I've reached Chapter 56 of my reread, and noticed that out of all 100 waifus Makina had been shortchanged the most. (You could make an argument for Yuuhi or Kudryavka but they're treated as well as can be expected given that both their visual novels still haven't been translated into English.) So I resolved to fix that with a couple extra lines (the bolded ones) in Chapter 2:
In fact, there wasn't a waifu among my harem who I wouldn't trust to have unchanging devotion to me for a thousand years of eternal youth. They were written to be really good girls with really good hearts, whose devotion could withstand the worst storms. Asuna had literally thrown herself bodily into a sword to save her love. Makina had taken multiple bullets for the sake of a tree I'd given her. (On the plus side, she had also dished out a bevy of bullets to the terrorists who had dared to kidnap me away from her). It was the same for all of them, more or less. I could trust my life to any of their feelings without worry. That's why I had chosen them out of all imaginable girls.
With just two sentences I managed to show how ridiculously in love Makina is and how awesome she is, the two traits required to become a perfect waifu. Now none can doubt her belonging on this list or in this world.
I also improved Nadeko's scene to better match the currently airing Nademonogatari with the new bolded words:
"I became a great many different things over a short period of time." Nadeko admitted. "A scared cursed girl, a shy (or maybe not so shy) girl in love, a brokenhearted (and maybe a little angry) girl still in love, a berserk snake God, a manga-ka in training, then a specialist in training, and finally a successful manga-ka and specialist. And because you wished for me to be able to change freely between all those periods of my life, I can choose to be whichever Nadeko suits me at the moment, here in this new world, where I became yet another Nadeko, the Nadeko whose heart was never broken but instead fulfilled."
I also improved the phrasing of Lisanna's scene:
"When I asked to be your wife, you were too young and shy, so you just blushed and looked away. Then the next time we met, some blonde bimbo was hanging all over you, so I was sure my unexpected trip to Edolas had been a dealbreaker."
As well as Elize's scene:
"How do you like mature me?" Elize wound a finger through her beribboned short twintails while proudly wearing her school uniform from Xillia 2.
"I love all your versions, but scientifically speaking I think it's established I like twintails the most." I replied delightedly. Her light blonde hair and yellow eyes contrasted starkly with her navy blazer and black ribbons, bringing vibrancy to both. Likewise, her combination of joy at being paid attention to contrasting with the shyness of how to handle that attention carried equal magnetism.
As well as Mumei's scene:
"The point of this game is to lower the enemy's life total to zero. But I discovered that with the poison mechanic they can die from 10 damage instead of 20, so obviously the best strategy is this half price victory. I call the deck 'Infect,' after the mechanic on the card." Mumei spread out her cards proudly. "If things line up right I can win on turn 2." Her killer instinct had combined cheap poisonous creatures with cheap Giant Growth type cards that ballooned her damage up to lethal instantaneously. The most vicious aspect was the two spells she could use to pump up her creatures at no mana cost at all. The game would be over before it began if she were lucky enough to draw those. Her aggressiveness seemed to be alive and well, even if her fighting days were long over.
As well as Yui's scene:
"Part of the deliciousness of food is that feeling of becoming full again, of the sinfulness of how much you're consuming. I can't get that in virtual reality. When it's the taste alone, when you feel the same sensation continuously, it becomes deadening." Yui reported.
As well as Kobeni's scene:
"Kobeni, I'm here to visit!" I knocked on her door. Seven year old Akane answered, looking up and up at my strange grizzled face, one of the few non-anime featured persons on Eden, with a sense of awe.
Previously I had called Christopher the 'only' non-anime featured person, but that's not accurate once Cute gave other people the option to look like their augmented reality selves. If even one child took up that option Christopher would no longer be unique, and statistically speaking surely at least one would have availed themselves of such an option, so it's better to be on the safe side and say 'one of the few.'
Other edits include grammatical fixes, the cutting of unnecessary 'justs' and commas, etc. Basically I worked hard improving virtually every chapter of the book in little ways, which meant I had to very carefully read every word and couldn't skimp on my work at all.
Chapter 56 is a long list of names so it takes forever to read, but I assume I'll be done editing the book by tomorrow. What's already clear is that this 44th reread was vital and that, as a result of undertaking it, the book is much improved from before. The same could be said of the 43rd edition which got rid of so many obnoxious 'justs' and 'evens,' and the 42nd edition which switched out 15 names. Every time I think I'm done it turns out I'm not, and even more startling, it turns out there were still major revisions and improvements left to go. The changes to the 44th edition are the most momentous since the new Levy content. From a debugging perspective you could say there were still critical errors, not just a few edge-cases to clean up. It feels like once I'm done with this reread the book will be complete, after all I've fixed so many things, but then again I felt that was true for the last five editions. At this point I dare not make any predictions.
What I do know is that this reread has been exhausting (though obviously rewarding), so I don't plan on tackling my 45th reread any time soon. First there's volume 9 of Kamitachi to finish, then I can read Parchment and Wolf 8 which finally appeared on nyaa.si for free download, then there's Ken Tensei Another Wish to catch up on, then there's the Olympics, then the new World of Warcraft expansion I've already bought and paid for. Maybe once all of that is done I'll have stored up enough energy to tackle this job again, but I could also see waiting until December or something. I want to finish editing the book this year, but editing the book every month like I've been doing recently is too severe a strain. Hopefully I can read the 45th edition without finding a single thing to edit and it will pass by like a breeze. There's always hope.
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