Umineko FanFiction Discussion

[Renall]

Things will assuredly get more confusing at the snap-back to 1986, but do keep these thoughts in mind as you go through the parts to follow. And of course keep thinking about 1986 itself.

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Spoiler for discussing part 3:

Jeroboam's character confuses me at this point. From his outward attitude and monologues, he seems super critical of the whole witch hunting affair. However, he did go to their convention, join their "club", seems somewhat enthusiastic in their IRC conversation, and is even willing to go on the Rokkenjima pilgrimage. I don't really know what to make out of it, but since everyone loves reading blue text...

He's into the girl, but is playing hard to get! This would be rather boring, though.

He's a helpless closet Rokkenjima otaku, as much as he tries to deny it! This is what I'm going with currently.

He's actually so edgy about the witch hunters he's planning to murder some of them! But if you assume the Jeroboam/Andromalius duality that Golden Bug Hunter suggests, there's a cooler motive:

He's a hitman "summoned" by Eva to preserve the illusion of the Witch. However, I think the witch hunter murders are unrelated to the Prime Umineko characters. It would kinda mess with the canon and there are clearly some bounds Renall is taking as a fanfictionist.

Well...

Spoiler:

He met Cass at a convention, so I think something made him curious to check it out before she came into the picture. That could be random curiosity and boredom, or the start of an infiltration job that EVA sponsored, but that really doesn't feel right. All this effort of making a forgery and such, that's not hitman behavior. A hitman does the job, gets paid, and moves on. Jeroboam has something he wants to say. The way he highlights how stupid the theories are, and how offensive the theory-making and picking at old wounds is to the surviving friends and family of the dead, makes me think there's something personal there. That killing them off like this is the culprit's own personal 'Take that! How do you like it when people are talking crap about YOUR deaths, huh?!!' Of course, it's too late for the dead to learn their lesson, so he posted the 'confession' as a warning to others.

Speaking of which, I wonder if Walter will specifically mention the number of bodies the police recovered in 1996, because if there are actually 4 bodies, well, someone had to survive to post that story on the internet, right? So maybe I'm in too much of a hurry to declare Jeroboam himself the culprit. After all, Yasu wasn't Maria. There was a fifth person in that chatroom and no one has declared in red that there were only 4 humans on the island...

This whole treatment of witch-hunting as Otaku phenomenon in the mid/late nineties has actually made me consider something in prime. In a way, the characters of this Kakera might be lucky that the culprit is the first and only (thus far known) copy-cat killer to emerge. I can easily see a worst case scenario where a bunch of lunatic copy cat serial killers are running around offing people in order to become witches/wizards/gods and taunting the police with exquisitely prepared envelopes and challenges.

After all, some serial killers do it to get their message out or prove their greatness, and Beatrice evidently discovered a way that works in Prime. You could easily get a pile of crazy killers all over the place trying to be the next Beatrice. A sort of Stand Alone Complex of the Golden Witch. Most of them probably wouldn't get very far, but just a couple first twilights makes some nasty possibilities.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Golden Bug-Hunter

This whole treatment of witch-hunting as Otaku phenomenon in the mid/late nineties has actually made me consider something in prime. In a way, the characters of this Kakera might be lucky that the culprit is the first and only (thus far known) copy-cat killer to emerge. I can easily see a worst case scenario where a bunch of lunatic copy cat serial killers are running around offing people in order to become witches/wizards/gods and taunting the police with exquisitely prepared envelopes and challenges.

Spoiler:

It's an interesting and somewhat chilling thought, one that definitely is meant to be a theme or suggestion that will come up in greater detail later. Of course, I hope to convey that the 1996 culprit wasn't merely copycatting Beatrice for glory (if they were, you'd think they'd at least make up a cool witch name). But the mere fact that this killer may have more depth (or at least I hope that's what people conclude) certainly doesn't mean that others couldn't start seeing this as a phenomenon to copy. I don't envy the modern investigators trying to deal with absurd closed room killings, but I also don't imagine those work very well in reality and CSI would kind of kill the magic in due course.

Do you really believe such a thing would happen though? I mean, it's a story, but one has to hope the world's not full of people like that, right?

I do want to talk more, through the personage of Walter, about the way that whole phenomenon and fan-movement works and has changed, but none of it ended up in Part 4 (and the Walter segment in Part 4 is extremely short). There's a decent chunk of it written and it seems most appropriate to be in Part 5 somewhere. Exactly where I'm not sure... maybe not the beginning, which has usually been the case for his bits. I might just have 4 go directly into 5 and bring Walter back in toward the end to discuss it, but Part 5 is going to be fairly chaotic and probably a bit long, as it has to contain several things:

Spoiler:

• The end of the 1986 narrative, which is not really all that close to being concluded.
• The investigators' facts from 1996.
• Walter's conclusions about the 1996 incident and its aftermath, including why he believes the culprit remains at large.
• Several important meta-discussions, including one meant to transition directly into the Tea Party-ish content.
• The optional "questions" segment just to solicit thoughts and give ideas of areas to focus on (if I decide to do it, in the end).

Exactly what I'm writing and scripting is something I already know, it's just a matter of where it all needs to go. For example, the first chapter of Part 3 initially had the two scenes reversed, but my editors suggested flipping them, which is good because it does probably work better that way. There were a couple parts of Part 1 that were also out of order, and the last scene of Part 2 was once part of the scene before the Kinzo scene, which caused the part to end where I didn't really like it ending. So it ended up significantly moved and expanded.

Normally the editors have let me slide on structure (mostly they just criticize my grammar flubs, and deride my awful music selections and make much better ones), but that may change with Part 5 as I try to juggle together a growing landslide of shorter, more chaotic sequences in order to reach some kind of conclusion (at least in the sense any Umineko episode truly "concludes" before the bonus chapters, because I'm trying to match that rough style).

Certainly interesting to be on the downhill stretch. But you know what happens when you're driving downhill... you go faster and faster until you careen out of control and die in a twisted wreck that nobody finds appealing.

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Originally Posted by Renall

Spoiler:

It's an interesting and somewhat chilling thought, one that definitely is meant to be a theme or suggestion that will come up in greater detail later. Of course, I hope to convey that the 1996 culprit wasn't merely copycatting Beatrice for glory (if they were, you'd think they'd at least make up a cool witch name). But the mere fact that this killer may have more depth (or at least I hope that's what people conclude) certainly doesn't mean that others couldn't start seeing this as a phenomenon to copy. I don't envy the modern investigators trying to deal with absurd closed room killings, but I also don't imagine those work very well in reality and CSI would kind of kill the magic in due course.

Do you really believe such a thing would happen though? I mean, it's a story, but one has to hope the world's not full of people like that, right?

Spoiler:

Do I think we'd get a flood of serial killers, like some cross between Dexter and Rokkenjima where there's two or three in a city at any given time constantly depleting the population of extras? No. Reality doesn't have as many absolute monsters running around as a steady stream of TV shows would have you believe, and I don't think we'd ever see a 'witch turf war' or anything as bad as what I suggested.

But it doesn't really take that many to have a huge impact. How common are spree killers like what happened in Newtown, or Aurora, or Columbine? Or the D.C. Sniper for a more protracted, drawn out version? And yet these individuals have a disproportionate impact on the cultural psyche and for every one of them I can name there are a couple more that killed some people but didn't reach quite the same notoriety. But because of a handful of individuals with conditions and circumstances so rare that Bern might call them a dark miracle, the whole country stops and takes notice.

Whichever side of the debate you're on, I think everyone can agree the current debate on gun control in America would not be happening without the tragedies at Newtown and Aurora. Likewise, just one or two copycat killers that get a lot of attention could turn the public completely against the Witch Hunters. 'Oh, you sick people are idolizing these monsters! You're horrible! Someone please think of the children!' and the next Witch-con, suddenly not a lot of people have the balls to show up any more, and maybe a turn against anime otakus as 'guilt by association' when the cosplayers for Witch-con go back to tamer inspiration and dare to show their faces in public...

Bad times indeed. But then, the Witch Hunters in Redaction are a lot more Otaku-ish than what I would expect to see forming around a real life Rokkenjima incident. I don't think true crime murders would have the same sort of appeal to the same fan base that a visual novel / manga/ anime franchise does, so the Carls and Hiros that argue and debate and come up with insane theories I could believe, I can't quite bring myself to accept the idea of a nice but somewhat ditzy girl like Cass is portrayed so far cosplaying a real serial killer like the Beato they would know of in Rokkenjima Prime.

If a Rokkenjima incident with message bottles happened and got international attention in the real world, I would think something more like the 'America's most wanted' fan base or maybe some tin-foil wearing conspiracy nuts, or at most the kind of crazy stuff you get around Area 51 / Roswell. But Roswell, for all the interstellar implications, is a lot more 'tame' and 'safe' to be a silly grey-alien-cosplayer in, because that story isn't built around the greys coming down to New Mexico and murdering every human meat-bag they find. If the story of Roswell had 'and the remains of 18 people were found the morning after the greys left, horribly murdered and/or blown to smithereens', I don't think that town would have quite the same flippant / exploitative attitude for the incident. Karl and Hiro I can mostly believe in 'our' world. Cass, not so much. Then again, people sometimes do things I would consider pretty tasteless anyway, so maybe I'm being naive and Cass and the Witch-con cosplayers are completely realistic but I don't 'want to see it'.

Which is, I suppose, tying back to the theme of Redaction. Cass and the others (and perhaps by extension the American Witch Hunter community of this fragment) have forgotten that these are real people, who really died, and that's horrible. They've turned a tragedy into a costume party and fanfic franchise. I totally get where Jeroboam is coming from, and though they've retained some measure of sympathy from the fact that they're not bullying Ange for the sake of assholishness like the goats of her tales, they are definitely doing some offensive stuff that someone needs to straighten them out on.

[Renall]

I did take some liberties with the notion of the fanbase, but that was (1) to make a point, and (2) to kind of try to emphasize that the way it's transitioned across the ocean is horribly disorienting.

The best way I can explain it is to imagine Jack the Ripper stories got really popular in England, and incredible fantastical tales existed about this serial killer character, and then someone plopped all those stories down in Mexico with a Spanish translation all at once. And it got popular. People kinda understand that it's based on actual people being horrifically killed, but the cultural, temporal, and organizational disconnect creates confusion.

Spoiler:

Which is something Walter acknowledges right at the start, and is apologizing for. He seems to understand that part of the problem is that it's just really hard to distinguish tragedy from sensationalist fiction when you get all of it lumped at once and people run with it. But his point is basically that if we get swept up in the confusion ourselves, we're doing a disservice to what may be legitimate victims of a crime committed by somebody who is aware of how to exploit this phenomenon.

And that's wrong, and if somebody is doing that they don't deserve to get away with it. I see him as a sort of lone crusader for a justice nobody else believes even needs to be sought, arguing and researching for years until he can produce his findings. But neither he nor Battler may be able to reach the full truth due to information each lacks. So that's kind of your advantage as the reader; you get the perspective of the 1986 story both in the context of 1986 in Battler's perspective and Walter's perspective of the 1986 story as a 1996 metaphor.

Unfortunately this also means you're obligated to try to solve both of them!

[Renall]

Redaction of the Golden Witch - Part 4

Our attention returns to the curious Fragment and its distorted tale of 1986. But the tale is now more twisted and broken than ever, and Virgilia's skill may no longer be adequate. How convenient, then, that a new pair of eyes is offered for the reading just as they are needed. But the story this new Reader tells, while clearer, is no more comprehensible. Just what does Walter Absalom see as truth within this chaos? Yet in the eye of the magical storm, Battler has begun to come to a series of private realizations about his own desires.

Mystery and fantasy, past and future, truth and deception, all are now at war. Just who has sided with whom is another matter entirely. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your options open.

The next playlist, in six more (admittedly far, far longer) parts. You may not want to blow through this in a single sitting, as it's as long as Parts 1 and 2 combined.

TIPs from Part 4 (I really should've written some for Part 3 as well), also seen in their respective videos, so these are spoilers in some sense:

Spoiler:

Spoiler for Andromalius:

One of the 72 Great Demons. Specifically, the 72nd and least. He functions as an assassin, taking contracts from the wicked to destroy their enemies, particularly those who have escaped society's justice. The price for his services is inevitable destruction at his hands. Even so, he has many takers. He is also occasionally employed to hunt thieves and recover that which is stolen. He is ill-suited to battling witches, but is sometimes hired by them to hunt humans.

He takes the form of a young man dressed in the uniform of an agent of Heaven, but he is not a member of the Great Court. He is permitted to come and go, however, and sometimes takes missions from on high. Considered a sort of "fallen angel," he bears an unusual status somewhere between Divine and Demonic. His angelic designation is Nehustan-72X, and he is classified as a custom-model Seraph with no official assignment. His true form is top secret, but is said to be as appropriately twisted as one would expect of such a contradictory existence.

Andromalius is powered by his heart, which pumps an eternal outflow of a strange poison. Exposure to this poison is highly dangerous but never fatal, causing a feverish sort of coma-like state. The poison is administered through one of his two daggers, Nehash. His other dagger, Nehoshet, is a conceptual weapon which causes instantaneous death. The exact purpose for being granted these weapons is unclear, but Andromalius is highly protective of them and considers them precious gifts. He appears to be immune to his own poison, or at least resistant to its incapacitating effects.

He is reputed to have an insubordinate attitude and is given to sarcasm. Because he is not appeased with traditional compensation, retaining his services is dangerous as his loyalty cannot be guaranteed. While highly educated, he is occasionally known to misquote. He has an unusual verbal quirk, eschewing the use of names and referring to everyone as "sir," whether male or female and without respect to their authority status relative to his own. Certain individuals are not referred to in such a manner, but it is unknown how and why he makes that determination.

Spoiler for The Summoner:

An unidentified foreign woman who refuses to give her name. She is apparently some kind of witch or mage, but has only as much talent as a person having ordinary skill in the art. She claims to have been dispatched to Rokkenjima on the business of her Master, and is prepared to do battle with Lord Goldsmith and his subordinates.

It appears that she is somewhat erratic. However, she is also possessed of a certain resourceful cunning. She may also have a degree of clairvoyance, as she appears to be able to sense the future in some fashion.

She is definitely not Beatrice. Any resemblance is purely coincidental and/or the result of lazy sprite edits. Even the buttons are cheaply tarnished! She needs a better costumer.

[GoldenLand]

I've read up to the end of part 3 of Redaction now, and I'm still enjoying it very much. I'll have fun reading part 4 later today.

But I'll still post my notes about parts 1-3. I haven't got any firm theories yet; these are just my thoughts so far. It's a bit sketchy, of course, since I've only watched the videos through once, and not all in one go.

Spoiler for About Redaction parts 1-3:

Jeroboam seems to want to lead the kids to a specific conclusion. He doesn't seem to like the kids on the face of it, but it's hard to believe he really didn't care at all. His reason for going to Rokkenjima might be to show the kids that they're dealing with a real place. He's strangely attached to the idea of getting them to turn their thinking around. Even so, it's baffling that he's hanging out with them and willing to travel there, because the reasons given in the text and the simplest explanation (that he's going to persuade them that Umineko fandom is bad) are still inadequate.

"...and if all goes welll...But it's not going well, is it? She hasn't learned a damn thing. I'm just making it worse."

He really, really finds Umineko fandom disgusting, and wants to believe there's hope for Cass, as if he's made her a personal mission. It almost seems as if he knows something bad will happen on the island the next day if the people don't change.

So...he should really have some sort of connection to Rokkenjima or an analogous situation. He probably isn't a surviving member of the Rokkenjima family, but I won't discard the possibility. He might also be Maria's father or a relative on that side of the family. The topic of Maria's father did come up in the 1985 part of the story. I find the "Maria's father" explanation quite neat in some ways, but even so, Jeroboam doesn't seem the type to abandon his partner and little kid and saddle them with debts. I suppose I'll have to abandon that theory for now.

He might be a friend or employee of someone from the island. His Japanese is very good, so he could have worked in Japan before.

Another possibility is that Jeroboam might not even exist in the "real world" of Redaction. He might be purely fictional.

Names

The mention of Jeroboam having an unusual middle name made me think that name might be Andromalius or something close to it, but then there was supposedly a wild west element to it, which doesn't fit. Jeroboam very much dislikes people who mess with unfounded theories, which also makes me think he is linked to Andromalius somehow. In the scene at the end, the two appear to be on the same wavelength...

Survivors

Only a witch could have left the island alive, and Andromalius had been directed to kill humans. Maybe Jeroboam became a witch and lived. Eva did say he had potential. Also, part 1_1 says that the group was a group of college students. They didn't mention an older man, and Jeroboam wasn't a student. However...wouldn't somebody have known that he was there with them? Part 1_1 does say that details are sketchy, so perhaps that accounts for it. (Of course, he may not have ever been there, or even existed at all.)

But it's too limiting to only look at Jeroboam. Any of the group could have survived the others' deaths, and written the forgery.

In the Rokkenjima story, the human side acted first and didn't play into the witches' usual plans. They were aware of the threat in advance...

Hoax?

"You can invent a million ways for the ridiculous to seem plausible with planes and aliens, but if you can explain it away by revealing a faulty assumption, you cut right to the clearest possible answer" If we have no proof, how can we exclude anything?

Did the 1995 incident "really happen" or is it some sort of hoax? The possibility of a hoax in 1985 was mentioned and glossed over, not taken seriously, but it probably can't be dismissed entirely. In any case, the quote above sounds vital. It probably needs to be applied to the 1985 side of the forgery, too.

The unnamed boy and girl

And then there are the scenes with the unnamed brother and sister. Possibilities include that the girl was either Beatrice 2 or Rosa. The boy is far harder to place, though. Could Beatrice 2 have had a brother? And the boy in the story doesn't sound much like Rudolf or Krauss at all, although it could be a deliberate break from the standard Umineko characterisation.

With a Father who owns the land and built up the man made structures, if we're meant to take that literally, it makes it hard to say it's set somewhere other than Rokkenjima, although that remains possible, I suppose.

Potential murderers!

Out of the people visiting the island that time...

Cass: could have wanted to create a scenario where a witch plus demons committed a crime? But there appear to be few hints, if so.

Hiro or Karl: Really really wanting to prove a theory. Really, really wanting to prove a theory.

Jerboam: Wanting to keep the lid on the cat box/punish the kids for messing with Rokkenjima?

None of those sound like good explanations, but then again, the same goes for the standard Umineko single-murderer explanations. Possibly, some of the characters in the 1985 part of the story are meant to correspond to the 1995 characters, so I'll watch out for that.

Part 3_2 is very suspicious all around. All this talk about a "perfect crime" in the chat-room...

<~Jeroboam> A perfect crime is possible. I'm not sure it's entirely plausible, however. Just because I can imagine one being committed doesn't mean I could commit it.
...
<@Rook> I detect a hint of bitterness, Jeroboam?
...
<@Jeroboam> I detect a hint of cockiness, Rook?
...
<@Rook> Perhaps.
...
<~Jeroboam> I'd love to stake a wager on it, but I value not being in prison.
...
<@Rook> Mmm, I'll stick to reading about it too.

INCREDIBLY SUSPICIOUS.

I'm not sure about what the "Andromalius sets mode: +o Beetrice Beetrice" means at the start of the chatroom segment, after Beetrice (Cass) arrives. But it surely means something! Could anyone better versed in chatroom terminology explain what it means?

Heck, at this point I could even theorise that there were other witch hunters like the Rook or Andromalius ones who had details about the trip and set up the Cass+Hiro+Karl+Jeroboam group to be killed (perhaps with help from someone inside the group, like Jeroboam).

The 1985 story

This is probably going to be hard for me to understand without re-watching that side of the story, but the part where meta-Battler talked about how Kinzo had created someone that Beato could become, entrapping her as a human, and wondering about whether the Fragment's creator knows this is probably vital in some way.

[Renall]

+o in IRC terms means giving channel operator status. So Cass is an operator in #WitchHunter, as is Rook (an operator has a @ in front of their username). ~ means the channel founder. Operator status is often set automatically by a bot of some sort when a person verifies their handle with the server.

[GoldenLand]

Ah, thanks. Interesting!

Well, since I've finished writing out my thoughts so far, I'll go and look at the discussions about Redaction on this page and the last, before reading part 4.

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

So, starting up on part 4. I haven't finished it yet (I think it might be as long as the first 3 combined, so I'll have to take my time with it) but there's something at the start for me I think...

Spoiler:

Walter's question for me (yes me, specifically, though he didn't have the manners to address me by name lol) was the whole conversation about caring about 'characters' vs. caring about 'real people', and whether that can provide a motive, right?

I think it's a bit backwards to describe whether someone feels empathy for the characters or not as a pass/fail for the reader. To my point of view, an emotion is something you feel when reading in the same way that 'wet' is something you feel when swimming. If the author fails to elicit in the reader appropriate feelings at the various points in the story, blaming the reader is like blaming the basketball hoop for not leaning over to you when you try to do a layup. I will grant you that every reader will have a different pov and life experiences they bring to reading, so readers are not as uniform as basketball hoops, but that is no different from games having different 'difficulty levels' or 'option settings'. to return to my analogy, if you try to go for a swim but don't feel wet, it must have been a pretty shallow pool. If you entertain yourself with a story but don't feel any emotional resonance for any of the scenes, it must have been a shallow tale.

Is a lack of sufficient empathy for characters sufficient motive to kill someone? Could some Star Wars fan freak out at someone speaking ill of wise old Ben Kenobi and set out to murder the blasphemer? Not unless we're dealing with a very, very sick individual. Someone like that is so messed up in the head that they are blurring the line between 'culprit' and 'undiagnosed patient for lengthy therapy'. Frankly, I think murder is an unlikely reaction for a lack of empathy to 'real' people as well, though I believe it does happen with some exceptionally passionate people, so fictional characters even more so. None of the characters are that far gone as portrayed thus far. I freely acknowledge that my current Jeroboam culprit theory will fall apart if he really had nothing to do with the Ushiromiyas, because that's really the only reason I can believe a westerner took so much offense at the Witch-con and such as to commit murder over it.

Walter still hasn't really addressed my most pressing questions about 96. How many bodies did the police find, who were they identified as, and what were the wounds? I mean, lack of motive or no, it's hard for me to believe that any police force said 'well, this guy was obviously stabbed to death with a knife and it's a bloody mess, but no one has a motive to kill them so they must not have been murdered...' That feels kind of wrong to me. And yet, the kind of wounds required by the plot, where the police would be willing to write it off as an accident because no one had motive, and yet Walter, an amateur is sure they are indicative of homicide... That discrepancy does not compute. I think I'm misunderstanding something.

I vote we nickname the summoner 'Cassitrice', because my gut tells me to. There is a certain similarity of spirit that I can't quite express with words or logical explanaions, but I think I can sense it...

[AuraTwilight]

Cass's described as being blonde in her introduction, if I recall.

[Renall]

Cass is wearing a blonde wig when she's first met but has short dark hair under it. I didn't specify a color, but she's not blonde. She's ethnically Hispanic.

[AuraTwilight]

And now...Renall and I present: The best Umineko fancharacter of all time.

Spoiler for Spoilered for being TOO AWESOME:

[15:11] auratwilight: did you ever see that fanart where Erika flips out and kills Bern and Lambda?
[15:11] auratwilight: best fanart imo
[15:11] Renall: Also her slavish devotion to Bern's dick was kinda meh
[15:11] auratwilight: well I took that as just a display of Bern's egocentricism
[15:11] Renall: Not that she really had much choice.
[15:11] Renall: Because Bern created her.
[15:11] Renall: p.s. wow what a cunt
[15:11] Renall: "I'll create a piece. She loves me BTW."
[15:12] auratwilight: "Umad Lambda"
[15:23] Renall: Lambda shoulda done that shit too
[15:24] Renall: "Well it's only FAIR."
[15:24] Renall: Lambda's piece would've owned.
[15:28] auratwilight: Lambda's equivalent of Erika would've been the best character
[15:28] auratwilight: Can you even imagine
[15:28] Renall: It'd be like
[15:28] Renall: Good Takano
[15:28] auratwilight: you mean Eva
[15:28] Renall: Eva isn't good, she's Batman
[15:28] auratwilight: Her piece would've been like
[15:28] auratwilight: radical skateboarder 1980's girl
[15:29] Renall: Making airplane noises with her fork at dinner
[15:29] auratwilight: She shows up to the island on her bike and ends up crashing infront of the mansion after she tries to pop a wheelie in the storm
[15:29] Renall: Everything she does is accompanied by a power chord
[15:29] auratwilight: Impolite as hell and no one cares because Mary Sue tropes and turnabout is fair play.
[15:30] auratwilight: She solves every social situation with crumping and buzz words
[15:31] auratwilight: "Tubularrrrrrr"
[15:31] auratwilight: At one point she faces the killer and it's like "I'm going to be killed by you? Ugh, like, gag me with a spoon." And the killer does exactly that.
[15:31] Renall: She and Jessica would be best buddies
[15:31] auratwilight: oh my god
[15:31] auratwilight: what if she and Erika were on the same gameboard
[15:31] auratwilight: and had this petty rivalry
[15:31] Renall: Yessss
[15:32] auratwilight: what if
[15:32] auratwilight: Lambda's piece
[15:32] auratwilight: was the girl Erika's boyfriend cheated with
[15:32] auratwilight: Lambda would do it, don't you dare even pretend otherwise
[15:32] Renall: "Wow what are the odds that the two of us would fall into the ocean near the same island at the same time on the same day and we know each other."
[15:32] Renall: As Erika grinds her teeth.
[15:32] auratwilight: Certainty~
[15:32] Renall: "IT MUST BE DESTINY"
[15:33] Renall: "This was certain to happen, hahaha!"
[15:33] auratwilight: Everyone likes her but it's because she's genuinely a nice person to everyone but Erika.
[15:33] Renall: High-fives Battler and Jessica at seemingly random times but they always catch on and nail it.
[15:33] auratwilight: She kind of picks on George in light jest
[15:34] auratwilight: "Hey George you want some of this high five action! PSSSYCHE! But no seriously, bro, we good."
[15:34] auratwilight: "You're pretty cool for a nerd."
[15:34] Renall: I'm imagining like Lambda in a t-shirt with a rainbow on it and sunglasses and jeans
[15:34] auratwilight: they have to be the oversized sunglasses with the hot pink frames
[15:34] Renall: Or a punk band
[15:34] Renall: shirt, rather
[15:34] auratwilight: and she's got a punk rock bracelet and shit
[15:35] auratwilight: She likes to entertain Maria's fantasies because they're entertaining.
[15:35] Renall: She elaborates on them
[15:35] Renall: Making them even crazier
[15:35] auratwilight: "Why do you humor her? None of her shit is real." "No, but it'd be cool if it was."
[15:35] Renall: And Maria's not even sure herself
[15:35] auratwilight: Maria just rolls with it
[15:36] Renall: She's like "Beatrice restored Maria's candy!" and she goes like "Yeah and Beatrice could like, make a whole WAVE of candy and I could surf on it!"
[15:36] auratwilight: now I have a mental image of Lambda grinding off of kakera crystals and it's the best thing.
[15:36] Renall: And Maria doesn't want to be like "No she wouldn't" but at the same time she's not 100% sure if some of what is being claimed is possible.
[15:37] Renall: Because this girl is just making shit up about Beatrice but it sounds legit
[15:37] auratwilight: Maria doesn't give a shit though because this person seems to be pro-magic and that's awesome.
[15:37] auratwilight: !!!
[15:37] auratwilight: Lambda's piece has to draw a mustache on the Beato painting and get away with it.
[15:37] Renall: Change the epitaph to naughty words
[15:37] auratwilight: Every noun is turned to penis.
[15:37] Renall: And then be like "We should CONSULT THE EPITAPH AGAIN, guys!"
[15:38] Renall: And George starts reading it
[15:38] Renall: "My beloved penis..." And she snorts and giggles.
[15:38] auratwilight: She finds her way into the underground passage and just uses it as a huge half-pipe.
[15:39] auratwilight: She gets around Erika's seals by using her gum to stick them back.
[15:39] auratwilight: "She's CERTAIN not to notice."
[15:39] auratwilight: And she literally has no objective except to fuck up whatever Erika's trying to do.
[15:40] Renall: "Oh yeah I broke the seal on the bathroom last night. Rare veal gives me MASSIVE shits, I wrecked that fuckin' toilet, man."
[15:40] Renall: "And then I got drunk and broke the seal on Natsuhi's room when I crawled in bed with her."
[15:40] auratwilight: "Shoulda seen that deuce."
[15:40] Renall: "She didn't notice though, she's a bro." "Y-you did what?"
[15:41] auratwilight: Red: "Then I went to hang ten with Kinzo. He's pretty cool."
[15:41] auratwilight: "He and that Genji-bro have awesome stories."
[15:41] Renall: Kinzo is dead... DEAD AWESOME.
[15:41] auratwilight: She survives the incident because can't touch this.

[DaBackpack]

there are no words descriptive enough to convey how awesome that character would be

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Finished part 4.

Spoiler:

Ah, Kyrie. By far my favorite of the adults, though Eva is another strong contender. She is not to be trifled with, although it's interesting that this tale maintains as a truth that Kyrie never actually killed Asumu. The original tales were a bit more ambiguous on that score, I thought. So is this meant to reflect the author somehow knowing Kyrie didn't pull the trigger and the death really was natural causes? Or maybe that was just a necessary assumption to make the narrative work, since Cassitrice was supposed to get knifed at that point.

What is up with Rudolph being so clutzy with firearms? That doesn't seem like him at all. He was quite the badass in ep 3, and also in the teaparty of 7. Maybe that's supposed to be a deliberate 'oops, I almost accidentally murdered my wife.'? Which Kyrie prevented by leaving the gun disarmed?

One thing is sure. Battler and the other kids are definitely sitting most of this one out, just like Ep 4. I'm used to approaching these as 'Battler is the detective, so trust his PoV (or maybe Erika's that one time) and everything else is suspect', but he isn't really seeing much of anything at this point. The conversation near the start about a different opening move throwing off opponents applies.

Ah, but of course I did remember one thing. What happened to Beatrice? Beatrice is not in this story because this story features Lion. Lion can only exist in a world where Beatrice never awakens. I can't believe I forgot that for the last few posts when Will made such a big deal of solving that in Ep 7, lol. I think someone's supposed to declare me incompetent in red about now?

Less simplistically, Andy and Cassitrice are mad as hell, and say they're killing because people deserve it. That is a definite contrast with Beato, who plays herself up as a cackling super-villain, so that everyone else gets their 'moment of heroic defiance' before she rumbles them. In Beato's tales, I can't see any of the humans just sitting around drinking and laughing it up while the furniture fight for them like gladiators. Maybe if they were enthusiastically cheering for their stake, like an Umineko-pokemon crossover (Asmodeus! Use your ricochet strike attack! Goat, I choose you! lol) But this author is pulling out the worst in the adults. The siblings have no love for each other, conspire to cover up a murder, and generally act horribly dickish thus far.

So, to build on my previous blue, While Beatrice is interested in offering the family a slim but real chance to come together and redeem themselves in the core games, this game represents a world where the adults have all been written off as horribly wicked and sinful people who all deserve to die to a greater or lesser degree. It is the function of Beatrice to be a 'sin eater' in her tales, but this author offers no redemption.

I also notice that there is a real lack of tactical coordination from the adults so far as well. If Krauss and Hideyoshi had called for reinforcements while 'team invader' was under seige in the guest house and attacked with everything they had, things could have gone a lot better for them.

I'm not really seeing the parallels to 96 yet though. Except for personality overlap between Cassitrice and Jeroboam/Andy I haven't picked up on any ties to Karl or to Hiro or anything that would really make me believe that this game is a confession to that crime, except that Walter told us so. (well, there's the actual tale of 96, of course. Was that part of the forgery as read by Battler and Walter?)

Well, I have one theory that I think is blue-worthy on its own. When the adults are portrayed differently from their 'cannon' portrayals, it represents people that the writer actually met and had a distinct impression of, different from Yasu's take on them. There's been a lot of emphasis on people having lives outside the island. The added scene with Battler and Ange, and the bit with Eva-trice being distracted by running her corporate empire in 96, make me think that this is a theme which will be touched on again in an important way.

Or maybe I'm just stubborn about my idea for Jeroboam's motive to be a culprit, lol.

[AuraTwilight]

Spoiler for GBH Response:

How can 'Lion' exist if Shannon and Kanon do?

Remember the Summoner offered everyone a chance to surrender and make amends in her letter. Redemption was offered, it wasn't taken.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Golden Bug-Hunter

Spoiler:

Ah, Kyrie. By far my favorite of the adults, though Eva is another strong contender. She is not to be trifled with, although it's interesting that this tale maintains as a truth that Kyrie never actually killed Asumu. The original tales were a bit more ambiguous on that score, I thought. So is this meant to reflect the author somehow knowing Kyrie didn't pull the trigger and the death really was natural causes? Or maybe that was just a necessary assumption to make the narrative work, since Cassitrice was supposed to get knifed at that point.

What is up with Rudolph being so clutzy with firearms? That doesn't seem like him at all. He was quite the badass in ep 3, and also in the teaparty of 7. Maybe that's supposed to be a deliberate 'oops, I almost accidentally murdered my wife.'? Which Kyrie prevented by leaving the gun disarmed?

One thing is sure. Battler and the other kids are definitely sitting most of this one out, just like Ep 4. I'm used to approaching these as 'Battler is the detective, so trust his PoV (or maybe Erika's that one time) and everything else is suspect', but he isn't really seeing much of anything at this point. The conversation near the start about a different opening move throwing off opponents applies.

Ah, but of course I did remember one thing. What happened to Beatrice? Beatrice is not in this story because this story features Lion. Lion can only exist in a world where Beatrice never awakens. I can't believe I forgot that for the last few posts when Will made such a big deal of solving that in Ep 7, lol. I think someone's supposed to declare me incompetent in red about now?

Less simplistically, Andy and Cassitrice are mad as hell, and say they're killing because people deserve it. That is a definite contrast with Beato, who plays herself up as a cackling super-villain, so that everyone else gets their 'moment of heroic defiance' before she rumbles them. In Beato's tales, I can't see any of the humans just sitting around drinking and laughing it up while the furniture fight for them like gladiators. Maybe if they were enthusiastically cheering for their stake, like an Umineko-pokemon crossover (Asmodeus! Use your ricochet strike attack! Goat, I choose you! lol) But this author is pulling out the worst in the adults. The siblings have no love for each other, conspire to cover up a murder, and generally act horribly dickish thus far.

So, to build on my previous blue, While Beatrice is interested in offering the family a slim but real chance to come together and redeem themselves in the core games, this game represents a world where the adults have all been written off as horribly wicked and sinful people who all deserve to die to a greater or lesser degree. It is the function of Beatrice to be a 'sin eater' in her tales, but this author offers no redemption.

I also notice that there is a real lack of tactical coordination from the adults so far as well. If Krauss and Hideyoshi had called for reinforcements while 'team invader' was under seige in the guest house and attacked with everything they had, things could have gone a lot better for them.

I'm not really seeing the parallels to 96 yet though. Except for personality overlap between Cassitrice and Jeroboam/Andy I haven't picked up on any ties to Karl or to Hiro or anything that would really make me believe that this game is a confession to that crime, except that Walter told us so. (well, there's the actual tale of 96, of course. Was that part of the forgery as read by Battler and Walter?)

Well, I have one theory that I think is blue-worthy on its own. When the adults are portrayed differently from their 'cannon' portrayals, it represents people that the writer actually met and had a distinct impression of, different from Yasu's take on them. There's been a lot of emphasis on people having lives outside the island. The added scene with Battler and Ange, and the bit with Eva-trice being distracted by running her corporate empire in 96, make me think that this is a theme which will be touched on again in an important way.

Or maybe I'm just stubborn about my idea for Jeroboam's motive to be a culprit, lol.

Well, one of those blues is...

Spoiler:

...a wholly reasonable interpretation. Of course, the others might be way off-base. Vague, I know, but you're not wandering entirely far afield!

Kyrie didn't exactly say she didn't kill Asumu. She just said she tried a lot of ways to have it done without having to do it herself. All we really know is that Andromalius didn't kill her. Kyrie and Andromalius are both the type to pick their words carefully. Speaking of which, what did Kyrie mean about questioning the Summoner's real motive? What could she possibly have assumed was driving her instead of the stated reason? Why wasn't she convinced?

Rudolf's characterization differs somewhat from what Battler might be used to, but the "core" of his character is there. The author seems aware of a particular regret he has. What does that suggest about the bits that portray him as uncharacteristically clumsy or gullible? Battler and Virgilia seemed to think it was close enough not to be immensely suspicious, although they certainly noticed a difference. Is Rudolf's more negatively-portrayed competency shared by anyone else?

At least some rudimentary tactics were employed. Rosa didn't exactly do so well on that front, but that's Rosa. And I'm sure Krauss was reasonably confident that an army of thousands could defeat two, right? Wouldn't you be? Why is Kanon so strong anyway? Can he lose? The Summoner called him the strongest furniture on the island, and even the Goetic Demons seem in awe of his potential. If he exceeds Ronove and Andromalius in strength, how in the world did he reach that point, and how did the Summoner notice it when no one else did?

One of the editors compared this section to Fate Stay/Night, which wasn't entirely intentional but I guess I can kinda see it. Pokemon is... also an interesting way of looking at it, isn't it. This segment was meant as kind of an Alliance homage, but I will say that the children are not going to just sit around waiting for midnight come Part 5. Whether they'll do better than they did in Alliance depends on how well they can stick together, perhaps. And just who or what is actually out there.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Spoiler for GBH Response:

Remember the Summoner offered everyone a chance to surrender and make amends in her letter. Redemption was offered, it wasn't taken.

On the other hand...

Spoiler:

Natsuhi suggested the Summoner wasn't being sincere in the offer given its vagueness, which is a fair point. Does someone with a demon assassin in tow actually intend to allow their surrender? Can someone like that be trusted? Can this particular person be trusted? Is she even sane?

[AuraTwilight]

Spoiler for Response to a Response:

The fact of the matter is the adults never even took a bite. Regardless of the Summoner's sincerity, they can't bear the blame for a betrayal they haven't commited yet, right?

[battle22]

Aura, I read it! Of course it was awesome. Waiting for more.

[AuraTwilight]

Thanks a lot! I haven't abandoned it, don't worry, I just can't pump out stuff as fast as Renall (I already write for magazines and stuff fghuhgg too much writing!)