#I love this series and I wouldn't write 150k words about it

[localvoid-golem]

To start, it would be really silly of me to TL; DR your answer when, well, you can see below.

To start a second time: this is all totally my own opinion! I do not endorse erasing anyone else's context, concerns, or commitment to their own valid ideas! Fiction is meant for our minds to chew on, and we all taste different things! So no shade at all cast by me as a result of my words to follow. I think I just haven't written anything Haruhi related in too long so guess you get to see it first. Thank you for your patience!

My interest in Haruhi Suzumiya as a character waxes from wistful interest and wanes to disdain, on a given week. Unquestionably, she is a tempest in a teapot, a distinct role that helped capture fandom interest and help the show and books stand out among its peers at the time. In a world before the Isekai domination of the anime industry, she stands out as any one of us, desperate to be reborn or discover the secret layers in our world.

I like how Haruhi's character is built up! I love the raw emotionality captured in her responses to to the world!

But gods does she exhaust me, and not in a cute, too much energy way. (And its not because she's physically and emotionally abusive character in the first episode and occasionally throughout the story later (well, not *just* because of this, but it doesn't help).) No, she exhausts me as a character because as written by Nagaru Tanigawa, Haruhi is not provided demonstrable room for growth or agency. To me, she’s only given space as a force of nature, and not a protagonist in her own right.

Personal Context: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was really important to me as I grew up and in my heart of hearts, still is. I didn’t catch it until the show came out, but I devoured it soon after. I read all the books, watched endless eight (and was not nearly as upset as most folks) as it came out, bought all the content available in English and wrote over 140k words in fanfiction, including my first ever novel length work. I didn’t seek out the games and my interest had waned enough that by the completion of The Disappearance of Yuki Nagato Chan, that I felt I could comfortably close the book on my love and desire for more content. This is and probably will always been my personal Problematic Favorite show, and its not because of Endless Eight.

So, when I say I don't really like the titular character, Haruhi Suzumiya, I mean it only in the most disappointed way possible. Haruhi is a perfect example of thwarted catharsis. If you treat her like a protagonist, she's even more a passive contender in her own story than Mikuru. She does change in later novels, but for me, it didn't feel meaningfully addressed, but I'll go through that later.

Kyon is the story POV, so often all we hear are his reservations, his complaints, and even his decisions, occasionally. First posed as an audience stand in, he's an unreliable narrator that the audience has to decipher when he is speaking fact, feeling, or self imposed cynicism. The stories are all cycles of Kyon learning about potential change, something he desperately yearns for in his heart of hearts, and finding the resolve to reject the change, for the sake of the others whom he's found purpose in. He is, in many ways, Campbell's Hero's Journey refuted.

Koizumi is something between a cleric and a caretaker, worshipping the presence that his heart and mind tell him are the center of reality, but also trying to manage a teenage girl who by any other right (or rite) would be his peer and potential crush. Haruhi gave him purpose, and he has to struggle with the idea of what that means for who he is. Or who he would become, if that sleeping god should wake or - worse still - stop dreaming. His sense of value, his life's philosophy is a stack of cards and he has only one other present-day human who's *not* wrapped up in the same religion to talk to about it.

Yuki is a monstrously unknowable entity crafted to observe a universal nuclear bomb and maintain a rigid status quo that, should it explode, means she literally would have no purpose. She's in a place where she cannot observe safely, slowly deteriorating under the exposure to radiation, even as her masters study the effects as if an interesting side effect to their trained lab rat. When she does exercise autonomy, it nearly defuses the bomb itself, almost gets herself deleted, then saved by one of the only people who've ever shown her concern, then gets emotionally quote-unquote 'friend-zoned'. I've got things I think about for Yuki.

Mikuru is a quasi willing participant in an experiment to examine the closed loop of history. Memory-editted and neurally-bound to a truth that can't be spoken to a paradox, Mikuru has little recourse but to accept her fate as slave to the present. Any complaint might trigger that paradox into further altering time itself, or reveal her existence as being from the future. That said, even Mikuru has the means to express some small dissatisfaction with her indenture and find joy in the present due to her willed ignorance. We even get to see a version of Mikuru that has coped with all the pain and come out, if not better, at least alive and seeming happy. In some ways, this sort of deflects some of the excitement of seeing her character change (we know who she's supposed to become) but how she gets there is still a journey we can explore.

Haruhi. The way I see Haruhi, on the other hand, IS AS the status quo. Worse, she's layers deep in the status quo that she doesn't have the agency to even reject who she is, because even that would be more of the status quo. She *wants* to fight it. She desperately wants change. But the construction of the story is to prevent her from having the agency to choose. Characters without agency are... not characters. Not fun characters to me, at least. They are obstacles, tests, or challenges. Forces of Nature. The dragon around which the rest of the story orbits.

This is largely true for the story. Even when the plot should demand that Haruhi confront that she might not be in a mundane world in Snowy Mountain Syndrome, Tanigawa flinches. When Koizumi claims it was all a mirage, Haruhi accepts this, without fanfare. It could have been a major pivot, a true change to how the story continued to unfold. Instead, it was a cute lil story and shows Haruhi, who has no awareness of The Disappearance storyline, being exceptionally caring for Yuki. It's the right sentiment, but the wrong time. I To me, it feels like the author trying to soften Haruhi after kinda-sorta laying the blame for Yuki's trauma at Haruhi's feet, but not doing the leg work to make this feel impactful. Nothing happens to change who Haruhi is. its always been part of her character, it seems like.

And then it all kind of tumbles out from there. Haruhi again and again get excluded from the events of the story, or is just used as an excuse to manufacture events, to keep her occupied.

Even in the climax of the novels, the Dissociation, Haruhi herself is sidelined again to care for an ill Yuki, and relegated to being a caretaker. Desperate to be part of the plot, she has to contrive a subconsious alter-self from when she was a child and still had hope in reality to become part of the plot. Worse, when we see her years in the future, she's unchanged, or flattened even further. She's happy and normal and so far as we can tell, past her high school flight of fancy.

Sasaki gets more opportunity to grow and change, from complete skeptic, to unwilling believer and near reverse-human-sacrifice, to choosing to be a human, and being not crushed by it.

I wanted Haruhi to be a real character. *She* wanted to be a real character, but the most we see her is early on, when she's actively a menace. By the time she should get a chance for change and improvement, she got used to take up time with characters who needed to be off-screen.

With all that said, Haruhi is also why I can't recommend the show. She is the Problematic. And, like, I am all for problematic women on certain axes. But not all axes. And its not just the sexual assault and the accusations of sexual assault to extort. Its that this show is grounded in reality. In a very deliberate fashion, this is supposed to be our world. Otherwise Haruhi would not be so upset at how boring the world is! Its not even an elevated reality like in most comedy anime, where it might slide as... less terrible. She just does these things to people and sulks when someone chastises her.

I blame some of it being the anime doing nothing to cut back on the edge of her personality from the first book. But there's even less resolution in the show. Season 1 has the first two episodes of a gut punch. Season 2 has her mean streak during the movie production (Endless Eight was Fine, actually. I'll fight on that hill.). And the Disappearance, as gorgeous and well done as it is, does not resolve any of this. And the fun or emotional weight of any of the other media, Haruhi Suzumiya-chan or Yuki Nagato-chan is not load bearing. They can't stand alone without the main show.

We don't even get to see the soften Haruhi that's supposed to represent some of her growth, from Snowy Mountain and Dissociation. Even Live Alive, they don't, in the show, describe how Haruhi did more than fill in, but that she used her powers to advertise the band.

Its all tension and no release. I want more from her. I want more *for* her! but she doesn't get it. And so it makes me sad. And I can't ooze all my love for the show without a huge trigger warning about her to recommend it to anyone outside.

Its not, strictly, Haruhi's fault, but the author's. Even so, I'm always braced when she comes back on screen, not sure if she's going to do something that I need to filter against the... character she could have been. Or worse, when she's not on screen, and thus can't really be part of this world she's created.

I am super glad you love her, and I do respect it entirely! Your passion and joy are infectious and I would never want to poison it! I just wanted to give an explanation, and its been rattling around in my head for weeks. And now, because of you and this, I'm back to editing my thinly veiled coffee-shop AU because this series doesn't let go once its teeth sink in. thank you for listening and hope I didn't come off as mean or anything!

The potential was endless, but the catharsis is way too late for me.

Hello, I vaguely remember you had a post about folks who 'didn't like' Haruhi of, you know, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Some of it, I thought, was a request for context or an explanation, but maybe not. Would you want someone to broach the topic?

if not, no worries, I've just lost the post, but have been mulling on a response for months. (Totally get if this is more of a Do Not Engage discussion or just want to say no, cause you might have deleted the post due to prior poor responses)

i mean. people can say whatever they want to me, generally (and often do). i'm not, like, directly opposed to someone coming in and explaining their perspective, and i do usually try to approach most things like that in good faith as much as i'm able to!

(but also, like, as the #1 haruhi defender on this godforsaken earth. my general stances are not a secret.)

so if it's something you want to share to provide context, go ahead, but i can't promise i'm going to suddenly understand or agree with you and i also can't promise not to respond with an essay about my own interpretations and reasoning but that should be expected by anyone who knows this blog at all

tl;dr: go for it if you want to!

(for context, since tumblr ate the original post for the time being: it was a post about my not understanding how someone could enjoy the series without liking haruhi as a character, which is something i stand by.)

[kiwiana-writes]

Fic Writing Review 2023

Tagged by my fellow stats nerd @stereopticons - thanks pal!

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass but don’t feel like you have to do this either.

Words and Fics (fics written in 2023 only)

143,107 words published to ao3. At least 3,900 more guaranteed by the advent fic so... I think I should make a concentrated effort to break 150k, right? 👀

No good way of tracking unpublished words in WIPs written this year. My goal for 2024 is to set up my spreadsheet to track words written as well as published so watch this space.

3 published fandoms: Red White & Royal Blue (book), Schitt's Creek, The Last Of Us (TV show). Technically 1 unpublished fandom in Red White & Royal Blue (film) 😅

Most recent drop: Apart from the daily advent fic drops lilnked above, a PWP interlude in the hockey boyfriend Henry 'verse

Longest (published) fic: By a country fuckin' mile, With so much of my heart (that none is left to protest), aka the Much Ado actor AU, at 65,586 words.

Longest (published) oneshot: Kinda think that I might be his type (Alex and Bea fake date) at 12,864 words

Top Fics by Kudos (fics written in 2023 only)

With so much of my heart (that none is left to protest) [RWRB, Alex/Henry, rated E, 65,586 words]

Kinda think that I might be his type [RWRB, Alex & Bea + Alex/Henry, rated E, 12,864 words]

We were supposed to find this [RWRB, Alex/Henry, rated M, 3,384 words]

Puck It [RWRB, Alex/Henry, rated E, 9,739 words]

Feel your hands in my hair and you whisper my name [RWRB, Alex/Henry, rated E, 2,508 words]

Miscellaneous Data From My Unhinged Spreadsheet about 2023 fics

To no one's surprise, highest percentage of private bookmarks goes to Bukkake Breaky Heart.

Out of 24 fics published in 2023, 14 were explicit, 2 were mature, 7 were teen and up, and 1 was general audiences

3 fics didn't have a title sourced from anywhere. 3 were sourced from literature/poetry, 3 were puns, and the remaining 15 were song lyrics, with 3 each from Taylor Swift and Matt Nathanson.

My highest kudos/hits ratio was on Empty your heart of its mortal dream, aka the Fae Prince Henry fic.

My fandom fic events in 2023

Nilch nada zip in terms of, like, fests. I wanted to do Threesgiving but the words wouldn't come, so a sort-of-threesome-sort-of-foursome will probably appear on some random day in fucking February or something lmao. However while they weren't fandom-specific events, I did do:

Kinktober 2023

Advent 2023

Upcoming Events and Projects for 2024

I have a lot -- a lot a lot a LOT -- of WIPs that will be completed in 2024, so please don't think of this as an exhaustive list, but they are the ones I'm most excited for:

A Practical Arrangement - @clottedcreamfudge has Devised A Punishment if I don't get chapter two out for y'all by Christmas because my usual methods of pushing past my brain bullshit weren't working, so technically this is a 2023 project 🤣 @ships-to-sail and @celeritas2997 have the carrot and CCF has the stick.

Anastasia AU!!! I LOVE this fic and I think it's in the 'meaty one-shot' range buuuuuut we'll see. It might get a little out of control.

Angstapalooza RWRB edition - this is gonna be another long fic, 10-11 chapters, 50k words ish, and I cannot WAIT to make y'all cry sink my teeth into it. My Schitt's Creeks babes know what happens when I deem something 'angstapalooza' lmao.

Hockey Boyfriend Henry part 3, aka the whole reason I started writing the fucking series in the first place lmao

Leverage AU, which I haven't shared anything of yet because it's a post-angstapalooza longfic but I am VERY HYPE FOR.

Rafael Is Surrounded By Disaster Queers, aka the Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead-style Rafael POV... 5+1? Vignettes? set in the Much Ado actor AU verse. Which at this point is just a gift for @inexplicablymine and @cricketnationrise and I wouldn't have it any other way.

STFAU 👀

*infomercial voice* And much, much more!

BUT, 2024 is also for taking original writing seriously. Maybe flash/microfiction on patreon, definitely diving into an original novel. I've thrown in the towel with my contracting agency in the new year and everything. Ack.

Tagging anyone I've tagged above and also @anincompletelist @cha-melodius @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @indestructibleheart @myheartalivewrites and anyone who wants to play because I love data.