Kyon: Big Damn Hero

I think the thread has been too quiet. I just stating the obvious but we can either let it sleep until the next chapter, or we could look for new topics of discussion.

Who knows, maybe something we could come up with will help Halbarad to devise one or two subplots. After all, one of the best parts of K:BDH is its lack of reliance on an all-encompassing Myth Arc or a Big Bad to drive the story ahead. Every facet of the story is interesting on its own and how all of them intertwine together made it into something truly wonderful.

Just to name a few:

• Where Asakura's Character Development could go?
• How would that affect Kuyou's?
• Did Taniguchi asked her out in K:BDH as it happened in canon?
• If so, how Yanagimoto would take the news?
• What could the latter do to get Sakanaka and Kunikida together?
• How the short guy will feel at having Sasaki, the girl who rejected him, in Kitago?
• Does he knows she's still in love with Kyon? What if Kunikida learns she is in a relationship with Kyon in spite of his engagement to Tsuruya?
• About Tsuruya, should Shinobu reveal the truth to her niece? What if Tsuruya already knows and she expecting her to do so?
• Considering how K:BDH doesn't shy away of the more unsavory aspects of the ninkyo dantai life, how Tsuruya and her chief advisor will deal with ever growing and questionable responsibilities? How they could affect Kyon's moral compass?
• What about his other responsibilities like fending off the Combine that could similarly affect him?
• Kyon once already took the decision to destroy a world to return home and even if that didn't come to pass, the fact he was willing to makes me wonder what he could do if pressed enough.
• If circumstances like that ends hardening his heart, will the Marry Them All scenario hold?
• As much as the girls' love push Haruhi's plan forward, another driving force that make it possible is how caring Kyon really is in spite of best efforts. Will they all stay together if things turn more dire or the future ordeals will forge their relationship into something stronger?
• Because there are a lot of way how such an unusual arrangement could go wrong. What if Haruhi, Kanae or Sasaki's parents learns about it and understandingly want to get their daughter away from a dangerous womanizer like that?
• What if someone from school catch Kyon with someone other than his fiancée and rumors attract more attention to the Brigade?
• What if some Yakuza wants to use one of the "Kowa-Keigo's women" for leverage?
• What if Miyuki starts doubting of Kyon's good intentions because of the Marry Them All scenario? Will she continue helping Kyon?
• What if Akasaka ends losing her job because of helping a known yakuza? Would she be at home working with Mori and Kansai?
• We know Mori decided to follow Kyon, but what about the rest? Is the disbanded Organization still a problem? I mean, they found a freaking Reality Warper in human form, did protect the world from her power was the only plan they had for her?
• And beyond that, how would the world take anything about the SOS Brigade if exposed? Even Koizumi's powers are groundbreaking enough to give almost any conventional weapon a run for its money.
• About the pretty boy, how will he deal with his masks as his relationship with Kyouko progress? Will the esper girl get new powers of her own....?

Wait. I think the above got too out of hand, but my point is that even in the worst-case scenario where K:BDH gets dropped and this thread forgotten, I don't want that happening because we got too quiet during such a delicate time. Want to do something? Let's enjoy the story and talk about it.

How about this for starts?:

Do you think Asakura could join the Big Damn Harem? I mean, girl makes out with Kyon indirectly through Kuyou's senses and doesn't seem to be complaining. Would he accept her if that comes to happen? I'm going to frank about this, I think the pairing is interesting because it has something that others don't to this extent, and that is Baggage.

The fact is Ryouko tried to kill Kyon, and he came to associate her face with the danger of being careless with the supernatural. For her part, the ex-IDSE humanoid interface only recently learned empathy and how "upsetting the status quo" like that was a bad thing. Can she forgive herself? Is Kyon truly accepting her right now or it's just the harmless chibi what he can tolerate?

It's kind of (well, very) late where I live. See you tomorrow and please forgive any typos or oddly worded sentence.

EDIT: Itemized.

edited 8th Mar '14 8:47:58 AM by Specular

I think Asakura could join the harem, and I would personally like to see that evolution of her character, but I don't think it was intended. We got a little bit of her growth, presumably due to Haruhi's 'evil module removal', where she considers that watching Kyon is more interesting than having him killed. However, her relationship with Nonoko is still the apparent core of her development into a better person, rather than growing closer to Kyon.

As far as Kyon's forgiveness, we've seen he's somewhat willing to forgive attacks against fellow brigade members, even if the person in question attacked with full knowledge. (Fujiwara) He also clearly regards the safety and well-being of the rest of the brigade above himself. (The attack on Kanae being more important to him than being shot.) In spite of all that, we have to remember he was willing to give Asakura a chance in the Disappearance-verse, and look how that turned out. He may be wary of properly trusting her again, particularly in full-sized form, even though he admits he already relies on her in combat.

I agree wholeheartedly on the baggage front, which is why this pairing is so interesting. The biggest negative issue he had with any of his girlfriends (besides Sasaki, which was a big part of his passivity, and has been discussed extensively) was the pictures of Mikuru he had saved on the computer, which was dealt with inside of two paragraphs.

I'll have to reread (for probably the 20th time) before I make any recommendations.

Also, Specular, I love your one-shots. 'Multithreading' has become a one-word joke to me.

Honestly, my answer is going to be a big no. I've seen A LOT of fanfiction on both sides of Sturgeon's Law, and the one thing about plot-centric harems I've learned is that if you want to write a good harem fic, you want to be EXTREMELY careful of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Otherwise, once you break it, you fall down into Sturgeon territory HARD. This is the main reason why when someone tells you a harem is way too large, you might want to give an ear.

Now, as we all know, KBDH definitely does not suffer from Sturgeon's Law, despite it being harem and crossover. In my opinion, not only is this due to the quality of the writing, but also a careful balance of many details coming together. The harem, especially, if proof of this (the beta harem, though, is due more to Narrative Filigree than anything else, even if it fits). All of the girls so far had very good reasons to pursue the same guy, and it wasn't easy either (still isn't, even). However, I feel that adding Asakura just because definitely violates the improbability quotient, due to a whole bunch of ancillary factors that add up. Hell, I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but I think Asakura has a better chance pulling off an extremely vague "Romantic" Two-Girl Friendship with Nonoko. And that's essentially my feelings on it.

edited 6th Mar '14 9:31:34 PM by Jbstormburst

I tend to agree with that. The implications the story has provided so far have been amusing (which I think was the intent) but I don't think it has any reason to go further logically beyond "just because," even more so now that Kyon's resolved not to just let himself be pushed into romantic situations - let alone pushed into one by one of the very few entities he's ever truly hated, who has repeatedly threatened his life and who very nearly succeeded in an alternate universe.

He may not feel as strongly negative towards her now, but I imagine he still "remembers the time she did stab him all too well."

@Specular: May I suggest that you turn that list of subplot ideas into a bulleted list? Wall of Text, you know.

I'm also in the camp that wouldn't want to see Asakura fall into the Big Damn Harem. I think that she might find the matters intriguing, but at the same time it just wouldn't feel appropriate. I can see her, if she ever gets her old body back, being a benevolent older sister figure to Nonoko, and maybe having a bash brother-esque relationship with Kyon, but as a romantic interest, nah.

Actually, it'd have been too lame if Ryouko's Character Development were motivated solely by her interactions with Kyon. Her protectiveness of Nonoko, her friendship with Kuyou, her drive to understand things beyond her original design and make the best of the unexpected position she found herself in, etc. are what makes her Character Development interesting.

From the perspective of The Four Loves trope, if Yuki is the closest Ryouko has to Storge, Kuyou to Philia and Nonoko to Agape, I just wondered if Kyon could be her catalyst to Eros.

IMO, it's not that Kyon gave Disappearance!Asakura a chance, per se. Even if he knew that she wasn't supposed to be a threat to him, he still kept his guard up around her at all times.

A little off-topic, but I think the biggest issue Kyon could have with Mikuru is her mission, you know, how Kyon isn't too comfortable with the whole Omniscient Morality License thing.

That many? I must be a slow reader because I've read the story like seven times, tops, and I took it as a sign of how much I like K:BDH.

Just between you and me (and whoever else is visiting this little corner of the net), in that snippet I originally had Ryouko wondering "whether Kyon could multi-task accordingly in such a scenario", but I felt I was going too far with the innuendo.

I tend to agree with that. The implications the story has provided so far have been amusing (which I think was the intent) but I don't think it has any reason to go further logically beyond "just because, " even more so now that Kyon's resolved not to just let himself be pushed into romantic situations - let alone pushed into one by one of the very few entities he's ever truly hated, who has repeatedly threatened his life and who very nearly succeeded in an alternate universe.

I won't say it'd be "just because", but I have to agree that such a development wouldn't be trivial to achieve nor something it can feasibly occur within a couple of chapters. For comparison, Kuyou's Relationship Upgrade took like twenty chapters and 200k words between the first clear hint of her interest in Kyon and their first kiss and I think Sasaki's took even more time and "events".

I know this is unrelated, but when I tried to put the words "Nonoko" and "romance" together in the same sentence, my brain pictured a scene like this◊ with Kyon, his sister and a classmate of hers instead of Yu, Nanako and the poor dude, respectively. You may include the kitty slippers and Ryouko sitting on his head and mirroring his expression.

I must be in an odd state of mind because the idea of Ryouko in her old body working side-by-side with Kyon made me wonder how that would look like from the perspective of the members of the Tsuruya-tachi. Let's take two of them for an Imagine Spot and name them A(kito) and B(unkichi) for convenience's sake:

Setting: Akito and Bunkichi are sitting at the bar, having a drink in a place all but owned by the Tsuruya-tachi.
A	:	...speaking of Kyon-dono, what do you think of the new girl he brought in?
B	:	The new girl? Ah, do you mean Asakura-san, the one with the long blue hair?
A	:	That's her. I noticed she wearing a pin. What does she do?
B	:	*raises a eyebrow* You don't know?
A	:	Well, she was wearing one of the suits and she doesn't seem the type for labour. Management?
B	:	You really...? Oh! That's right. They sent you out of town last week. Wanna guess again?
A	:	Not in the mood for your games. Just tell me.
B	:	Yojimbo.
A	:	Bodyguard? Assigned to whom?
B	:	*smirks*
A	:	You little— Alright, I'll play, but you're paying for my drinks if I got it right. Deal?
B	:	Deal. You got three guesses.
A	:	She's guarding Tsuruya-hime. Being both of them girls around the same age, it's easier for her to remain close.
B	:	Good guess, but that's not it. Two left.
A	:	Really? Let me see... How about this: Asakura is guarding that girl we got out of the hands of those Sumiyoshi-rengo. What was her name again?
B	:	Sasaki-chan... but wrong again. Last try.
A	:	*thinks to himself for a while, plays with his glass of whisky* I got it. It was a tricky question. Asakura was assigned as a "plant" to Tsuruya-hime and Kyon-dono's school. She's supposed to remain "sleeping" unless something comes up.
B	:	Three strikes and out!
A	:	*rolls eyes* Alright, you got me. Just spill it.
B	:	Kyon-dono.
A	:	......what? That can't be right. Why would he need a bodyguard? You sure she's not his personal assistant or something?
B	:	I think she does that too, but she's getting "danger pay" and everything.
A	:	That doesn't make any sense. I don't think a girl looking like that would be any good in a fight—... wait. Don't you think she could be....?
B	:	Be what?
A	:	You know, his... *ambiguous gesture*
B	:	*looks around, whispers* Watch your mouth, you fool. *normal voice* Nope, she's the real deal. From the moment you asked about her like that I knew you missed the news about the show. That was something else.
A	:	The show?
B	:	Yep. Kyon-dono seemed to know that it would be difficult to believe that he of all people would put someone like her watching his back. So, the first time he brought her along to the Towers, he presented her to guys. Nothing big, just a quick introduction to whoever happened to be in the lounge at the time, like me.
A	:	What happened?
B	:	At first, nothing. Even though everybody thought about it, no one wanted to be the first to question the Kowa-Keigo to his face. So, he told us how the two of them were taught to fight by the same person. Now that got everybody curious.
A	:	I can see why. The past of the guy is kind of a riddle for the ages. The most I know is that he has an uncle working for the Sonozaki-gumi in the North.
B	:	His next words were even better, and I quote, "unlike me though, she's the talented one."
A	:	......
B	:	Precisely. Then he turned to her and asked her if any among us were carrying a gun. She looked at us and pointed to Jin.
A	:	Easy guess. Jin is always packing heat.
B	:	Well, yeah. But that's not the crazy part. He asked Jin to point his gun at him as a demonstration. He, of course, refused, but Kyon-dono insisted and said to not worry about it. Coming from a guy who didn't seek revenge on the little shits that shot at him at the cinema, perhaps he really doesn't mind having someone taking aim at him.
A	:	And probably he was wearing a vest, too.
B	:	Could be, but the thing is, Jin nodded. I think he was really curious about what the little boss wanted to prove with that. The rest of us took a few steps away from potential line of fire, but neither of them moved. I knew for a fact that Jin uses a shoulder holster under the suit, but it surprised me when he...
A	:	He...? Get over with it, will you?
B	:	Hey! I like to put some extra suspense into my stories.
A	:	It's annoying.
B	:	Alright, alright. Jin drew a gun from his back. I'm guessing he had an especially built holster strapped there or something. Whatever the case, before I truly realized what was going on, the girl was next to him, took the gun from him with a maneuver I didn't manage to see, removed the magazine, emptied the chamber just like she was about to clean the gun and pressed the barrel against his jaw. For a while everybody just stood there, frozen. The first to move was Kyon-dono, who walked to them, picked up the magazine and the discarded bullet from the floor, handed them to Jin, thanked him for his cooperation and apologized for the inconveniences. He especially stressed the last part while looking at her, so I'm guessing she wasn't supposed to show off that much.
A	:	It's all that—?
B	:	The truth? Yes. My favourite part is when he next asked her to put that away, pointing at her hand not holding the gun.
A	:	Why?
B	:	She had a combat knife pressed against Jin's gut. Not even the guy himself noticed until Kyon-dono mentioned aloud. She giggled at that, a sound I won't be forgetting for a while, gave Jin his gun back and then she took her post behind Kyon-dono and to his left.
A	:	Is she...?
B	:	Stab-happy? I don't know and I don't want to find it out. It's known that she gets along very well with Nagato-san, though.
A	:	Which explains a lot and opens even more questions. I wonder where he does even find these kind of girls.
B	:	And how he keeps them loyal. It reminds me of that Indian king who had hundreds of super-elite warrior women watching his back, Chandra-something-or-another in the 300 BC.
A	:	*raises one eyebrow, incredulously*
B	:	What? I'm a very well-read person, you know.
A	:	*raises both eyebrows, more incredulously*
B	:	... fine. I read about it once in BadassOfTheWeek.com. Happy?
A	:	That's more like it *finishes his drink*

I was supposed to push the send button hours ago, but I got sidetracked because of a movie and then the snippet. Sorry about that.

... You're right. I didn't look so unseemly when I wrote it. I'll edit it after catching some sleep first. See you later.

Edit: SO many typos.

edited 7th Mar '14 11:06:49 PM by Specular

@Specular's snippet: This. Must. Get. A Title!

Now you mention it, I didn't think of giving it a title. Right off the top of my head, I'd say "Get Them With The First Impression". If a summary is required, that would be "Just like that time in the classroom, he said...".

... And I just to go and think "I must mail this snippet to Durandall!" while driving to college today. Dammit, this is going to take a while until I get used to his absence. I've never had a fanfic author die while I'm reading an unfinished story of his/hers, let alone one like him. I... I personally think he's the one fanfic author that I know who got the best grasp on the characters he's writing about in a given story. Everybody else seems to fall short of how he managed to portray the Haruhi Suzumiya central cast's complexities in ways that even I never thought of.

Oh, we haven't gotten around to updating his troper page.

edited 9th Mar '14 9:05:32 AM by MarqFJA

Yeah. Your words got me a little... you know.

For what it's worth, I edited the snippet a little and posted it with the rest here. See you tomorrow.

Apologies for the lack of updates. I've been bogged down rather severely at work of late, and I'm still working through a reread of the fic itself. This hasn't been forgotten, I can assure you.

Remind me not to try posting from my iPad again. Damn autocorrect.

edited 10th Mar '14 6:22:15 AM by Halbarad

Kind of sad that I was the last person that actually edited his troper page almost two years ago.

I'd put a message on his page but it's no longer possible to edit. I just get a message that only Durandall can edit it. Think we should take this to a moderator?

edited 10th Mar '14 3:51:29 PM by UncloudedTJ

Yeah, I think we should. And I forgot that they somewhat recently made it so only the troper himself/herself can edit his/her own contributor's page.

FWIW, there is at least one existing page for a now dead troper that has been edited to reflect his dead status. (Just in case the mod you contact questions the necessity of what we're proposing.)

edited 11th Mar '14 11:27:09 AM by MarqFJA

This is exactly how I've felt since I first started reading BDH. He completely nailed every character, which (in my limited experience, at least) is a rare thing in fanfiction in general.

Made a post over on the Edit Requests for Locked Pages. Not sure if that's the correct place or not so any input would be appreciated.

@Unclouded TJ:

I don't know about the proper course of action for this kind of situation, but from a technical standpoint probably there isn't an easy way to turn an individual troper page openly editable.

An alternative could be to ask an admin to edit the page for us by telling them exactly what to put on the page, but for that the text to include has to be ready beforehand.

Do you have something in mind already?

Not really I didn't want to make an executive decision on what to put so I was merely making a mention of his passing while giving a link to the announcement.

I've tried Ask The Tropers as well but they seemed unhelpful or as confused as we are. Apparently only Mods and the Troper can edit their page. When did that start by the way? I hope it hasn't been more than a year.

Moderator Willbyr got around to editing the troper page and put a message and a link at the top of the page. Figured you guys would like to know about it.

@Unclouded TJ:

Thanks a lot.

Also, I highly commend the decision of including a link to that thread in Soulriders.net.

I figured there's already a link to his site on his troper page. If people went to his site they'd see the notice. Having a forum link about it would be a better place to put a link in my opinion.

Does this story count as an Orphaned Series, or is that invalidated by it having been adopted by another author?

The latter. I'd think that Posthumous Collaboration precludes Orphaned Series.

This was a Orphaned Series in the span of time before Halbarad stepped forward. Now it's a Posthumous Collaboration. That's how I'm thinking about it anyway. I've been putting some thought to Specular's amazingly thorough questions. Since I'm not particularly great at plotting out romance, I stuck to the questions dealing with the Big Damn Harem masquerade.

• What if someone from school catch Kyon with someone other than his fiancé?
  • Some of the harem have some way of deflecting attention. Yuki and Kuyou can occlude themselves, Mikuru has a cover story with Kyon's disguise. Haruhi and Sasaki have no such tricks; Haruhi just goes to the stairwell, Sasaki will have to be discrete. It would defy belief if absolutely no one slipped up on their vigilance once. Yuki and Kuyou aren't as likely, but Mikuru could get flustered if someone really presses her. Anyone at the school could follow Haruhi to that stairwell if they dared, or just put something to record her and Kyon. Sasaki may just not risk public affection at all.
• What if some Yakuza wants to use one of the "Kowa-Keigo's women" for leverage?
  • The Sumiyoshi-Rengo were persistent enough to keep kidnapping Sasaki, despite their fear of Kyon. If they won't back down until their kumichou tells them to, nothing would really stop any other part of the Sumiyoshi-Rengo from deciding to go after someone else of Kyon's friends. It won't be particularly effective now that Sasaki is getting better protection, but the threat's still there.

Someone else can go after the other questions. It'd be interesting to see someone else's thoughts on the subject.

edited 24th Mar '14 5:56:06 PM by ThraggLootrippa

Before I forget to mention it again, a few weeks ago I got myself thoroughly Spoiler-ed about future events in the story. Long Story Short, I can no longer speculate about K:BDH as I used to. That's not to say I won't be participating in the discussion, it's just that I'm having troubles to come up with new topics without hinting stuff away. I suppose replying to others' posts and writing the occasional snippet should be still do-able, though.

Moral of a fable: Don't follow my steps without a very good reason.

@Thragg Lootrippa:

Well, from a technical standpoint and with invisibility on their side, it's unlikely they will ever get caught. IMO, the problem goes more along the lines of how stressful is for a relationship to remain secret.

For example, think of a married couple where one of them has been cheating on the other for years, and gotten really good at keeping the affair hidden, just to everything to blow up because a single, very stupid mistake. Why? Did they just get careless? It could be, but I think that in such a scenario it's possible that, in some level, they simply got tired and wanted to be discovered.

Back to K:BDH, I think it's likely that someone (prime suspect: Haruhi) will get fed up of sneaking around and do something risky that it will get them into trouble.

Now that I think about it, Sasaki will first need to get her Power Nullifier under control if she wants to reap the benefits of invisibility, though.

Something that I'm not sure whether I mentioned before and it's related to the above point. If the Big Damn Harem gets totally or partially revealed to someone in the "business" the consequences could be... surprisingly irrelevant.

I mean, a big name yakuza keeping women on the side? That's not even good gossip material. I'd think it's almost expected from the position. Heck, it's possible that Kyon will get further rep points for that considering that each of the girls ranks very high in the "Taniguchi's scale" of attractiveness.

Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!.

And Now for Someone Completely Different, I got pictures.

All Hail, glasses!Kuyou!!

edited 28th Mar '14 7:24:51 PM by Specular