Doctor Wallenstein Grows Funny Creatures

[davidn]

Just as I realize my usually sane and well-adjusted journal has consisted near exclusively of this for the last two weeks - it's the final part! Though a lot of things had to be taken out of this one in the interests of flow/relevance, so I might yet put together a separate out-takes video for it. Somehow, we survived. Well, I'm just speaking for myself here - I'm not sure about the others.

Thank you once again to everyone who took part, and for kjorteo's organization of us all. I had a great time doing this - not least in the climactic scene which was the verbal equivalent of battling with two colossal wedges of ham - and I honestly can't wait for our attempt to do the same thing with Holidaystar (assuming that our effort at that can eventually get posted and doesn't have to be sealed in some vault somewhere).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0dJ9vEhl4E

0:20 Legumentine's
0:55 Prophecy of Beans
2:25 The limits of weirdness
3:15 Broken windows
3:40 Normal reaction to Anghel
3:50 Well-paragraphed windows
4:10 Anghel trip
5:20 11 Wisdom (572)
5:30 Black Beandonna!
6:20 HRAAUGUGUUGHGHAGHAGHAGHGAHHGHGHRGHGHAGHRHGH
7:35 A long year
8:00 The letter/racism count
8:40 The Inverted Infirmary
9:10 BATTLE OF THE RHAPSODY NARRATORS
10:30 Wallenstein
10:50 Gyaaaaaaaaaggghh!
11:20 Destruction bender
11:45 The forbidden Mantrayaniyaniyania
12:20 Acting!
12:40 The squiggles will protect us
13:45 The final boss
(It really just speaks for itself from here on)
16:30 After the war
17:30 More questions than answers
18:45 Making it through Holidaystar
19:40 Optimism
20:40 Dumbfounded, dumbstruck, pleased, exploded

Comments

[xaq.livejournal.com]

That dialog at the 17:30 mark brought a hypothesis to mind...

Is it possible that Anghel was involved in the Hatoful House incident somehow? I could understand Hiyoko forgetting about him at that time; it was a rather traumatic experience for her, after all. Something may have happened between the two that ultimately led to a violent falling-out between them, after which Shuu captured him, putting him in the medical center about the same time as Nageki.

In that regard, Hiyoko would have been somewhat responsible for his imprisonment.

Hmm....

[kjorteo]

Hiyoko and Ryouta were children during that incident, and thus, Anghel had to have been as well. I know Murderbeaks is Murderbeaks and all, but it somehow seems ... unlikely to me that even he would have kidnapped a random (if ... random) Luzon and kept him in his freezer for basically his entire life.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Assuming he didn't learn of Anghel's hypnosis-inducing abilities at the time, anyway.

In any case, I don't think the "Cage of Ice" was a literal term, but just an Anghelism for where he was kept while Shuu & the medical center examined his abilities. I'm almost 100% certain it's named in reference to Cocytus, the frozen river at the bottom layer of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy where the souls of those who committed treason are trapped. Cocytus itself is divided into 4 layers, the innermost of which, reserved for those who betrayed their masters, is called Judecca.

Basically, I see it as Anghel's way of saying that his time in the medical center was a literal Hell for him.

[kjorteo]

I'm still convinced that it's an Anghelism for some sort of refrigerator or cold-storage unit, like the kind Ryouta and Hiyoko hibernate in at the end of BBL while waiting for medical technology to improve. (Of course, since said unit is inside the abandoned medical facility, we could very easily both be right.) It has to be more than just a traumatic flashback to a time that officially ended with Nageki's suicide/burning down the entire facility five years ago, since Anghel is still a missing student during every otome route except his, possibly the dismembered student at the end of Shuu's route, and only makes any sort of appearance if you wish for the mad love of a fallen angel and/or make it to about 4th class of BBL. He's still being kept in the Cage of Ice right up until the present day, obviously long after the medical facility shut down.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

....Oh hell. How badly have we been violating the "don't tempt the game" rule back and forth just now? D:

[kjorteo]

I'm only giving theories and speculation on what I think already happened.... D:

[premchaia_pre4]

It's so cute how linear your sense of time is sometimes.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but from stuff I've seen on Moa's Tumblr, HolidayStar's going to involve some degree of flashbacking and backstory along these lines, so we may be setting ourselves up for all sorts of disaster on it.

Crap.

[davidn]

If I can just point this out at this stage - "I swear that half of Anghel's dialogue is going to be shockingly profound in retrospect"!

This was half right.

[kjorteo]

Oh, I guess I did tempt the game again after all, didn't I.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Told ya we blew it. D:

[kjorteo]

You missed another 11 Wisdom reference at 13:00. :)

This was amazing. The group plays against each other perfectly, and everyone brings untold amusement to everyone else and everyone makes everyone else crack up at every turn. It's the best madness ever. I had the time of my life, and cannot wait to continue this kind of fun when HolidayStar is out! My biggest and most sincere thanks to everyone in the mean time; the group dynamic really is what made this special, and so I couldn't have done this without you (whatever "this" is.)

[kjorteo]

Also, "Dumbfounded, dumbstruck, pleased, exploded" and "Doctor Wallenstein grows funny creatures" ... hah. :)

[davidn]

It really was the best time I'd had in weeks - for a group so widely distributed around the world, it's rare for us to actually get a group of more than two people and do something together, and as unlikely as it may seem at first glance to anyone unfamiliar with what this game does to people, this was a wonderful way in which to do that :)

Everyone in this route did fantastically with the characters that were virtually randomly assigned to them - Kaye's enthusiastic narration breaking down into confusion, your Squall Nageki voice and the definitive Pidgeworth Sakuya, Xaq's bright-but-unsubtly-depressed Ryouta and singing Okosan, Ravenworks' completely unexpected rejuvenation of Yuuya and frankly incredible Anghel, and... how did I get typecast as the villain! Though I'm wondering if I should poke my head into a Hatoful forum somewhere and ask, just before we begin the new adventure, the rough balance of importance that each character has in the game so that we remain with a roughly equal share of the voices... I couldn't help noticing that Xaq and Ravenworks unfortunately had very small roles in the cafe and that you virtually didn't appear at all in this episode apart from in the RPG narration at the end! But perhaps this is unavoidable - and even when people hadn't spoken for a while, they still managed to inject themselves wonderfully from the sidelines - whether as themselves or their assigned avians.

[kjorteo]

It can't have been too random, or I wouldn't have ended up with the only two characters in the entire cast I can actually do (and Rabu)! Also, I'm pretty sure you ended up with Murderbeaks because Raven considers your Snape voice for him to be as iconic as he does my Pidgeworth. Also, speaking of Raven, he has to be by far the biggest surprise in the cast--I figured his Yuuya would be good just because he is all about being lecherous and French anyway, but I had no idea it would be that good ... and I certainly didn't expect him to secretly be the best Anghel ever.

I think this group has proven itself to be surprisingly good at improvisation, and we seem to have an innate understanding of how to let overlooked voice actors slip back in when it's been too long. No one told me to narrate the RPG text at the end--I just randomly decided to do it, and no one objected. Likewise, Raven just happened to seize the Punkgeons when they appeared, too. Since we each seemed to end up with main cast members we're good at, I say just forge ahead as we are, and if a part gets too small, that person can add on some background roles to compensate. (For example, Kaye would have a somewhat lessened role if we were to do BBL for what should be obvious reasons, but if we were to fling everyone from One and Headmaster Monsterbird to Labor 9, from Ryuuji to the random redshirt students, etc. at her, then it should work out!) Plus, we can always do temporary trades or something (someone tagging in for Azami next time Kaye is about to do a fifteen-minute one-woman show, for example.) We've proven ourselves capable of handling this, I think!