[x] WHY DID WE GET A HERMIT END?!"
[x] What did we screw up at the end to make things go that way? There didn't seem to be a lot of things we were involved in that prevented what happened to us
[x] Why did Cirno forget about us?

[x] Facepalm. Hard.

[x] Did Nathaniel Survive?
[x] Did Glish kill Sakuya?
[x] Did Rumia stay dead?
[x] Was there any way out of that chair other than the eye-gouging method?
[x] What the hell did Fate of the Present do?

Well.
[x] What happened to Sakuya, Rumia, Nathaniel, and Patchouli?
[x]Was there any way to save Remilia?
[x] And to the writer: Will you be writing anything else?

How exactly did the farmer and Cirno drift apart?
You'd think he would stick around her so she wouldn't forget.

[x] "Huh. You're not mad I got a bunch of you maimed and/or killed repeatedly?"

[X] What happened to the Hourai Elixir?

[X] What happened to Flandre?

[X] Where was Yukari and Ran during all this?

[X] What exactly would have happened if we went down the route with Koakuma?

[X] What would have happened if we didn't bring Cirno into the game?

[X] Will you do another CYOA? If yes, which area do you wish to CONQUER and OWN next?

[X] What happened to the group of dimensional travelers? Will they be featured in your next CYOA. (if you choose to do one)

1) The Hourai Elixir. What would have happened if we had drank it, even if it was only half the vial? (To Eirin.)

2) What would have happened if we had used our Third Wish on Flandre before going over the wall? (To Flandre... or Remilia. Whatever.)

3) Would it have been possible to have gained the Yakumo's assistance? How little/much would they have helped us if so? (To Yukari or Ran.)

4) What was the deal with Issac? Was he killed on his way to the mansion? Sooner? Ever? (To Issac(?).)

5) Why was Patchouli helping Nathaniel? (To Patchouli.)

Yay, answers.

[x] What were the extents of Farmer's powers? What could the eye do? Did he have to focus to open the eye?
[x]What happened to "In this speedy world where short phrases and grunts all too often replace meaningful conversation, a phrase with depth and refinement can achieve so much more than a simple “Yeah, whatever,” or perhaps an “omg lol wut?” Kindness, tact, humility, and even wit can be conveyed with far greater impact when one decides to choose a more intelligent dialect." ? I liked your fanciful flowing prose and it's gone now.

What the heck, Owen, are you psychic? The top part described my thoughts and actions to the letter.

[X] Walk up to Nathaniel and give him a high-five for being an awesome character, and for being right all along

[X] Obligatory what-happened-after-the-story to:
-Sakuya
-Flandre
-Patchy
-Meiling
-Nathaniel (he was still alive last I recall)
[X] This was the True End, right?
[X] Bad ends. How close were we to them?
[X] Good ends. Did they even exist?
[X] What happened to Rumia?
[X] Ran. Why was she in the story, and why did she have no significance afterward, besides the contents of the latin conversation?
[X] What was the point of Sakuya's paper referring to chess pieces?
[X] What was your intention with the Hourai Elixir?
[X] What thoughts/feelings were going through your mind as we
-were desperately trying to figure out how to escape the eye-gouger?
-reacted negatively towards Nathaniel, your original character?
-beleived Remilia was actually innocent? I KNEW Nathaniel was right, but I didn't have the power to change Anon's choices... [/NathanielSympathist]
[X] This one actually ate at me for a while. What would have happened if we took the Nathaniel route, trusting the guy in actually fighting Remilia?
[X] What was your intention with the flow of the story overall? Were you intending an ending like this or did it kind of evolve into it after you watching mind-raping anime?
[X] Was there anything you really wanted to include in the story, but we avoided it with our choices?
[X] THAT CHAIR. I still can't believe you actually did that. Kudos.

So, Owen, what do you plan on writing now?

[x]to Nathaniel: CLENCH THOSE TEETH.
[x]Punch him right in the mouth.

>>26641
Anon: "Oh U.N. Owen, this is why you're my favorite."
[X] To Remilia, Sakuya, and Owen: There was a room we simply did not have access to in the basement: what was in there?
[X] To Ran: "A rift in the sun saves one." What was that all about?
[X] To Rumia: What happened to you after Nathaniel told you what he thought of becoming your dinner?
[X] To Owen: How often, if ever, did you modify the story due to anon's speculations?
[X] To Owen: Reimu usually shows up when shit goes down in Gensokyo. Why not this time?
[X] To Owen, Glish, and Nathaniel: Two original and very significant characters. Pretty risky, no?
[X] To Cirno: Was that 'you' you at the very end, or a 'new' you?
[X] To Hobo Farmer and Owen: Interesting 'eye.' Inspired by the Satori or something else?
[X] To Remilia and Flandre: What did the different colored phylacteries mean?
[X] To Remilia, Sakuya, Pathcouli, Meiling, and Koakuma(s): Could love have bloomed in the Scarlet Devil Mansion?
[X] To Owen: What did you make of the ye' olde English speaking farmer from the beginning of the story becoming the course tongued farmer of end game?
[X] To Remilia, Owen, and Nathaniel: What was the truth behind the "Third Wish" card?
[X] To Remilia: Why?
Finally
[X] To Owen: Any hints as to which board your next story will end up on?

[x] Was there any way that Farmer could have powered up enough to beat Remilia in a fair fight. And if what would have happened.
[x] Was it ever planned to bring Cirno into the Mansion or was she only planned as a side character.
[x] What was the original planned plot, did we change it much with our write ins? Or did everything work out like you planned it from the beginning.
[x] Was Remilia really evil and enjoyed playing and torturing people?
[x] Was there any way that we could have got 10 out of 10 points from Remilia and won the game? What would have happened?

Tell me wonderful things that could have happened.

Tell me terrible things that might have happened.

Tell me, tell me, tell me, please--without order or lesson--people we weren't, love that didn't--happy ends, sad ends, ends that in other worlds are true.

Isn't Cirno just going to forget about the farmer again? She is nowhere near as attached to him as she was before.

Fuck yeah, it's Tea Party time.

[X] Obligatory what-happened-after-the-story to:
-Sakuya
-Flandre
-Patchy
-Meiling
-Nathaniel

[X] Nevermind how Nathaniel got his gun back at the end, how the hell did he manage to fire when his hands were basically just floppy hunks of meat at that point?

>>26663 this. How could things have turned out, had we decided to follow different character's explanations and beliefs? If we had pursued any sort of 'route' with any others within the mansion? (That is, if our relationship with Cirno doesn't quite qualify.)

And now to ask some more questions that i've not yet seen asked:
[X] What were the round types for Nathaniel's gun? Was an 'anti-youkai' type among the unknown rounds?
[X] Remilia: was your true motivation to better humanity through total sugjugation? Or was all of this indeed just to pass the time (or something similar)? (Do not read the following spoiler tag if you've not read the 4th book in the Dune series. God Emperor Leto the Second?)
[X] Remilia: how could you forget Flandre?
[X] Owen: How could Cirno forget? Is, in her case, the immortality of a fairy similar to that of the Scarlets' in that she remains so because she sacrifices growing up, and thus could not in theory grow up permanently, leading to loss of her memories?
[X] Could we ever have learned magic besides danmaku and scrying, and potentially applied it within the story? If so, what kinds of magic?
[X] What were the contents of the glasses in Nathaniel's trial, and what would have happened to him (and the results of what would have happened to him, thus) had he imbibed them?
[X] Would it have been possible to recieve outside assistance in the story, aka, from potentially Yukari, Ran, or Reimu?
[X] Did Remilia truly die that fateful day over the lake, by her own sister's hand?
[X] {Time: Epilogue} Status: {Remilia, Flandre, Meiling, Sakuya, Patchouli, Koakuma(e), Nathaniel}
[X] Have you written anything like this before, Owen, or short stories? Or was this a first go at writing for the sake of writing (and fun, i would imagine), as it were?
[X] Have you any tips for one who aspires to write as well as you do? Or, fate willing and (large amounts of) time given, dare i say, better?
[X] If you do not mind, please do expand the Appendix with another thread; i think it shall be needed.

Besides the earlier questions, which I'd like to know the answers to also,

[x] What would have happened if the 'bedtop sports' option was selected?
[x] Were there any cases in which readers surprised you with ingenuity or forced you to take a direction you hadn't considered or envisioned? If so, how often did this happen?
[x] In the beginning, did you have specific plans for drawing in the farmer if he refused the first chance to get to the mansion?
[x] I'll be honest, ever since the protagonist lost his first eye I was worried I'd have to scrap an idea elsewhere if this device took a certain turn. Though it's probably just fortunate coincidence, I'm quite glad and appreciative that it didn't. Just thought I should mention that.

Might be asking more later, currently out of time.

[X] The Hourai Elixir. What would have happened if we had drank it, even if it was only half the vial?
[X] What happened to Flandre?
[X] Where were Yukari and Ran during all this?
[X] Why was Patchouli helping Nathaniel?
[X] There was a room we simply did not have access to in the basement: what was in there?
[X] What was the truth behind the "Third Wish" card?
[X] Ask Remilia out for a Date.

What the…umm, okay. Well, that’s, uhh…that’s a lot of questions. A lot of questions. This could take a while to get caught up on. I’ll do my best.

========================================

>>26642
>How did Cirno manage to remember Rumia wanting to remove her ribbon for one day but forget about the person she loved?
Because, at the time when she was in the caverns, she had heard of Rumia’s wish just a few weeks ago, and it was still fresh in her mind. The same could not be said for her and Farmer; I will expand on this shortly as best I can.

>Oh, and that story she was being read at the end of the epilogue, did she recognize any of it?
Cirno scratches her head, turning her ribbon askew. “It was a real nice story; I was even in it and stuff! But…I was still sad at the end. I kinda thought it sounded familiar, like a dream, y’know? I think it might have been a dream I had before a few times. Might’a been a nightmare, actually. I think Mr. Watchman’ll have to read it to me again sometime; he’s a nice guy.”

>>26643
> WHY DID WE GET A HERMIT END?!"
To answer this…I must tell you of the events which happened afterwards.

The investigation of the Scarlet Devil Mansion was a lengthy one, sending Gensokyo into an uproar the likes of which had never been seen in recent history. Once the major power players of Gensokyo were relatively satisfied, life returned more or less to the way things were. Farmer remained stuck fast to Cirno’s side all throughout the turmoil, and two small houses were built at the far edge of the lake, far out of sight of that fateful island: one for Cirno, and one for him. There were of course rumors about the two living together, dating, making love, and getting married, but let it be known that they were always only rumors. Though Farmer’s mind sometimes wandered to thinking about such things, as men’s minds are wont to do, for the most part he only ever saw Cirno as the best friend he would ever have.

As he continued to live in Gensokyo, his scrying power grew substantially. He could hear as well as see out of another’s eyes, and over time the senses of smell, taste, and touch were available to him as well, until he could practically jump into another’s skin, and feel how they lived their life. He could scry people on the other side of Gensokyo without even thinking about it. He was even able to see through the eyes of non-sentient creatures as well, such as birds or dogs or cats. Despite all his best efforts, though, he could never make “reverse-scrying” work, nor ever feel anything other than physical stimuli; his target’s minds and hearts were always closed to him.

But weep, for it could not last. He grew too curious, and stretched his powers too far. It started small; at first, he caught glimpses of random people’s worlds every now and again when he wasn’t trying to. But it grew and grew over months, until his power became so strong that he could not stop it, and soon began to lose control over it. Every second of every hour of every day he was forced to experience the world of Gensokyo from every perspective without rest. Even sleep granted him no reprieve, and his dreams were filled with the same images, until he could hardly tell when he was asleep or when he was awake. Cirno tried to console him, but though he tried to focus on her world or his own, he was never able to save for some random, fleeting instants. He had been lost to his own power…trapped within his own mind.

It was at this point when fortune favored him, for Koishi Komeiji happened along his house one day in her wanderings. His mind was strange and painful for her to touch, and she saw that he was in great anguish. Feeling sorry for the man, she took him to her sister. The elder Satori felt at once that this man might become completely lost at any moment, and took matters into her own hands. Together they hid him away from the world, using their combined abilities to delve into his subconscious and speak with him on a level beyond the physical. He could be saved…but it would not be easy.

It took years for them both to clean away the chaos his untempered power had become, and during these years they allowed no one to see him, or indeed even to know where he was. Satori believed that any external influence of any kind might undo the healing she and her sister had already done on his mind, for he had been far too long without a proper teacher. Perhaps her judgment was in err in these regards, but for all the idealism in the world, she was not perfect, and mistakes are oft made.

In time, he returned to the world around him. To better focus his powers the Komeijis created for him an eye, not unlike their own. Though this eye, and not his own, would he see the world, for he was but a human, his body unsuited for such strong magic, and a focal point was necessary for his mind to survive. When Satori deemed him well enough, he returned to the surface above.

But she had forgotten about him.

In the long years of his absence Cirno had searched desperately and tearfully for the man, wondering where he could have gone in the night with his mind stuck in the minds of others. None in Gensokyo had seen him go, for Koishi came and went as she pleased, without sight or thought. Several times the fairy even entered the Palace of the Earth Spirits itself, coming ever so close to finding the one whom she loved, but Satori would not allow her to know where the man was, for fear that everything she had done already would be lost once he saw the fairy.

Over time she sank into despair, and in despair she killed herself many times, without result. She had grown so attached to the man, that a life without him was not worth living. She had previously started to accept that he was but mortal, and would one day die, but to have him vanish in the night, when his need for a friend was greatest? This she would not accept.

But a fairy’s heart and soul is, unfortunately, not as strong as one would like it to be. Over many reincarnations and long days without her greatest friend, her memories and feelings of him faded against her will. From soul mate to best friend, from best friend to common friend, from common friend to acquaintance, until, when he finally returned, she had forgotten all about him and the events which had brought them together. He tried—oh how he tried—to make her remember, but to no avail. Just as he had been lost, so she had as well. He fell into despair now, as she had done, and she watched over him in confusion, wonder why the strange man with the golden eye was crying.

Over time, long time, he eventually gave up his vain attempts to rekindle their love for each other, and moved away from everyone to remove the painful memories. He tried to distract himself, and used his powers to watch over Gensokyo silently, and see where trouble was brewing. Though he himself never interfered, his sights helped prevent many possible calamities in the years to come. He often thought back to those happy times with the cheerful fairy, but all these thoughts ended with tears. No, no…it is done. She will never remember, he thought to himself. The past is over with. One must move on in life, remembering the good times and learning from one’s mistakes.

And then, one morning, he heard a knocking at his door…

========================================

More answers to come soon. This post is getting a little long.

Ok, here are my questions. There are so many questions that I didn't bother reading them, so some may be repeated.

[X]The cards. When were we supposed to use them, and what did they really do? Would the effects of the 'something of the Future' (the second card used) be different if used at different time?
[X]Issac. Did he ever showed up? What did he do, and what was his relationship with Cirno?
[X]Did the character find love after the story? ;_;

And finally:

[x]Owen, how do you fell about ASSM? About it's beggining, about it's grwoth, about it's ending. Did you facepalm at some of Anon's choices? Did they please you? What were the highest point of the story for you, and what parts made you despair when writing?

[x]"All of you, I have a very serious question. you may take your time answering it."
[x]" Pretzels, HONEY GLAZED OR CINNAMON?"

>>26643
>What did we screw up at the end to make things go that way? There didn't seem to be a lot of things we were involved in that prevented what happened to us
If you could expand on this a little bit, it would help me answer it better. I can’t exactly understand what you’re asking here. Right now all I can say that might answer it was that there was a little railroading involved. If you want a clearer answer, please ask a clearer question.

>Why did Cirno forget about us?
Already answered.

>>26644
>Did Nathaniel Survive?
No. After relinquishing Equitas and Seraphim both to Glish (though he never used Seraphim in the fight), he attempted to drag himself to the kitchen, where he knew Patchouli was indifferently reading a book, since that’s what she was doing just a few minutes before. Being extremely weakened already, he did not have any more strength to cry out to her for help (having used that last of it to force Glish to action), and was too delirious from the pain and blood loss to think of a better idea. He bled out shortly afterwards.

>Did Glish kill Sakuya?
Yes. A normal human can’t survive getting directly hit by a bladed vampire-dragon who’s going far faster than the speed of sound. This is also why she couldn’t timestop her way out of it: there was no chance for her to react. At least it was quick.

>Did Rumia stay dead?
Yes. The ribbon was a red herring specifically meant to screw with you, because I knew you’d instantly suspect Ex-Rumia if I took the ribbon off. I never had any intention of bringing her back. Yes, I am a jerk like that.

>Was there any way out of that chair other than the eye-gouging method?
Yes, but you wouldn’t have liked it. Eventually Nathaniel would have gotten himself free and come to free you as well, but by then Cirno would have been long dead. Barring that option, no, there was no other way. The chair could not be cheated (unlike with Nathaniel’s game; Flandre didn’t plan it out very well), and Cirno wouldn’t have survived the encounter with Adam, no matter how many times she tried. I smiled at your Swiss Army Danmaku, though. Good idea, bad place.

>What the hell did Fate of the Present do?
This one is tricky. I had originally intended for it to do exactly what Nathaniel thought it would do: free anyone completely from Remilia’s fate influence. It could have been used to make practically any character an instant ally of yours out of thankfulness as long as you had a somewhat existent relationship with them. I had actually stuck with this idea past the point where Sakuya was supposedly on your side, which is why it had seemed to work at first. However, discussion in the thread combined with my triggered lucidity over watching the last arc of Higurashi made me realize that it was a lame idea with too many holes to fill, mainly because Remilia made the card, and she’s not ashamed to cheat at her own game if following the rules will make her lose.

So, to answer your question another way:

…

Remilia places a hand on her chest daintily and answers your question with arrogance. “Well, dear boy, it does whatever I want it to do! I might have let you use it on someone insignificant like my little China doll or your foolish fairy princess, but Sakuya or Flandre? Tsk tsk tsk; no, it wouldn’t do at all, I’m afraid.”

========================================

More answers as fast as I can rationally think of them. It’s going to be tough to keep up if the speed stays the way it is.

Ahh, question time, an old /sdm/ tradition.

>>26645
>What happened to Sakuya, Rumia, Nathaniel, and Patchouli?
Sakuya: Already answered.
Rumia: Already answered.
Nathaniel: Already answered.
Patchoui: The librarian notices that a question pertaining to her has been addressed, and interrupts U. N. Owen without looking up from her book. “Upon the passing of Remilia Scarlet, I came to my senses and deduced that remaining indoors was detrimental to my health. After relocating my collection of books to a more readily accessible and environmentally friendly location near the human’s village, I sought, and still currently seek, medical attention from Dr. Eirin Yagokoro to aid me with my physical ailments. My magical focus has since grown from my improved health, but I am much more satisfied with catching up on my reading than gallivanting off around the world causing rampant destruction and chaos. Which is not to say that I will not if the occasion calls for it; I merely choose not to. Now if you’ll excuse me…” And with that she once again buries herself in the thick tome.

>Was there any way to save Remilia?
Yes, but I don’t know what it would have been. She was not 100% irredeemable, but her fate was in your hands, not mine. This would have been the write-in to end all write-ins. I don’t know how it would have happened, because it didn’t, but the option was available. I would think it might have something to do with cooling Flandre down enough to where she wouldn’t immediately go for the kill, and having them talk it over, but because no one stepped up with some epic-awesome writing skills, I didn’t think it all the way through.

>And to the writer: Will you be writing anything else?
Yes. It was such a joy writing this story that I can’t just never write again. I still haven’t pinned down what I’m going to write next (more on that later), but rest assured you’ll see me again.

After a break, though; I am dang tired after writing for this long.

>>26646
>How exactly did the farmer and Cirno drift apart?
Already answered.

>>26647
>Huh. You're not mad I got a bunch of you maimed and/or killed repeatedly?
The majority of them politely shake their heads, and some of them even laugh, causing you a bit of confusion. Owen explains. “This Q&A session isn’t exactly what you would call ‘story canon’, even if the answers are real and true and happened exactly as I say. If you want to think of it this way, consider the story as a “movie”, and all the people in this room are the actors who played their “characters”. Actors don’t hate the movie-goers, do they? After all, you’re the ones paying their salary. Also, I doubt there’ll be much continuity between these questions, either. Don’t think too hard about it; I’m not. This is all just for stupid fun, anyways.”

========================================

I am indiscriminately increasing the post count of this thread, and I could care less. I doubt it’ll hit 200 anyways, but if it does, meh; /sdm/ isn’t getting an immense amount of traffic right now.

>>26673
Only made possible because you did it first, Mr. HY sir, and I thank you for that. This is what happens when writers like us make stories with too many secrets.

[X]Marisa. Shouldn't we have at least heard of her once, seeing as she breaks into the SDM (Library) to steal books often?

That's been bugging me, but Marisa wouldn't fit into ASSM very well anyways. If you did mention her, ignore this question.

>There were of course rumors about the two living together, dating, making love, and getting married, but let it be known that they were always only rumors. Though Farmer’s mind sometimes wandered to thinking about such things, as men’s minds are wont to do, for the most part he only ever saw Cirno as the best friend he would ever have.

I feel so trolled right now.

So wait, we were damned to get this sort of ending no matter what we did? All the thought and discussion were useless because we had a ticking time bomb in our head we never knew about.

I'm depressed. I mean, just because of the scrying...

It doesn't seem fair. I know life isn't fair, but it doesn't seem fair that all that should hinge on that one factor...

What was the deal with Glish's sudden musical inspiration in the basement? Was it just the standard crazy expected from him or did the song actually play a role?

Give me--snapshots, won't you? Pictures. Images in time--some time--time's worth. I don't know.

All sorts of things--you understand what I'm saying, right? Snapshots. It doesn't have to be any world in particular. Just--worlds. As long as they're worlds, other worlds. Coulda-shoulda-wouldas.

I subscribe to the many-worlds interpretation, you see. It makes me feel better--knowing that there's a me who's living happily, even if I'm sad. There's a me that's sad when I'm happy, too, but he can know I'm doing alright--

Just--worlds. Please? I just want to see--

Loves and deaths and twists and turns and peaces and pieces--throw them about for us, won't you?

>In the long years of his absence Cirno had searched desperately and tearfully for the man, wondering where he could have gone in the night with his mind stuck in the minds of others. None in Gensokyo had seen him go, for Koishi came and went as she pleased, without sight or thought. Several times the fairy even entered the Palace of the Earth Spirits itself, coming ever so close to finding the one whom she loved, but Satori would not allow her to know where the man was, for fear that everything she had done already would be lost once he saw the fairy.
>Over time she sank into despair, and in despair she killed herself many times, without result. She had grown so attached to the man, that a life without him was not worth living. She had previously started to accept that he was but mortal, and would one day die, but to have him vanish in the night, when his need for a friend was greatest? This she would not accept.
>But a fairy’s heart and soul is, unfortunately, not as strong as one would like it to be. Over many reincarnations and long days without her greatest friend, her memories and feelings of him faded against her will. From soul mate to best friend, from best friend to common friend, from common friend to acquaintance, until, when he finally returned, she had forgotten all about him and the events which had brought them together. He tried—oh how he tried—to make her remember, but to no avail. Just as he had been lost, so she had as well. He fell into despair now, as she had done, and she watched over him in confusion, wonder why the strange man with the golden eye was crying.

You Monster!
This is just too sad...

>Over time, long time, he eventually gave up his vain attempts to rekindle their love for each other, and moved away from everyone to remove the painful memories. He tried to distract himself, and used his powers to watch over Gensokyo silently, and see where trouble was brewing. Though he himself never interfered, his sights helped prevent many possible calamities in the years to come.

Sounds good, how about Farmer's Adventures in Gensokyo. There are still enough Touhou's and enough room for a great plot.
I really would like to see a story like this only Gensokyo wide.

Trying to sort out my feelings for these characters...

[x] We know the "Freed Sakuya" thing was an act, but how much of it was a lie? Did she really hate Remilia and was bound by fate or was she as mad as her mistress?
[x] Speaking of the Scarlet Devil, did she have Flan shatter herself and put her back together to secure her gratitude or was that just an accident and Remi really loev Flan? Was Remilia truly mad, or cursed by her own fate?
[x] Patchouli was rather evasive as to why she was friends with Remilia in the first place... I think you see a trend in my questioning: did she lose the game or genuine friend who got cursed into inaction? I guess the Remilia question will answer this.

In general, I want to know if this was just a massive tragedy in which we were a part of, or did we save the day(lol?) by showing Flan what a man is?

WHAT WAS I FIGHTING FOR?!? (sorry had to say it)

[x] So Remilia and Flandre never loved each other?
[x] What would the battle have looked like if we had scryed Flandre instead?

>>26680
Holy shit Lighthouse Anon has broken out of Others.

This is both awesome and terrifying.

SDM tradition, eh? Guess I'll dust off the same question I used last time

Basic questions first: your favourite, least favourite, easiest to write, and hardest to write posts.
What mix of canon and fanon were you using for characterisation? Were some characters more influenced by canon representations (and vice versa)?
Anything that surprised you as the story went on?

If we hadn't lost our eyes, would we have maintained our sanity and stayed together with Cirno?

Where does this ending rate on the scale of good ends to normal ends?

>>26686
>Where does this ending rate on the scale of good ends to normal ends?

It rates True End.

;_;

>>26686
>Where does this ending rate on the scale of good ends to normal ends?

I'm think it's somewhere between sad and normal, not good and normal.

ffffffffffffffffffff ASSR's really over ;_;

>>26649
>What happened to the Hourai Elixir?
The good Dr. Yagokoro speaks up from the edge of the chair arc. “Ah, yes, that was an interesting little debacle; one not to be repeated would I be able to undo what I did. During the subsequent investigation I discovered, to my joyus delight, that the man John had not consumed it, though had had promised me he would not unless he had no other options left. As I had merely lent the vial to him using his Sands of Time as credit, I saw no reason not to take it back and continue my research on it. I’m afraid the potency still isn’t quite right on this sample; the inhibitors were of no use at all, and the mixture reverted back to it’s original state within a week. I doubt the dilute is helping either. Perhaps if I reverse engineered…ahh, but no matter. Your question is answered, no?”

>What happened to Flandre?
Flandre looks up from a newspaper she was drawing on, apparently working on a crossword. Unlike the majority of ASSM, she sounds very composed and mature, and her voice is a little deeper, though still decidedly young. Her wings are absent, too. “To understand my future, you must first understand my past. You see, most of what Remilia told you about me was true. I did indeed push the bounds of my vampirism past the level where my brain could hold any more, and I started forgetting to compensate. However, what Remilia failed to tell you is that when I tried to “destroy the vampire within me’, I succeeded. Or, at least partially. Some of my body reverted back to a more non-vampiric state, such as the absence of wings and my chipped tooth, which would have normally grown back. Some stayed, as well: the eyes, the strengths and weaknesses, the need for blood, miscellaneous things like that. But the important thing was that I broke the ceiling of intelligence on my mind. I was no longer mentally a vampire.

“However, Remilia noticed this instantly, and sprang into action. Gathering the help of old sorcerers and necromancers she once used in Europe centuries ago, she split my now-free soul into eight parts. One part—the naïve, childish side of me—was returned to my body as normal. The other seven were then split in two again and lashed to my body with a crude device of magic crystal and enchanted iron; you called them ‘wings’. As long as the crystals remained intact I could not in full control my body, though from time to time some parts managed to get through when my child-self experienced deep emotion in a specific area. I believe that could have been observed as the crystals glowing.

“Without Remilia’s influence after our battle, the crystal’s defenses lost their power, and I was restored to the woman I should have been. I aided the following investigation as much as I could, though memories of my past remained hazy at times, and I was not as of much help as I think I should have been. From there I dedicated myself to seeing the whole of Gensokyo, making my reform into sanity known to all, and showing them that I was no longer to be feared or shunned. To make a long story short, it was not an easy transition, and there are still some difficulties with it. I am currently at work understanding the inner workings of Gensokyo, and seeing how I might help redeem my sister’s mistake, or if it can in fact be redeemed at all.

“By the way, do you know an eight-letter word for ‘U. N. Owen author’? The last letter is an E.”

>Where was Yukari and Ran during all this?
Almost on cue, a white-hatted head pops out of the air from above the chairs. “What a silly question; I was right here all along! And that was a rather entertaining little adventure I got to watch you play out, too! I would have done something, of course, but that would have made dear Mr. Owen’s story such a common bore, and he wouldn’t have liked that. I’ve meddled in so many other writer’s stories as it is; I was actually quite pleased when U. N. Owen told me that I would be able to sit this one out. I could have interfered and saved you all anyways just to spite him, of course, but, well, I didn’t have to, did I? Because you saved yourselves without my help! Why should I have to do what you will inevitably do for yourselves?!”

>What exactly would have happened if we went down the route with Koakuma?
Amazingly enough, barely anything bad at all. There would have been a lot of pranks and identical-sister hijinks, not to mention more random sexual tension, way more than the one or two scenes with Cirno. Gaining their true trust would have been very hard bordering on impossible, since they wouldn’t really feel remorse or regret like Cirno did; they would have been truly incorrigible. However, if you treated them well, they’d take a genuine shine to you and desire to see you pleased, though they would never be able to stop playing tricks. Depending upon how good of terms you were on with Patchouli, she’d let you “borrow” a few of the little devils to help you with tasks around the house, though they wouldn’t have been nearly as reliable as Cirno in the same instances. The number of Koakumas you got would increase or decrease depending upon how much Patchouli trusted you, and with a lot of persistence, you might have managed to get all twelve of them for whatever purposes you desired.

I have no idea how the plot would have gone with Koakuma as a main focus, though the general framework and conspiracies would have still existed. I guess it really would have depended on whether or not you were too busy falling over Koakuma to “stay on target” with discovering the secrets of the mansion. I think we’ll never know just what could have been.

Now, if Cirno was still in the picture when you tried to start getting involved with Koakuma, then there’d be trouble. She’d start getting very possessive and jealous, and would eventually force you to choose between them and her, because she wouldn’t like you trying to have your cakes and eat them too. Despairing Anons would ensue.

Personally, I think the most hilarious (or perhaps pathetic) part would be me running around like a headless chicken, desperately trying to avoid writing any explicit sex scenes while still giving you what you want. This would most likely culminate in everyone begging for the coveted “Twelve Koakuma Orgy” scene, at which point I would flat-out refuse to write it. You see, I will not, nor do I plan to in the near future, write h-scenes. I disapprove of writing them on both a moral and religious viewpoint, and though I will not condemn those who write them, I myself choose not to. Plus I’m a virgin who has never dated a girl in his life, but that’s besides the point.

Now, of course, I’m not perfect, and I do tend to blur the line a bit. And if someone else wants to write the scene, more power to ‘em. I’m sure I’ll facepalm my way through it, and then take a shower to wash away the guilt.

========================================

Attempting to answer questions like the Fist of the North Star. Please wait warmly.

>“By the way, do you know an eight-letter word for ‘U. N. Owen author’? The last letter is an E.”

[X] M-e-d-i-o-c-r-e

>Plus I’m a virgin who has never dated a girl in his life
You and 90% of this entire site.

>>26690
>“By the way, do you know an eight-letter word for ‘U. N. Owen author’? The last letter is an E.”
Christie?

>“By the way, do you know an eight-letter word for ‘U. N. Owen author’? The last letter is an E.”

Nonsense?

>>26688
>>26687

I was talking about where it rates for the possible endings of the Cirno route

>>26649
>What would have happened if we didn't bring Cirno into the game?
First off, let me say that I like Cirno as a character. I find her personality quite enjoyable, as well as her ability, and she’s most definitely on my Top 10 Touhous list. With that in mind, we shall continue.

Basically, the same thing that happened with Meiling. She would have “been” there, but not really done much of anything. Depending on how I thought you felt about her, I might have forced her into the mansion in a fluke scene (such as a giant prank gone wrong), and seen how you would have reacted. I think I gave her a few too many opportunities for you to pick her up or cast her away as it is, but like I said above, it’s because I like her, and I really did want to write her in somehow. However, the way you managed to get her into the story is better than anything I could have done. My hat’s off to you.

But anyways, without Cirno, I assume you would have latched onto a different character instead, in which case I have very little idea where the story would have gone. I’m not omnipotent, you know. You could bug Yukari about it, but she’s probably asleep now.

>Will you do another CYOA? If yes, which area do you wish to CONQUER and OWN next?
Already stated previously, but I’ll expand on it here. I will definitely be writing again for THP, but I haven’t decided what yet. It may be a CYOA, it may be a short story, or it may even been something completely different that I’ll pioneer into the vast plains beyond. At which point…
>You attempt to ford the river.
>Your wagon capsizes.
>YOU LOSE:
>145 pounds of food
>UNOWEN (drowned)
Yeah, me being a pessimist again. Or maybe a realist. I forget the difference.

As for what areas…let me say that I did not conquer and own /sdm/ while writing ASSM, unlike Hungry Youkai, but that’s just because no one else was around. I was just another writer on a board that actually got fairly high traffic in comparison to other location-specific boards. But onto personal area preference.

/shrine/ is definitely out, mostly because I don’t like Reimu and don’t know enough about Mima. Suika’s cool, though.
/forest/ is definitely out, mostly because I don’t like Marisa, don’t know enough about Alice, and am indifferent about the rest of the residents.
/youkai/ I have considered every now and again, but I really have no idea what I could do with it, and since Klaymen got to Nitori before I did, I’m drawing blanks. Nine and I have discussed an evil project within our secret private-messaging-lair on IRC, but I highly doubt it’ll ever come to fruition.
/eientei/ is a possibility, since I like Mokou and the mansion residents have good potential for interesting stories, not to mention I can actually stand them. I’ve thrown around a few ideas in my head about the factors of immortality, but nothing’s set in stone with them. Heck, the cement isn’t even mixed yet!
/th/ and /others/ are both really overcrowded right now, which is a shame because I kind of wanted to do a Gensokyo-wide story. I certainly don’t want to be a contributor to the hustle and bustle if I can help it, but at the same time, if I’ve got a good idea, I should probably try to run with it.
/border/ is another possibility, for a couple of reasons. Ran is there, who I’ve taken a shine to ever since her scene in ASSM. Sikieiki’s there too, and she’s definitely on my Top 10, if not my Top 5 as well. I’ve got interesting ideas for either of them floating around in my head, and it’d be nice to try them out. There’s also a third reason, but you don’t know that yet…
/sdm/…ahh, /sdm/. I am sorry, but right now I’m fairly certain my next full-length story will not be on /sdm/. It’s been fun, but I’ve had quite enough of it for a while now, and I’d like to move to something different.

So, in a nutshell:
+ Shrine and Forest are out.
+ SDM and Youkai are most likely out.
+ Eientei and Border are possible.
+ TH General and Others are very possible, but crowded already.

Beyond that I haven’t decided. Been too busy updating ASSM to think about much else.

>What happened to the group of dimensional travelers? Will they be featured in your next CYOA? (if you choose to do one)
The Wanderers are still around, like they’ve always been. I never put Isaac and Stephen into ASSM because I knew that two original characters was already pushing it, and a few people were visibly getting a little iffy about it. They wouldn’t have added anything useful to the story even if they were there, and for that matter, Glish pretty much didn’t anyways. They’ve all got their own adventures to tend to, anyways. You can’t expect them to babysit each other over every little tiny thing like mortal peril; that’s just their life.

Will they make an appearance in my next story? Maybe. Johnthaniel and Glish will not be coming back from the dead (on THP, at least), but Isaac or Stephen might show up depending upon what type of story it is. Like I said, though: I don’t want to force my original characters on you. If they won’t help the story, then they shouldn’t be in it. So this idea’s still up for debate. A debate which I invite you to join in, by the way!

========================================

That’s all for now. I’ll try and answer some more questions tonight (about 8-ish Server Time), but don’t count on it.

As you can see, I’m trying to do these in the order they’ve been asked, so I won’t be able to get to your actual commentary on my answers for a while, as much as I want to. Gotta keep the system in order, otherwise I’ll never get anything done.

>“By the way, do you know an eight-letter word for ‘U. N. Owen author’? The last letter is an E.”

Adequate.

>“By the way, do you know an eight-letter word for ‘U. N. Owen author’? The last letter is an E.”

Flandre?

My question still needs an answer, I asked it to Kira and he answered. (It was yogurt covered.)

>>26698
That's seven letters, plus punctuation mark.

>>26699

And whilst I'm at it, A sensible question.

{x]Isaac, What's his deal?

[x] Could we save Rumia somehow?
[x] What would have happened had we saved her?

[x] Was there any hope for Sakuya?

[x] Was there a bad end in it for us had we peeked on or scryed Cirno while she bathed?

We could use a really good Suika story though... All the other stories with Suika in them either die off, or she takes on a lesser roll and some other character takes the center stage (I haven't read every story though so being wrong in this regard would be nice). I'll push for a story in /shrine/ focused on Suika and not the other useless characters found in it!

As for /others/ and /th/ being crowded... They are yes, but they also update rather slowly. Though /th/ is active when HY is active so a few more weeks and it might be lively again. I wish a few stories on /others/ got updated more than they do currently. I have to bug Crue to update CAVE and same with Inquisitor to update TH40k... Both have been pretty much dead on AIM though the last few days though

>I don’t want to force my original characters on you. If they won’t help the story, then they shouldn’t be in it. So this idea’s still up for debate. A debate which I invite you to join in, by the way!

Nathaniel and Gilsh seemed like they were kind of shoehorned into the story without a whole lot of justification for them being there in the first place. I'm not entirely against the concept of original characters, but something about the super dimensional traveler team just irks me. If you do end up using original characters in the future, I think they might be better received if they were a bit more local. For example: someone from the human village, or a random Youkai. Considering the wide variety of people, places, and even technology (Lunarian, Kappa, Outsider) available in Gensokyo, I don’t think this would be that big of a limitation.

Of course, you know, that’s just like, my opinion, man.

>>26705
I'd have to disagree. Nathaniel worked pretty well with this story, even served as an integral part of it. Honestly, the tone of the story would have been much, much different without him. He greatly enriched the story as far as I'm concerned. I admit Glish was a stretch, though he ended up fitting in better than I expected.

Though to your other sentiments, I agree. Keeping it to one original character in a story seems like a good balance.

>>26707
I have to agree with this person.
The two created characters fit in perfect into the story.
More would have been overkill

>>26705
Nath had a purpose. I might've not liked him, but I can't deny his role on the whole story was important.

Glish though, yeah that guy felt shoehorned, everything he did could've been taken up by Flandre/Nathaniel with almost no impact on the story.

At the end, even Nathaniel forgot about him. "I'll save Sakuya! My friend LIKES IT here, HE'S OBVIOUSLY NOT BEING MANIPULATED AS I CLAIM EVERYONE ELSE IS!"

I'd just like to chime in and say I've enjoyed the ride. I came in late a few weekends ago, ended up staying up the whole night to read the archive and then watched as the ending unfolded here.

Is there any chance for in the future maybe an afterstory where farmer would try to help Cirno regain her memories? I feel that this would be something Farmer would do.

>>26710

I think the best he could do is convince her that her dreams actually happened. I don't think she'll ever be as close as she was to him during their time in the mansion.

>>26651
>The Hourai Elixir. What would have happened if we had drank it, even if it was only half the vial? (To Eirin.)
The doctor sighs and looks downwards indignantly. “I do believe I had told you, didn’t I? My hypothesis of diluting and inhibiting the Hourai Exiler directly was unsuccessful. Consumption would have granted absolute and eternal immortality, as originally designed. While I have not yet thoroughly tested effects in relation to volume consumption, I can only assume that it would make no difference in the matter. I have no time to be dilly-dallying with you if you are going to be repeating the same questions to me.”

>What would have happened if we had used our Third Wish on Flandre before going over the wall? (To Flandre... or Remilia. Whatever.)
Flandre thinks for a moment, but then nods to her sister, who responds curtly. “Mmm, well, since I’m supposed to tell the truth…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Why would I leave my sister’s fate in your hands? No, no, I would have simply rejected your wish, as I rejected that dear boy Nathaniel’s. It’s so much more fun to watch you squirm when the things you trust in end up being lies, wouldn’t you say?”

>Would it have been possible to have gained the Yakumo's assistance? How little/much would they have helped us if so? (To Yukari or Ran.)
Ran scratches her head below the hat, then suddenly pulls away as Yukari appears above her and makes a childish, lazy grab at it. “Oh, this question again?” the boundary youkai drawls. “I already told you; I had no reason to interfere. If things got a little too out of hand, mmm…then maybe, but that didn’t happen, now did it?”

Ran glares at her as she slides her chair forwards a bit, away from Yukari. “You might have explained to me exactly why there was nothing to worry about, Yukari. No; all I got was a quick, ‘It’s not a problem, there’s more important things to deal with right now.’ I wasn’t at all happy when I deduced that man Nathaniel’s hidden message, either. Even you aren’t above the powers of fate and destiny, you know.”

Yukari holds up both her hands and points her two index fingers into the air. “Power of fate,” she says as she looks at one. “Power of choice,” she continues, looking at the other. Bringing the two fingers together, she smiles. “Boundary.”

>What was the deal with Issac? Was he killed on his way to the mansion? Sooner? Ever? (To Issac(?).)
The room looks around, expecting to see Isaac appear out of nowhere in a flash of glory, but according to common sense, he does not. Nathaniel shrugs his shoulders and fields the question instead. “Well, first of all, knowing him, he might have just gotten bored and decided not to come. Granted, he seemed pretty adamant about the whole ‘making Cirno awesome’ idea, but he can be a real jerk like that sometimes. Second of all, like I said before, ‘Wandering’ is not an exact science. You can’t just make it work whenever you want to; it just sort of happens. Isaac’s never exactly been the best at Wandering, either. But I think what happened is he probably ended up in a different Gensokyo. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, and don’t whine because I’m about to break the fourth wall, either. Every story on THP is just a different rendition of Gensokyo, right? They all exist, but they don’t interact with each other in any way. Isaac could have easily gotten lost and just wound up in a different story instead. Or maybe he’s just in a Gensokyo that hasn’t been written yet; I don’t know, I’m just saying that it’s possible.”

Owen adds an additional few words after Nathaniel stops. “Yes, I know it’s a lame answer, but I’m aware that a decent amount of you are pretty iffy on the whole multi-verse traveling adventurers as it is, so that might be why. Sorry about it, but it’s a little too late to change now. I kind of regret adding The Wanderers into the story in the first place, but regrets won’t change the past, right? You’ve just got to learn from it and move on.”

>Why was Patchouli helping Nathaniel? (To Patchouli.)
The librarian’s response is that old familiar four-word-sentence structure you remember from the beginning of the story. “An early agreement: tit for tat. Games of chess. Games of cards. Games of logic. I win, he helps. He wins, I help. Spent like currency. Various uses. Fair is fair, no?

>>26553
>What were the extents of Farmer's powers? What could the eye do? Did he have to focus to open the eye?
Most of this was covered before, but I’ll clarify. At the height of his power, he could pick and choose which of his target’s senses he wanted to experience, though he always had to pick sight along with anything else. During his breakdown period, he couldn’t stop scrying, nor could he focus on specific targets, getting a horrible chaos of inputs. The eye remedied this by filtering his innate power through a magical material focus. Using the eye, he had all the powers he had before, plus an extra bonus: he could see through the eye as if it were his own. In his later years he rarely used the eye, opting to experience the world through total blindness for weeks or months at a time. It took something big, such as a possible “incident” for him to open it up again, though it was no more difficult for him than opening up your own eye.

>What happened to "In this speedy world where short phrases and grunts all too often replace meaningful conversation, a phrase with depth and refinement can achieve so much more than a simple “Yeah, whatever,” or perhaps an “omg lol wut?” Kindness, tact, humility, and even wit can be conveyed with far greater impact when one decides to choose a more intelligent dialect." ? I liked your fanciful flowing prose and it's gone now.
YAF happened to it. If you recall, he posted a few times on the story about how he wanted me to stop acting all sophisticated. He said the same thing in IRC, too. Now, while I initially didn’t think about it too much, I realized after a while that he was right; my responses were getting to the point where I was purposely avoiding any and all use of contractions, exclamations, and general emotion of any kind. It was fun at first, but it just got too out of hand. Once I had to consciously start altering my comments to sound more highbrow, I knew it was time to stop.

I’d like to thank YAF again for making my see the error of my ways in that regard, by the way. YAF’s a pretty cool guy, eh fights conformity and doesn’t afraid of anything.

Now, while I sometimes do talk that sophisticated in real life, the truth is I’m a casual speaker more often than not, even if I do use too many words to get my point across. I’d rather be comfortable talking on the internet than forcing myself to an artificial standard I created for myself. The way I’ve been talking for the past few months is much closer to me in real life: an unpredictable blend of casual, loquaciously rambling, elegant, and random media parody.

However, my chaotic bouts of philosophical insanity is something that, though I’ve thought that way in private before, have never told anyone else about. You’re the first to really see that side of me come out.

>>26712
Goddammit, YAF. It was fun to read.

Fucking hell. Is there anything YAF won't ruin?

I'm still wondering a couple things about our man, the Nat in a Hat.

For starters, when he used Fate of the Past to bring Farmer into the game, I would assume at that point he was no longer in the mansion. So, why go BACK to the very place you were trying to escape, let alone dragging some poor sod into the same trap as you? The fact he got something from Eirin indicates he's been around Gensokyo to at least make some contacts. Would it really have been that much harder to try to get someone higher on the chain of power involved rather than try to beat the Devil at her own game?

Which brings me to my other question about our Wanderer. If you're so paranoid and uncertain as to who or what you can trust in that mansion, to the point you even doubt the very person you brought to that place because you're not sure if he was a part of what was going on or not, why would you place so much trust in those cards? Especially knowing full well who they came from? I realize that hindsight is 20/20, but putting so much faith in something from someone you know to be evil and manipulative does not strike me at all as anything resembling a "good" idea.

>>26712
I don't mind if you talk all fancy. Both is fine with me.

>>26713
>>26714

No. Please do not think like that. He didn't "ruin" it. He saved it before it turned into something that would have annoyed everyone. I would have turned into an emotionless robot out of story. It might have been entertaining, but it would have been a lie.

I don't care what other people think about the matter; in my opinion, YAF is a smart man and a good writer who doesn't let the established norm get in his way. Has it caused problems in the past? Yes. But I'm not going to be the one who starts those problems again. I would urge you to do the same, and treat him with civility, as I do.

[X] U.N.Owen: Just how did you plotmind Tesla and I with the possibility of multiple Gensokyos? Turns out a similar (albeit more complex) theory was made for an upcoming project. We didn't expect this sort of coincidence but, well, it's you. Our apologies in advance for any issues this may cause, and current ones for getting in the way of the thread. If anyone has questions about this, we (and other anon, surely) would appreciate it if you could give instruction on how to access the site's IRC, so that we don't keep interrupting here. Otherwise, ignore us, and wait until the project appears; Either works.Now if we can only find a way for a character to avoid comparison with Nathaniel...

>>26719
No offense, but alternate realities can't be considered an original concept in any sense. No one's going to accuse you of ripping anyone off if you use them.

>>26712
>>I kind of regret adding The Wanderers into the story in the first place, but regrets won’t change the past, right? You’ve just got to learn from it and move on.

Why? I thought the concept was great - reminded me a bit of the Planeswalkers from MTG.

>>26720

Yes but there are also an infinite number of possible universes where doing just that is punishable by death, along with any other such offenses against good taste.

>>26717
Dammit Owen, I liked your fancy wording. It was fun to read. Just one more time, for me?

>>26717
YAF was right. That was what caused me to drop this story, maybe I'll pick it up again and tour de force it over the weekend.

>>26719
#MiG on irc.rizon.net
http://www.mirc.com/install.html

I have few words to express my feelings on your story.

Here they are: "Cool story, bro."

My questions? No, I think that I'll leave that for a more private method of communication.

>>26654
It wasn’t hard; I just took the comments from the aftermath of the story and turned them into something I think the common man would do. Perhaps it’s a skill acquired from making so many vote compromises in the story.

>Walk up to Nathaniel and give him a high-five for being an awesome character, and for being right all along.
Nathaniel accepts your praise and thanks you for enjoying his part in the story, odd though it was. He’s actually a pretty nice guy out-of-character.

Meanwhile, in another parallel world where the exact same situation is happening, he leaves your hand hanging in midair, saying that he doesn’t deserve any praise after the total jerk he was. He goes on to say that he wasn’t right; he forgot that he wasn’t the hero. Perhaps, if he had tried just a little harder, all this death could have been avoided. Perhaps, he concludes…perhaps that Farmer was right all along.

>Obligatory what-happened-after-the-story to:
Sakuya: Already answered.
Flandre: Already answered.
Patchy: Already answered.
Meiling: Her epilogue was the same as her role in the story; forgotten. Though she stuck around for a few months after everything cooled down, she later disappeared, and no one knows where to, or why. The true reason was, of course…because I didn’t think that far ahead. Since I didn’t establish her character, I have no idea what her motivations would have been once free from Remilia. Please accept the fact that I didn’t think of everything, and this is one of those things.
Nathaniel (he was still alive last I recall): Not anymore he’s not. Already answered.

>This was the True End, right?
Yes. For a long time I had planned out that the True End would be discovering Remilia’s evil nature, and Flandre killing her. The other details got worked in as I discovered slowly what would probably work the best for the story. Had you done things slightly differently, perhaps some of the ending details would have changed (such as people not dying), but I don’t exactly know what or how.

If this doesn’t exactly feel like a perfect True End, I think I know the reason: you were too smart for me. I had assumed for the longest time that once Remilia was revealed to be the mastermind, you would just despair and desperately try to avoid dying. I had never counted on you disbelieving Remilia’s evil nature, not did I expect that you would try to reform her as well. Because of this, the dramatic reveal wasn’t nearly as dramatic, and Remilia’s status as a villain became rather blurry because I didn’t think I’d have to justify her actions as much as you expected me to.

It didn’t help that you had dozens of questions that I had no idea how to answer in-story, either.

>Bad ends. How close were we to them?
Pretty close on several accounts. What amazed me most is this: every vote that dealt with Flandre had at least one bad end choice, and often more. And yet, despite this, you dodged every single one of them until the very end. How you did this I have no idea, as the bad choices weren’t exactly obvious. Kudos to you for cheating death.

There were a few in the caverns you barely dodged, though I forget what exactly they were right now. Patchouli had no Bad End choices, and believe it or not, neither did Koakuma. Sakuya had a few that you were pretty far away from, and Meiling had one big one you touched but didn’t really come close to hitting (more on that later). Remilia had a lot fewer than you might think, since her goal until the very end was not explicitly to kill you. You came very close to one of them, though. Nathaniel…this is actually pretty funny. The only way you could have gotten a Bad End from Nathaniel was if you saw him as an evil mastermind beyond a shadow of a doubt. Since you always kept that small flame going that he’s not that bad of a guy, he never actually tried to kill you.

I’m probably missing a whole bunch, but it’s hard for me to remember things like this. If you want specifics, mention a specific scene and ask where/if there are any Bad Ends there.

>Good ends. Did they even exist?
Yes, but they were few and far between. If (and this is a very big if) you had decided from the beginning not to try and discover the source of the evil in the mansion, then a Good End might have been just escaping alive with whatever allies you managed to pick up along the way, kind of like a horror movie. I guess you can’t really call that “good”, but you were light years away from it, so I scrapped the idea pretty quickly.

Likewise, if you would have believed that Remilia was evil beyond a shadow of a doubt from the start, and if you would have dealt more with the actual characters in the story, then another Good End might have been killing her and freeing them all from her spell. Gensokyo would be thankful, and there would be much rejoicing, for ding dong, the witch is dead.

The Good End you’re probably think of is this one: Remilia sees the error of her ways and apologizes. It existed, but you would have really had to work at those write-ins to get it. Most of it would be convincing everyone else that she was redeemable, especially Flandre, and to a lesser extent Nate and Sakuya. The entire mansion would gather around her over tea or something like that, she’d try to act like she didn’t know what was going on, and it would be a very, very lengthy back-and-forth to try and wear her down before she would finally repent. She removes her fate hax, Reimu & Yukari give her a stern talking to, and things change for the better.

>What happened to Rumia?
Already answered.

>Ran. Why was she in the story, and why did she have no significance afterward, besides the contents of the latin conversation?
Because she was an idea for a subplot I later scrapped. The basic premise was this: Ran would come back the next day and explain that even Yukari had no idea how Farmer got to Gensokyo. She would then stay at the mansion and start investigating how it could possibly have happened. This would send Remilia into a hidden panic as she desperately tries to hide all her skeletons in the closet before Yukari inevitably shows up. The climax would be towards the end when it’s revealed that Nathaniel’s Wandering ability was the culprit. Yukari would be slightly miffed, because she can’t detect Wandering for some reason, and she wants to find out why. This would culminate in a big scene between her and Nathaniel, where Nathaniel would either cooperate provided she takes care of the Remilia mess, or rants at her about being a Destroyer before telling Yukari to go screw herself. Violence ensues.

As you can see, the reason I scrapped it is because it put way too much emphasis on Nathaniel, who I had discovered you didn’t really like. Additionally, Yukari’s presence would have just undermined the whole atmosphere of the story, as she tends to do on occasion.

This is also why the dream conversation between Sakuya and Remilia, as well as Nathaniel’s nervousness of Yukari, went nowhere.

>What was the point of Sakuya's paper referring to chess pieces?
A random red herring meant to confuse you. I think there might have been relevance to it at one point, but I forgot what it was. It just sounded mysterious enough to maybe be important, so I wrote it down. I must have been in a bad mood that day.


(continued…)

>What was your intention with the Hourai Elixir?
It was initially intended more for Nathaniel’s tribulation than yours. It was his ultimate failsafe. Here he was, in a dangerous mansion with his life on the line. At any time he could just drink the Elixer and steamroll through every problem. But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be immortal, though he was willing to make the sacrifice in order to save the mansion’s residents and you. If Nathaniel had been the protagonist you controlled rather than Farmer, this would have been a huge discussion point all along the way.

In the end, I decided he wouldn’t use it, and passed it on to you for the same reason. Would you become immortal in order to save the mansion, and forever languish on Earth afterwards when even Cirno passed away due to nature’s death? However, I gave it to you too late in the game for it to have its intended effect. Another result of me initially putting too much stock in Nathaniel and what he was doing.

>What thoughts/feelings were going through your mind as we were desperately trying to figure out how to escape the eye-gouger?
Complete and utter intellectual amusement at the Swiss Army Danmaku, first of all. Then I was amazed that you would go that far to try and cheat the rules, knowing Cirno’s life was on the line. I would have expected you’d do anything to save Cirno as quickly as possible. Kind of shows just where your priorities lie. I wanted to shout at you, “You cannot have your cake and eat it too! CIRNO IS GOING TO DIE YOU FOOLS!!” But, obviously, I couldn’t.

What thoughts/feelings were going through your mind as we reacted negatively towards Nathaniel, your original character?
Towards the beginning, justasplanned.jpg. I had intended on making him a shady character from the start, and letting you make your own choices about him. However, I knew that he was a good guy. This then devolved into utter hilarity as time and time again you refused to believe a word he said, something I had never expected would happen. It was a riot, and I enjoyed it. Towards the end, though, I got very frustrated. The reason was because I had intended on making him the insta-exposition character, from which the plot would be revealed. But you didn’t believe him. This caused a lot of problems, because you were always asking questions when he had already given you all the answers. I realized too late that his words weren’t going to cut it with you, and I don’t think I ever quite salvaged that mistake.

So, bottom line. Was I angry with you for hating my original character? No. Not in the least bit. Your dislike of him made him a far better character than I ever could have, and the story was better for it.

>What thoughts/feelings were going through your mind as we believed Remilia was actually innocent? I KNEW Nathaniel was right, but I didn't have the power to change Anon's choices... [/NathanielSympathist]
Panic. Pure, unaltered, panic. Next to the Nathaniel hate, this was the one thing I didn’t expect, and had never planned for. Unlike Nathaniel, though, she was extremely integral to the plot, and I had hinged almost everything on assuming you’d change gears and go against her once you found out she was after world domination or something like that. Without her as a villain in your eyes, everything came crashing down. I viciously tried to make her more evil towards the end to shift your viewpoint, but it was a quick-fix that wasn’t very well planned out. As I said before, you were too smart for me.

>This one actually ate at me for a while. What would have happened if we took the Nathaniel route, trusting the guy in actually fighting Remilia?
First of all, the story wouldn’t have been nearly as good. But anyways, it would have turned into a very subtle, very vicious game once Remilia found out you were in his camp. Nate and Remi had been exchanging little back-and-forths the entire time, and with him as an ally you would have experienced a lot of that (the falling crossbeam in the library was a more dramatic version of those). There would have been a lot fewer questions, but probably more hand-wringing because you knew just how screwed you were. Nate would have given you lots of gadgets to help you, and Patchouli would have played a bigger role. The Koakuma “route” would have been easier to work with as well, though it would have been interesting considering Nathaniel’s close proximity, and you never did find out what his opinions on the little devils were. Because you trusted him, Nate would likewise trust you, and wouldn’t be as much of a righteous jerk. You might have found out a bit more about The Wanderers, though Nate’s origin story would be a tenuous issue. After that it gets fuzzy since I stopped planning out the route. Looking back on it, it might have been okay, but again relied a bit too much on Nathaniel to get things done plotwise. Personally I’m glad that it didn’t turn out this way.

>What was your intention with the flow of the story overall? Were you intending an ending like this or did it kind of evolve into it after you watching mind-raping anime?
From the very beginning I knew I wanted a dark, suspense/mystery/horror story with Remilia as an “Affably Evil” villain. That was the backbone of the entire story. I didn’t know how I wanted to end it at first, but as it moved along I really started edging it towards the bittersweet True End. I knew that people were going to die, I just didn’t know who until the end. The Nathaniel hate and Cirno love changed the flow quite a bit, and influenced the ending to a certain degree, especially your attachment towards Cirno. I had basically gotten to the point where she would either die 80% of the way through the story, die at the very end, or die sometime in the future. However, then I came up with the memory loss idea, which I found to be a lot deeper.

What happened with the Higurashi epiphany was this. I was still waffling between whether or not I wanted to keep Remilia redemption open to you, as well as just how “evil” she was to begin with. I had kept her stance pretty ambiguous for just that reason, so that we both had some wiggle room. However, after finishing Higurashi, I realized (or perhaps remembered) that A Scarlet-Stained Memoir was, without a doubt, a very dark story. Allowing Remilia redemption would have undermined the entire ambience of the book as a whole, because as many of you stated, a “Good” end just wouldn’t have worked for a dark story like this. The story did not deserve a good ending. It deserved this ending. You didn’t like it. Even I didn’t like it. But for it to end in truth, I had to be prepared to write something even I hated writing. And after watching that final arc, I realized just how prepared I really was.

(continued…)

>Was there anything you really wanted to include in the story, but we avoided it with our choices?
Plenty, though I can’t recall everything right now. More Sakuya interaction would have been fun, though I would have been writing myself into corners once you people started pointing out the flaws in my time-stopping logic, which are inevitable no matter who writes it. She had a pretty pitiable character that never got the light of day, though Nathaniel hinted at it before he blew off Remi’s head. There would have been some good emotion there. Koakuma would have been very enjoyable too, except for the fact that I would start getting very uncomfortable with writing it for reasons previously stated. I definitely would have liked more Flandre, even though she got a good bit already. However, you actively avoided both her and Koakuma because of the fear factor, which was a real shame.

I think, overall, I would have liked to see a bit more proactiveness on your part for a chance at some more action scenes and awesome dialog. Yes, I know that you were pretty paranoid, and that’s quite understandable. It even fit the mood better because of it, so I’m not that dismayed that you voted away from the more risky options. It would have been nice, though.

>THAT CHAIR. I still can't believe you actually did that. Kudos.
Don’t thank me. Thank that comically cute and hungry Rumia over there, innocently eating a stereotypical hock of meat and looking at you like she’s doing nothing wrong. It was her his idea. I’m just finishing what he started, and never got a chance to.

>>26737
>I had hinged almost everything on assuming you’d change gears and go against her once you found out she was after world domination or something like that.
Like I had commented earlier, it didn't seem to fit her actions to that point at all. Why was she sitting in her mansion playing mind games with dozens of random travelers if her goal was to rule over everything? And why would she enjoy being a queen, with all the responsibilities of actually running the world, more than her whimsical aristocratic lifestyle where she can fuck with people's heads and fates all day long? The only thing contradicting this impression was Nathaniel's words, and it was obvious how much he wanted to be the hero. There's no way she could resist taking the role of the "villain" he desperately hoped for, just to screw with him more effectively. That seemed more likely to me than just "she's evil and wants to take over the world".

After the incident with Meiling, Remi revealed that she'd been testing us to see if we'd have an interesting reaction.
>“And I want to be the one to help you. I want you to find your dreams, because…because then maybe it means I’ll be able to find mine as well.”
>That last sentence, just that single last phrase, was the first time today that Remilia hasn’t sounded arrogant. For those few seconds, she sounded…sad, normal, just a little girl with big wishes. The moment is all but gone in an instant, and she suddenly snaps out of her dreamy thoughts and returns back to where she once was. But for that one tiny piece of time, you could tell that despite her ego and her mansion and her elegance, she was still just another lost soul with unfulfilled hopes.
Flan's "game" had obvious parallels with this, they were both supposedly putting people into situations to learn how they'd react, only Flan didn't plan things out and went straight for the life-and-death stuff. Flan's motivations could probably be taken at face value, but it felt like that was a clue to Remi's true motivations as well.

Questions:
Was Nate "tested" like we were with Meiling, and what was the result? (I forget if this was answered in the story)
How honest was Remi about wanting to learn something from us? Was she just referring to testing her fate powers on us?
Why didn't Sakuya tell Remi about Adam?

>Kind of shows just where your priorities lie.

I was actually all for gouging our eye out and getting to Cirno ASAP at first, but then when I re-read the sequence and noticed that Flan put a bit of blood on the needle, I completely changed my mind. I thought that she was trying to make us like Adam, and if we took out our eye we’d tear up Cirno right alongside him. I did value Cirno’s life more than Farmer’s eye, but I thought taking the plunge would hurt her more than help her.

I was kinda surprised that blood Flan put on there didn't come back to bite us in the ass later.

So it's question time, uh?
First, I want to congratulate you once again for that great story. However, I felt a bit disapointed for Nat and Adam, this True End is pretty sad.
Before asking questions (Anon asked most of them) I will answer just one:

>>26604
>How would "Flandre" be pronounced if it were a French word?

First, don't pronounce the "n". his role is to aterate the "a" sound, but since the "an" sound doesn't exist in english, I can hardy describe it. For the "dre", the "e" isn't pronounced at all, try to say "druh" without the "uh".
that's all for the lesson ^^'

Now, I have two real questions about the story:
[X]Flandre tell Cirno that Isaac would make her stronger. At that time, did you really planned to bring Isaac in the story?
[X]What did the sentence "A rift in the sun saves one" stood for?

What did that American coin have to do with anything?

>>26749

It was how we ended up in Gensokyo. Nat gave us something that shouldn't have existed based on our time period and thus we were drawn to the one who gave it to us in an attempt to fix it.

Think that was how it went.

>>26749
I don't think it's right for farmer to be smiling at the age portrayed there.

>>26751

If you found someone who you thought was lost to you, you'd smile too.

>>26752
Indeed, he should smile when Cirno finds him, but he’s older (or at least more worn down) when that happens. The epilogue says he has wrinkles and lank, brown-grey hair. Yes, I know I'm nitpicking.

On a completely different note: I just noticed “Watchman” flat out lies to Cirno about his eye.
In the epilogue:
>It manifested itself out of nowhere, to aid me with my power.
And in >>26669
>To better focus his powers the Komeijis created for him an eye

Many of the questions I had have already been asked, though I do have a few comments on the story. I'm just hoping you don't skip some of the questions that have been asked because there are several good ones that need answering in there.

I think you did a great job with the story, but to be completely honest, I kinda feel like we got cheated. Toward the end, the rules kept changing and there were sudden 180's that made absolutely no sense.

Sakuya getting freed then suddenly reverting back to maid mode didn't seem to serve any purpose, or have any in-story reasoning for her pretending and frankly was one of the most frustrating parts of the story. Why not let us out of the mansion then suddenly teleport us back in days later, while you're at it?

You expected us to believe Remilia was truly evil, but never actually gave any hints toward this other than Nat's ravings, which were somewhat inconsistent. In fact, most of Remi's actions seemed to point the opposite direction. And I don't even mean "she was acting sweet so it tricked us". I mean as in, we never had a single reason to doubt her because the "lol she's evil" possibility was so very stupid we didn't think you'd actually go with it. That write in I saw someone do at the end about "you're just evil? That's boring" probably wasn't just an in-story comment, I'd say it was also directed at you.

I think the reason it was so frustrating and hard to tell Remi was evil was the simple fact that you made her evil. She didn't seem to have any motivation other than "lol I'm evil". The game seemed to serve no purpose as well. So in the end, it seemed like Remi had no reason for doing us wrong, and nothing to gain, therefore we had no reason to suspect it despite being told otherwise.

I want to make this perfectly clear right now: Evil characters with no motivation for being so are the mark of bad writing. Characters need motivation for each action they take, and even after you've answered so many questions, there have been no answers for Remi's reasoning behind doing things the way she did them. I can roll with her just doing it for her own entertainment, but that still doesn't explain the way she behaved.

Top this off with the fact that you seemed to change what was going on in the background halfway through, and it pretty much became impossible to get anything but the true end. After all, if the writer is changing his mind every time we do something unexpected, then nothing we planned for or thought we figured out it going to work.

A good example is the third wish card. You were so ambiguous with it that it was down right impossible for us to use it correctly. No, not "unlikely". I really mean impossible to use. Its like handing us a key to the front door of the mansion, but you secretly have it so that we really have to swallow the key for it to work.

The chair in Flandre's game was odd as well, considering we were able to beat the crap out of ourselves with poorly aimed danmaku (which previous to this we were able to make into intricate patterns, and were later able to make hover to provide light), yet couldn't move the god-damned pin or other wires?

Speaking of Flandre's game, this is actually the point of the story I almost stopped reading, and in fact actually did for a about 3 weeks. It felt like the story really jumped the shark right there. It was such a radical departure from the story up till that point, and that ENTIRE section wasted all of our time and prevented us from investigating. We didn't really learn ANYTHING from that section either. All we did was waste a wish card, and waste our chances to talk with any other mansion residents.

Another thing that confused me is why Nat never tried to "really" convince us that Remi was evil. You just said that you couldn't think of a way to get us on track, but it seems like you never really tried to convince us. The entire story seemed to hinge on us thinking Remi was evil... so why didn't you ever correct that view? All it would have taken was us witnessing something in the many times we scryed her, or Nat telling us more about what happened in the future before he used his fate of the past card.

That's something that strikes me as odd, by the way. The fate of the past card. Remilia is the one that gives the cards their power. And yet Remilia, after conquering Gensokyo, lets Nat go back in time to fix it? This is the same girl that cheated with the fate card that debatably had less of an effect? Seems pretty inconsistant to me.

I do think anon should have interacted more with other characters in order to learn more and gain allies, but at the same time, you seemed pretty keen on preventing us from doing so, especially toward the end. The question segment with Remilia was particularly frustrating because most the questions did not get answered. Interrupting with Nathaniel was a low blow, and didn't even make sense considering how little time we were alone with her. Having Nat shoot her in the face for apparently no reason only added to our confusion about who to trust. So really, if you want anyone to blame about us not jumping on the "Remilia is evil" bandwagon, just look in the mirror.

And finally I come to the ending. A lot of people are saying its the ending this story deserves. And I agree. The ending was well done considering the events which happened beforehand. It was quite satisfying. Seeing Flan sane and getting back at her sister and saving us was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the epilogue was not. It feels like a kick in the nuts to me. After reading all this, we end up fucked over in the epilogue by something we can't control, and something that was never even hinted at, and barely even makes sense.

Not only that, but lets examine the part with Cirno for a bit shall we? So farmer disappears for years and Cirno forgets eventually. This seems odd to me, but fine, I'll bite. What doesn't make sense here, though is what happens when farmer comes back. We befriended Cirno simply by being nice. You're telling me that after he came back farmer couldn't befriend her again? That seems rather iffy to me. And then you're telling me that after MORE time has passed, Cirno finally remembers somewhat? And then suddenly they can be friends again? Now that's just downright nonsensical and seems tacked on.

Contrary to what people may tell you, randomly inserting despair with no reasoning other than to cause despair is bad writing. Randomly changing the background plot in a MYSTERY story is bad writing, especially in interactive fiction where working to find the background plot is the main objective. 180's are the thing you need to be avoiding the most, but toward the end that's all the story was comprised of. "unexpected twists" only work if you aren't doing them every 5 minutes.

Now that I've said all these things and will be branded a troll, I will say that I did enjoy the story. It was among my favorites on the boards, and with it ending, I can definitely say it is one of the best stories to ever actually reach a conclusion here. Your writing style is very pleasing, and you gave us one heck of a ride and many memorable moments.

The entire reason for all the negative criticism in my post is that I respect you as a writer, and feel that you really need to know what didn't work, and how some of your readers my have been feeling. You really had me loving this story until the game with Flan. Everything after that was just frustrating and dragged on. Everything before the Flan part seemed to serve a purpose, everything after seemed to be on rails and didn't serve to further anything. I would recommend you go back and review these sections to learn why, and you'll probably improve greatly as a writer.

Sorry for ranting against you so much, but amongst all the positive here, it would be a crime to stay silent and let your ego get inflated and repeat those mistakes in a later story.

PS: Thank you for not killing Cirno off in the ending/epilogue.

A few questions for Owen, the man himself! However, they aren't much plot related...

[X]For how long did you plan the story?
[X]Why, and how did you start it? Was a sudden surge of inspiration that incentivated you? Or did you decide one day that you wanted to write a CYOA, sit before the computer screen and started to make things up?
[X]What did you originally planned to happen but never got be written?

Oh wait, there is a plot related question too!
[X]After the ending, did Cirno ever recover her memory? I already know the answer, but I need to have my hopes crushed, else I will suffer more.

>>26656
>So, Owen, what do you plan on writing now?
Answered already, but I’ll recap quickly: I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of ideas, some more prominent than others, but nothing’s very solid yet. I might brainstorm with the folks on IRC one of these days about it, or I might just do it here instead. At the moment, I just want to take a break.

Which I was going to do after last Saturday, but then I remembered I had to answer questions.

>To Nathaniel: CLENCH THOSE TEETH. Punch him right in the mouth.
As you are not nearly as awesome as Simon the Digger, Nathaniel easily leans to the side and dodges the punch. You feel rather silly, and the room laughs at your expense. You won’t be pulling this one over on Nate; he’s watched Gurren-Lagann before. He saw it coming a mile away.

Meanwhile, in an alternate world where the same situation occurs, he takes the punch blindly like a disliked character with a large forehead from a popular and awesome television show. He realizes the error of his ways, and is reduced to a minor character who does a few sciency things as the plot dictates.

>>26661
>"Oh U.N. Owen, this is why you're my favorite."
Thank you. I think.

>To Remilia, Sakuya, and Owen: There was a room we simply did not have access to in the basement: what was in there?
Owen fields the question and offers you a lame and unsatisfactory answer. “Umm…red herring? I really don’t know what I was going to do with that, it was just there. If you had really pursued opening the door I probably would have made up something awful, but you didn’t, so I didn’t worry about it.”

>To Ran: "A rift in the sun saves one." What was that all about?
The fox youkai, who has been distracted as of late, quickly snaps back to reality. “Wha? Oh, that? It was nothing, really. A rhyme I heard in an odd dream once, when I was visiting Hakugyokurou. I’ve never really found out where it came from, but I’ve always has a suspicion that it might be from outside the Border. I’ve asked many travelers if they know anything about it, but none ever seem to know. Don’t worry about it; it’s nothing.”

>To Rumia: What happened to you after Nathaniel told you what he thought of becoming your dinner?
The black-clad girl, in explicit detail, describes her own gruesome death to you as Nathaniel blindly tore her to pieces with Equitas and Seraphim, easily overpowering the youkai who was just as blind as he was, and did not pack nearly as much firepower. She smiles all throughout the explanation as if nothing is wrong. It is mildly disconcerting.

>To Owen: How often, if ever, did you modify the story due to anon's speculations?
Several times, though I don’t exactly know where anymore. I was trying for a blend of rewarding you for your insight while still keeping some things ambiguous. I didn’t actively try to thwart you for the most part, and if you discovered a really big plot point, I either revealed it soon anyways or made some underhanded comment about it throwing you back off the track. I can’t believe you fell for it as many times as you did.

But there were so dang many speculations within the comments, they practically became Farmer’s interior monologue. So I guess in that respect I modified it a lot.

>To Owen: Reimu usually shows up when shit goes down in Gensokyo. Why not this time?
Supposedly Canon Answer: Remilia’s machinations were done mostly under the table, and in ways that did not attract attention. As long as she kept up a good appearance (which she did), Reimu had no reason to press farther than a check-up every now and again if she got bored. Reimu showed up almost immediately after the vampire died, however, in response to the scarlet mist she had spread over her island again.
Real Answer: Bugger…forgot about her. Umm…not plot relevant? Also, see above for some vague BS.

>To Owen, Glish, and Nathaniel: Two original and very significant characters. Pretty risky, no?
Yes, extremely risky in hindsight. However, at the time I added them in, I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I didn’t really know that THP had a rather odd outlook on OCs, especially plot-relevant ones. I just thought, since it’s my story, it’d be okay to put in one or two of my own characters so long as they have a real reason to be there, and it’s not just blind self-insertion. They might have made more sense if you knew the full history behind The Wanderers, but again, I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. At the time, I was just a random internet author who, despite all my best intentions, fell into the same trap everyone else does with inserting their favorite characters into their stories in some way, shape, or fashion.

If I could do it all over again, I might have left out Glish completely, and not had Nathaniel say anything about The Wanderers. However, the reason Glish didn’t seem to fit in the story is because you simply didn’t have that much deep Flandre interaction. If you would have gone as deeply into her life as you did with Cirno, Glish would have been a deeper character because of it, and he wouldn’t have felt as shoehorned.

I still don’t know how I feel about writing OCs here, to tell you the truth. Sometimes they hurt as much as they help, and they can quickly take you out of the story if their presence is extremely non-Gensokyan, which The Wanderers unfortunately are. But, like I said before, I didn’t think that far ahead at the time, and when I did think about it, it was already too late, and I was stuck with them.

>To Cirno: Was that 'you' you at the very end, or a 'new' you?
Already answered.

>To Hobo Farmer and Owen: Interesting 'eye.' Inspired by the Satori or something else?
Obviously Satori, as she was the one who created it. Considering his similar power, I just thought it’d be fun to throw in there as a tribute to the seeing sisters.

>To Remilia and Flandre: What did the different colored phylacteries mean?
Owen steals this question, muttering about his laziness for not writing in-character as his punches his fist angrily against the fourth wall of the room. “The colors themselves meant nothing; I was just going by the exact color configuration seen in Flandre’s official character art in EoSD. Whenever a color was lit, it meant that a specific portion of Flandre’s true soul was active in her body. Remember, however, that a single fragment without the aid of others might have disastrous consequences:

Teal: Knowledge of the body (physical skills: music, drawing, battle, etc.)
Green: Knowledge of the mind (mental skills: chess, logic, critical thinking, etc.)
Yellow: Knowledge of the heart (emotional skills: relationships, feelings, etc.)
Orange: Knowledge of the soul (spiritual skills: morality, religion, ethics, etc.)
Pink: Memories of the past
Purple: Her true personality
Blue: Darkness and chaos.

Every time I had to write something with Flandre in it, I consulted this chart, and I think you’ll find that if you go back and re-read those areas, the colors and their meanings should match up pretty well.”

(continued…)

(…concluded.)

>>26656
>To Remilia, Sakuya, Pathcouli, Meiling, and Koakuma(s): Could love have bloomed in the Scarlet Devil Mansion?
Remilia: “Hahaha! No, no, of course not! I have had my choice of the finest men from five centuries of life; I can afford to be picky, and the little farmboy was of no attraction to me in the slightest. The only enjoyment I might have received from him would have been teasing him with false intent and watching him blush. Perhaps if he truly wished to make me happy, I might have given him a suit and made him my butler; I’m sure I could have put his power to good use…”

Maid Sakuya: “I have learned from years of long service that such relationships are distracting and detrimental to my work. Mistress Remilia does not like it when I am distracted. I have no time for such things. However, if the mistress insisted upon my romantic involvement, then of course I would have to oblige.”

Punk Sakuya: “Uhh, excuse me, but what’d you ever do to make me like you?! If anyone’s gonna be getting any tail from me—and that’s a big if, by the way—it woulda been Nate, not you. Not that I think he’s much of a skirt-chaser to begin with. Then again, I guess you never can tell with men…”

Patchouli: “Love is not quantifiable. I see no need. Perhaps for experimentation. Nothing more.”

Meiling: “Oh, well…I think I could have liked you, if you just would have given me the chance. Remilia, though, she…I don’t think she’d like it very much. I don’t want to make her mad or anything, but…you actually cared about me.”

Koakuma: “Oh, hmm…did you say something? I was a little busy doing, hmm…doing some other things. You know…hmm, you’re pretty cute when you stare like that.”

>To Owen: What did you make of the ye' olde English speaking farmer from the beginning of the story becoming the course tongued farmer of end game?
I realized that a common farmer probably wouldn’t talk like that, and remember that he was also putting up an act so that he wouldn’t feel common amidst such an elegant mansion. Then again, remember that I was talking pretty weird in those days, too.

>To Remilia, Owen, and Nathaniel: What was the truth behind the "Third Wish" card?
Already answered to the best of my ability, which still probably isn’t very good.

>To Remilia: Why?
No. Remilia’s not getting this one, and I’m not going to talk in-character either. This is a dang important question, and I’m probably going to screw it up anyways, so at least I can try to make it clear. If at any point I have contradicted myself in the past, what I am about to say is what really happened. So here goes everything:

Remilia loved to play games, just like a little child should. There were several problems with this, though. First off, she didn’t really have any parents around to teach her right and wrong, good and evil. Physically this wasn’t a problem since, as a strong vampire, she could take care of herself. This was then amplified by the problem that the only person strong enough to stand up to her back in Europe was Flandre, and at the time Remi hadn’t yet grown evil enough for Flandre to take notice, since she was busy too trying to become an adult. So now you’ve got a creature who has no one to tell her what to do and what not to do, and on top of that no one can stop her from doing whatever she wants, whenever she wants. She was the epitome of a spoiled little brat, with immense power to boot. She took whatever she wanted. She took whomever she wanted. And when she got bored with her possessions, she threw them away and found something different that excited her. It was the most natural thing in the world to her, because no one had ever told her otherwise, and those that did died before they made any lasting impact on her.

Over time she found that she enjoyed the mental and the emotional more than the physical, and thus began “The Game” in her mansion, inviting just about anyone in and screwing with them to see how they would react. It was as much of a game for her as a fun science experiment. To her, they were just rats in a maze, and she just loved to move the cheese around to spite them.

She sometimes entertained thoughts of using her power to take over a region, or even a country, but such a thing was too big and too risky for her. It might have been fun, just to see what people would do about it, but the fun wasn’t worth all the trouble it would take. Why go somewhere else for excitement when she can just make the excitement come to her in the comfort of her own home, instead?

Getting moved to Gensokyo only mildly changed that. She got a lot less visitors than before, which really annoyed her and forced her to try and not kill them so quickly, which didn’t work very well anyways. The idea of taking over Gensokyo was a bit more appealing to her, since practically everyone knew everyone and fating them to do things wouldn’t have been that hard, but she was no fool, and after the Scarlet Mist Incident realized that just maybe she couldn’t get away with everything anymore. That didn’t stop her, of course, but it did tame her down a bit.

Most of her inconsistencies in the story can be explained with one simple concept: lying. Remilia would bend and break the truth whenever doing so would suit her best, and felt no shame in it, because it was entertaining for her to see people react when they found out the real truth. She usually would mix just enough truth and puppy dog eyes in with her lies to get people to see things her way. Getting called on her fabrications wasn’t a big problem, because she was a very skilled liar, the guests couldn’t do anything to stop her, and she could just kill them if they annoyed her too much. Ahh, the number of times you actually believed her lies…

So, did she want to take over Gensokyo? Yes. But it wasn’t her main motivation for doing what she did. And would she actually try to? Probably not.

If you’re going to rage against me now, please do so. I’m ready for it.

>To Owen: Any hints as to which board your next story will end up on?
Already answered.

========================================

Once again, as I’ve said before, I’m responding to this comments in the order they’ve been posted. I know that there’s some good discussion I’d like to be a part of (particularly you, >>26755), but I must stay on target. If you’ll just be patient with me as I carve through all this, I get to it eventually.

And here I thought I was done writing…

[x] If Remilia had survived after the bout with Flandre somehow, what would her scare of the Farmer's attempts be if affected at all?
[x] What would have been something we could have done to impress Remilia?

>>26755
No troll man, those are some pointed observations. I think Remi's backstory in >>26759 explains a lot, but it's not everything. What gets me is that Anon was trying to solve a mystery that, in the end, was never there. If that was the case, what was our goal? Walking it backwards: Flandre kills Remilia (resulting in True End). Flandre fights Remilia because Remilia killed Glish. Glish fought Remilia because of what she did to Nathaniel. Glish fought for Nathaniel's sake because of their past together. They remembered their past together because they reunited in the catacombs. They met because we lead Glish to Nathaniel.

I can keep going (cards, swords, fairies, etc.), but this bit seemed operative, since from then on out the actions of Glish, Nathaniel, Flandre, and Remilia were out of our hands. The chain reaction of events began after Nat and Glish got back together, and after that it was a matter of surviving to the end. I dunno how much we could've accomplished if we genuinely tried to impress Remilia or stayed for Remi's fight, but absent the Perfect Write-In, I think we were dialed in for the True End the moment Nathaniel and Glish finally met. If that was the trigger for the True End, that's my best shot at what our over-arching goal was.

I don't know if this is an observation or a criticism, but >>26755 anon brought up some things I've been puzzling over. Whoever you are ranting anon, your literary critiques are needed in a few more stories.

Out of character-ly--could love have bloomed? I mean, yes, you've got all those characters saying "no", but let's face it: a character saying something like "I'll never fall in love" and then falling in love is a pretty common trope.

>>26662
>Was there any way that Farmer could have powered up enough to beat Remilia in a fair fight. And if so, what would have happened.
Farmer himself? No; not a fair fight. With enough faith and a good enough weapon he could have technically killed her if he was sneaky enough, but in a legitimate battle he never would have survived. Scrying wouldn’t have given him enough of an advantage, and though he could have possibly become a danmaku master, it wouldn’t have helped in a real fight. In a Nathaniel route, his gadgets might have given you an edge, but not a big enough one to actually win. Unless he gave you Revelation. Which would never happen.

>Was it ever planned to bring Cirno into the Mansion or was she only planned as a side character.
I wanted to bring her into the mansion and the story, but I didn’t actually plan for her to be in it beyond a shadow of a doubt. All I did was give you the opportunity, and you took it, for which I am most grateful. I didn’t actually think it was going to happen, myself.

>What was the original planned plot, did we change it much with our write ins? Or did everything work out like you planned it from the beginning.
Most of this has kind of been already answered, but I’ll talk a little about things anyways. For the most part the plot remained intact, or at least the important parts did. Your write-ins added an immense about of spice to the story, and ended up being far better than anything I had planned as filler. Some notable ones off the top of my head were E-Card, Meiling as a prize, Cirno Maid, and Cavern Rumia.

There are not enough justasranned.jpgs to accommodate this story. However, there is an equal lack of notasranned.jpgs as well. Make of that what you will.

>Was Remilia really evil and enjoyed playing and torturing people?
Already answered. Evil, but she didn’t really realize it. It was just a game to her.

>Was there any way that we could have got 10 out of 10 points from Remilia and won the game? What would have happened?
Remilia never gives anyone ten out of ten. Ever. The only person she’d give it to would be herself. “Winning” the game in that sense would basically entitle becoming yet another permanent resident in the mansion, willfully ready to accommodate Remilia, just like Sakuya or Patchouli or Meiling.

>>26663
>Tell me wonderful things that could have happened.
The true, eternal love between man and fairy, never to be forgotten, never to die…but it was not to be.

The unshackling of their minds and their bodies, their souls and their sprits, becoming a hero to all, and they all heroes to you…but it was not to be.

The tears of truth, the tears of sadness, the tears that only you could ever see them cry, for in your heart there was compassion…but it was not to be.

A righteous fire of charisma, welling up inside your soul, searing indifference and purging fear, quenching despair and reducing evil to ash…but it was not to be.

>Tell me terrible things that might have happened.
Lost forever in a cave of darkness, never to see the light, never to hear a sound, never to taste a drop of water…but this did not come to pass.

Your mind broken, your body torn, you would have given anything just to remain alive, just to take the pain away, even if it meant losing your soul to save hers, and even then she would not have been free…but this did not come to pass.

A proper man in proper clothes, a pair of spectacles on his face. Man of the house, serving the lady. Whiter went the little girl, with wings so fair and eyes so pure? He cares not…but this did not come to pass.

The world falling down upon you, all the creatures of heaven and hell despising you. You are alone in this world, against the entire cosmos. None will save you, for you did not let them try…but this did not come to pass.

>Tell me, tell me, tell me, please--without order or lesson--people we weren't, love that didn't--happy ends, sad ends, ends that in other worlds are true.
To be without order is to be without question, without the knowledge of “question” or “answer”. My mind is but a shell, a void, a pitiful thing, warped by trials and tribulation that I wish not upon the good ones who yet still possess themselves. Your minds are good and full, wondering and hopeful. What I can think of, and what I can say…you also can think of, and far more besides. Let your dreams become true, for the end is not the end, and the path is not the path. It is but a end, a path. May you journey to places where you find the light you seek. And whence you find that golden place, bring me word, so that perhaps within the ash heap I am trapped upon, I may have a ray of hope, to warm me in the nights of darkness.

>>26664
>Isn't Cirno just going to forget about the farmer again? She is nowhere near as attached to him as she was before.
To not attempt is to fail before you even start. You once said that you found good in a child because you tried to, when no one else would. To try is to succeed where many have failed. To look into the future and see failure is to ignore the many successes before it, and after it.

>>26665
>Obligatory what-happened-after-the-story to: Sakuya, Flandre, Patchy, Meiling, and Nathaniel.
Already answered.

>Nevermind how Nathaniel got his gun back at the end, how the hell did he manage to fire when his hands were basically just floppy hunks of meat at that point?
Patchouli gave it back to him in exchange for another favor, and Remilia didn’t care enough to steal it again, as she easily regenerated the wound the last time.

But anyways, just because he couldn’t use his hands doesn’t mean he didn’t still have fingers. He braced the gun between the floor and his body, then agonizingly tried to draw his hand backwards against the trigger. It was painful, but he managed to make it work. He didn’t hit anything, of course; he was just trying to make some noise, in the hopes that Glish would pick it up since he saw him in the distance.

on the subject of Cirno's forgetfulness, I'd like to point out that in PoFV she remembered the flower incident happening 60 years ago. "It's the festival that happens once every sixty years!". She seems to have a pretty good memory.

Now, with the responses concerning the Wanderers, I'm intrigued. Who are the wanderers, exactly; how did they come to being, and what is your 'relationship' with them, per se? Did you or a friend make them? What other stories/adventures have there been, if any?

I'm asking because we all have a little adventurer/group of adventurers in our heads, and I find the subject fascinating. That, and I really enjoyed Nathaniel as a character and would like to read more if there was any more material.

>>26763
I know it's much to ask: Would you write those 4 good ends and the other 4 bad ends?
We will never see them because we can never get a 2nd run.
I really would like to see
>The true, eternal love between man and fairy, never to be forgotten, never to die…but it was not to be.
Or maybe if 8 is too much we could make a vote for it.
It's like when you read a book you skip first to the last page and read the end.

>>26764
True, but don't forget to factor in her reincarnations from her countless grief-stricken suicides into this. Even if it's a natural process for fairies, repeatedly dying and coming back to life so many times in a relatively small span of time is bound to have at least some side effects.

>>26766
>>The true, eternal love between man and fairy, never to be forgotten, never to die…but it was not to be.

Sounds like the ending we would have gotten if we split the Hourai Elixir with Cirno.

>A proper man in proper clothes, a pair of spectacles on his face. Man of the house, serving the lady. Whiter went the little girl, with wings so fair and eyes so pure? He cares not…but this did not come to pass.
>The world falling down upon you, all the creatures of heaven and hell despising you. You are alone in this world, against the entire cosmos. None will save you, for you did not let them try…but this did not come to pass.
Totally want to see these two.

>>26759
>Meiling: “Oh, well…I think I could have liked you, if you just would have given me the chance. Remilia, though, she…I don’t think she’d like it very much. I don’t want to make her mad or anything, but…you actually cared about me.”
No! I...I wanted to! I voted to see you again!

GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL

>>26770

I'd feel bad for Meiling, but really what for? She might have been quickly forgotten, but at the very least her non-involvement allowed her to leave the stage alive and without having lost anything other than a crappy, thankless job working for a spoiled brat.

Take comfort that she at least could still probably find happiness somewhere in the years that passed, while Farmer was losing his mind and Cirno was repeatedly driven to suicide in her grief and despair with her pain only ending because she eventually forgot everything.

>>The true, eternal love between man and fairy, never to be forgotten, never to die…but it was not to be.

BAAAAAAAAAAAW

>>26666
>How could things have turned out, had we decided to follow different character's explanations and beliefs? If we had pursued any sort of 'route' with any others within the mansion? (That is, if our relationship with Cirno doesn't quite qualify.)
Some of this has already been answered, so I’ll skip those characters for now.
Meiling: She’d be down to earth and confused, much like you, so the two of you would work well together. Most of the relationship would be finding out how completely defensive and afraid she is of Remilia, and trying to get her to grow a spine. Physical romance would have been quite possible, though very awkward since she could never really shake the idea that she shouldn’t be getting involved with you on account of Remilia being a wet blanket. Once you get deeper into the story you would probably deduce that no person can be that submissive, and Remilia’s overbearing nature needs to be addressed. This is where you would have learned that she’s evil, and Meiling would have to make a terrible choice between caring for you and becoming Remilia’s enemy, or obeying Remilia and ripping your head off. That’s the idea in a nutshell, anyways.

Patchouli: You had the beginnings of her relationship already. All it took was time, a little intelligence, a little tact, and a lot of patience. You’d have to be willing to wait for hours before she’d break from her four-word-sentences, but eventually you’d get deeper into her character. You might have gotten a different power besides scrying just because I wouldn’t have had the time to think of it, and she’d teach you a lot of useful spells and things. Romance would start off non-existent, then very hollow and flat, then slowly more real as she learned just what it meant to really care for a person. The immense apathy she showed for anything but her books and her magic would have been the tip-off that makes you realize something is wrong, and to a lesser extent why Remilia is even her friend.

Koakuma: Already answered.

Sakuya: Here’s the interesting one. What Nathaniel said before blowing Remilia’s head off was the truth. Sakuya was indebted to Remilia long ago for some as-of-yet unknown reason, and rather than kill her, Remi made her her servant, and slowly used fate to make her do more and more for her. However, when using the time-stop, Sakuya could to a certain extent free herself from Remilia’s influence, though the mere memory of it was often overpowering enough to bring her back on track.

For you, it would have been extremely difficult to crack her shell, and you pretty much would have had to focus on no one else to go all the way with her. However, once you make progress, you start to see that she isn’t perfect, and from there you can drive the wedge deeper. There would be some big scenes where she would timestop you for just a few minutes to try and express her feelings and the whole grim truth, but you’d really have to work with her to get the whole story. Once you really start “converting” her to you over Remilia, then you start seeing more of the rebellious “punk” Sakuya you glimpsed in the story, since that’s who she’s really like on the inside.

Remilia: Kind of already addressed. She’d string you along, act all nice, then either dump you when you got boring, or turn you into a resident.

Flandre: Chaos and unpredictability. You have to try and sort out the true Flandre from the fake one, and try to appeal to both sides of her in order to make progress, all while not dying. Adam can intercede a bit, but you’ve still got to do a lot of the emotional legwork yourself. You’d slowly extract the true story from her, which I’ve already mentioned. From there you would have decided whether to have the sisters make up with each other, or let chaos reign and let Flandre kill her. Romance was non-existent, because Glish got to her first.

Glish’s story is of course linked with Flandre’s. You get to see just how the vampiric slave/master relationship works, which would be discomforting. He’d show equal parts of his childishness, vampiric chaos, and uncanny intelligence, much like with Flandre, but toned down a whole lot. He’d be more willing than Nathaniel to tell you about The Wanderers, but his long confinement with Flandre would have made him forget important things about them.

>What were the round types for Nathaniel's gun? Was an 'anti-youkai' type among the unknown rounds?
You already knew about three of them: lead, silver, and micro-explosive. One of the other two was corrosive acid encased in a thin resistive shell. The last type was sort of an “anti-magic” round that had more effect on creatures with magical compositions, so you could call that a type of “anti-youkai” round if you wanted to.

>Remilia: was your true motivation to better humanity through total subjugation? Or was all of this indeed just to pass the time (or something similar)?
Already answered

>Remilia: how could you forget Flandre?
“No, no, I remembered her…far too well. I remember her trying to kill me once, when she regained her sanity for just a few seconds. I remember her reducing me to a fine mist, as she is wont to do. Had I not been prepared beforehand, it might have been the end of me. I feared her, and she despised me. There was nothing to be done but to go our separate ways. I didn’t interact with her because I didn’t want to die. Simple as that.”

>Owen: How could Cirno forget? Is, in her case, the immortality of a fairy similar to that of the Scarlets' in that she remains so because she sacrifices growing up, and thus could not in theory grow up permanently, leading to loss of her memories?
Mostly already answered, but I’ll expand a bit. Memory can be a tricky thing sometimes. For example, I can remember exactly what my school playground looked like when I was 4 years old, but I can’t for the life of me remember what the name of my best friend was. You can’t always choose what you get to keep and what you have to lose; it just sort of happens. Cirno, being a fairy, has an odd existence owing to her reincarnation and simple mind. The repeated deaths took a toll on her memory, and the fact that her fairy-ness naturally causes her to forget things, both contributed towards making her forget.

She never quite forgot, though. As was stated before, she sometimes felt it was like a dream she once had a long time ago. Her subconscious still kept bits and pieces, though it wasn’t up to her whether she could access them or not.

>Could we ever have learned magic besides danmaku and scrying, and potentially applied it within the story? If so, what kinds of magic?
Kind of. I had originally intended to make you an elemental magician anyways, as Patchouli had assumed, but halfway through I decided to switch gears for a reason I can’t really remember right now (it might have been because I thought the elemental magic was unoriginal). If I hadn’t done that, though, then you would have had access to any of Patchouli’s schools of magic. The two you were given would have been your primaries, and if you were on good terms with the librarian, she’d teach you more with mixed results. I probably would have allowed you to reach a level where in a fair fight between someone like Meiling or Nathaniel, you would be able to win. You could have used them however you wanted.

But once I decided on scrying, that was all you were getting. Patchouli could have tried to teach you more, but it wouldn’t have worked.

(continued…)

(…concluded.)

>What were the contents of the glasses in Nathaniel's trial, and what would have happened to him (and the results of what would have happened to him, thus) had he imbibed them?
The first one was the vial of Hourai Elixer Eirin had given him. The effects of it have been discussed. The second one was indeed Flandre’s own blood. However, drinking it would not have turned him into a vampire; the “baptism of blood” cannot be completed in such a casual manner as drinking out of a cup after already being bitten. Flandre didn’t know this, though. Therefore, it would have done nothing other than tasted bad. The “grab bag” chalice was a fast-acting poison that would have killed him in minutes. If he drank it, his only option would have been to drink the Hourai Elixer immediately once he knew it was killing him, otherwise he would have died.

>Would it have been possible to receive outside assistance in the story, aka, from potentially Yukari, Ran, or Reimu?
No, for reasons already addressed. Plus, Remilia would never have let you leave the island, even with an escort.

>Did Remilia truly die that fateful day over the lake, by her own sister's hand?
Yes. Flandre’s faith was more than sufficient to kill her, and Equitas deemed Flandre’s cause justified.

>{Time: Epilogue} Status: {Remilia, Flandre, Meiling, Sakuya, Patchouli, Koakuma(e), Nathaniel}
Time frame for the falling events:
+ 4 years of peace living next to Cirno.
+ 1 year of turmoil as Farmer lost control of his powers.
+ 1 month of Farmer in a completely mindless and catatonic state.
+ 7 years of healing and training under the Komeiji sisters.
+ 2 years of despair trying to make Cirno remember.
+ 3 years of being a complete hermit where no one knew where he was.
+ 15 years of being “The Watchman”, aiding Gensokyo from afar.
+ The events of the Epilouge.

All statuses have been addressed, save for Koakuma, who still remains with Patchouli in her new location.

>Have you written anything like this before, Owen, or short stories? Or was this a first go at writing for the sake of writing (and fun, i would imagine), as it were?
I had to do a lot of analytical and creative writing back in my AP Literature class in high school, so that’s where I started getting a hang of writing technique, but I didn’t write any stories at the time save for a couple few-page things as class assignments. During my last year of high school and first year of college (most of 2006) I wrote my first book, at approximately 80,000 words. Though there were a few okay things about it, It sucked very, very much, and I can’t even bring myself to look at the Word file any more to try and salvage it. About a half-year later I tried to start a short-story, but never made it past five pages. Half a year after that I tried to start a full-length story, and got a little farther this time: ten pages. I kind of gave up after that.

And then came September 1st, 2008. I think we all know what happened after that. I think I saw a question about why I wrote ASSM somewhere down the line, so I’ll leave my motivations for later.

>Have you any tips for one who aspires to write as well as you do? Or, fate willing and (large amounts of) time given, dare i say, better?
First of all, let me say that I want people to eclipse me. I hate people turning my words into some kind of “gold standard” that should be aimed for. I’m just a normal guy like you, writing in his spare time. I don’t consider my writing to be anything that spectacular, though I won’t sell myself short either; the amount of praise I’ve received must mean I have a decent about of skill somewhere in me. But I make mistakes just like everyone else; take a look at this thread, and you’ll see the sheer amount of problems with ASSM that I didn’t know how to deal with.

But as for tips…it’s really hard for me to give them. I don’t even know how I write, myself. I just sort of slip into a zone of concentration and immerse myself in the world I’m trying to create, and then write what I see. I mean, I know things to do and things not to do, but it’s hard for me to explain them on-command. Things like this might be easier to discuss over IRC or something similar. Sorry for not being of more help; I might try and explain better down the road if I think of something.

>If you do not mind, please do expand the Appendix with another thread; i think it shall be needed.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves now. Let’s see how far this thread goes, first. Personally, I wouldn’t mind letting this thing pass autosage and keep going, just to see how high it climbs. /sdm/ isn’t bustling with activity right now, so it could stay up here for a while.

>>26667

>What would have happened if the 'bedtop sports' option was selected?
I was waiting to answer this question for a long time. First off, remember it was a giant test to see if you were a lecher or not, because Remilia found lechers boring.

That being said…Meiling was under instruction by Remilia to kill you if you tried to get physical beyond casual kissing. She might have told you just enough to explain why before you died. Instant Bad End.

>Were there any cases in which readers surprised you with ingenuity or forced you to take a direction you hadn't considered or envisioned? If so, how often did this happen?
You’ve been surprising me with your ingenuity all the way through. I’ve addressed a few of them previously, but there’s just far too many instances for me to mention them all. And sometimes, you were just a little too smart for your own good.

>In the beginning, did you have specific plans for drawing in the farmer if he refused the first chance to get to the mansion?
Rumia was lurking around the forest at the time, and she would have jumped you the first chance she got once it got dark enough. You might have been able to sweet talk your way away from her, but mostly likely you would have either been eaten or forced to run aimlessly away from her. The dock fairies would have heard you and aided you in escaping her by bringing you to the mansion. Cirno wasn’t too far away either, and there was a possibility of just having her prank you by flying you to the island against you will.

>>26668
All these have already been addressed for the most part.

Bloody hell, I thought I had posted my questions but it seems I have not.

Ah, well, it's not like I can remember them anyway.

>>26670
>The cards. When were we supposed to use them, and what did they really do? Would the effects of the 'something of the Future' (the second card used) be different if used at different time?
There was never any time you were “supposed” to use them or not use them. I just gave you the option, and left the choice to you. I would have worked with them whatever happened.

However, the use of the first two cards actually had a different intention at first. A long time ago, when I first put the cards in, I had intended for them to be used like this: You play the story through once and the get Normal End. During the Epilogue, you use Fate of the Past, go back to whatever lynchpin you missed the first time, and change it. You then you Fate of the Future, which (at the time) would have basically spelled out how to get the True End. I later scrapped this idea due to me not wanting to keep writing and you obviously getting ready to use the cards at any time, but I was still stuck with them in the story, so I had to keep going.

But anyways, First Wish worked like it should have: a failsafe to go back and fix something that didn’t Bad End you. Second Wish was a mystical string of jargon made up by Remilia to get you to chase red herrings, because I’m a jerk like that she considered it good sport. The Third Wish we have already addressed…as well as it can be addressed.

>Issac. Did he ever showed up? What did he do, and what was his relationship with Cirno?
Mostly already addressed. He did show up, just not in this story. Because of this, I unfortunately cannot reveal anything more, in case these become actual plot points for a future story which he’s a part of. However, he did/does awesome things, if you must know.

>Did the character find love after the story? ;_;
Yes, but not as it once was. Cirno eventually started to remember what happened all those years ago, until she pretty much knew the whole story, though she never quite felt like she was really the one that experienced it. Her and Farmer’s friendship somewhat rekindled, but more as a grandfather-granddaughter kind of relationship than as peers like before.

[x]Owen, how do you fell about ASSM? About it's beginning, about it's growth, about it's ending. Did you facepalm at some of Anon's choices? Did they please you? What were the highest point of the story for you, and what parts made you despair when writing?
This is a tough question to answer, really, but I’ll do my best.

Overall, I think ASSM did quite well, and I am very happy with it. I can actually stand to re-read it, and it even brings me enjoyment to do so, unlike my previous failed works of literature. The beginning was a little rocky since I didn’t know where I was going and didn’t have a feel for how voter input worked yet. I kind of wish I could fix the start up a little, but we all wish things like that; doesn’t mean they can happen. The growth of the story was amazing, and I couldn’t have done it without you guys. I was very happy that I achieved a decent amount of notice from the board, because I really didn’t just want to be another writer who faded into obscurity. The ending, sad to say, I could have done better on. There was far too much that I didn’t really wrap up, but truth be told I just couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t really want to rush it, but I did, and I think it suffered a little bit because of it. However, all the Remilia ambiguity aside, I am rather quite pleased with the Epilogue.

Every successive time you refused to believe Nathaniel was an Unlimited Facepalm Works for me, no joke. Falling for Remilia’s lies had a bit of that as well, but because I was to blame for that, I don’t feel very good about it. However, you pleased me much more than you disappointed me for the most part, and I can’t even begin to list all your triumphs.

Highest point of the story? As sadistic as it sounds, pretty much any time when the collective Anon just sank into despair. When I saw all the emotion I was causing, I just leaned back and whispered to myself, “I am U. N. Owen, and this is what I can do with my words.” It’s not because I enjoy seeing you in pain; it’s because I enjoy seeing my words create feelings in people, because it means that I’m doing it right.

Most despairing part of the story? Need I tell you? >>26337, and for a few days after that. I just completely crashed into a dark pit; not because of the story then, but because of what would happen to the story after that. I pulled myself back out a little bit for the end, but you really just need to read that post as well as my commentary on >>26362 to see what my mental state was at the time.

However, the day you voted to kick Nathaniel out of the story made me freak out an insane amount. I had absolutely no idea what to do, and I really had to brainstorm with my friends to get an answer.

>>26671
>"All of you, I have a very serious question. you may take your time answering it. Pretzels, HONEY GLAZED OR CINNAMON?"
Rumia: “I want both!”
Cirno: “Blech, I want ice cream!”
Meiling: “I guess honey glazed sounds pretty good.”
Patchouli: “High sugar intake leads to diabetes, which is to be avoided. If you must insist, I will take a plain pretzel, but I would rather not get crumbs in between the pages.”
Koakuma: “Mmm…can I have chocolate-covered instead? I promise I’ll be nice to you!”
Maid Sakuya: “I suppose I would not mind taking a cinnamon pretzel. Also, please desist with that horrid shouting.”
Punk Sakuya: “Go away. You annoy me.”
Remilia: “Why must I choose? With a little negotiation I’m sure there’s a way to receive both, isn’t that right?”
Flandre: “YUMMY!”
Nathaniel: “Cinnamon. Honey glaze is just asking to get all over everything I touch for hours. Not like cinnamon is much better, but at least I can wipe it off.”
Glish: “You ever heard of thothe Thinnabon giant prethelth? The oneth that are like a thinnamon bun and a thoft prethsel all in one? Thothe are awethome.”
Owen: “If price is an issue, whichever one’s cheaper, or I’ll just go without and spend the money somewhere else, like paying the bills. If it’s not, give me the largest, softest, chewiest plain pretzel you can find. I’m a simple man with simple tastes and a frugal lifestyle; I’ve once eaten an entire loaf of white bread over the course of a week for breakfast, dry and untoasted, because it only cost 99 cents.

One day I will die of malnutrition. But, unlike ZUN, at least I’m not an alcoholic. So at least I’ve got that going for me.

>>26677
>>26678
>So wait, we were damned to get this sort of ending no matter what we did?
No. If you had tried for a more positive ending, you would have gotten one. Remember that I could have written it however I wanted; nothing was set in stone. If I felt a more cheery ending would have helped, then perhaps Farmer wouldn’t have ended up that way.

There is no fate but what you make. The story’s progression influenced the ending. You made the story despairing, thus the ending was also despairing. If you would have maintained a positive perspective, the ending would have been more positive.

(continued…)

(…concluded.)

>>26679
>What was the deal with Glish's sudden musical inspiration in the basement? Was it just the standard crazy expected from him or did the song actually play a role?
It was a fourth-wall break. It wasn’t plot-relevant, but it wasn’t crazy, either. If you would have visited Flandre before the end, you would have seen him playing the finished musical score you saw him working on for Flandre. He’d been composing it in secret for her for almost a year, and had finally realized what the last movement needed. It would have been beautiful to listen to.

The name of the piece was, “Chaos’ Inquiry - Children of the Unknown.”

>>26680
Such a request…it is simple, as it is difficult. I understand you, but to grant what you ask, I must once again understand myself. Some glimpses I have already shown before, and some I will yet show after. Still, never forget that all minds may glimpse into the worlds beyond; the gift is not mine alone.

My joy at your request is also my sadness, for even in my strengths I find many weaknesses. I shall not forget, and I shall try to remember, but time is an ally whom I do not possess. The world I belong to does not care about this world I belong to, though within this world are worlds within worlds, crying to be given birth. I regret that I cannot journey to your destination.

But perhaps with time, I may Wander there instead.

>>26681
>Sounds good, how about Farmer's Adventures in Gensokyo. There are still enough Touhou's and enough room for a great plot. I really would like to see a story like this only Gensokyo wide.
Not a bad idea, but you won’t see it from me. If someone else wants to give it a shot, though, perhaps we can work something out. I’m pretty flexible.

>>26682

>We know the "Freed Sakuya" thing was an act, but how much of it was a lie? Did she really hate Remilia and was bound by fate or was she as mad as her mistress?
Mostly answered already. She wanted out, but could never get out. A mix of hate and cabin fever.

>Speaking of the Scarlet Devil, did she have Flan shatter herself and put her back together to secure her gratitude or was that just an accident and Remi really loev Flan? Was Remilia truly mad, or cursed by her own fate?
Mostly answered already. Flan’s “suicide” succeeded in removing the “glass ceiling” on her mind, but Remilia couldn’t allow her to continue upwards, because she was afraid Flandre would stop her from having fun and doing anything she wanted. Flandre would have just regenerated by herself, you see, and Remilia wanted to create a failsafe before that happened.

>Patchouli was rather evasive as to why she was friends with Remilia in the first place... I think you see a trend in my questioning: did she lose the game or genuine friend who got cursed into inaction? I guess the Remilia question will answer this.
Mostly answered. She was cursed into inaction, though she really did have some friendly feelings towards Remilia for reasons I didn’t come up with, because you didn’t go on the Patchouli route.

>In general, I want to know if this was just a massive tragedy in which we were a part of, or did we save the day(lol?) by showing Flan what a man is?
Half and half. You were amidst powers that you could not physically stop, or ever try to control. And, unfortunately, you picked Cirno as your primary ally, who of all people knew the least about what was going on in the mansion, and couldn’t really help you solve the mystery. This was not my fault. However, your compassion and understanding could have changed things for the better and saved everyone…if you would have tried harder to do it. As it was, you did a little , and thus helped save a little.

>WHAT WAS I FIGHTING FOR?!"
Only you yourself can answer that question.

>>26683
>So Remilia and Flandre never loved each other?
Mostly answered. At one point, long ago, they might have. However, Remilia soon found more exciting things than love in life.

>What would the battle have looked like if we had scryed Flandre instead?
Not much different. Same exact fight scene, except there wouldn’t have been a break between Remilia dying and Cirno slapping you back to reality.

>>26684
>Holy shit Lighthouse Anon has broken out of Others. This is both awesome and terrifying.
Meh, I’m insane too, and I don’t see you complaining. I’m just easier to understand. Sometimes.

Because i've held this possibility in mind for several days now, and i've been really wanting to ask this...
[X] What would have happened for the final combat scene, if we kept Fate of the Future and used it just about when Remilia was going to lose, and use it to wish for a peaceful ending? Would this have granted her a surge of enough power to hold off Flandre for a short while longer, and convince her (along with Farmer's and Cirno's help possibly, how ironic,) that she could change? Would perhaps the end agreement have ended in Flandre also destroying Remilia's mental aspect of Vampirism?

>>26780

The ease in understanding is key, see. While you skillfully play with emotions and manipulate thoughts; while you give in occasionally to pure insanity, to witness him is to witness a force of nature. You can't read Lighthouse with your mind. You'd break it. You have to read with your heart - and its author is no exception to the rule.

If that makes any sense.

It doesn't, does it?

No, none at all.

>One day I will die of malnutrition.
I read malnutrition as masturbation.

>>26781
That's not how it works.

Serious question seeing as my previous questions were Ignored. Honestly, Is it so hard to acquire information on the character's preferred type of pretzel?

[X] We first Found Equitas along with a vial of Hourai Elixir and some dynamite. What would happen if we were to take right then and there?

What happened to Equitas and the rest of Nate's gadgets? Does Flandre have it?

It would be cool if Farmer somehow kept Equitas seeing as he has some swordmanship under his belt.

>>26685
>Basic questions first: your favorite, least favorite, easiest to write, and hardest to write posts.
Favorite (and coincidentally, easiest): Fight scenes are real fun to write because I can see the action going on inside my head pretty well, which also makes them easy to write; I just have to describe what I see. Since I can’t draw very well, this is the next best thing I have to creating whatever hypothetical awesomeness I want to.

Heavy dialog scenes without Farmer talking are the exact reverse of the same scenes with him talking. Since I don’t have to worry about his ambiguous personality, I can go all out with the established personalities of the NPCs. It’s fairly easy for me to feel what they’re feeling, and I just write whatever comes naturally to my mind at the time. Now I won’t say I the best at getting character personality across correctly. But I still enjoy depicting them.

Least Favorite: Those blasted question segments. I know I was the one who gave them to you, in an attempt to satiate your questioning hunger, but they were still so boring, because it was just me rattling on and on to explain the plot through another character. Not fun at all, though they were necessary. If I was a better writer, I wouldn’t have had to use them.

Hardest: Any scene with a lot of Farmer dialog, because I was always afraid to put too many words into your mouth. He kind of ended up a flat character in the beginning because of this, but I got a feel for it later on. Still, it was always frustrating to try and get myself into his head without remembering all the metaknowledge I had, because I didn’t want to steer the story too much.

>What mix of canon and fanon were you using for characterization? Were some characters more influenced by canon representations (and vice versa)?
I hardly know anything about Touhou fanon, having stated way back in September that all I know are the games and the Touhou Wiki. But anyways…
Rumia: Mostly canon with the cheerful “I’ma eat you!” attitude, though I put in a little more creepy terror just because.
Cirno: A blend of many things. I took the prankster and childishness from canon mixed with “I’m the strongest!” from fanon. I also added a little more intelligence to make her a viable character. Towards the end she became something all her own.
Meiling: …does this girl even have canon? I took what I could from her PMiSS article, but I was mostly just flying by the seat of my pants. Fortunately I didn’t have to worry that much about it.
Koakuma: More canon than you’d expect. Her wiki page describes her as “carefree and mischievous, often behaving thoughtlessly,” and I fleshed that out more. The 12 different Koakumas is a big stretch, but technically canon since “little devils” are a race, not a single character. I was also quite inspired by this one fan drawing of 4 Koakumas “innocently” standing together. I forgot where the picture went.
Patchouli: I amplified her “dark and antisocial” canon a little more, and tried to express her calculative nature as best I could, though I never did decide how I wanted her to talk. I could have done a lot more with her physical ailments, but I forgot. Clumsy me.
Sakuya: Not sure with this one. The super-business side I think may be more fanon, as well as the cold uncaring side of her. I tried to add in some canon by making her more airheaded during her “punk” scene, but I think I still missed the mark. I guess I just didn’t know how her canon personality really was.
Remilia: I took the bratty and mysterious elegance from canon, but as we all know, tried and failed to add in the evil side of her from my own mind. It might have worked if I had stuck with an idea for her motivations all the way through, but I could never make up my mind, and thus screwed up big time.
Flandre: No fanon. None. I hate what 99% of fanon does to Flandre, and I’ll have none of it. I read and reread every part of her canon from the Wiki and tried to reinterpret it my own way. Childish, but insanely dangerous, and very odd to boot. She knows a lot more than you think, she just seems like she doesn’t because her mind is a little off. The dark backstory came from me wondering “Why? Why would Flandre be locked up for so long? And what made her insane in the first place?”
Ran: I tried to go as canon as I could for Ran, making sure to add in the mathematical part because I find it funny. Some fanon might have gotten mixed in with the kind and caring part, but I really don’t know what the general fanon consensus about that is.

>Anything that surprised you as the story went on?
Plenty. I’ve talked about some of it already, and frankly I’m too tired right now to add any more. Sorry.

>>26686
>>26695
>If we hadn't lost our eyes, would we have maintained our sanity and stayed together with Cirno?
Most likely, considering you wouldn’t have been so reliant on scrying to live. The problem with that hypothetical is that Higurashi had taken a big hold on me at the end, and I was jonesing to make the ending as bittersweet as possible.

Ah, if only Mystia had let me finish that last arc back in December instead of marathoning Code Geass. Not that I mind; Code Geass gave me some interesting ideas for things and stuff.

>Where does this ending rate on the scale of good ends to normal ends?
As far as Cirno ends go, I’d say it’s Normal. Bad would have been her dying before the fate mortality wore off, and Good would have been you not going insane and staying with her ‘till the end of your days. So this is somewhere in between.

>>26691
>[X] M-e-d-i-o-c-r-e
It hurts because it’s true. My flaws balance out my perks, and I’m left with nothing.

>>26692
>You and 90% of this entire site.
Doesn’t stop ‘em from writing sickening sex scenes, though.

Truth be told, I don’t think I’d technically mind trying to write an h-scene if it actually fit into the plot, and I think I’m a decent enough writer to do an okay job with it too, but I’d never make it past the immense guilt from creating such a perverse travesty. Plus I’d probably cut off my own hands from the shame.

Gah, why must I be doomed to fantasize about such things?!

>>26693
Flandre snaps her fingers. “Ahh, yes, of course! Thanks! I should be able to finish the rest now; this isn’t that hard, really.”

>>26694
>Nonsense?
While L-I-G-H-T-H-O-U-S-E does indeed end with an E, I’m afraid it’s too long.

>>26697
>Adequate.
This works. Not for the crossword, but it works.

>>26698
>Flandre?
Nien. I mean, no, seven. Seven letters is too short.

>>26699
>My question still needs an answer, I asked it to Kira and he answered. (It was yogurt covered.)
It took me a while to get to it, but I have now answered it. Yogurt-covered pretzels…I am skeptical.

>>26701
>Isaac, What's his deal?
It’s been answered a little before, but since this is a more open question, I’ll bite. It might give you a little heads-up as to whether or not Isaac’d be viable for a story in the future.

If you do not care about The Wanderers, you may skip the next few paragraphs.

Isaac is an ice manipulator who I once used as the primary antagonist for some early story ideas I had back in high school that never made it onto paper. Eventually he got to be extremely one-dimensional and boring as a character, so I did a complete overhaul on him and made him into a “good” guy since I still liked his basic premise. He could technically be called the “first” Wanderer since I thought of him before the other three.

His type of ice manipulation is rather unique. I borrowed the idea from—prepare to facepalm—Frozone from The Incredibles, which I consider to be an excellent film. Isaac can siphon the thermal energy stored in water (any phase), and then convert that into the kinetic energy of ice (not liquid or vapor), thereby moving and/or levitating it at any speed desired. He cannot create water, he cannot reverse the process, he is not immune to cold temperatures, and he MUST follow the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. While it seems fairly limited, you’d be surprised what he can do with it. And you’d be surprised to find how much more Cirno could do once he teaches her a few tricks.

Isaac is pretty much a “Heroic Sociopath”. He is very egotistical and is not ashamed to flaunt his power in front of allies and opponents alike. This gets him into trouble, but he’s always spoiling for a fight as it is, so he’s fine with it. Most of the time, however, he’s just trying to be a badass, whether it be in the way he talks, the way he acts, or the way he is extremely showy in battle. It doesn’t always work, and most of the time he just comes off as annoying. He’s a jerk, and sometimes amoral, but deep down he’s got a heart of gold, and will show it when push comes to shove. In this sense he’s comparable to Nathaniel, but the motivation is different: Nathaniel is trying to be good, and failing, while Isaac is trying to be cool, and failing. He’s also a firm believer in “going beyond the impossible”, which is why he’s so interested in Cirno. A girl with enormous potential, but no focus. He wanted to change that and show Gensokyo just how awesome Cirno can be. Not unlike what Patchouli commented about that one time, except Isaac would actually show some tact about it. Not much, but at least it’s better than something.

He also has a very uncanny tendency to break the fourth wall, considering that he is well aware of its existence, and the hilarity it is capable of. He’s seen Gurren-Lagann because of that, and the world was never the same again. Forget piercing the heavens with your drill; he’s here to shatter the fourth wall into dust. Kamina is his hero. He thinks the guy got killed off too soon. Far too soon.

>>26702
>Could we save Rumia somehow?
Maybe. I didn’t really think her character though too well, and if she feels shoehorned, it’s because she was. If you would have expressed interest, I might have opened her up a bit. Not very much, though.

>What would have happened had we saved her?
No idea. Again, not enough planning to tell.

>Was there any hope for Sakuya?
Yes, for reasons previously stated.

>>26703
>Was there a bad end in it for us had we peeked on or scryed Cirno while she bathed?
Not at all; in fact, almost the opposite. It would have been embarrassingly awkward for both parties at first, but it just might have been the first spark that got Cirno thinking about why it’s embarrassing. Physical romance with Cirno might then have become an option down the road. I’ll leave you to decide whether that’s pedophila or not.

>>26704
Suika could be fun, but frankly I like other characters more than her, and Reimu is a big deterrent for me.

I suppose the two “misc.” boards aren’t really that fast, come to think of it. I’ll have to think about it.

>>26705
No, no, I hear you loud and clear; I think it’s stupid myself, too. But I made up my mind long ago that I’d rather stick with a few characters that I could start to really know and care about than create a new one for every single game/fantasy/story I thought up, and for that I needed a justification for why I could keep reusing them. Of course, this doesn’t mean I have to use them for every story, and I’m working on fixing that. I’m only human, and I make mistakes.

Local Gensokyans make a Gensokyan story more believable…thank you. I will try to remember that.

>>26707
>>26708
And then we have the ego-boosters, here to keep my mind in a constant state of flux. Thank you for enjoying my characters, and thank you also for telling me that two should be the limit, and one is probably better.

>>26709
Yes, true. But as I’ve said before, Glish felt weird because you didn’t get involved much with Flandre. It’d be like if Meiling or Ran was an OC in this story; they had like one or two scenes, then disappeared. Yet no one whines because they were part of the universe, even if they were irrelevant to the story. Then again, some people did address that.

And the reason Nate didn’t use the card on Glish is because Glish wasn’t under the fate control, because Remilia did not know of his existence. She was really that detatched from Flandre.

>>26710
Spring is here!

Farmer did indeed help Cirno regain some memories, but not all of them. However, I doubt I’ll write it. I don’t really feel like doing too much “expanded universe” stuff right now. But as I’ve said before, if someone else wants to give it a shot, talk to me either here or on IRC, and we can work something out.

>>26715
>For starters, when he used Fate of the Past to bring Farmer into the game, I would assume at that point he was no longer in the mansion. So, why go BACK to the very place you were trying to escape, let alone dragging some poor sod into the same trap as you? The fact he got something from Eirin indicates he's been around Gensokyo to at least make some contacts. Would it really have been that much harder to try to get someone higher on the chain of power involved rather than try to beat the Devil at her own game?
Three months of fate-screw had made more than a little paranoid, and even going back in time didn’t change that (one of the hidden vices in keeping your memories after time-travelling). He was under the impression that anyone he would talk to wouldn’t believe him, and as soon as Remilia made contact with them she’d fate them into obedience. He wanted to do it alone, for the “good” of Gensokyo, because he’d rather that he die than someone else. And yet, for reasons he still can’t fathom, he dragged farmer into this. Perhaps he honestly thought that Fate of the Future was telling him the truth. Perhaps Remilia had fated him to bring him to the mansion. Perhaps he was just off his rocker at the moment. But really, it was a mixture of all three.

>Why would you place so much trust in those cards?
Because he fell into the same trap you did. He thought that Remilia wanted you to have them so you’d have a sporting chance. He never questioned that they were false, because even Nathaniel himself clung to a few hopes that Remilia wasn’t a total devil. Exactly as Remilia had planned. All her fate needs is a single foothold, and then it will begin to climb.

But yes, hindsight is 20/20, as well.

>>26779

>However, the day you voted to kick Nathaniel out of the story made me freak out an insane amount. I had absolutely no idea what to do, and I really had to brainstorm with my friends to get an answer.

I knew you wouldn't kick him out, you were too fond of him. (justasplanned.jpg)
I was greatly surprised when you actually broke him down in one of the last scenes. It made him a lot more... human I'd say. Probably my favorite scene in the whole story.

Also another question, or perhaps a detail :
>John (roughly god's grace)
>Nathaniel (roughly god's gift)
>Isaac (he who laughs)

All Biblical names. It's rather obvious in John/Nat, with Revelation/Seraphim. I'm curious, what's the whole deal with them?

>>26790
>I’d never make it past the immense guilt from creating such a perverse travesty.
>>24520
>>24521
ಠ_ಠ

>Not at all; in fact, almost the opposite. It would have been embarrassingly awkward for both parties at first, but it just might have been the first spark that got Cirno thinking about why it’s embarrassing. Physical romance with Cirno might then have become an option down the road. I’ll leave you to decide whether that’s pedophila or not.

Another chance missed. Damn.

>>26793
It's better the way it turned out. Owen already said he won't write H-scenes, and without that the sister/friend route becomes superior. Plus, if we had that kind of relationship he probably would have killed her off.

It's only pedophila if you're into them because of their age, not their appearance, and considering Cirno is at least older than 60, she's well beyond that range.

What was the fate of Rich Uncle Pennybags and the Disembodied Hand?

>>26719
>U.N.Owen: Just how did you plotmind Tesla and I with the possibility of multiple Gensokyos?
Pure coincidence. I’ve been using The Wanderers and alternate worlds for years, and just now decided to chronicle their existence on paper. I know that it’s been done before, but since I never mentioned it to anyone, I didn’t really mind. However, I don’t usually take the “infinite versions of the same world” approach with The Wanderers, sticking more to the conventional “Sliders” methodology. It can happen, though.
Well bugger, that’s a shame. Didn’t mean to rain on your parade there. Don’t worry about it, though; The Wanderers aren’t what made ASSM special, and it sounds like you’ve got a far better use for the mechanic than I do. Go for it, and be awesome! I’ll try to touch base with you on IRC if we ever meet there, but I’m not on very often. Hopefully ONCE I GET THESE FREAKING QUESTIONS DONE I’ll have more time to do things like that.

>>26720
>>26722
And the age old debate continues.

>>26721
>Why?
Because I have low self esteem and no spine. As soon as someone criticizes one of my crazy, ill-thought-out ideas, I run away and cower in fear, lest people think me unoriginal and/or just another crappy fanfic writer.

>>26723
>Dammit Owen, I liked your fancy wording. It was fun to read. Just one more time, for me?
I think I have a solution to that which, sometime in the near future, I may try to implement whence I clear the details with my brain. While I cannot speak of it’s temporal location or its effectiveness, I personally think it may work fairly well.

The awful idea: Four-Of-A-Kind

>>26728
See, people? YAF isn’t all bad! Just give him a chance!

>>26730
You do that. If I ever get the time to come back, that is.

>>26743
>The paragraph
Already addressed. I think.

>Was Nate "tested" like we were with Meiling, and what was the result? (I forget if this was answered in the story)
In the story he said that Meiling was offered to him as well, but he never said what happened, and it’s probably good that he didn’t: for his test, the stakes were much weirder. Because Nathaniel and Remilia were already enemies by the time the Meiling test came around (it didn’t take long after the time-flip), she decided to be less kind to him, and screw with his sense of chivalry and honor. When he rejected her offer, she was under Remilia’s instruction to hold him down and forcibly rape him, which she then did without qualm. The tension in their next conversation could have been used to split a steel beam in half.

>How honest was Remi about wanting to learn something from us? Was she just referring to testing her fate powers on us?
Already answered. She was just using puppy dog eyes to get you to feel sympathy for her. And somehow it worked.

>Why didn't Sakuya tell Remi about Adam?
This was Sakuya’s true rebellious streak coming into play. Though she couldn’t exactly actively thwart Remilia, she still tried to do it passively. In her twisted, half-controlled-half-free reasoning, as long as it caused no problems and Remilia didn’t bring it up, she didn’t need to know. So she kept it a secret.

>>26746
>I was kinda surprised that blood Flan put on there didn't come back to bite us in the ass later.
That blood was as red as a herring. Paranoia much?

>>26748
>First, I want to congratulate you once again for that great story. However, I felt a bit disapointed for Nat and Adam, this True End is pretty sad.
True Ends aren’t always meant to be happy. I was sad for them too. But if we want the truth in life, we have to be willing to accept a little sadness.

>First, don't pronounce the "n". his role is to aterate the "a" sound, but since the "an" sound doesn't exist in english, I can hardy describe it. For the "dre", the "e" isn't pronounced at all, try to say "druh" without the "uh". That's all for the lesson ^^'
Yay! Now I know more! Thank you!

And for random reference… Lævatein = lay-VAY-tee-ihn. I’m 90% sure this is correct. A norseman will probably nail me on this one, though.

>Flandre tell Cirno that Isaac would make her stronger. At that time, did you really planned to bring Isaac in the story?
No. If he would have come in at all, it would have been at the very end of the epilogue. However, I later scrapped the idea altogether, leaving yet another loose end.

>What did the sentence "A rift in the sun saves one" stood for?
Nathaniel once mentioned (I think) that a “rift” is a rip between two different worlds, and The Wanderers once used them to travel before they learned how to “Wander” randomly.

Now first, ask yourself this: how could rifting into the sun save you? Is there a way in which dying in the fires of a star would be a good thing?

Then, remember than Ran heard it in a dream in Hakugyokurou, or so she thinks. But for her to hear it, someone had to say it. Who could that someone be?

It would have to be someone for whom dying in the sun could be a good thing. It would have to be a person who could possibly be in Hakugyokurou. And it would have to be a person who knew about rifts.

Of the Wanderers, Nathaniel and Isaac as humans could not survive the sun, even with Isaac’s ice ability. Glish may last longer as a dragon, but not enough to stand against that heat.

…But what of Stephen…?

>>26749
>What did that American coin have to do with anything?
Someone already answered this.

>watchman.jpg
Please phrase your pictures in the form of a question. For instance, “Is this awesome?” The reply to this hypothetical question would then be, “Heck yes this is awesome!! Thank you thank you! I finally got a picture from Giddy! My life on THP is complete!”

>>26800
>When he rejected her offer, she was under Remilia’s instruction to hold him down and forcibly rape him
Hot.

>>26804

It's not rape if she's hot.

[] What was the significance of Remilia's(?) bite around the end of the story? It didn't seem to do anything.

Rumia, Cirno, Meiling, Koakuma, Patchouli, Sakuya, Remilia, Flandre.

Can you put those characters in order from your favorite to least favorite? I'm just curious.

>>26807
Just a guess, but it was probably another red herring, like Flan's blood on the device that gouged our eye out.

She bit us to get back her energy after regenerating her head... Oddly enough, her head being destroyed should have killed her as per the vampire standards of Gensokyo, though that involves taking Akyu's word for it so it isn't a guarenteed fact

>>26755
If I had gone for the entire story and never received a comment like this, I would have felt like I was missing something. Now I am complete. Thank you, first of all, for having the courage to challenge me. I’m not perfect, and I need people to take me down a few pegs on occasion; not just for me, but for the others who think I’m some kind of superman. I’m not, people; I’m just a guy. I make mistakes. I make bad judgments. I’m only human.

So let’s try to address this piece by piece, shall we?

>Many of the questions I had have already been asked, though I do have a few comments on the story. I'm just hoping you don't skip some of the questions that have been asked because there are several good ones that need answering in there.
I’m trying my best no to, and I don’t think I have yet.

>I think you did a great job with the story, but to be completely honest, I kinda feel like we got cheated. Toward the end, the rules kept changing and there were sudden 180's that made absolutely no sense.
This was all me, unfortunately. I was trying to keep you guys on your toes and mess with you, trying a little too hard to make all your plans turn on themselves and show you how pitiful you really were in the story. However, while it might have helped to cause a little more despair, I agree that it was shoddy and plot-irrelevant. It was me being overambitious.

>Sakuya getting freed then suddenly reverting back to maid mode didn't seem to serve any purpose, or have any in-story reasoning for her pretending and frankly was one of the most frustrating parts of the story. Why not let us out of the mansion then suddenly teleport us back in days later, while you're at it?
This was me getting my mind screwed up by watching Higurashi, and not taking a time-out to compose my thoughts. I was initially 100% sure that Saukya was going to be a permanent ally for the rest of the story, right up until that post where everything changed. My mind was in a rather dark state, and I wanted to set the story up for a darker ending, along with another despairing plot-twist. But I didn’t think it through; I never took the time to. The reason this plot point seems odd is because I changed my mind mid-story without planning. I have no other excuse for it.

>You expected us to believe Remilia was truly evil, but never actually gave any hints toward this other than Nat's ravings, which were somewhat inconsistent. In fact, most of Remi's actions seemed to point the opposite direction. And I don't even mean "she was acting sweet so it tricked us". I mean as in, we never had a single reason to doubt her because the "lol she's evil" possibility was so very stupid we didn't think you'd actually go with it. That write in I saw someone do at the end about "you're just evil? That's boring" probably wasn't just an in-story comment, I'd say it was also directed at you.
This was me not being a good enough writer, me not planning Remilia out enough, and not understand the reader’s point of view. My initial plan for Remilia was that she honestly believed that Vlad Dracula was her grandfather, and wanted to make him proud by protecting and ruling a country like he tried to do. I still have no idea why I scrapped that idea, but maybe I never did; I could just never make up my mind. And yes, I know that’s a big mistake: you should always know your villain’s motivation, as well at your characters’ motivation, because the reader needs to know what makes the villain a villain; otherwise (as what happened in this story) they won’t see them as evil. This was just a stupid error on my part: I forgot that only I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Remilia was evil, and just assumed (incorrectly) that you wouldn’t analyze the dramatic reveal. I just forgot it was that much of a mistake until after it was too late to fix.

>I think the reason it was so frustrating and hard to tell Remi was evil was the simple fact that you made her evil. She didn't seem to have any motivation other than "lol I'm evil". The game seemed to serve no purpose as well. So in the end, it seemed like Remi had no reason for doing us wrong, and nothing to gain, therefore we had no reason to suspect it despite being told otherwise.
I’ve addressed this a little bit, but you are correct: I never really showed in-story what her true motivation was. The fact that I deliberately made a Touhou character evil might have just not set well with the readers in general, but the fact that I didn’t do a good job with it was the real problem.

>I want to make this perfectly clear right now: Evil characters with no motivation for being so are the mark of bad writing. Characters need motivation for each action they take, and even after you've answered so many questions, there have been no answers for Remi's reasoning behind doing things the way she did them. I can roll with her just doing it for her own entertainment, but that still doesn't explain the way she behaved.
Again, I kind of addressed this with previous answers, but you’re still right. I do not deny that I just wrote Remilia poorly. I hate that I did, but unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20.

>Top this off with the fact that you seemed to change what was going on in the background halfway through, and it pretty much became impossible to get anything but the true end. After all, if the writer is changing his mind every time we do something unexpected, then nothing we planned for or thought we figured out it going to work.
This was, I think, more of a symptom of me not knowing how to write a CYOA. If I saw that you weren’t gravitating towards a certain element of the plot, I sort of cut it off and spent more time focusing on what was really important. I also tried to integrate interesting ideas you guys gave me halfway though, with apparently only moderate success. I think I just tried to do way too much at first, and as a result ended up not being able to do enough with what really mattered.

>A good example is the third wish card. You were so ambiguous with it that it was down right impossible for us to use it correctly. No, not "unlikely". I really mean impossible to use. Its like handing us a key to the front door of the mansion, but you secretly have it so that we really have to swallow the key for it to work.
I’m not really sure is this is my fault or not. Remilia designed the card to be ambiguous to make the possessor paranoid and confused (my fault), but it really only hurt because you were so intent on making absolute sure you knew each and every detail with certainty to get its maximum value (your fault). Also, I had Nathaniel practically tell you a few times what it did, but you didn’t believe him (your fault). Then again, I should have realized you’d never believe what he said (my fault). However, when it all comes down to it, the cards were simply a faulty plan I had inserted when I wasn’t thinking, and was later stuck with once I was thinking.

(continued…)

(…concluded.)

>The chair in Flandre's game was odd as well, considering we were able to beat the crap out of ourselves with poorly aimed danmaku (which previous to this we were able to make into intricate patterns, and were later able to make hover to provide light), yet couldn't move the god-damned pin or other wires?
Just because you can feel a lot of pain doesn’t mean that the pain is actually doing a lot of physical damage to your skin. Danmaku isn’t meant to be used as a physical force, even if it does have some physical properties. You also weren’t nearly as well-trained in danmaku as you would have needed to be to try to do what you were attempting. Points for effort, but effort without actual substance won’t work against lucid Flandre.

>Speaking of Flandre's game, this is actually the point of the story I almost stopped reading, and in fact actually did for a about 3 weeks. It felt like the story really jumped the shark right there. It was such a radical departure from the story up till that point, and that ENTIRE section wasted all of our time and prevented us from investigating. We didn't really learn ANYTHING from that section either. All we did was waste a wish card, and waste our chances to talk with any other mansion residents.
Apparently another brain child I had that just didn’t go over well. I wanted to show how twisted Flandre’s mind could become when she was insanely intelligent, yet still without morality or perspective. It might have been too radical an approach, and too long as well, but I had had the idea in my head for over a month, and I really wanted to try it. Then again, I think the genre shift from suspense to horror was a little too out there as well, but you can’t blame a guy for dreaming.

>Another thing that confused me is why Nat never tried to "really" convince us that Remi was evil. You just said that you couldn't think of a way to get us on track, but it seems like you never really tried to convince us. The entire story seemed to hinge on us thinking Remi was evil... so why didn't you ever correct that view? All it would have taken was us witnessing something in the many times we scryed her, or Nat telling us more about what happened in the future before he used his fate of the past card.
Nat did try, but first off, his perspective was already skewed, and second of all, you didn’t believe a word he said. So what you got was a shady half-answer that satisfied him but not you, and because he didn’t trust you either, he didn’t want to try any harder.
However, I think the reason I never corrected it is twofold. First, I realized it way too late, since you were being rather ambiguous about it yourselves. Second, I had this stupid idea that it was going to be an awesome and out-of-the-blue twist that would spice things up. “Ha ha, guess what readers? You’re all wrong!” It seems to work in other stories; I thought it was going to work here, too. Guess not.

>That's something that strikes me as odd, by the way. The fate of the past card. Remilia is the one that gives the cards their power. And yet Remilia, after conquering Gensokyo, lets Nat go back in time to fix it? This is the same girl that cheated with the fate card that debatably had less of an effect? Seems pretty inconsistant to me.
She was confident that she could take him if he tried to kill her, and she was also confident that her fate manipulation on him would keep him paranoid enough to not call out for help. She was gambling, but she was ahead in the game, so it was an acceptable risk for her.

>I do think anon should have interacted more with other characters in order to learn more and gain allies, but at the same time, you seemed pretty keen on preventing us from doing so, especially toward the end. The question segment with Remilia was particularly frustrating because most the questions did not get answered. Interrupting with Nathaniel was a low blow, and didn't even make sense considering how little time we were alone with her. Having Nat shoot her in the face for apparently no reason only added to our confusion about who to trust. So really, if you want anyone to blame about us not jumping on the "Remilia is evil" bandwagon, just look in the mirror.
This was me being bored out of my skull with everyone’s three million questions about every little thing, and me disliking writing the flat exposition segments. But the fault is still mine; you’re right. I didn’t give you enough information. Why? Because I didn’t think it was going to be that much of an issue. I was wrong.

>And finally I come to the ending. A lot of people are saying its the ending this story deserves. And I agree. The ending was well done considering the events which happened beforehand. It was quite satisfying. Seeing Flan sane and getting back at her sister and saving us was pretty cool.
Ho ho! Finally some positive feedback! Thank you very much! I was satisfied as well.

>Unfortunately, the epilogue was not. It feels like a kick in the nuts to me. After reading all this, we end up fucked over in the epilogue by something we can't control, and something that was never even hinted at, and barely even makes sense.
Aww…Well, let it be know that it wasn’t your fault. I was trying to make an ending that was bittersweet, and I thought that the epilogue was a pretty good way of doing that. Personally, I think that no matter what you do, sometimes life just sucks. There’s no real explanation for why, and even the best intentions cause the worst futures. And sometimes you just have to deal with it. Yes, it’s a lame answer, but it’s a lame answer I believe in.

>Not only that, but lets examine the part with Cirno for a bit shall we? So farmer disappears for years and Cirno forgets eventually. This seems odd to me, but fine, I'll bite. What doesn't make sense here, though is what happens when farmer comes back. We befriended Cirno simply by being nice. You're telling me that after he came back farmer couldn't befriend her again? That seems rather iffy to me. And then you're telling me that after MORE time has passed, Cirno finally remembers somewhat? And then suddenly they can be friends again? Now that's just downright nonsensical and seems tacked on.
I addressed this a little bit already (sorry for being so slow on my responses), but at the time Farmer was so jarred from her forgetting that he wasn’t thinking straight. He was so focused on trying to restore his life exactly the way it was that he didn’t want to accept compromise. Cirno’s memory was also patchy anyways due to her just being a fairy.

>Contrary to what people may tell you, randomly inserting despair with no reasoning other than to cause despair is bad writing. Randomly changing the background plot in a MYSTERY story is bad writing, especially in interactive fiction where working to find the background plot is the main objective. 180's are the thing you need to be avoiding the most, but toward the end that's all the story was comprised of. "unexpected twists" only work if you aren't doing them every 5 minutes.
More of me not understanding how a CYOA works, and also me being a big amateur at writing. I’ve never written a story this involved or this long before, and certainly not a mystery to boot. I did the best I could for the time.

(continued…)

(…concluded.)

>Now that I've said all these things and will be branded a troll, I will say that I did enjoy the story. It was among my favorites on the boards, and with it ending, I can definitely say it is one of the best stories to ever actually reach a conclusion here. Your writing style is very pleasing, and you gave us one heck of a ride and many memorable moments.
I certainly hope that you will never be called a troll as long as you keep reasoning like this. Your arguments are very valid, and considering that very few people thus far have called me out on as much as you have, I was actually in dire need of someone to step up and say, “Wait; this guy’s not that awesome.” I also appreciate your ability to enjoy the story while still recognizing it’s imperfections, and I thank you for that.

>The entire reason for all the negative criticism in my post is that I respect you as a writer, and feel that you really need to know what didn't work, and how some of your readers my have been feeling. You really had me loving this story until the game with Flan. Everything after that was just frustrating and dragged on. Everything before the Flan part seemed to serve a purpose, everything after seemed to be on rails and didn't serve to further anything. I would recommend you go back and review these sections to learn why, and you'll probably improve greatly as a writer.
Once again, me trying new things that might have been a bit out of my league. I understand the need for improvement, and will most certainly review what you have suggested.

>Sorry for ranting against you so much, but amongst all the positive here, it would be a crime to stay silent and let your ego get inflated and repeat those mistakes in a later story.
Too true. It hurts like there’s no tomorrow, but sooner or later everyone could do with getting their legs cut off and bring them back down to earth.

>PS: Thank you for not killing Cirno off in the ending/epilogue.
I do still have a small heart left. Killing her off after everything would have just been cruel.

>>26756
>For how long did you plan the story?
I think maybe a little under a week before I made the first post. That was enough to get the basic plot down, since I knew the genre would be mystery/suspense/horror, and Remilia would be messing with fate behind the scenes. However, I was always planning and changing things during the story’s progress in ways I can’t even remember now. It was the planning stages during the story that really mattered.

>Why, and how did you start it? Was a sudden surge of inspiration that incentivated you? Or did you decide one day that you wanted to write a CYOA, sit before the computer screen and started to make things up?
It all began with Mystia. Not the character; the person. To start with, he was the one who first introduced me to Touhou a year ago. Then, when I get back to college, suddenly he tells me that there’s this site called Touhouproject.com that has a bunch of awesome stories on it, and he’s even writing one himself! Curious, I checked it out, and I was interested. Very interested.

For two years previous I had been wanting to write again, but never found the drive to do it. I love to write, but at the time I could never commit myself to sit down and write if I wasn’t forced to. But that was the beauty of a CYOA: I would be forced to write consistently, lest the internet hate me for being lazy. The gigantic, final stumbling block, however, was one and a half words: fan-fiction. And not just any fan-fiction about something mainstream I enjoyed like Legend of Zelda; no, this was obscure Japanese magical girl fan-fiction. I didn’t want to bring myself to write it. I knew I would never live it down. I would be despised and given weird looks by anyone I explained it to, who would then never respect my story.

But I stopped caring. I didn’t care any more what the story was based off of, or based in. It would get me writing again. And if I was willing to write, even if it was fan-fiction, then I wanted to take whatever chance I got. I needed to write again, before I stopped trying forever.

And the second inspiration was a single phrase in a single post, long ago:
>>18970
>A horror genre might fit the SDM. Can you write horror?
No. No I can’t. But I can try.

While ASSM isn’t really horror, it got me on a similar track. Whoever that poster was, or is, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You made ASSM into the strange story it was.

>What did you originally planned to happen but never got be written?
I’ve hit on a few points already, but I’ll try and recap some of the big ones, as well as some new ones. Most of these were scrapped because they didn’t fit the tone of the story, not because you voted away from them:

+ A very early idea I never had to use because of your votes. Cirno freezing the entire exterior of the mansion, sneaking into your room, you knocking out a passing fairy maid, putting her clothes on Cirno, and sneaking the ice fairy into the library inconspicuously where Patchouli would hide her. With enough Patchouli points, she would train Cirno practically into Ex-Cirno, and then blind everyone in the mansion with her charismatic awesomeness. Isaac was planning on doing the same thing. Perhaps he still is.
+ If Farmer would have gotten elemental magic (which I later scrapped), a fight scene between him and Nathaniel would have been very possible. And fun.
+ A chess match between you and Patchouli. The dialog would have been…interesting.
+ A danmaku match with Flandre vs. anyone who would plausibly fight her. Chaos would be chaotic.
+ A fair fight between Remilia and Nathaniel. He would be toyed with, then lose horribly.
+ A fair fight between Sakuya and Glish. Dog of the Devil vs. Dragon of the Deranged.
+ An unfair fight with time-stopping Nathaniel and Sakuya against Remilia. Somehow they would still lose.
+ Cirno, Nathaniel, and you, versus every fairy maid in the mansion. Better find a good room to make your last stand in.
+ The aforementioned piano scene where Glish plays his song for Flandre. Awww…
+ The aforementioned “Screw you, Yukari!” scene between her and Nathaniel. He would have said, and I quote: “You meddle in the affairs of lives that do not concern you. You manipulate without consequence, and tinker without consent. You laze about, sending others to do your work for you. You may think you are a Creator. But I tell you this, “High Lady” Yakumo: You are nothing but a glorified Destroyer, disguised in a sheet of false compassion. Your work is selfish and prideful. May God damn it, Yukari, and may God damn you as well.” It would have been awesome, but completely against most of the plot.

>After the ending, did Cirno ever recover her memory?
Already answered. Yes, but only kind of.

>>26760
>If Remilia had survived after the bout with Flandre somehow, what would her scare of the Farmer's attempts be if affected at all?
I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand what you’re asking. Could you please rephrase the question?

>What would have been something we could have done to impress Remilia?
Completely ignoring her like you did impressed her in a very negative way, which caused her to snap and try to kill you. I’m sure there were ways you could have sparked her interest, but I didn’t plan them out; I was just waiting for the write-ins to see what would have been awesome, and I went from there.

(continued…)

(…concluded.)

>>26761
The events that happened at the very end were not set in stone. I had them transpire the way they did because (unfortunately) I wanted to end the story perhaps a little faster than it should have, or could have, ended. The thing is, remember my descent into Higurashi madness back on February 10th? At that point I route-locked you into True End, for better or for worse. Before then, it still could have gone for Sad, Normal, or even Good, but during that point in my life I decided that I would drag you into the True End no matter what. You can call it inconsiderate if you want, but please, please consider this: other authors have route-locked stories long before I route-locked you.

If I offended you, I apologize.

>>26762
Mostly answered. I’ll recap quickly.
Rumia: No. Not enough time.
Cirno: Yes, even beyond what you already had.
Meiling: Yes, but you’d have to get past her fear of Remilia.
Koakuma: Not really, since she can’t exactly “love”. There was a route, though.
Patchouli: Kind of, but it’d be weird.
Sakuya: Yes, but you would have really had to work for it. And also compete with Nathaniel for her.
Remilia: No. She didn’t care.
Flandre: No, because she already had Glish.

>>26764
>On the subject of Cirno's forgetfulness, I'd like to point out that in PoFV she remembered the flower incident happening 60 years ago. "It's the festival that happens once every sixty years!". She seems to have a pretty good memory.
Kind of already answered. True, but memory is still a fickle thing. You can remember some important things and still forget other important things. For example, I have a very good memory for insignificant trivialities, but ask me the names of my best friends in grade school and I wouldn’t be able to tell you. You can’t always choose what you remember.

Repeatedly dying and regenerating can’t help matters, either.

>>26765
>Now, with the responses concerning the Wanderers, I'm intrigued…I'm asking because we all have a little adventurer/group of adventurers in our heads, and I find the subject fascinating. That, and I really enjoyed Nathaniel as a character and would like to read more if there was any more material.

>Who are the Wanderers, exactly?
Nathaniel already mostly answered this in-story. Within their “canon”, they are a group of four friends who came from a plethora of different worlds. Though unfortunate circumstances they had to leave their homes and wound up running into each other over the course of several years. Because they all had an adventurous streak in them, they decided that rather than settle down somewhere, they’d wander around into other worlds and see what use they could be to the miscellaneous conflicts that abound everywhere.

Outside of their “canon”, they are basically the four main “avatars” or “usernames” I kept gravitating towards during middle school and high school. I had just decided at one time that rather than keep creating new, awful fan characters for whatever fantasy tickled my fancy, I would stick with just a small handful of more realistic people over and over again, so that I could really get a feel for their personality and style. While this creates the additional problem of explaining how they get from story to story, I consider it a lesser evil than a horrible ensemble of one-time use characters that have no lasting purpose. They were assembled from a mish-mash of my favorite movies, books, and video games, plus a little of myself, with me adding bits here and removing bits there as I grew older to make them more believable and less overpowered. Because I hate consciously following clichés, I wanted to try and make them as realistic and original as possible while still being awesome characters. It’s a continuous improvement model, though, and not a month goes by where I don’t add/recon something about them.

>How did they come to being?
Kind of already answered above.

>What is your 'relationship' with them, per se?
I guess you could say all four of them are parts of me I drew out and turned into their own character, so that I could better understand them. Nathaniel has the drive for justice and morality despite others disagreeing with him, and is also constantly at war with himself for remembering that he’s not anyone special. Glish has the naïve inexperience and childishness, despite having fairly decent book-smarts. Isaac has the desire to be “cool” and witty with mixed results, as well as a bit of apathy and laziness. Stephen, though you haven’t met him yet, has almost unshakable calm as well as a more reserved and super-serious personality. Although they were originally composed of who I am and what I like, they’ve each got their own unique character now, and if you tried to mix all four back together you wouldn’t get anything even close to what I’m actually like.

So, yes, if you stretch it, The Wanderers are technically author insertion to a small degree. This is why I am rather reluctant to reveal them to anyone but myself, why I sometimes regret putting them into ASSM, and why I am afraid to put them into anything else in the future. However, you could almost say that about any OC. “Oh, this character in this story has glasses and likes chocolate. But wait! The author also has glasses and likes chocolate! It must be author insertion! For shame!” I realize that this is a rather petty example, but I’m just saying correlation does not equal causation. Am I Nathaniel? Am I Glish? Am I Isaac? Am I Stephen? No. We share some of the same traits, but we are not the same.

>Did you or a friend make them?
This was all me, my brainchild, and no other’s. Before THP, practically no one even knew they existed.

>What other stories/adventures have there been, if any?
Nothing on paper save for a few random brainstorming files I have saved on my computer; sorry, but you won’t be getting any archival information for them just like that. There’s a lot of stuff floating around in my head about them, most of it pure crap thought up on a whim in high school. However, in recent years I’ve tried to sort out the old and the bad from the new and the good. Each character now has their own interesting (and rather dark) backstory, and there’s been a few significant adventures where all four of them are present for great justice and awesomeness. Most of the stuff they do on their own is non-canon and me just fooling around in my spare time. I’d go on about some of their stories, but they just might become important plot points if I ever put The Wanderers back into another story, so I’ll hold off for now.

>>26766
>I know it's much to ask: Would you write those 4 good ends and the other 4 bad ends? We will never see them because we can never get a 2nd run.
Well, I wouldn’t say those are the only good or bad ends; I just made them up out of nowhere. Perhaps if I ever get bored I’ll write one or two, but for right now I think I’m good just taking a break. I won’t forget, though.

>>26770
The number of times the Meiling route has been foiled in /sdm/ is staggering.

>>26775
It happens. Hopefully most of them were ones I’ve already hit on.

(continued…)

(…concluded.)

>>26781
>What would have happened for the final combat scene, if we kept Fate of the Future and used it just about when Remilia was going to lose, and use it to wish for a peaceful ending? Would this have granted her a surge of enough power to hold off Flandre for a short while longer, and convince her (along with Farmer's and Cirno's help possibly, how ironic,) that she could change? Would perhaps the end agreement have ended in Flandre also destroying Remilia's mental aspect of Vampirism?
If I would have been in a better mood at the time, I might have allowed something like this to happen, though as we’ve talked about before, the Fate cards were pretty blurry anyways. However, Higurashi, mind rape, etc. I seem to be using this excuse a lot.

I think the main reason you didn’t save Remilia is simply because you didn’t have enough Remilia points or Flandre points for it to make any sense plotwise. You pretty much just lumped them all into Cirno points, which, though cute, didn’t help the mansion itself very much.

>>26782
No, no; to me, it makes much sense indeed. Though I cannot quantify “mind” and “heart”, I don’t need to to know what you mean.

>>26785
I ANSWERED YOUR QUESTION, DANG IT! I SAID I WAS GOING THROUGH THE COMMENTS IN ORDER!! YOU WERE NOT AT THE FRONT OF THE LINE! STOP CUTTING IN LINE! AAAGGHHHGH!!

…Ahem…

>We first Found Equitas along with a vial of Hourai Elixir and some dynamite. What would happen if we were to take right then and there?
Flandre could have cared less about the Elixir and dynamite, or anything in the bag for that matter. If you didn’t dally you could have gotten the sword out before Flandre came back, in which case you could either hide it (which would have probably gotten it stolen by Sakuya), or given it to Nathaniel immediately, which would have given you crazy high Nathaniel points and skipped the caverns altogether.

Too bad you didn’t, huh?

>>26786
>What happened to Equitas and the rest of Nate's gadgets? Does Flandre have it?
Considering no one else really cared too much about them besides them being intriguing oddities, most of them ended up in Nitori’s hands, where she reverse-engineered some of them for SCIENCE! and profit. A few went to Patchouli that were more magical in composition.

Seraphim was buried with Glish, as no one else had any use for it, and Flandre thought that he should have “an angel to watch over him”.

The shattered pieces of Revelation were handed back and forth between Nitori and Eirin depending on whoever was more interested at the time. To Eirin’s surprise, she found the watch completely different in construction that the Luna Dial, and far more complex. Despite years of effort and much frustration, neither of them could ever fix it.

Equitas, at Flandre’s request, was magically thrust into an enchanted rock high on the Youkai Mountain. It was sealed so that none but the one who had need of it could draw it out, for if the hand was justified, surely it would be able to cut through the rock which guarded it. Fortunately, Gensokyo never became so dark that any ever relied on the hope of a savior wielding that sword and beating back chaos. A few foolish people tried to pull it, but of course nothing happened.

And then, one day, it was just gone. Pulled out clean and swift. No one knows where it went…

Sikieiki Yamaxanadu pulled it. A fitting weapon for the Judge of Paradise.

>>26791
The reason I didn’t kick him out isn’t because I liked him. It’s because if he left, you wouldn’t have had a prayer at getting any kind of advantage in the mansion anymore. You’d have lost the Good End for sure, and possibly the True End as well, leaving only Normal or Sad.

>All Biblical names. It's rather obvious in John/Nat, with Revelation/Seraphim. I'm curious, what's the whole deal with them?
I like Biblical names. They’re normal enough for most people to not wince at them (unlike Japanese names or random fantasy names), but they carry a certain aura or charm with them as well. You’ll notice that Glish’s alternate name was “Adam” (obviously Biblical), and “Stephen” was the very first martyr for Christ in the book of Acts.

I’m also a Christian, which makes me a little biased towards them. Okay, a lot biased.

>>26792
That’s just slightly disgusting, overly-excessive, possibly suggestive imagery. I’m perfectly fine with that. I will bathe seven times in a river of blood long before I even contemplate sleeping with a woman before marriage. And in my eyes, writing a sex scene which depicts exactly that is just as bad. Call me a “moralfag” if you wish; I’m proud of it.

>>26798
Technically true, but is her mind sixty years old? If she has both the body and the mind of a child, does her true, physical age really matter? Personally, I think not.

>>26799
That scene wasn’t canon and you know it.

>>26805
Rape (rAYp), noun, verb: Any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person; to force to have sexual intercourse.

Just because he’s the man and she’s hot doesn’t mean it’s not rape. Not like you’d care, you bunch of horny Nathaniel-haters you.

>>26807
>What was the significance of Remilia's(?) bite around the end of the story? It didn't seem to do anything.
>>26810 answered this. Another stupid red herring. She was hungry. You were available.

>>26809
>Rumia, Cirno, Meiling, Koakuma, Patchouli, Sakuya, Remilia, Flandre. Can you put those characters in order from your favorite to least favorite? I'm just curious.
Ahh, the horrible ranking question. I’m not very good at this, but I’ll give it a shot.

#8) Meiling: I don’t know why, I just don’t like her.
#7) Remilia: And not just because I made her a villain. She’s a whiny, stuck-up brat. But her music is awesome.
#6) Rumia: Cute, and has a funny personality, but nothing too special in my book.
#5) Koakuma: Cuter to me than Rumia, and doesn’t get nearly enough attention. Also, blank template = potential.
#4 & #3) Patchouli and Sakuya: Both have things I enjoy a lot, but I can’t tell which I like more. It ends up coming down to Patchouli’s personality and magical diversity vs. Sakuya’s badassness and time hax. I’ll flip between the two from day to day.
#2) Cirno: I find her extremely endearing, and though her ⑨ popularity gets her a lot of attention, it’s a lot of negative attention. She has so much more to offer than that. Also, ice power → Isaac → Awesome.
#1) Flandre: Because no one ever seems to look deeper than either “OMG BATSHIT INSANE!” or “Daaaw, widdl’ moeblob!” Insanity can be as deep as you’re willing to look into it (just look at Fooly Cooly), and I am willing to look. I see a girl trapped within herself, incapable of telling people who she really is, and feared as a monster before she gets a chance.

>>26812
>Remilia: Just humans. You're the only ones that actually need a simple organ for cognition.
If she doesn’t need a brain, why would she need a head? What is a head? A miserable little pile of secrets!

I only trust Akyu as far as I can kick her book. I’ll run the distance to pick it back up, but after that I’d rather run my own way.

======================================

Gah…done…done! I fin…finally got, got caught up. Tired…so tired…this was worse than writing ASSM even…

I didn’t proofread most of my comments. Sorry for any errors. As I’ve said before, I’m only human. I screw up a lot, and from reading a lot of these comments, you can tell the story isn’t nearly as good as you think it is. But for something just thought up on a whim, it didn’t turn out so bad.

I might be on IRC tomorrow between 8-11 AM Server Time (11-2 Eastern, 4-7 Greenwich), just to destroy my mind with even more questions you guys have. But meh, whatever.

>They were assembled from a mish-mash of my favorite movies, books, and video games, plus a little of myself,
Hah, so they were self-insert cha-
>So, yes, The Wanderers are technically author insertion
God dammit.

>> I will bathe seven times in a river of blood long before I even contemplate sleeping with a woman before marriage. And in my eyes, writing a sex scene which depicts exactly that is just as bad. Call me a “moralfag” if you wish; I’m proud of it.

Holy shit - now I don't feel so alone...

>>26817
>I might be on IRC tomorrow between 8-11 AM Server Time (11-2 Eastern, 4-7 Greenwich), just to destroy my mind with even more questions you guys have. But meh, whatever.
>11-2 Eastern
Blast, i won't be around at this time... Hopefully another.

>>26817
Tons of things could be said based on technicalities though. Cirno doesn't have the mind of a child, her mind is child-like. You could twist things like that all day.

In the end though, the only people Chris Hansen has to worry about are the ones who chase after Akyu.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my criticism. I would say I'm surprised you handled it so well, but I'm honestly not. I said the things I said because I knew you had enough integrity to listen and take it constructively. Just to let you know, if you ever write a non-fanstory novel, make it known, as I'm pretty sure it would be pretty great. In short, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

That UN Owen huh? Writes super long stories and doesn't afraid of criticism.

>>26822

In our defense, Akyu has genetic memory. Considering that she's the ninth Child of Miare, she must already have at least eight lifetimes' worth of sexual experience locked away in that little head of hers. She probably has more carnal knowledge than all of us Anonymous combined.

Suffice to say, whoever marries her is liable to be a very lucky man.

>>26824

As far as I recall, her memory wasn't a perfect recollection of her past lives, but limited to certain things instead. I may be wrong though because I remember I was at one point arguing in favour of how much she remembers in comparison to it just being related to stuff for PMiSS and I can't quite remember how the end of that went.

>>26817
I think pretty much everything was asked already. I am satisfied with the answers and have nothing more to ask.

So...the fate of the future card was just a convenient way for you to give us whichever end you felt like regardless if we listened to it or not?

Ignore the card > True End > "Oh, and I gave you such great tips too!"

Follow the card > True End > "Hey! Why did you listen to it in the first place!" Remilia just made that stuff up!"

Because it kind of feels like that...

...do you really want to hurt me?

>>26827
protip: ALL choices lead to the same end. some take a little longer than others, some require a little rewriting here and there, but on the whole everything stays on monorail. I laugh at you and your delusions of choice.

>If Remilia had survived after the bout with Flandre somehow, what would her scare of the Farmer's attempts be if affected at all?

Errrrr I don't know how I got that. It was supposed to come before the question on what would impress Remilia and would be something like:

[x] What would have been Remilia's score of the farmer's actions if she had survived the fight with Flandre?

Critic-fag here. Decided to commemorate the ending of this story with a gift. Thanks for a fun ride.

>>26818
No, I said if you stretch it they kind of are. While they each have one fairly large personality point I also share with them, they are their own characters, not me. The similarities in a portion of our personalities allows me to feel what they’re feeling, and write them better because of it.

But do you see me selfishly giving them the spotlight? Do you see me making them Mary Sues/Marty Stus? Do you see me trying to making you like them? No. Nathaniel and Glish were just two characters in this story, regardless of where they came from. They have good points and bad points. People both liked them and disliked them. And they both died without really doing much in the long run.

I won’t try and shirk all the blame, now. I agree that the concept of The Wanderers is hard to swallow, mainly because I never intended on showing them to anybody when I created them. Perhaps I should have never put them in, or perhaps never told you who they were.

Bottom Line: The Wanderers are only author insertion if you’re close-minded.

>>26819
>Holy shit - now I don't feel so alone...
And now, neither do I.

>>26822
>Tons of things could be said based on technicalities though. Cirno doesn't have the mind of a child, her mind is child-like. You could twist things like that all day.
Yes, but perhaps the same could be said of all religions works of fiction. Practically nothing man-made in this world can stand up to extreme scrutiny, and ASSM is extremely convoluted to begin with. If you want to nitpick and keeping looking for a satisfying answer, then you’ll soon find that I’m just not a good writer to give it to you.

>>26823
And thank you once again for taking the time to give it to me. I’m usually quite good with criticism, mainly because I know going in that what I do isn’t perfect, and it’s not a matter of who points it out so much as when.

And if I ever try to make a non-fan-story mainstream, I’ll be sure to let you (and THP as well) know.

>>26827
No no no. Fate of the Future’s very first, original intent was to give you a certain aim for the non-existent second run of this story. This was later scrapped due to me nothing having enough stamina, but unfortunately, I was still stuck with the cards. Fate of the Future then became a riddle which, if solved, would give you some insight on “what would happen if…?” I still screwed it up royally despite the fact, and I apologize for that.

Your end was going to be determined by what your motivations were. Your motivations throughout the story were, “Find out why Cirno’s dying, save her, and find out what’s going on with the mansion.” You wanted to find out the truth, so I trying to steer you towards the truth.

If you want to blame anything on your railroaded True End, blame my incompetence as a writer first. Then blame Higurashi No Naku Kori Ni second.

>>26828
Not really. But sometimes the truth hurts, even if the truth is just that “I was wrong”.

>>26829
Random quote from a classic pre-apocalyptic science fiction film: “There’s no fate but what we make.”

>>26830
>What would have been Remilia's score of the farmer's actions if she had survived the fight with Flandre?
Oh, okay, it was just a misspelling.

Remilia would have deemed that you knew far too much if she survived, not cared about the score anymore, and just killed you and Cirno. Consider it like a child throwing a tantrum because they didn’t get what they wanted.

>>26831
Words cannot express…Good sir, you have done well this week. Many thanks!

What is this I don't even...

>>26836
Glish dead, Remilia smiling

>>26837
No, no. He's just resting.
Probably pining for the fjords.

>>26837
I hear Glish learns Fire Spin at level 64.

>>26836
That's before Glish and Remilia love each other tenderly.

>Completely ignoring her like you did impressed her in a very negative way, which caused her to snap and try to kill you.

>Remilia would have deemed that you knew far too much if she survived, not cared about the score anymore, and just killed you and Cirno. Consider it like a child throwing a tantrum because they didn’t get what they wanted.

So wait, was Remi not planning to kill us? Because that was the most forced part, I think, where suddenly it turns out she's just plain evil and we're all going to die. I mean, I can understand her beating the shit out of Nathanial after he tried to kill her, but why us too? Especially after she had just left us alone a couple minutes earlier, with a warning to get to someplace safe? It was already obvious what she was going to do.

>>26851
It's been addressed that I rushed the "Remilia is evil" problem and didn't think it though, so I won't bring it back up here. But the fact is that, yes she was going to kill you anyways, but she didn't want it to be quick. She wanted to savor it and have some "fun" with you as you died (perhaps forcing you to watch Cirno be tortured first), but because she was pissed, she wasn't thinking right and was just ready to break all her toys in a rage.

Any way you slice it it's my fault that I didn't explain Remilia's intentions well enough, and for that, once again, I am sorry.

For what it's worth, Owen, right up to the point where the plot required that she reveal herself as a villain, you wrote her character very well: Flippant, polite, curious, haughty, and ingratiating. Her frank admittance that she was indeed a 500 year old child killed all doubt in my mind as to whether or not she could be the antagonist.

She was just too likable: The Farmer never had a chance.

Next time you write a villain, I think you'll have more success if you were to use your Sakuya or Nathaniel as a model, rather than borrowing anything from what you did with Remilia here.

>>26853
Of course Farmer didn't had a chance, we made three mistakes:
1- We were too nice with these cute lolis. We didn't want them to die until the last moment.
2- Farmer was too paranoid with Nat and Adam, but too confident with Remilia. I don't believe that Adam was such a danger.
3- We didn't plan our actions on long term. When we took Remilia's corpse to the library, we hadn't yet decided which side to take.

If we had given a more courageous personnality to farmer, then at least, we could avoid the ermit end.

And another "foreign languages lesson" for Owen, the "ein" of laevatein is pronounced like the number one "ein" in German. It sounds like "A-een".

About the sentence Ran heard in Hakugyukuro, I first thought it was a metaphore with the fact that vampires can't expose themselves to the sun. But even if Steven could survive that heat, why should he be there? If nobody except the Wanderers knew about the rifts, then, who said it?

>1- We were too nice with these cute lolis. We didn't want them to die until the last moment.

But he didn't want anyone to die. Not Nathaniel. Not Sakuya. It's not as simple as a "weakness to lolis".

>I don't believe that Adam was such a danger.

Well he only killed Farmer once and Cirno once.

>If we had given a more courageous personnality to farmer, then at least, we could avoid the ermit end.

I don't think so. The only way to get around it seems to have been sneaking out of the mansion without being noticed, or killing Remilia or her servants, something that seems could only have been accomplished through treachery.

>1- We were too nice with these cute lolis. We didn't want them to die until the last moment.

If we were stronger we could have befriended them.

>If we had given a more courageous personnality to farmer, then at least, we could avoid the ermit end.

You are too weak. Hermit End was a good End. Manly Tears End.

>3- We didn't plan our actions on long term. When we took Remilia's corpse to the library, we hadn't yet decided which side to take.

We just didn't see her as an evil mastermind and due that we never trusted Nathaniel i would say most of us never saw it coming. It was just too .... plain and simple >>26299

>>26853
What he did with Remilia was fine. The pacing of how it came about was the real problem in this case.

It's like "reincarnating Kaguya in a box" all over again.

>>26862
Yeah we really never saw that coming. That was like a hit in the face.
And the snow end was the finisher.

>>26860
>But he didn't want anyone to die.
That is the problem. We hadn't the tools nor the power to make anybody die. Of course, if Farmer had been stronger, things would have been different, but he could never be strong enough in 4 days. So we needed good write-ins, which isn't easy to provide, I agree.

>>26863
>Yeah we really never saw that coming.

I saw it coming as soon as Owen said that Remilia prefers Farmer to Nathaniel because:
>A MAN CHOOSES, A SLAVE OBEYS! >>26221

>>26861
>we never trusted Nathaniel
But wise-Flandre told us to trust him. It was an advice given by Owen trough the mouth of Flandre. We didn't trust him, so it's our fault. Owen told us so.

>>26864

At that point, we couldn't really trust Flandre either. And we TRIED to trust Nate but that asshole and his personality made it do hard.

>>26865
>>And we TRIED to trust Nate

And that is why you failed.
Do, or do not. There is no "try".

>>26865
The hard-to-trust personnality of Nat was part of the game.
Otherwise, it would have been too easy.
I guess that it's like playing touhou on normal mode which is already quite hard, and that since we used two continues, we couldn't unlock a good end, nor the extra stage.....Err, wait. Forget this last sentence.
Amirite Owen? Or am I saying nonsense?

NATHANIEL LIVES

>>26864
>But wise-Flandre told us to trust him. It was an advice given by Owen trough the mouth of Flandre.

It's still not clear that she was talking about Nathaniel and not Adam.

>>26869
As it turned out, we could have done either and either would have required or implied we could place our trust in Nathaniel.

>It was an advice given by Owen trough the mouth of Flandre.

Confession time: I actually realized this when it happened, but I continued arguing against trusting Nathaniel because I thought it was a retarded way for Owen deliver a point. It also didn’t help that I hated Nathaniel as a character.

>>26870

I don't recall Adam giving us much advice regarding Nathaniel, only Flandre.

>>26873
Yeah, but he was really happy to found him in the mansion. We could deduce that Nat isn't a bad person.
Also, "playing" a CYOA imply to stop caring about if the characters are originals or not.
We all are fans of Touhou, but Original Content should be always welcomed.

>>26874

Had we been following his advice in the first place, that reunion might not have even happened.

You got a point there.
But I guess that Owen would have made that reunion whatever happened. It's like the fight between Adam and Remilia. Owen wanted that fight, so whatever we chosed to stay or not in the mansion, that fight might have occurred.
The results however could have been different.

>>26872

My thoughts exactly.

>>26876
>But I guess that Owen would have made that reunion whatever happened. It's like the fight between Adam and Remilia. Owen wanted that fight, so whatever we chosed to stay or not in the mansion, that fight might have occurred.

Perhaps the same could be said of all the events?

>>26875
Rather than saying it wouldn't have happened, I think it's more fitting to say the reunion wouldn't have needed to happen.

Remember how the little dragon-boy reacted when Farmer called Nathaniel's trustworthiness into question, calling him a liar and threatening him with a knife? How he got pissed and slammed Farmer into the nearest wall, holding him there?

If the problem truly was you didn't know which "him" Flandre was telling you to trust, I would think having one of the two getting that mad on account of you not trusting the other might have been a BIT of a clue as to which one you were supposed to go with.

Then again, this is the same lot who, when reunited with the dangerously-psychotic walking nuke that had thrown them into the life-or-death situation they had just escaped from (minus an eye, a card, and having their precious fairy die once as a result) and witnessing said person suddenly go into what was clearly an even more dangerously unstable mental state, decide it would be a good idea to go up and HUG them.

>>26880
I don't know what was Anon thinking that time, you can understand an author's will by analyzing his writing, and it was obvious (for me) that Owen took a pleasure to destroy the hopes of thoses who voted for that HUG, but at least, we got an awesomly written Bad End..... and Cirno-mist.

>>26878
The general plot was minded, but we could still choose the routes.
As Owen said, he wanted to test the readers' reaction.
Thinking of it, we often said that this CYOA was the best of the board, but what do the author think about us? Have we been an awesome bunch of readers and voters as well?

[X]Why "U.N.Owen"? I'm curious, why did you choose that name for yourself?

>>26882
>Ahh, the horrible ranking question. I’m not very good at this, but I’ll give it a shot.

>#8) Meiling: I don’t know why, I just don’t like her.
>#7) Remilia: And not just because I made her a villain. She’s a whiny, stuck-up brat. But her music is awesome.
>#6) Rumia: Cute, and has a funny personality, but nothing too special in my book.
>#5) Koakuma: Cuter to me than Rumia, and doesn’t get nearly enough attention. Also, blank template = potential.
>#4 & #3) Patchouli and Sakuya: Both have things I enjoy a lot, but I can’t tell which I like more. It ends up coming down to Patchouli’s personality and magical diversity vs. Sakuya’s badassness and time hax. I’ll flip between the two from day to day.
>#2) Cirno: I find her extremely endearing, and though her ⑨ popularity gets her a lot of attention, it’s a lot of negative attention. She has so much more to offer than that. Also, ice power → Isaac → Awesome.
>#1) Flandre: Because no one ever seems to look deeper than either “OMG BATSHIT INSANE!” or “Daaaw, widdl’ moeblob!” Insanity can be as deep as you’re willing to look into it (just look at Fooly Cooly), and I am willing to look. I see a girl trapped within herself, incapable of telling people who she really is, and feared as a monster before she gets a chance.

You should be able to solve this. Might also have something to do with Flandre kicking her sister's ass at the end.

>>26882
maximum mindfuck

>>26885

Suddenly, everything makes sense.

Did Owen said something on IRC about his next story?
I just can't wait!

Also, which CYOA is the most interresting at the current time?

>#7) Remilia: And not just because I made her a villain. She’s a whiny, stuck-up brat. But her music is awesome.

was listening to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agxlUq2REuc&feature=related while readin the last part

>>26894

Seconding this. A list of interesting CYOA might be nice.

>>26896
All attempts at such things lead to drama and powerlevels. Just look around and decide for yourself.

>>26894
give him a break. HY had one too.

>>26894
Start by reading the few that have actually finished: Misadventures in Gensokyo by Kira in /th/, SDM:LA by HY here, Science by Klayman in /youkai/, Something Happening at Gensokyo by Vodka in /th/, This Shrine (at least the first play through) by YAF in /shrine/, and Deluge of Lunar Fantasy by Teruyo in /eientei/. Use the archive stickied here >>>/th/68434 to hunt them down.
Definitely read Retrospective and Astronomical Narraration. It may never continue, but it's probably the best one ever written.
Try some of the fresh ones too: the two in /youkai/ by Lion and Chain, the two in /others/ by ???? and glasnost, I, Youkai in /forest/, and Little Lost Soldier in /eientei/. Still seeing how they'll pan out, but it's fun being in on the ground level.
After that, it's all personal opinion. Ideally, you should read everything and drop the ones that don't suit you. There's great literature everywhere, but don't force yourself to read it if it's not to your liking.
Personally speaking, when I roll through looking for updates, these are the titles I have my eyes on: A Different Place, Touhou: Graze the Rainbow, Little Soldier Lost, Contemplations Under the Moon and Stars, Deluge of a Lunar Fantasy, I, Youkai, Magical Rhapsody, Gensokyoland Saga, Working for the Weekend, Kaleidoscope Midnight, Hakugyokuro LA, Scarlet Horizon, Fragmentation of Memories, 'Chain Letter', The Landlord of Mayohiga, Underground LA, and Touhou Persona. For most everything else, I've already read a bit and stopped. My idea is to leave them alone for a while, read everything in one big go whenever the site is particularly dead, and then stop again. Always something to read~

>>26902
Of course I would like to read the entire site, but I haven't much time.
Also, thank you for your advices, I will try the fresh ones, just like I did with ASSM.
It's all for the questions.

For the curious beings of /sdm/, I started a translation of ASSM in french (o rly?) both for practicing english and for helping some fans to discover that story. You can found it there:
http://amo.webalpa.fr/thalie2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=334
I will daily update it.

>>26904
I'm not even the author, but seeing the first couple of posts in a language I barely comprehend brought the biggest damn grin to my face. Keep up the great work.
Question: how hard is it translating Owen's overly elaborate language for those first threads?

>>26905
It's long, but not too hard (for me). Once you understood the text in english, you just have to rewrite it with the most appropriate words.
But as you said, Owen's style is quite elaborate, and thus, I try to keep his style through the translation, I think it's the most difficult.
But doing so, I can read the story again from the beginning, and discover some features I haven't seen first. It will become easier to translate after the 4th thread.

Sorry I’m a bit late on these.

>>26853
Well, it’s nice to know that even if I screwed up on Remilia as a villain, I still did okay on Remilia as a character. Not a total loss, I guess.

It’s funny you suggest I use Nathaniel as a villain model when he wasn’t even the villain. Anti-hero, most likely. Villain, not so much. But whatever I did with him, I definitely seemed to do pretty good. I shall not forget.

>>26859
>And another "foreign languages lesson" for Owen, the "ein" of laevatein is pronounced like the number one "ein" in German. It sounds like "A-een".
I knew something about that pronunciation didn’t seem right. Thanks for pointing it out.

>About the sentence Ran heard in Hakugyukuro, I first thought it was a metaphore with the fact that vampires can't expose themselves to the sun. But even if Steven could survive that heat, why should he be there? If nobody except the Wanderers knew about the rifts, then, who said it?
In all honesty, I just put that phrase in there as a red herring, initially meaning nothing. However, they may be some truth to it later on, if the Wanderers (particularly Stephen) even come back. I guess you’ll just have to wait on this one. But don’t worry; that phrase is not very important in any context, I assure you.

>>26860
>I don't think so. The only way to get around it seems to have been sneaking out of the mansion without being noticed, or killing Remilia or her servants, something that seems could only have been accomplished through treachery.
Once again, the “Hermit End” was not your fault; it was not a consequence of your actions. It was just the ending I felt the story deserved based on where the story had gone. You could have easily avoided it if your attitude towards the mansion would have been different. Don’t beat yourselves up too much about it, please.

>>26861
>You are too weak. Hermit End was a good End. Manly Tears End.
If we’re going by the stereotypical CYOA conventions, ASSM’s ending was not a “Good End”. It was a “True End”. Whether or not you feel good about it rests with you.

>>26862
>What he did with Remilia was fine. The pacing of how it came about was the real problem in this case.
You hit it right on the head. A good idea in premise; I just screwed up the execution.

>>26863
I don’t really think it was a Snow End. Doesn’t everyone die in a Snow End? Quite a few were still alive at the end.

>>26866
>And that is why you failed. Do, or do not. There is no "try".
Not a bad way to put it. You could have saved a lot of trouble if you just would have made up your minds about him early on. Personally, I think even just calling him an enemy might have freed up more options for you than waffling back and forth like you did.

>>26867
Making up your mind about Nate was definitely one of the challenges I had planned for you in this story; however, you made it very hard on yourselves by never actually deciding. As for that other sentence, no. I did not penalize you for dying at all.

>>26868
This…is…epic.

Words cannot express how completely amazed I am right now. It’s so ridiculous, it isn’t even ridiculous anymore.

You get a gold star for the day.

>>26872
Flandre’s statement was actually just another ambiguous red herring. She was talking about Glish when she said “Trust him”, not Nathaniel. But by adding in that little thought that just maybe it could be Nathaniel despite all odds, it made it more interesting. Seems to have caused more problems than it solved, but I thought it was funny at the time.

You are most correct: delivering a point like that would be very stupid. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make you think I’m delivering a point when I’m really not. Though, the effect ends up being the same, so it’s retarded either way. Oh well. Live and learn.

>>26876
Only somewhat correct. While I did want the two Wanderers to reunite, as well as write the Scarlet Sisters fight, I would not have made it happen no matter what. Certain events, if played out correctly, would have made it so that Nate and Glish never even knew the other was there throughout the entire book, and the near-dodges of them meeting might have almost been more interesting than them meeting to begin with. Likewise, the final fight scene may have been omitted depending on how much of an interaction with Remilia or Flandre you had previous to the end (Sakuya might have prevented it too). However, as I said before, you more or less threw everything into Cirno, and the few interactions you had with the other characters just weren’t enough to sway the progression of events.

>>26878
Thus is the nature of all CYOAs. A blend and a compromise between what the author wants out of the story, and what the reader wants out of it. I forced events as little as I could while still keeping you guys on your toes, but there were some situations where I simply could now help but railroad the plot. Perhaps bad writing on my part, bad choices on yours, or a mixture of both; I know not.

>>26880
>Then again, this is the same lot who, when reunited with the dangerously-psychotic walking nuke that had thrown them into the life-or-death situation they had just escaped from (minus an eye, a card, and having their precious fairy die once as a result) and witnessing said person suddenly go into what was clearly an even more dangerously unstable mental state, decide it would be a good idea to go up and HUG them.
Ouch.

>>26881
>Thinking of it, we often said that this CYOA was the best of the board, but what do the author think about us? Have we been an awesome bunch of readers and voters as well?
You were indeed an awesome bunch of readers and voters; more awesome than I deserved, and more awesome than I could return back to you. You deserved a conclusion that I am sorry I could not give to you. I think many will agree with me when I say A Scarlet-Stained Memoir may have had more intelligent discussion than any other story on this site in recent memory. Only with great awesomeness could you have achieved that.

>>26882
>Why "U.N.Owen"? I'm curious, why did you choose that name for yourself?
A few reasons. Obviously, the fact that Flandre is my favorite EoSD character played a part in it. However, there were other factors. I enjoy the song “U.N.Owen Was Her?” as well, considering that the first time I ever heard it I was like, “Wait, what? This doesn’t sound anything like any of the other music! Weird, and yet, awesome!” I’ve also read and enjoyed “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie, where the name U. N. Owen first came from. Finally, I just liked the idea of the name for it being Touhou related without being too completely Touhou related, and also having a certain sort of mysterious charm and elegance.

Plus all my other usernames on other Internet sites are fairly stupid, and I needed a new one.

>>26894
>Did Owen said something on IRC about his next story? I just can't wait!
I haven’t said anything on IRC about my next story that I haven’t said here. Everything is still up in the air.

>Also, which CYOA is the most interesting at the current time?
Unfortunately, I haven’t really had the time to read many CYOAs lately, so I’m not a very good person to get recommendations from. Go look at >>26902 ; he seems to know what he’s saying.

>>26904
>For the curious beings of /sdm/, I started a translation of ASSM in French (o rly?) both for practicing English and for helping some fans to discover that story.
Wow, that’s gonna be tough, I’d bet. But very awesome, too. Good luck!

Now that I’ve gotten the backlog taken care of again, I might as well say this now.

I need a break. Not just a break from writing. A break from THP, or perhaps from the internet itself. I didn’t really try to let it show much, but ASSM was a very “heavy” story for me to try and write; I don’t know what other word to use. I was feeling depression and despair a lot while writing it, and often even after the segment was done and posted. Perhaps I just immersed myself too deep into the dark world I had created; I don’t know. All I know is that now that it’s finally done, there’s a big hole in my life (both time-wise and emotionally) that I don’t really know how to fill. I don’t just want to blindly keep going the way I’ve been going, writing like mad or watching a bunch of anime people recommend, because I’m still feeling depressed, and I don’t want to avoid a problem that might affect me adversely in the long run.

I just need to take some time out and sort though my life…sort through my priorities. Don’t expect me to post a lot for a while, and don’t assume that just because I do post once it means I’m back in action. Don’t ask me what’s going to happen from here, because I really don’t know. I didn’t expect to feel so negative and melancholic after the story was done; I actually expected just the opposite. I just want to find out, “Where do I go from here?”, is all. I like having plans for my life, but now I don’t have one, and I need to make one.

I’m not trying to scare anyone or generate sympathy with this. It may just be a passing phase that only lasts a few days, it may take weeks, or in a worst case scenario, I come back but later find out the underlying problem still isn’t solved, forcing me to start this all over again. I don’t know if taking a break from THP is actually going to solve anything; I don’t really know much of anything right now. But I think I just need to clear my head, and have less things to worry about for a bit.

See you in a while, THP…

>>26922
Good luck sorting out your life.
Just don't forget about us.

>>26922

Nevar forget!

I can't imagin what's going on in your life, but you can trust in every single user of THP for believing that you can handle these things.
Just come here from time to time ^^

(pic over 9000 hours on MS Paint)

>>26922

SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY

>>26922
>A break from THP

;_;
See you Owen. IWe will miss you a lot.
>or perhaps from the internet itself

Is that...possible?

I'm sorry to see you go, Owen, but if it's possible I have one last question.

What about the Diary? What effect (or lack of) did it have on the plot? Should we have committed ourselves to writing down everything that happened?

>>26922
/sdm/ got really quiet without you Owen.

Didn't know where else to post this so...
>The true, eternal love between man and fairy, never to be forgotten, never to die…but it was not to be.
>Did the character find love after the story? ;_;
Yes, but not as it once was. Cirno eventually started to remember what happened all those years ago, until she pretty much knew the whole story, though she never quite felt like she was really the one that experienced it. Her and Farmer’s friendship somewhat rekindled, but more as a grandfather-granddaughter kind of relationship than as peers like before.
>As far as Cirno ends go, I’d say it’s Normal. Bad would have been her dying before the fate mortality wore off, and Good would have been you not going insane and staying with her ‘till the end of your days. So this is somewhere in between.
etc etc
Thank you!

I just read the story in 3 days and I must say I really enjoyed it. I think the ending really fits it and even though I really didn't like it at first, I've grown quite fond of it and am satisfied with the above possibilities and the fact that Cirno remembers Farmer after a while.
You have written an excellent story. I already started reading some other ones as well... really hope for another Cirno ending. This one was great!

>>37816
>bumping a topic that's more than a year old

...What are you, serious? Owen doesn't even go to this site any more.

>>37818
Give the man a break. He just read one hell of a good story and came too late to vote or comment while it was running.

>>37819
Exactly. This was one hell of a ride and even if he is not here anymore, it's the thought that counts. Someone read it and that's good enough for me.
I was really glad Cirno actually remembered us for good... the way it was written in the epilogue, I thought she keeps loosing her memory every time she remembers us. Enough now I'm gonna leave this thread to rest in piece. And if you ever read this, thanks again U.N Owen!

>Owen doesn't even go to this site any more.
Yes I do. I just don’t have time to write, or a real reason to post. But since this topic got bumped, I might as well chat for a while. Hi y’alls.

>>37816
Interesting to see another accolade after so long, and after the rather mixed taste ASSM’s left in everyone’s mouths. You’re most welcome, thanks for reading, and I’m glad you enjoyed the ride, for all the bumps it may have had.

>I think the ending really fits it and even though I really didn't like it at first, I've grown quite fond of it and am satisfied with the above possibilities and the fact that Cirno remembers Farmer after a while.
Mmm, it fits, but I still think I could have made it fit better. For what it was at the time, though, it wasn’t altogether un-worthwhile.

>You have written an excellent story.
Thank you, but really, it’s not that good. Personally I think the miscellaneous short stories I’ve written on THP are of better quality, if only because I wrote them after I’d relearned how to write with ASSM. Please consider those in your “some other ones”. really sad thing is that in my opinion one of the best things I’ve written on THP is a cheesy Momiji romance short made as a joking gift to Kirin: “Puppy Love”. Go figure.

>really hope for another Cirno ending. This one was great!
If by that you mean you hope I write another ending, I’m sorry to disappoint; it’d just feel wrong adding something to ASSM after it’d been done for a year. But to you and all you other readers, please consider this: I give you all the individual right to retcon the epilogue and the explanation of the epilogue if you so choose. With this choice, the story ends after the final “I love you too”, and what happens after that is for you and you alone to decide. Take it or leave it; it’s just a choice, and a chance for ASSM’s ending to be less depressing if you prefer that.

>>37835
You are most welcome as well, valued reader. It’s those “thoughts that count” which allow stories to be remembered long after the author has moved on. I hope you care as much about the other stories you love, whether they’re on this site or not.

>Someone read it and that's good enough for me.
My thoughts exactly.

>>37886

Slowpoke here. I would have preferred some "happily ever after" ending but an ambiguous one works too. Falling back in love after losing memories is pretty romantic. I still loved the story.

You've probably heard all that before but I still felt that I needed to write it.

Come back at some point?;_;

>I give you all the individual right to retcon the epilogue and the explanation of the epilogue if you so choose.

Can do

I didn't expect sunshine and rainbows, but that ending seemed wrong to me.

I don't think you can judge a story on how "happy" or "sad" or "angry" it made you, but the impact it left. If it doesn't leave an impact you won't remember it.

I was listening to a particular song as I read the end of the story, and every time I hear that song now I think of it. I love that fuckin' song.

>>37903
Which one? Is it a 'memory song' that you only remember because it was played several times in a memorable moment of your life, or it is related in its style?
I ask because I always like more suggestions for music to hear while browsing THP, but if it is a 'memory song' then it really wouldn't help.
Per example, I have a Daft Punk song connected to a comic book.

...why is a 16 months old thread in the first page anyway?

>>37920

An unusual number of old threads have been bumped on a few boards.

>>37920
Because someone new read this story and wanted to comment that he really enjoyed it. Even if everything is already over.
And this is not bad at all, i would even encourage it.

Even Owen is looking at the boards from time to time. Never expected him to be still around after what happend....

Owen, if you ever find time and have enough will, write another story. But this time some other board. I will be sure to read it.

>>37920
The song didn't particularly resonate with the story. It's just that I came to the story's conclusion while hearing the song. It BECAME one of those "memory songs" you're talking about because of this story.

>>37931
Aye, I just finished marathoning a good chunk of the sdm board/archives, so I'm fairly grateful to get the opportunity to comment on one the finished stories.

It is pretty interesting to compare the writing from the start of the story to later on. It was great from the word go, but U.N.Owen's "relearning" shows.

Oh, and just to throw in my $0.02, I for one loved the ending. It was rather chaotic, but in the end we never had much influence over the other characters so that was somewhat expected. Cirno's suicide/forget cycle was rather a blow, but the hermit-end was definitely fitting.


Anyway, mainly wanted to say thank you, and I loved it. Last Stand was my introduction to THP, so Owen, you're a large part of the reason I've spent many an hour reading SDM.

Wait, is that a good thing"...

>>37886
>If by that you mean you hope I write another ending, I’m sorry to disappoint; it’d just feel wrong adding something to ASSM after it’d been done for a year. But to you and all you other readers, please consider this: I give you all the individual right to retcon the epilogue and the explanation of the epilogue if you so choose. With this choice, the story ends after the final “I love you too”, and what happens after that is for you and you alone to decide. Take it or leave it; it’s just a choice, and a chance for ASSM’s ending to be less depressing if you prefer that.
No no I did not mean it like that at all. What I meant was if you write another story it would be great to see another Cirno ending. You really did a great job developing her as a character.

I agree with 37931 if you ever feel like writing again I'd love to read some of your stories. No pressure... I'm pulling not pushing if you know what I mean ;)
By the way, 37816&37835 are both me.

Well if you ever do feel like writing here after taking care of what flaws you had, I'm all for it.

Owen coming back to write is half as likely as Both Tales of Graces and Tales of Hearts getting a US release.

>>37893
I could hear that a thousand people on THP loved this story, and I’d still appreciate the thousand-and-first. And telling a creator you appreciate their work is almost as much for you as it is for them.

>>37900
You, me, and probably more than half the people who’ve read it. Like I’ve said, I was super-depressed when I wrote it; not a good idea.

>>37931
>Even Owen is looking at the boards from time to time. Never expected him to be still around after what happend....
Most of what has “happened” in the past was ultimately my fault, even if some anonymous people didn’t really help make matters any better. But you know what? It’s the Internet. If you’re not prepared to take some heat for what you say, you’re in the wrong place. I’ve got no beef with anyone here; what happens happens, and you’ve just got to live with it and keep going. Running away and pointing fingers at an indescript blob called “Anon” certainly won’t solve anything.

>>37955
>It is pretty interesting to compare the writing from the start of the story to later on. It was great from the word go, but U.N.Owen's "relearning" shows.
Uggh, it does and then some. Sometimes it actually brings me physical pain to read my really old stuff, because every five minutes I keep asking myself, “I actually thought this was good at the time?” Not that ASSM is really old, but in my eyes it didn’t exactly age perfectly well.

>Oh, and just to throw in my $0.02, I for one loved the ending. It was rather chaotic, but in the end we never had much influence over the other characters so that was somewhat expected. Cirno's suicide/forget cycle was rather a blow, but the hermit-end was definitely fitting.
Such was my reasoning for writing it that way in the first place. I’m glad you liked it despite the “chaos”.

>Last Stand was my introduction to THP, so Owen, you're a large part of the reason I've spent many an hour reading SDM. Wait, is that a good thing"...
It’s a better reason than some others I can think of, such as reading stories for the sole purpose of character routes or sex scenes. We all have to start somewhere; truthfully the real reason I latched onto the SDM was because out of all the games it had the most characters which formed a cohesive unit together. But I’m glad that I started you off on the right foot, so to speak. Well, unless you didn’t like Last Stand, in which case derp.

>>37967
Ahh, okay. Again, though, sorry to disappoint; I’d rather not over-centralize on one character. I’ve given Cirno plenty of my love; it’s time for some other girl to have a turn.

>Various comments concerning me writing again.
Gack; this makes me feel horrible. I really do love writing and wish I could write more, but for me it’s a combined issue of available free time and writing momentum. When I write, I write hard, but when I stop, I stop just as hard. Summer work and senior year at the university did a good job killing my muse, and even now that I’m back on break it’s still painfully hard to find the drive to get back up and write again. Plus I’d hate to start a new story only to never finish, or write maybe one short and be unable to write another; that’d just be a horrible troll on my part after a year of inactivity, even if unintended.

I’ll say that it’s not impossible that I’ll come back and write again. Just don’t expect me to.

>Ahh, okay. Again, though, sorry to disappoint; I’d rather not over-centralize on one character. I’ve given Cirno plenty of my love; it’s time for some other girl to have a turn.

Ah I see... well I wouldn't mind atleast seeing(reading) more of her if nothing else. She's my favourite character thus far tho I admit I have yet to read a great deal of stories and /sdm/ is the only place I ever visit. There are so many wonderful stories here... and the SDM residents are my favourite.

Considering you writing again, hope dies last they say and hey that's better than nothing! A hope... a chance.
Where have I heard that before I wonder?
By the way I'm glad you enjoyed Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni as much as I did. If you plan on watching Umineko... don't. the anime adaptation is horrible! If you plan on watching it I advise you to play the VN instead. It may seem long but trust me. Time is going to fly by in an instant. I read the first 4 games in 4 days. And the fifth in half of one.

Oh hey, it's good to see that you're alive.

>Never expected him to be still around after what happend....
It might just be because it was a long time ago, but what happened? I don't recall Owen getting any real fallout for the ending; he did the weird story in /others/ that exploded (I didn't read it), and then he did Shoes, which I don't recall going bad either.

>>38026
I’ve actually bought the hard copy of Umineko Episodes 1-4, because I was so impressed with the demo. Amazing stuff, amazing music. Never got around to the anime; I almost want to watch just a few episodes for perspective’s sake.

How you managed to get through an entire episode in one day is beyond me; each episode took me a good ten hours of quality reading, plus about twice that in trying to puzzle out all the whodunits. Haven’t gotten around to the newer episode(s?) yet due to the aforementioned free time problems, and because I’d rather reread the first four episodes again first to refresh all my crazy closed room theories. Umineko mindscrewery is SRS BSNS.

>>38072
Being alive is a good thing indeed. But I might as well be dead for all I’ve written in the past year.

>>38074
The “happenings” as I see them are a three-part incident, interspersed with IRC misunderstandings due to my unfamiliarity with fast-pacing chatting and frequently trying to climb out of the proverbial hole I’d dug for myself.

The first part was ASSM’s ending, which I did and have received heat for due to its sudden change of pace and bittersweet conclusion. Over time it’s cooled down and people have mostly accepted it for what it is, but back in the day it was a hot issue (Though never quite so hot to be the cold that was Snow).

The second part was indeed the /others/ story, an experiment in a completely different CYOA style that sort of crashed and burned due to utter audacity mixed with the protagonist’s connection to the disapproved OCs from ASSM. Some say I cancelled it prematurely, but I could see it had a weak foundation and I wasn’t the kind of writer would could pull such a ludicrous story off well. Not all dreams should become realities.

The third part was a very short-lived topic on /words/, back when it was practically unused; not many people know about this one since the thread was deleted at my request. Basically I made a topic trying to explain and rectify a lot of misunderstandings about me, mixed with my personal feelings about writing and THP. Unfortunately, I came off as being an elitist blogger with delusions of grandeur, and I was shot down pretty badly. This one hurt me the most, but had the least visible impact.

Overall these “happenings” are a pittance compared to the kinds of drama that made well-known people like YAF and Ramilia leave, but considering I sort of dropped off the face of the THP Earth without warning, it might have seemed worse than it was. Don’t worry about it; the past is past. You learn from it, move on, and try not to do it again.

>>38100
>Being alive is a good thing indeed. But I might as well be dead for all I’ve written in the past year.
I forgive you.

Anon regrets chasing you off... I'm sure! You are forgiven (though in my opinion, you should be doing the forgiving. Glad I didn't have anything to do with it since I'm new).

>I’ve actually bought the hard copy of Umineko Episodes 1-4, because I was so impressed with the demo. Amazing stuff, amazing music. Never got around to the anime; I almost want to watch just a few episodes for perspective’s sake.

I wanted to buy them myself (and I still do) but the shipment, the cost, the ... and headaches... I just hope the new anime store our forum set up is going to grant my wish and FREAKING SHIP IT ALREADY!!! ...sorry about that

Yeah the BGM is amazing and so is the story. By far my favorite VN yet.

I started off with the anime actually, but I got sooo bored of waiting for new episodes, I downloaded the games instead (which says much about Umineko's quality, I rarely play VNs and I started playing this one because of a CRAPPY anime adaptation).


>How you managed to get through an entire episode in one day is beyond me; each episode took me a good ten hours of quality reading, plus about twice that in trying to puzzle out all the whodunits. Haven’t gotten around to the newer episode(s?) yet due to the aforementioned free time problems, and because I’d rather reread the first four episodes again first to refresh all my crazy closed room theories. Umineko mindscrewery is SRS BSNS.

That's just how good I think it is. I was blessed with time back then (vacations), so I could spend the whole 24 hours doing nothing but reading. I think I said I needed 4 days? I think it was 3 actually... I don't remember. Episode 5 is quite good as well although I'd rather not say anything else. Don't want to spoil it for you. Still waiting for EP6 translation (GO WITCH HUNT GO!!).

Umineko and Touhou are possibly the only games
I'd ever bother spending money on and if only I get the chance, I sure as hell will!

PS: You're quite fun to chat with. Glad you're back at least for this much (I'd put a smiley face here but... yeah, just know that it's there)
God damned tiny tiny mistakes... how many times did I delete this message and resend it?

Ever wondered how it feels from Farmer's scrying perspective?
http://www.kongregate.com/games/himojii/second-person-shooter-zato

I read this story up to the part with the chair and where Anon voted for the eye-gouging. Then I could not continue.

The first stage boss of Story of Eastern Wonderland is a tank, and Reimu wrecks it with danmaku more quickly than she takes down any other boss in the series. In Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, Yumemi used danmaku to kill a copy of herself in her route. So, more or less, at least to me, the player's danmaku being unable to even budge that pin is, well...in general I thought you were marginalizing the series-central aspect of danmaku too much, and that was the breaking point for me. Looking at this thread, it looks like things went downhill from that point, so I have no regrets.

Interesting fact regarding Higurashi, since that seems to have contributed to the breakdown: Originally, Ryukishi07 wanted to create a Touhou visual novel, but ZUN vetoed it. So he made Higurashi instead. If he had made a Touhou visual novel, I can only imagine that if it had a Higurashi-esque plot, it would be something like this (but with a better motivation for the villain, and probably fewer male OCs, but that's been talked about enough already). And it worries me to think of it, because either Ryukishi07 would fade into obscurity, or worse, it would gather a following, and irreparably change Touhou's face to the world. No more would youkai eating people be shrugged off, and I fear that the danmaku system would be de-emphasized the way it was here, but fanbase-wide.

Now for an actual question instead of a comment, assuming Owen ever checks this thread again. Marisa apparently visits the SDM quite often in canon, even more often than Reimu does. (Fanon often shows her stealing books from the library.) Yet, as far as I can tell, she never showed up in this story. Where was she?