturally, first chapters—the beginnings of stories in general—tend to be easiest. There’s much more time to develop them compared to when you finish one chapter and have to figure out the process for the next. Even with outlining, that process of evaluating where you are and what comes next is continual. This is one reason why I outline less now than I have before. I know that, by nature, a lot will change between outlining and writing.

Hence, the first scene reflects a lot of changes between how I thought this scene would play out and how it ended up. Nakamura should seem like a familiar character from Echoes, though his background is a bit different. Originally, Nakamura’s wife had died before Instrumentality as well, but here, she is a victim of the First Ones’ attempts to touch her mind, to test their influence on people. Beyond that, this scene has played out much as I imagined it, and it’s only better for the change, in my mind.

In general, during the reivision process it was pointed out to me that the piece was a bit unfocused. I had felt this way, too. Before rewriting, Shinji pursued Rei for no strong purpose or reason, reflecting his aimlessness. In the revision as it stands, Shinji’s motivations are tightened up a little bit. He still reflects the general malaise that has afflicted humanity, but once he realizes how it has touched him, he makes sure to do right by Nakamura for helping him. I think this is an important point. Shinji is flawed, but he’s capable of doing the right thing once he has the time to think it through and go beyond his own weaknesses. This is part of what I’m trying to do with writing as a whole—stay a little more positive while still probing the psychology of the human mind.

It may seem strange that I chose the year 2048 to be 2 years after Instrumentality ended. I went with this for a couple reasons. First, by giving more time between the Hybrid Adam-Lilith being’s formation and the present, there was more time to have information pass into space at the speed of light, which to me is a constraint on how much can be known and when. In addition, it adds to the mystique of what Rei has done.

One thing I wanted to avoid was having this story retread all the same issues of NGE. I will not have Shinji regress to the same person who questioned whether it was good to exist. I think Shinji is stronger than that, but he will have to learn and change and confront who he is. Shinji has retreated, to some extent, to protect himself, though he maintains his relationship with Asuka. A big part of this story will be having him realize he can come out and step into the spotlight.

In some ways, it may have been a bit too much of a cop-out to have Rei preserve so much of society. To be honest, I felt it would be too expected to examine a truly post-apocalyptic world. This setup gives a lot of possibilities to examine consequences in a (somewhat) more stable environment, to hit home just how difficult it is to keep humanity intact even with so much already done for people, and even with the miracles Rei’s performed, there are still after-effects, like the Cult.

The Cult is something I consciously tried to portray here as a positive thing, but by nature, it attracts the downtrodden and people looking for hope. Cultist Masuyo is the archetype of the positive aspects of the Cult, but there are other sides to it. See if you can guess who Archon Juniper is.

The scene where Shinji reflects on his time at the refugee shelter was something I came up with largely on the spot, only going back to add in more detail on the gunman who tried to kill Shinji, especially to make it clear how he was influenced by the First Ones and how Rei saved Shinji. In fact, this goes well with how Rei’s role in this chapter has changed, also. Initially, Rei appeared to Shinji and gave as exposition the First Ones’ goals and intentions. Here, she doesn’t appear to him at all, adding to the mystique about her. Of course, if you haven’t read “Before and After,” the idea that Rei exists at all might be surprising, but I tried to present it as easily as I could. A lot of what Rei has become and what she’s doing isn’t clear just yet, but I’ve long accepted the idea that something like Rei could present at all places and times, with no real concept of linearity. She doesn’t obey those rules strictly in this story, mostly because her limitations are more restrictive.

There’s a ton of stuff to talk about. Kyōko, for instance—I thought her coming back would be part of the best that could happen, that what Rei has done in general is a best-case scenario that, nevertheless, is still a little sour. Kyōko as an eccentric scientist just kind of happened, but I think it adds a touch of humor to the story. Asuka, too, is a lot more mellow, as one person described her. Overdedicating herself to her work is her only big flaw, but I thought it fit from how she put so much pride in Eva. She encourages Shinji to step up, but that doesn’t mean she’s prepared to see what that entails. Asuka, too, has room to grow, and grow she will.

I could talk on an on about this chapter. Misato and her secret job (three guesses what she’s doing, and the first two don’t count), Gendō and his influence on Shinji’s thinking, on repeating past mistakes, on reconciliation that may never come. I definitely take the opinion that Gendō is somewhere in the LCL sea and that he doesn’t return reflects that he chooses not to.

Overall, the big part of revising this chapter was to increase the influence of the First Ones on people, including how they’re trying to kill Shinji or torment him. That undercurrent, though it doesn’t dominate the chapter until the end, is important and really ties everything together.

Finally, I spent a lot of time writing and rewriting the final scene, eventually settling on what you see now. I was told the last few lines could be either epic or cheesy. I guess we’ll have to see. The First Ones are coming, as you might expect, and I hope not to waste too much time before showcasing their arrival.

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The Coin - Chapter Nine and Epilogue notes

So this is it. We get a little technobabble to start, explaining what Haruhi’s done to the Entity, but the main focus of the first part is Nagato. When I conceived of this passage, I came in with the idea that Nagato would be somewhat cold toward Haruhi, yet in writing it, I realized that couldn’t entirely be the case. I think she must care for Haruhi at minimum through caring for Kyon, but to go through with exposing her inmost wishes, there must be more than that, too. At the same time, there’s a contradiction: Nagato clearly has felt oppressed by Haruhi’s methods and demeanor and the need to be fixing things when Haruhi breaks them. As it comes out, her feelings seem complicated, and I thought that was good. Real people have complicated feelings, too.

The piece Nagato plays on her stereo set is, of course, Gymnopedie No. 1 from its use in the Disappearance movie, and what we have here is someone with that Disappearance Nagato’s basic personality but also our Nagato’s knowledge and experiences. Central to this scene is how Nagato thought she was experiencing an error that didn’t reflect anything about herself, but only through this program did she realize her feelings and how she had denied herself. That, ultimately, will connect with how Koizumi and Asahina have done the same.

The Japanese as a rule tend to have more emphasis on personal boundaries and a lack of physical contact, or so I’ve read. I won’t pretend to be an expert in this respect, but this was why I chose Haruhi touching Nagato’s hand as the trigger for Nagato’s negative feelings toward her to come out. It’s tough enough for Nagato to speak her mind and expose herself that way. To be touched or invaded in an unwanted fashion is too much to expect of her.

Naturally Kyon is the first person she’ll turn to when she’s in need, and it’s no accident that Kyon ends up kneeling on one knee in front of her as she sits on that park bench. Well, maybe an accident on Kyon’s part. What must Kyon be thinking here? The way I see it, Kyon is not spontaneous. Haruhi is his spontaneous half, and he appreciates being around her because it pushes him into things he otherwise might not do. Nevertheless, there’s some resistance, but being kissed by Haruhi isn’t something you can ignore.

And the one thing Haruhi can’t stand is the thought of hurting Kyon the way she’s hurt everyone else.

So we go back, and the old woman is here to find Haruhi because the old woman is Asahina. I know quite a few people saw that coming, but if you didn’t, a quick recap of the hints: Asahina bought a cap at the stadium. The old woman gave Haruhi a cap right before, seemingly with the same initials on the inside of the brim. They’re the same cap. The old woman and Asahina (big) both refer to Asahina (small) as mousey in chapter seven also.

This is where it may get a bit complicated. The idea of resonance is some artistic license on quantum mechanics and time travel. Basically, quantum theory says any event has a variety of possible outcomes. A die can come up with anything between 1 and 6. A coin can come up heads or tails. You might think that, when you go into the past, everything you don’t influence will stay the same. I merely contend that any quantum event can turn out differently—not because you influenced it but just due to quantum probability. This, in turn, makes any closed timelike curve (a paradox, etc.) unstable. It’s an old idea I had for another story, but it fit well here.

One of my prereaders remarked on how Haruhi’s powers in this story seem to work just exactly the way she wants without fretting about details, so it’s natural, in a way, that she would go even further, to the time when she gained those powers, without knowing right away when that was, but this scene should be familiar. It’s in chapter three—after leaving the hospital and Taniguchi, Haruhi remembers a certain dream. The paradox and resonance are as follows: something may have given Haruhi powers at first, but that set off a chain of time travel events that made an unstable loop. Now, the only way to seal that loop is for Haruhi’s powers to make it so, or instead she could choose to break it. And she is tempted to break it, though she’s not as certain she should as I originally envisioned. That would be really unsympathetic—to be so sure the world should change without doubts, without recognizing how enormous of a decision that is.

Really, this final scene of chapter nine is the driving force of the whole story: the younger, middle school Haruhi represents all she’s forgotten about why she was looking for extraordinary things, and it comes as a breath of fresh air.

The epilogue goes after things a bit quickly; there are several ends needing tying, but the basic thrust should be easy enough to understand. Haruhi’s show of mercy to the Entity, in the hope they’ll learn what she has, was originally more than that. She would’ve given them a piece of power, maybe to teach them that that wasn’t everything, but given the dangerous deeds the Entity’s committed, I judged that to be a bit too much.

And then there’s the future Haruhi who accompanies the old Asahina. Remember when Asahina (big) says someone else told her to wear the baseball cap, that she thought Haruhi was being nostalgic? Originally, there was a lot more scene here and interaction between Haruhi and her older self, but that ended up feeling like too much exposition when things should be left open-ended. Conversely, there were some unanswered questions—about Rooter, about people hurt at the stadium and the future of the human race—that I thought Haruhi would feel unqualified to answer, but it would be wrong not to acknowledge them at least.

I was going to go with an ending where Kyon had the beginning manuscript for the novels, but that had been done, so instead, I went with a call back to the end of the first book instead.

Overall, this story has turned out very differently from what I first envisioned, but that’s a good thing. I had the benefit of good, intelligent feedback to tell me where I was steering too far too quickly into darkness. I’ve set out to do what I wanted—to have Haruhi learn of her powers and realize what she truly wants out of life. It may be some time before I’m back writing Haruhi, but I feel I can do it passably, so I have no aversions to doing so.

Until next time.

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The Coin - Chapter Eight notes

When I was starting this chapter, I found it quite difficult to get going. I’m a big fan of fluidity, so just going to the next action, in my mind, misses the point of a chapter break in some circumstances. That’s why I use this opening device a great deal—starting with an anecdote that seems unrelated textually but is relevant to Haruhi’s state of mind.

Of course, the strange girl Haruhi knew in primary school is Sasaki, here through a somewhat convoluted approach to getting two kids in different classes to work together on a project. In a lot of ways, Haruhi and Sasaki are similar, though, in that they have unique outlooks on the world, but what’s really important is that even they can come to a mutual understanding, respect, and admiration when they were brought together reluctantly. That’s what Haruhi tries to take away from this. And when I made some revisions to the final confrontation of this chapter, I found the perfect place to put Chekhov’s gun.

As Haruhi walks back to class, I tried to avoid having too much reliance on Kyon here, as he threatens to dominate Haruhi’s thoughts if we give him too much of an opportunity. Kyon’s nonchalant confidence can be comforting on one hand, but it’s Sakanaka’s outside perspective that gives Haruhi a concrete idea of how best to act. In writing this scene, I wanted to emphasize how normal Sakanaka is. Her anecdote about cheering up a friend is meant to feel typical—just the sort of thing that happens if you’re not in the SOS Brigade. The names of students are drawn from a thread on AnimeSuki, though the list and class seating chart are associated with first year.

Originally, I didn’t plan for Haruhi to address the brigade after that chat, but as I approached the scene, it seemed an appropriate time to try to make something different, to have a bit of hope and positivity with which to go into her meeting with Taniguchi. Haruhi’s suggestions should show some element of thought, following how she perceives the others and what they want. Kyon, ironically, is the easiest to please.

Haruhi’s visit to Taniguchi here may be a bit overdue. I felt Haruhi would still be a bit nearsighted, as humans are often guilty of being, and not realize that Taniguchi might not even remember what happened (or that he might react strongly to remembering). It’s nearsightedness with the best of intentions, which I hoped would feel somewhat tragic. It’s a fun moment when Taniguchi is suspicious Haruhi would really visit him, but it is hard to see Haruhi be rejected like this,even out of gut reaction, from something Taniguchi didn’t even realize he was doing and didn’t understand in the heat of the moment.

And so, Haruhi walks away, wounded and hurt. Just the idea of Haruhi limping along a sidewalk with no one bothering to ask what’s wrong is a tough image to take but typical of how people tend to stay out of others’ business, particularly—I think—in Japanese culture. Kyon’s seeking her out here is really meant to lift her spirits. It’s a bit roundabout in what he admits, but that’s okay for now. Haruhi can feel the warmth in the deed just as well. And, in deflecting his intentions, Kyon unwittingly leads us to the Piggy planet once more for a final confrontation with Asakura.

When I wrote this segment initially, I went all the way with it. Haruhi erased Asakura and Kimidori, and that was that. Readers of this draft felt it was a bit much, that Haruhi has more imagination than that and wouldn’t reach for the cosmic sledgehammer, so to speak, when she could divine a less drastic solution. There were other issues with the draft, too, as to justify Haruhi’s actions I felt the interfaces needed to know what Rooter had been given before confronting Haruhi. This led to a good moment where Asakura appears to break through Haruhi’s powers in a moment where she should be frozen in time, but for logic, for consistency, and for eliminating that overkill moment above, I settled on this version. It’s 99% as good for punch, in my opinion, as playing up Haruhi’s vindictiveness with eternal punishment is still satisfying, and it’s much better on other fronts.

Of course, I’ve let Nagato’s secret stay secret this long, and a savvy reader probably could tell it would come back to bite in some way. I tried to subvert the expected reaction, with Haruhi doing the right thing even though she feels very betrayed. I tried to make this as understandable as possible—that Kyon feels very sensitive about having chosen this world over Nagato, in particular. We all have our limits, after all. This is something that guides me in my writing: people do make mistakes. They’re not always savvy or do the smartest thing. Writing that without turning people off toward those mistakes is to make them feel like mistakes we could make, or to avoid disproportionate consequences that don’t follow, that make the mistake feel like an excuse. It’s a fine line, and I don’t always get it right. That much I must concede.

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Finished once more

The Coin chapters eight and nine and the epilogue are drafted. The end shall come soon. All things in good time.

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The Coin - Chapter Seven notes

The feelings of shame and guilt that result from having lost faith in Kyon, even for a moment, are where we begin this chapter, and it gives an immediate opportunity to confront the lowest point in Haruhi’s depiction over the course of the series. I felt more comfortable doing this after revisiting Melancholy in chapter five. The thing that can be a bit fridge-logic-inducing from canon is that we never get the impression that Haruhi realizes she was wrong. Kyon just forgives her when he realizes he was being a negative Nancy, and it’s done. From Haruhi’s perspective, that can’t be enough. Hence, she has to confront the part where her expectations of reality and reality itself aren’t the same.

But what Haruhi is feeling gives her a sort of nearsightedness. She alone knows what she’s feeling. That doesn’t mean anyone else can. Kyon can tell something’s amiss, but it’s not going to bother him that Haruhi went alone, nor does it really occur to him. The act doesn’t have the same significance to him as it does to Haruhi.

For these criticial opening scenes, I iterated a lot, both before and after sending this chapter out for feedback. It’s difficult to capture Haruhi’s thought processes as they were back then without making it seem like that that’s still her thought process now. I’ve tried to strike a balance, but I won’t say it’s entirely perfect. For the purposes of emphasizing Haruhi’s growth, Haruhi does realize she has to apologize for what she thinks she’s done.

It’s about this point that we have to get to Koizumi. Initially, I wanted to have this scene before school, so Haruhi would be thinking about it until lunch. I moved it back because Haruhi being avoidant and not coming to class until the very last minute made a lot of sense. Koizumi’s desperation is set up last chapter, and at first, it all sounds reasonable. Koizumi has valid concerns, and Haruhi does the gracious thing to try to fix her past mistakes.

But valid concerns aren’t what really bother Koizumi. At long last, the mask of Koizumi slips off, even if only for a moment. I admit, I was tempted to expand on this here, but part of Koizumi is that he’s mysterious. He really is. All along, you don’t get a good sense of how the man really ticks and how much of his behavior is put-on. To me, it’s very unappetizing if all his mannerisms are an act. The easiest fiction is one close to the truth, after all. I think Koizumi must be very fond of philosophizing and games and mysteries, but as an esper, he’s not wholly free to indulge those pursuits. Koizumi, in my mind, is very admiring of Haruhi, and hence he feels like his dedication hasn’t been rewarded. At the same time, he knows he’s been privy to a wonderful experience and feels like he shouldn’t refuse that.

Having gained insight into three members of the brigade out of four, only Asahina is left. The question is simple: does she want to be there? And to Asahina, that’s a question she’s never been asked. How she feels about being so far from home is irrelevant. She doesn’t have an option, and talking about these issues only puts her in an unbearable position. She’d rather run than anger Haruhi. It could even be standard operating procedure, so to speak.

Haruhi doesn’t get the chance to stew on this conversation, though. The old woman is here. Remember her from chapter three? Her appearance at this juncture is a bit of a hit-and-run, but it seeds the idea that the time-travelers are more concerned with preserving the timeline than exploration.

Kyon’s attitude toward the older Asahina stems largely from the spot of resentment he feels toward her at the end of book 7, the need to “play a prank” from time to time and spoil the otherwise deterministic interactions of closed time loops. To some extent, Asahina’s manipulations are necessary and justified from her perspective. Still, leading Kyon and herself around on vague hints and implicit coercion are something Haruhi can’t fathom Asahina of being capable of.

With this training facility, I wanted to avoid wanton conjecture about what the future would actually be like. I’d known since this project’s inception I wanted a passage where Haruhi visited the future, and I briefly considered how that future could be different from our time, but I realized that that wouldn’t engage Haruhi’s emotions—only, maybe, her enthusiasm for the unusual, but that’s not what’s in focus here. Having such a massive training facility plays on Haruhi’s aversion of undue attention: she can’t view herself as being unusual or special, and so it bothers her.

Now, we have the old woman, who makes a couple appearances in this chapter. Her goals are explicitly counter to those of other time-travelers, and I think she fancies herself as a guide for Haruhi toward something, as she says, less constrained by the demands of causality and time. She’ll be back, one or two more times, before all this is over.

At last, Haruhi gets to meet the older Asahina, and there are a lot of clues and hints here that one should think about. Why is Asahina wearing that hat, for instance? Let me not tease too much, but there’s a definite answer to that question, at least. Recognizing the changes in Asahina’s personality and behavior is something that emphasizes how Haruhi doesn’t know her friends as well as she thought. That applies to Koizumi; that applies to Asahina, too. When Asahina takes Haruhi back home and so easily convinces her to do what’s needed to protect the future, she realizes Haruhi was right—she has become manipulative, she has used her position and friendships to push people in the direction she wanted. She’s deprived her friends of happiness, of choice.

This is a long chapter, and a lot of stuff has happened, but the end is in sight. Only two more chapters and an epilogue to go.

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The Coin - Chapter Six notes

As I said with the last chapter, I originally planned for the visits to Mori and Asakura to be presented together. The main benefit of splitting them was that I could refocus and make this chapter a lot tighter in terms of theme and message. Here, it’s not the visit to Asakura by itself that forms the main basis of the chapter. Rather, we see the effects of Asakura’s words as they slowly take hold in Haruhi’s mind. This is a concept that really appeals to me—the notion of being persuaded and manipulated by words even when you don’t want to be. It’s all psychology. And it has the benefit of presenting Haruhi in a sympathetic light (she has the same loathing and disdain for Asakura that we do) while opening her to persuasion.

Presenting Haruhi sympathetically is still something I have doubts about. I think, without doubt, it makes Haruhi easier to take from a reader’s perspective, but how does one explain the questionable things she’s done? Right now, the way I’ve presented her is to avoid those issues by suggesting she’s grown out of the most egregious behaviors, but still I sense some inherent contradiction. I don’t want to make Haruhi so unambiguously likable that she no longer resembled the canon character.

But that is a question for another story at this point, as it’s far too late to do an about-face with her. For this reason, I tried to have Haruhi make a conscious effort to be understanding, almost excessively so, even while she inwardly feels differently. That said, I shouldn’t jump ahead. Let’s start at the top with Asakura.

Asakura’s a character I really like writing because she can be menacing and sinister all while wearing a pleasant smile. Here, I tried to play up the idea that Asakura can imitate humanity but can’t fathom the meaning behind what people do. She thinks she does, but she doesn’t. She honestly believes she can reach Haruhi somehow, and when that fails, she opts for the most obvious tack—if she can’t get Haruhi to relate to her, she’ll drive a wedge between Haruhi and the brigade, specifically Nagato.

The idea for this scene at the café came from Arakawa Seijio, and as before with Mori, it was sorely needed to get the right angle on what Haruhi had learned. I’ve learned to be very cautious about people withholding information from one another, lest it come off as just asking for bad things to happen, but coming from Nagato, I hoped it would be acceptable. Of course, we all know what Nagato did and why. Even knowing what Haruhi can do, I felt Nagato would be very reluctant to admit her intentions. Even with Haruhi having learned what she can do, Nagato should be cautious at stirring up Haruhi’s jealousy or possessiveness. Of course, one can guess that Nagato still might not understand what she did (at least, in a way she can articulate with words), but that’d be a bit boring. At the least, I hope Nagato has learned to understand herself to that extent.

Much is made of Nagato’s loyalty to Kyon that seems to supersede all other authority. Through this is how I interpret her offer of food to Haruhi. Nagato knows that Haruhi is important to Kyon. She goes to find Haruhi when Kyon calls Nagato up and tells her that Haruhi’s missing. And, when she perceives that Kyon is in trouble and that Haruhi is dicking around rather than helping him right away, she slows time down to mitigate that effect.

Nagato comes off a bit cold to Haruhi in the process. To me, I thought this unavoidable. She didn’t just make a world for Kyon that was totally normal. She took Haruhi away from him. Perhaps that was necessary since she couldn’t adjust memories beyond a period of one year prior, but we never got a good explanation for that anyway. I think there must be some part of Nagato that resents Haruhi for what she puts Kyon through. That’s not to say Nagato totally hates her. She should respect Haruhi in some ways for having qualities she lacks and respect her for taking care of her when she was ill. Human interactions aren’t totally black-and-white that way, even if they involve an alien.

Anyone who’s savvy can probably figure out that the stereo set and CD will come into play sooner or later. I leave to the reader to guess what may be on that disc.

For a while, I contemplated writing an extended scene where Haruhi would’ve met Kyon at his house, but it didn’t seem to add very much.

The rest of the chapter is where Asakura’s influence is slowly realized. This, to me, is the fundamental difference between Haruhi and the others in the brigade. Haruhi is impulsive. She wants to do things right away, spur of the moment, and no one else in the group is really like that. Kyon shares her overall sense of wonder and awe. I think that distinguishes him most. But Asahina, Koizumi, and Nagato all have different priorities. The first two, to an extent, have been dedicated to monitoring the situation and ensuring the status quo. Nagato’s had a hand in that, too. And while Haruhi can be understanding and polite all she wants, lack of overt enthusiasm she senses from her friends sticks with her. I tweaked this rationale based on feedback, and I think now it’s very logical, very tight.

The Piggy planet scenes are adapted from similar scenes originally written for the first draft of chapter four. These are only slightly adjusted to account for the different circumstances. Originally, Asakura took Haruhi there as a demonstration of the universe’s wonders, and the distinct implication was that the Sickness the Piggies experienced was deliberately given to them by the Entity. Of course, the name Rooter and the Piggies come from the Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card.

The chapter is pretty long by this point, but necessarily so. The effect of Asakura’s insidious words isn’t realized until Haruhi’s back and realizes the mistake she’s made in misinterpreting a lack of overt enthusiasm for a lack of true desire. This, I feel, is the moment when Haruhi realizes just how different she is from the others—not in the sense of being an inhuman creature or anything like that but in having such a different outlook on the world, one that the other members of the brigade don’t necessarily share.

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Slayers Revolution and Evolution-R liveblog

Having had Slayers seasons 4 and 5 on blu-ray for some time, I've decided to put together a tvtropes liveblog to go through all 26 episodes over time. I've tried to make the introductory post sufficient for someone new to the series to catch up with, as well.

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