Umineko FanFiction Discussion

[Renall]

There must have been at least somewhat of a shortage of rooms, as people seem to find the guesthouse very convenient to have. While it's true building the guesthouse was not done solely to resolve that problem, since Krauss intended to convert the island to a resort at some point, it does suggest that there were not quite enough rooms, assuming things like the VIP room always going unused.

[Oroboro]

Howdy y'all.

Two years ago I was struck with the desire and drive to write fanfiction, and ended up writing a Haruhi Suzumiya / Umineko crossover which I shared here on the first page of this topic.

A few months ago the creative spark bit me again, but my interests have changed somewhat since then, and I found myself wondering how I could explore the themes of Umineko in other franchises yet again.

The result is a crossover of which, perhaps most people here wouldn't be particularly interested in, but I just recently finished the first major arc of the story and figured I'd share it here anyway.

Spoiler for Summary:

Mystery. Love. Magic. Murder. Truth. These are all important elements in the murder mystery Fluttershy has written, and is now asking Twilight to read. But the novel stars 'Twilight Sparkle', and she wrestles with the metafictional dissonance involved in reading a novel about herself and her friends. Twilight must do her best to solve the mystery, reconcile her own feelings about this ordeal, and figure out just what Fluttershy is trying to say by writing all this in the first place as the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

---

This is a thematic crossover with the visual novel 'Umineko No Naku Koro Ni.' No prior knowledge of Umineko should be necessary. (Basic knowledge of MLP is somewhat more necessary.)

It can be found here.

[Captain Bluebeard]

I finally got to start Renall's Redaction, I've wanted to read it for quite some time but had trouble with the download link... Anyway

I am really enjoying it so far. It feels really fresh. Kinda like it's another Umineko Episode, but also completely different, which I think complements the entire theme about the Forgeries. I also have to say that I really admire your writing skills. The writing is so fluid and the dialogues vivid.

What I think is the most striking feature of this fanfic, is the fact that Cass and the others become instantly likeable and don't feel out of place at all, because this is usually a fact with fanfic-characters, regardless of how well-written they are.

That, and the way you've presented the 'modern' public's attitude towards the incident. And by that, I mean the Rokenjima convention. Actually, I had toyed with this idea in several fanfic-attempts which never saw the light of day, so I feel kinda defeated someone else thought of it (and quite possibly long before I did)

I've been reading very very slowly due to a lack of time, so I can't say my reading has been active so far, but I guess I'll have to get more serious now that the deaths have started.

P.S: Kinda unrelated but, here's a fanfic idea which I think is interesting:
A meta-meta story about an obsessive Umineko fan (who could very well be played by Erika's sprite or an edit of it) who kidnaps Ryukishi in an attempt to squeeze the Prime Truth out of him. Hey, it could happen.

[AuraTwilight]

P.S: Kinda unrelated but, here's a fanfic idea which I think is interesting:
A meta-meta story about an obsessive Umineko fan (who could very well be played by Erika's sprite or an edit of it) who kidnaps Ryukishi in an attempt to squeeze the Prime Truth out of him. Hey, it could happen.

Hey I was going to dress up as Clair for tha-That's a dumb idea nobody would ever do that.

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by Captain Bluebeard

an obsessive Umineko fan (who could very well be played by Erika's sprite or an edit of it) who kidnaps Ryukishi in an attempt to squeeze the Prime Truth out of him.

I completely support this, uh, fanfiction idea.

[Captain Bluebeard]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Hey I was going to dress up as Clair for tha-That's a dumb idea nobody would ever do that.

You get me a Bernkastel tail and you've got yourself a date! I'm good at torturing peopl- *ahem* I mean, yeah, seriously, like, what dumb idiot would ever do that, it's ridiculous heh...hehhehehehe......

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I completely support this, uh, fanfiction idea.

Uh, sure, yeah, fanfiction, this is just a fanfiction idea, nothing more.... I'm... perfectly..... sane... and.... totally not obsessive......

On that note, I remember there was a pic with a sort of parody Ryukishi sprite in the Images thread, anybody perhaps have that? (I tried skimming the thread, but it's freaking huge...)

[AuraTwilight]

This is definitely the best Umineko thread now. It already had been but now it's absolute.

[Renall]

Well, I can't speak to that whole cosplay Misery concept, but it's certainly... something. Please don't actually do this, any of you.

On my own front, part 3 of the TIP is mostly done, but I've got to finish the endings first since they all flow from the end of that. Yes, there will actually be a choice! Just remember, there are no wrong answers. Probably. In the meantime, a pt3 preview, because I like spoiling my own stuff.

Spoiler:

[Captain Bluebeard]

An interesting thing I noticed about Redaction, is that the "narrator's" name is always avoided for some reason... because it is definitely intentional. I wonder....

The only name that is ever given to him is "Jeroboam" which he uses in the online conversations. According to Wikipedia, Jeroboam was the a king of the northern Israelite Kingdom of Israel and his name translates to "he pleads the people's cause" or "his people are many". A very interesting name choice, if I may add. I want to ask, is this by any chance relevant?

[Renall]

Only symbolically. But it does hint to a few things.

(Said character gets a name eventually, don't worry)

[Captain Bluebeard]

Oh well, I didn't really think you were going to leave him nameless ^^, I'm just very curious about why his name would be avoided....

I've got some ideas, but I may be overthinking this, so for the time being I'll just shut up and wait to see what happens. Redaction is very interesting so far, so I really look forward to seeing the rest.

[Renall]

I don't think any work can be overthought, although I will say that Redaction is a healthy mix of "I totally expected nobody to get this so good on you for doing so" and "I didn't actually intend that to be there but since you think I did I'm going to pretend I did." Certain aspects of the narrative weren't even nailed down until halfway in, honestly.

[AuraTwilight]

As his editor I can testify that while he did bullshit his way through a lot, he's also being modest. :P

[Captain Bluebeard]

So, I've been totally lazy with my reading of Redaction, but now that the 1994 narrative ended and I still have no idea how it connects to the Rokenjima one, I feel stupid for letting everything go like that, so it's high time I started theorizing a bit.

Spoiler for Culprit Ideas:

It has been stated repeatedly that Andromalius is an assasin. Which might mean that the one killing everyone doesn't necessarily have any sort of grudge, but is doing it for someone else. And also, if we go by the 1986 narrative, the victims were given a chance for surrender which they didn't take....

I am pretty suspicious of Jeroboam, to be honest. He seems to be very aggravated by the others' 'Disneyland' view of Rokenjima, yet he still, albeit reluctantly, goes along. Why? He isn't tolerant of this sacrilege of the dead, he even criticizes others for it, and he doesn't seem to really enjoy their company either, so he must have had another motive for tagging along. According to Renall, the name Jeroboam hints to something, at least symbolically, so perhaps 'his people are many' supports the assasin theory.

Another reason why he is suspicious, is the fact that we don't even know his name. According to Chessboard Logic, the author wouldn't want us to know his name, because it would evoke some sort of reaction, which may mean that he is someone that we already know. Now, he certainly isn't one of the 1986 people because his age doesn't fit and he sort of isn't even Japanese... So his name may link to one first mentioned in this forgery. What if his real name is Andy or something similar that clearly points to Andromalius?

I'm also suspecting Cass (even though her final moments made my heart crack). She is the one who proposes the trip in the first place, and she mysteriously finds the means to get there while she ditches Karl. Plus she is the only one who had ties with everyone else before they got to know each other.

Spoiler for A dumb theory:

Is it really a coincidence that Karl dies outside of Kuwadorian? It's been bugging me a lot, and since his corpse was moved, there must have been a reason why he was shown dying there. The summoner which calls Andromalius was also shown hidden in Kuwadorian, so if the assasin theory has any basis, could it be possible that the real mastermind was indeed inside Kuwadorian and had the culprit kill them so they wouldn't be found out?

Okay, this is kind of a silly theory, but I'm convinced that Kuwadorian does have some sort of connection...

P.S: I can't stress enough how much I love Andromalius' sprite. First of all, it is very orignal, and he is adorable, but more importantly, his trollfaces look really similar to Ryukishi's art!

[Renall]

After a considerable delay, the third and final part of Redaction TIP #2 is available in the Extras playlist. Not likely to produce a VN version for various reasons though. Just thought I'd let folks know.

Originally Posted by Captain Bluebeard

P.S: I can't stress enough how much I love Andromalius' sprite. First of all, it is very orignal, and he is adorable, but more importantly, his trollfaces look really similar to Ryukishi's art!

Most (but not all) of his facial structure is actually stolen from Cornelia and Gertrude (which is why, if you look closely enough, you'll notice he has rather prominent eyelashes). His costume is original, but was intended to resemble theirs (albeit for a male, hence some of the alterations and the lack of a leotard). Several of the mouths are original though, giving him slightly greater degrees of expressiveness, primarily in the trolling direction. Since Gertrude and Cornelia don't do a lot of trolling in canon. Or... much of anything in canon, actually.

[Captain Bluebeard]

The whole Genji discussion on the spoilers thread gave me a glorious fanfic idea:

Genji threatens the entire family that he will tattle about their "business" (namely, Krauss' emblezement, Kinzo's death, Maria's beating, the baby swap, Yasu's plan and so on) unless they do as he says. Thus, he turns the entire Ushiromiya family into his personal bitches (you know what this means, right everyone? MEIDO-ROSA!).
Then family unite and conspire to free themselves from Genji's tyrany, which by some turn of events ends up blowing the island up.....

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Captain Bluebeard

The whole Genji discussion on the spoilers thread gave me a glorious fanfic idea:

Genji threatens the entire family that he will tattle about their "business" (namely, Krauss' emblezement, Kinzo's death, Maria's beating, the baby swap, Yasu's plan and so on) unless they do as he says. Thus, he turns the entire Ushiromiya family into his personal bitches (you know what this means, right everyone? MEIDO-ROSA!).
Then family unite and conspire to free themselves from Genji's tyrany, which by some turn of events ends up blowing the island up.....

LOL. It sounds awesome!

[Renall]

For those wondering where that Erika game project went, I pretty much cancelled it to work on the second Redaction TIP. The reasoning was that it just wasn't very funny and the constraints of the setting just weren't working too well with the way I wanted to goof around and do silly adventure game stuff. It was also probably just a wee bit overambitious.

Now, no guarantees on this either, but it might be coming back. Just very, very... different.

Spoiler:

I might not know my Agatha Christie, but I know the hell out of my David Lynch.

[Thunder Book]

The best way to make this new project successful is to have giant sandworms from the planet Arrakis do the Locomotion only to vanish into thin air.

You know, as an expression of their individuality and belief in personal freedom.

[Captain Bluebeard]

It's a real pity about the Erika project, it looked really promising....

But this new one seems interesting too. St. Lucia Erika is definitely something to wonder about....