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A Special Steplet - Bob Schroeck - 06-19-2007
This is a little something I just whipped up, now that I've got Peggy watching a certain anime with me. As far as I'm concerned right now, this is complete as it is. Enjoy.
I woke up in unusual comfort. Before I even opened my eyes I
noted that I was laying on something soft, with my head (devoid
of helmet) pillowed at just the right angle. I definitely
approved, though I did have a bit of concern for the whereabouts
of my helmet.
Wherever I was, it was bright, as light shone through my still-
closed eyelids. Around me I heard motion -- four people, I
thought, trying to be quiet and not entirely succeeding. Oh,
well, might as well get the waking up and introductions thing
done.
I opened my eyes.
And found myself all but nose-to-nose with one of the prettiest
Japanese schoolgirls I've ever encountered. Shoulder-length
mahogany hair held back with a yellow ribbon; huge, expressive
golden-brown eyes; perfect complexion. With her face filling my
field of view, I could see little else, but I did manage to make
out what looked like it might be a classic seifuku-type collar
somewhere below her chin.
"He's awake!" she shrieked, fifteen centimeters from my face. I
did my best not to flinch, helped no doubt by the fact that even
in a shriek she seemed to have a pleasant, melodious voice.
"Um. Yes," I responded. "I am." I propped myself up on my
elbows, and from there levered myself up into a sitting position.
"Suzumiya!" a male voice -- world-weary and somewhat shellshocked
in tone -- snapped, and then the girl was yanked out of my face.
When my eyes refocused, I saw that a young Japanese fellow,
clearly high school age, had one hand clamped in a death grip on
her collar, and was pulling her back away from me even as she
struggled to get loose. He had the stunned and helpless air of a
cynic who'd just had his certainly that the world was a nasty
place yanked out from under him.
A quick glance around the room revealed the others. *Five*, not
four -- a bespectacled girl with short hair was sitting in a
corner and reading so quietly she might as well have been a
statue. The other two I'd heard were, like the rest, apparently
Japanese high school students. One was another young man, with
longer hair than the first, and a smile that verged on a smirk.
That left yet another pretty girl who somehow mixed voluptuous
and cute in equal parts, with long, long light brown hair; when
she caught me looking at her, her lower lip began to quiver and
she looked like she was about to burst into tears.
I quickly tore my gaze from her and brought it back to the first
girl, who was already demanding that "Kyon" release her. He
sighed and unclenched his hand, and "Suzumiya" almost fell
forward onto her face, just barely catching herself in time to
drop to her knees next to me.
"Hiiiii!" she announced in a voice that was just a bit louder
than it really needed to be. "We're the SOS-dan! We saw you
come out of a hole in the air and fall over! So we parked your
motorcycle in the bike rack and brought you back to our club
room! Are you an alien, a time traveller, or an esper?"
She said all that with one breath and a huge, manic grin.
I reached up and rubbed the bridge of my nose. "Um. In order:
one, unless you've heard of Warriors Alpha I suppose I am, sort
of; two, that depends on what year it is, and three, no, I'm a
mage. And a mutant."
Her grin grew wider over a three-count, and then she shot to
her feet and pumped a fist into the air.
"JACKPOT!" she shouted.
I switched to rubbing my temples. I just *knew* I was going to
regret coming to this world.
DRUNKARD'S WALK, STEPLET:
THE MELANCHOLY OF DOUGLAS SANGNOIR
by Robert M. Schroeck
-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.
Re: A Special Steplet - DHBirr - 06-19-2007
When I got to the words "yellow ribbon," I thought, "Oh, Dralm preserve me, NO."
I love his answer to the "time traveler" question, too.
Ummm, how long before Doug realizes that what his head was pillowed on was almost certainly Mikuru-chan's lap? And how long before the boys at the school find out about that and want to lynch him for it?
-----
Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
Re: A Special Steplet - nemonowan - 06-19-2007
Actually, Doug's category should be "slider". The only one of Haruhi's interests that is missing in the SOS-Dan...
I guess Kyon must have said something to renew Haruhi's interest in the subject, and that attractes Doug there.
NN
Re: Re: A Special Steplet - Bob Schroeck - 06-19-2007
She hasn't used "slider" in any of the anime I've seen, although it's in the translation of the novel that I've been recently reading. I was debating which way to go, and I decided it would be a bit funnier if I went with the anime version.
If this were to go any further -- which I'm not likely to do -- one place it could go from here would be Doug getting a good look at her with magesight, demanding to know who she is and what pantheon she's from, and very quickly getting dragged out into the hall by everyone to Have It All Explained to him -- but from there I have no idea what I might do, to be honest. I'd rather leave it at this short, jokey length.
Now if someone else wanted to take it and run with it, I wouldn't say no. But I'm content as a writer with just this much.
-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.
Re: Re: A Special Steplet - HoagieOfDoom - 06-19-2007
Quote:Same here, I got to the ribbon and then the head-desking followed.
When I got to the words "yellow ribbon," I thought, "Oh, Dralm preserve me, NO."
Personally, I wouldn't say no to more, if only to see what Haruhi subjects Doug to. (Poor guy...)*********
Touched By His Noodly Appendage
www.venganza.org
Re: Re: A Special Steplet - ECSNorway - 06-21-2007
Actually, I have this image of a Comedy of Errors. Doug gets that glimpse...
And every single time he tries to ask her about it, something happens to distract one or both of them, and he loses the chance. It's as if the universe itself is conspiring to keep him from saying anything... --
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Re: Re: A Special Steplet - Valles - 06-23-2007
You all realize, of course, that he's going to have to introduce her to skiball?
===============================================
"I'm terribly sorry, but I have to kill you quite horribly now."
Re: Re: A Special Steplet - Bob Schroeck - 06-23-2007
<snort>
-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.
Re: Re: A Special Steplet - Morganite - 06-23-2007
... Huh?
-Morgan.
"No snacks for three days!"
-Kururu
Re: Re: A Special Steplet - Cobalt Greywalker - 06-24-2007
To correct this frightening lack of knowledge, here is my three step plan.
1) Find a copy of the film 'Dogma'.
2) Watch said film.
3) Re-read DW5 Chapter 2.
Re: Re: A Special Steplet - David Lewis - 07-28-2007
Here's a thought. I wonder if he'd be around during LIVE-A-LIVE, and therefore be able to get his hands on Haruhi's renditions of God Knows and Lost My Music, and what effects they would have on him, both due to the song lyrics and perhaps something unique due to the pant-wettingly powerful bunny-girl singing them.
Re: Re: A Special Steplet - Florin - 12-20-2007
Quote:Actually, Kyon could be considered a Slider, if you go by the books. --
Actually, Doug's category should be "slider". The only one of Haruhi's interests that is missing in the SOS-Dan...
SuPer Administrative Restricted Desktop Access? This is madness!
No Maya, this is SPARDA.
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.
- trboturtle - 01-22-2008
Er...Bob? You steplet has no line breaks in it -- it's all in one LONG line.......
Craig
Migration effects - deadpan29 - 01-22-2008
Well, the steplet wasn't like that before, so I'm inclined to chalk it up to the switch to yuku.
----------
No, I don't believe the world has gone mad. In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.
- Bob Schroeck - 06-06-2008
Popped into here by chance and fixed the steplet.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- Bob Schroeck - 12-01-2009
Mm. Just something I feel like adding. I've recently discovered that the word that's translated as "Espers" in Haruhi Suzumiya is probably more accurately rendered as "People with Special Powers" -- i.e., supers. I probably should change this Steplet accordingly...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- deadpan29 - 12-01-2009
Can you tell me what that word is? I might want to use it at some later date.
----------
No, I don't believe the world has gone mad. In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.
- Bob Schroeck - 12-02-2009
I don't know it off-hand, and I don't remember if I ever actually saw it in whatever source I got that info from. I'll have to search and ... ah, found it: "chounouryokusha", which can be broken down literally into "super ability person".
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- The Wanderer - 12-02-2009
Less ambiguously and possibly less literally, "user of super ability".
The components are:
"ryoku" which is very literally "power" (it's the same kanji more familiar to most people as "chikara");
compounded with "nou", which means "ability" or "talent" or "gift" or "skill", to make "nouryoku" -
which can also be translated "power", but with a more specific nuance than just "ryoku" alone (it has connotations of "ability unique
to this person" or at least "ability of an unusual type" and could reasonably be translated as "special ability");
prefixed by "chou", which means "great" or "super" or "big" and is probably familiar to most anime fans;
and suffixed with "sha", which while it does literally mean "person" (it's the same kanji as the more familiar "mono"), as a
suffix seems to have more specific meaning than that. Every context I've seen it in has been of the form "(adjective)sha" and has seemed to mean
"one who applies (adjective)"; for example, in Naruto, Sasuke refers to himself as "fukushuusha" where "fukushuu" means
"vengeance".
It's possible that I'm reading more into that last than there is, and it really does just mean "person", with the other meaning I'm
seeing as just a matter of interpretation - but even if so, hopefully the "break it down / build it up" grammar moment will have been of interest to
someone.
- Pyeknu - 06-29-2012
I saw that on your main website, Bob.
Given the conversation we had concerning Moroboshi Hiromi and her phoenix-like capabilities in The Loon and the Ladies from Avalon, how the HECK is Doug going to take someone like Haruhi?
To say anything of Yuki?
- Bob Schroeck - 06-29-2012
It really depends on what Haruhi actually is, which is, at least as far as I've watched and read, not yet revealed/determined. The "Haruhi=God" thing that American fans have seized up is, after all, only a supposition on the parts of some members of Koizumi's Organization.
If she is a real god, then she may well be like Hexe and Glorificus, a 12-dimensional super-entity crammed into a 4-dimensional body. Which Doug would be able to detect, and to which he would react in his usual time-honored diplomatic way. If she isn't "really" a god, then I have no way of speculating; it all depends on what she actually is.
As for Yuki, Doug would probably read her as a mage, or at least some variety of metahuman. Koizumi would be a metahuman as well. Dunno about Mikuru, unless the events of the movie shoot had permanent effects on her.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- robkelk - 06-29-2012
Bob Schroeck Wrote:... Dunno about Mikuru, unless the events of the movie shoot had permanent effects on her.Yuki says (in both the novel and the second-season TV episode) that she undid everything that was done to Mikuru, and to everyone/everything else as well. Kyon thinks that Haruhi's repeated stating of the movie's disclaimer also stabilized everything after the fact... but can we trust Kyon?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012