Furudo Erika (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thinkoutsidethebox) wrote2013-02-05 07:03 pm
thinkoutsidethebox) wrote2013-02-05 07:03 pm
Entry tags:
Heart writeup!
Overall this heart worked out amazingly and people pretty much saw and did everything I wanted them to! Everyone in the heart could probably make a reasonable guess at what everything meant I think. But of course this write up is for details, changes and posterity.
Obviously, Erika's heart was a murder mystery!! There is no way it could be anything else because Erika was literally made for murder mysteries and she's extremely obsessive about them. In general, the heart followed pretty strict rules and was very straightforwardly organized, and the only way to progress was through intellectual challenges that forced you to put concerted effort into learning the truth and understanding Erika in a way she'd accept! You couldn't just wander around and learn stuff by accident. Knox's 6th: It is forbidden for accident or intuition to be employed as a detective technique. All magic or supernatural abilities were also immediately disabled upon entrance to the heart due to Knox's 2nd: It is forbidden for supernatural agencies to be employed as a detective technique.
Top-level comment link to the heart!
Level 1 was Erika's outward expression. The six bedrooms labeled with letters housed six different aspects of her! As everyone pretty much figured out (yay!!) they were Intellect, Sadism, Jealousy, Affection, Hope and Trust.
Intellect was the only one out of her room, having declared herself Game Master. This is a reflection of the fact that Erika wants her primary mode of expression to be intellectual! The other five were all locked and duct tape sealed in their rooms. Erika has not actually ever in her memory outwardly expressed Affection, Hope or Trust, and in fact actively suppresses doing so, so Affection, Hope and Trust were all currently murdered. The goal of this section of the heart was to figure out how it happened and to challenge Game Master Erika until you solved the mystery! (Whodunnit, howdunnit, and whydunnit.)
The dining hall was mostly there to be dramatic, as well to show that they were planning on having a civilized dinner at some point - with a guest; hence the seven place settings. Game Master Erika was sitting at the side of the table without a place setting because she's given up on that. The guest themselves wasn't supposed to represent anyone in particular, or even a real hope for company - it was more the history of betrayal and how expectations of other people can just hurt you. It was also supposed to be somewhat of a red herring so people could speculate this mysterious guest was the culprit, even though that would be against Knox's 1st: It is forbidden for the culprit to be anyone not mentioned in the early part of the story.
The kitchen was largely empty - the only things in there were appliances and tools for the murder mystery. The most important part of the kitchen is that it's where all the murder weapons came from, implying it was an inside job. The lack of food also represents that Erika isn't currently equipped with the supplies to act like a normal person (food...), just tools for murder and investigation (the alcohol also counts as a tool for murder and investigation, since it was used to murder Trust, and it's useful to lower inhibitions to gather information).
The bedrooms themselves were all decorated according to the aspect that lived in them! The rooms of those who were murdered also contained all the murder weapons and other clues. The wardrobes contained clothes that fit with their main modes/times of expression. The three murdered Erikas only had her canon clothes because those feelings were dead before Aather. (Technically they were dead even before she got her pink dress but Erika doesn't remember any other clothes.) Intellect had both canon clothes and Jasper dresses and a swimsuit. Sadism had both canon clothes and Jasper dresses. Jealousy didn't have a wardrobe because jealousy, and was wearing her canon dress because most of her outwardly expressed jealousy is in canon re: Bernkastel and Lambda.
Everyone basically solved the mystery in the end! But for the record, here was the description of the series of events that I wrote up beforehand:
Not a whole lot here, since this was the outward expression part and no one did anything radical like trying to kill Jealousy or Sadism. The main things were:
- Everyone who participated in successfully solving the mystery will find it somewhat easier to get Erika to open up to them. That's Lambda, Azure, and Beatrice the most, Nunnally, Sakuya and Seth to a slightly lesser extent, and Tyki and Battler some.
- Erika will feel vaguely like she has a sadism date with Beato and Battler.
- Sakuya brought Jealousy mystery novels and Jasper dresses from Intellect's room. Erika will now be more likely to express her jealousy outwardly in Aather, but also more likely to suppress the fact that she's jealous with intellectual pursuits.
Kiwi made this image for me! ♥ That is why it is much prettier than my map.
This is the next level down, Erika's reference on all facts about herself and other people. There were two bookshelves in this room, helpfully labeled Rokkenjima and Aather, and helpfully indexed by topic. These contained all of Erika's memories in book form! (Well, not all of her Aather memories, obviously, and in fact probably not even all the important ones because I got kind of sloppy in thread collection once I got past the required 23 memories to make the puzzle work, but it was certainly enough to give you an idea.)
The index had certain memories underlined (the ones Erika has found most important to refer to where she has several memories about a person), and several subjects crossed out (friendship, hope and love; Erika can identify that is what those memories are about but she doesn't want to acknowledge it).
The puzzle here was the fact that numbers 5, 11, and 25 from both the Aather and Rokkenjima shelves were not indexed at all. If you pulled those from the shelves you just saw the corresponding letters (spelling KEY twice) and opened the hidden passage to the next area. Of course, according to Knox's 3rd: It is forbidden for hidden passages to exist without sufficient foreshadowing. Hence the OOC description "You get the feeling that anything could be hidden here..." and the fact that you could find the seams in the wall if you were looking for them! The two keyholes on the cover of the index were a hint, of course - the keys were not in the index.
The point of this puzzle was that to figure it out you had to either pay attention to what wasn't specifically called out (noticing the numbers missing from the index) or decide you were going to learn everything in its entirety (reading through the memories in chronological order, at which point you'd almost certainly figure things out when you got to #5). Either way you had to display a dedicated desire to figure things out rather than just reading the things you thought were relevant to you! Though of course the index was also there so people could read the things that were relevant to them.
The materials on the desk were there for making new memories. This is the biggest way you could make direct changes in the heart, since you could basically write whatever you wanted into Erika's canon. Had anyone written a long fanfic about Erika learning the meaning of friendship, or one in which they were totally awesome and smart, or whatever, Erika would remember it as fact! Provided that they wrote everyone in character and it all developed in a reasonable way and stuff.
Of course, you couldn't write things in red that weren't true. In general, if it hurt when you wrote something in red it meant that it's strictly untrue, and if you just felt cold it meant it was more unverifiable/badly phrased. This wasn't really meant as a guess-and-check mechanism which is why it hurt a lot when you messed up. :|b If you have any questions about why something could or couldn't be written in red let me know. For instance, Nunnally trying "Anyone could potentially be the guest" didn't work because Erika would not actually let "anyone" (or even "a wide variety of people") offer her companionship, because even at her best Erika is an obnoxious intellectually superior brat and won't give the time of day to anyone she thinks isn't up to her standards.
Things written in black Erika will remember as normal memories! Things in blue Erika will remember as unproven but uncountered theories, and she'll have some desire to test them. Things written in red Erika will remember as fact and be unable to deny. (Though that doesn't mean she'll necessarily deal with them in any sane way.)
- Beatrice wrote (in black) a fanfic about what happened in that heart room. Specifically:
- Lambda labeled the crossed-out love entry in the index with "love", and Seth did the same for that as well as "hope" and "friendship" in red. Erika will no longer be able to deny that's what those memories are about.
- Sakuya drew the Shirogane crest and wrote "Erika has a place on Jasper" and "Shirogane cares for Erika! Ha!"
- Seth made a new book and wrote "Eve has returned to Jasper." and "Eve cares for Erika, and sees Erika as always having a place within Jasper, despite disagreements." in it, and added "Eve" to the index.
- Nunnally wrote "Anything could be written here.", "Miss Erika is lonely." "Her teammate has expressed the desire to do better by her, and the hope that she will do better by her team. A change in the situation is possible.", and "The guest might still arrive."
- Nunnally also tore up her memory of the bottom level of Rolo's heart a bit so she will have a hard time remembering it clearly.
- Lambda wrote "We aren't so different." (And also some blue truths about the hidden passage, but those won't have an effect.)
- Tyki wrote 'Stories from other worlds'. A description about a fat, jolly man with pointy ears and a top hat, and how this man can bring back the dead from a 'hateful god'. and signed it Rook/Tyki. Erika will remember it and also that Tyki is his name!
Where specifically the books ended up on the shelves/on the desk isn't important because Erika will mentally reorganize and reindex everything as soon as she's consciously aware of it.
This was the least organized part because I ran out of stamina in planning, but that's okay because Erika doesn't organize her feelings!! The Erika down here was the True Heart, or at least the closest Erika has to a True Heart because as far as Erika is concerned she doesn't have any truer desires than what she shows to people all the time. So it was more like how Erika pictures herself, at the core. It was some combination of an ideal (she's a white queen) and reality she can't deny (she's a piece controlled by her master, she's eternally on the precipice of falling into the depths of oblivion and only her purpose of seeking the truth prevents it). True Heart Erika was also somewhat emotionless, reflecting her ideal that deep feelings don't matter to her!! (Even if in the face of unpleasant truths about herself.) However, she couldn't actually... get rid of her deeper feelings... because they were in fact true feelings and her truth net wouldn't let them through! And she didn't want to put them higher up in the heart because that would mean showing them to people. So instead they were just a mess of confused feelings-representations.
The final test of the heart was to tell important truths about both yourself and about Erika. This was to prove you were capable of both getting to the truth of someone else (Erika) and facing the truth about yourself! Erika won't let anyone not willing or able to do that get that close to her.
- Erika won't actually remember any truths spoken down here, but she'll have somewhat greater respect for everyone who said them. That's Beatrice, Lambda, Battler, Nunnally, Seth, and Sakuya.
- Lambda pulled Swift's feelings knight upright and Beatrice further organized all the feelings chunks a bit. This doesn't make a huge difference, but Erika's internal feelings will be slightly less of a mess.
- Seth asked Erika about whether she could choose to cut her strings and gave her own knife to do so if she wanted. Battler later cut her strings himself so she can't do that, but Erika will generally feel she has external support in detaching herself from Bernkastel/her past/authority/people who want her to do things.
- Nunnally gave her a paper crane and shared a bottle of wine with her. Like Erika said, she doesn't go much in for symbols, so the paper crane will just give her the sense that Nunnally gave her a gift. Since the wine was an information gathering tool from the first level, she will also feel slightly more free with information, and like that will inspire other people to share information as well.
- Battler cut her strings with bolt cutters. This completely removes any lingering belief Erika had that she is controlled by Bernkastel's wishes. Erika is now acting independently and no longer thinks of herself as Bern's piece! This also means True Heart Erika could theoretically move somewhere other than suspended over the depths of oblivion but she'd have to... make somewhere else to go first.
Questions, comments? Let me know if I missed anything because I probably missed things!
Thank you once more to everyone who played in my heart, it exceeded my every expectation. ♥
Obviously, Erika's heart was a murder mystery!! There is no way it could be anything else because Erika was literally made for murder mysteries and she's extremely obsessive about them. In general, the heart followed pretty strict rules and was very straightforwardly organized, and the only way to progress was through intellectual challenges that forced you to put concerted effort into learning the truth and understanding Erika in a way she'd accept! You couldn't just wander around and learn stuff by accident. Knox's 6th: It is forbidden for accident or intuition to be employed as a detective technique. All magic or supernatural abilities were also immediately disabled upon entrance to the heart due to Knox's 2nd: It is forbidden for supernatural agencies to be employed as a detective technique.
Top-level comment link to the heart!
Level 1: The Murder Mystery
Level 1 was Erika's outward expression. The six bedrooms labeled with letters housed six different aspects of her! As everyone pretty much figured out (yay!!) they were Intellect, Sadism, Jealousy, Affection, Hope and Trust.
Intellect was the only one out of her room, having declared herself Game Master. This is a reflection of the fact that Erika wants her primary mode of expression to be intellectual! The other five were all locked and duct tape sealed in their rooms. Erika has not actually ever in her memory outwardly expressed Affection, Hope or Trust, and in fact actively suppresses doing so, so Affection, Hope and Trust were all currently murdered. The goal of this section of the heart was to figure out how it happened and to challenge Game Master Erika until you solved the mystery! (Whodunnit, howdunnit, and whydunnit.)
The dining hall was mostly there to be dramatic, as well to show that they were planning on having a civilized dinner at some point - with a guest; hence the seven place settings. Game Master Erika was sitting at the side of the table without a place setting because she's given up on that. The guest themselves wasn't supposed to represent anyone in particular, or even a real hope for company - it was more the history of betrayal and how expectations of other people can just hurt you. It was also supposed to be somewhat of a red herring so people could speculate this mysterious guest was the culprit, even though that would be against Knox's 1st: It is forbidden for the culprit to be anyone not mentioned in the early part of the story.
The kitchen was largely empty - the only things in there were appliances and tools for the murder mystery. The most important part of the kitchen is that it's where all the murder weapons came from, implying it was an inside job. The lack of food also represents that Erika isn't currently equipped with the supplies to act like a normal person (food...), just tools for murder and investigation (the alcohol also counts as a tool for murder and investigation, since it was used to murder Trust, and it's useful to lower inhibitions to gather information).
The bedrooms themselves were all decorated according to the aspect that lived in them! The rooms of those who were murdered also contained all the murder weapons and other clues. The wardrobes contained clothes that fit with their main modes/times of expression. The three murdered Erikas only had her canon clothes because those feelings were dead before Aather. (Technically they were dead even before she got her pink dress but Erika doesn't remember any other clothes.) Intellect had both canon clothes and Jasper dresses and a swimsuit. Sadism had both canon clothes and Jasper dresses. Jealousy didn't have a wardrobe because jealousy, and was wearing her canon dress because most of her outwardly expressed jealousy is in canon re: Bernkastel and Lambda.
Everyone basically solved the mystery in the end! But for the record, here was the description of the series of events that I wrote up beforehand:
Everyone gathered for dinner, but their guest didn't appear. After they gave up, everyone returned to their rooms. Then, Sadism emerged and recruited Jealousy. Together, they visited each of the other rooms.
Affection greeted them warmly, and while Jealousy was frozen in indecision Sadism hit her over the head with a cast-iron pan and knocked her out. Together they made a makeshift noose out of a bedsheet and strung her from the ceiling. They waited for her to regain consciousness before hanging her so they could watch her choke silently.
Hope greeted them with wide eyes, asking if their guest had arrived late. Jealousy held her mouth shut, and Sadism slit her throat. Once she bled out, she stabbed a paring knife through each eye. Then Sadism changed into a new dress, retrieved from Hope's closet. They left the bloody dress and the knife in the room.
Trust welcomed them in easily, and they brought a bottle of alcohol to share. They poured it over her head and set her alight. Trust screamed, and they tried to smother her voice and the fire with a blanket. When the fire was out she was dead.
Intellect came running out of her room to find out what was going on, and discovered the culprits without much effort, of course. So she decided to take control and make things more interesting. She ushered Sadism and Jealousy back into their rooms and locked and sealed all of them.
Changes Made
Not a whole lot here, since this was the outward expression part and no one did anything radical like trying to kill Jealousy or Sadism. The main things were:
- Everyone who participated in successfully solving the mystery will find it somewhat easier to get Erika to open up to them. That's Lambda, Azure, and Beatrice the most, Nunnally, Sakuya and Seth to a slightly lesser extent, and Tyki and Battler some.
- Erika will feel vaguely like she has a sadism date with Beato and Battler.
- Sakuya brought Jealousy mystery novels and Jasper dresses from Intellect's room. Erika will now be more likely to express her jealousy outwardly in Aather, but also more likely to suppress the fact that she's jealous with intellectual pursuits.
Level 2: The Memory Library
Kiwi made this image for me! ♥ That is why it is much prettier than my map.
This is the next level down, Erika's reference on all facts about herself and other people. There were two bookshelves in this room, helpfully labeled Rokkenjima and Aather, and helpfully indexed by topic. These contained all of Erika's memories in book form! (Well, not all of her Aather memories, obviously, and in fact probably not even all the important ones because I got kind of sloppy in thread collection once I got past the required 23 memories to make the puzzle work, but it was certainly enough to give you an idea.)
The index had certain memories underlined (the ones Erika has found most important to refer to where she has several memories about a person), and several subjects crossed out (friendship, hope and love; Erika can identify that is what those memories are about but she doesn't want to acknowledge it).
The puzzle here was the fact that numbers 5, 11, and 25 from both the Aather and Rokkenjima shelves were not indexed at all. If you pulled those from the shelves you just saw the corresponding letters (spelling KEY twice) and opened the hidden passage to the next area. Of course, according to Knox's 3rd: It is forbidden for hidden passages to exist without sufficient foreshadowing. Hence the OOC description "You get the feeling that anything could be hidden here..." and the fact that you could find the seams in the wall if you were looking for them! The two keyholes on the cover of the index were a hint, of course - the keys were not in the index.
The point of this puzzle was that to figure it out you had to either pay attention to what wasn't specifically called out (noticing the numbers missing from the index) or decide you were going to learn everything in its entirety (reading through the memories in chronological order, at which point you'd almost certainly figure things out when you got to #5). Either way you had to display a dedicated desire to figure things out rather than just reading the things you thought were relevant to you! Though of course the index was also there so people could read the things that were relevant to them.
The materials on the desk were there for making new memories. This is the biggest way you could make direct changes in the heart, since you could basically write whatever you wanted into Erika's canon. Had anyone written a long fanfic about Erika learning the meaning of friendship, or one in which they were totally awesome and smart, or whatever, Erika would remember it as fact! Provided that they wrote everyone in character and it all developed in a reasonable way and stuff.
Of course, you couldn't write things in red that weren't true. In general, if it hurt when you wrote something in red it meant that it's strictly untrue, and if you just felt cold it meant it was more unverifiable/badly phrased. This wasn't really meant as a guess-and-check mechanism which is why it hurt a lot when you messed up. :|b If you have any questions about why something could or couldn't be written in red let me know. For instance, Nunnally trying "Anyone could potentially be the guest" didn't work because Erika would not actually let "anyone" (or even "a wide variety of people") offer her companionship, because even at her best Erika is an obnoxious intellectually superior brat and won't give the time of day to anyone she thinks isn't up to her standards.
Changes Made
Things written in black Erika will remember as normal memories! Things in blue Erika will remember as unproven but uncountered theories, and she'll have some desire to test them. Things written in red Erika will remember as fact and be unable to deny. (Though that doesn't mean she'll necessarily deal with them in any sane way.)
- Beatrice wrote (in black) a fanfic about what happened in that heart room. Specifically:
A narrative starring the people who entered the heart, wherein Lambdadelta comments that she's seen this library before, misc. extras start complaining that there's nothing but books here, and Lambdadelta counters with the fact that there are known to be various hidden passages in the library that one might be able to find. The characters muse on this until Beatrice notices the suspicious seams on the wall.Erika will remember that this happened! (Note: this is not what happened. But it's in character.)
[after the development that the wall doesn't move when pushed] Everyone decides to try taking books off the shelf to see if the passages can be opened that way.
The plan to remove books from the shelves is quickly disrupted as many people, acting simultaneously, realize they are memories; Battler is the unfortunate recipient of R10 and makes his displeasure loudly heard. Beatrice, giving the reasoning that she remembers quite a bit by now and is not easily surprised by unsavory characters, offers to try her hand at personally investigating. Battler argues for a bit because he is overprotective but is eventually convinced to stand back. The other attendees of the heart, not as easily affected, are permitted to keep moving books as they see fit, while Beatrice decides to look for even more alternative methods.
Concluding with all of the characters being puzzled by the passages.
- Lambda labeled the crossed-out love entry in the index with "love", and Seth did the same for that as well as "hope" and "friendship" in red. Erika will no longer be able to deny that's what those memories are about.
- Sakuya drew the Shirogane crest and wrote "Erika has a place on Jasper" and "Shirogane cares for Erika! Ha!"
- Seth made a new book and wrote "Eve has returned to Jasper." and "Eve cares for Erika, and sees Erika as always having a place within Jasper, despite disagreements." in it, and added "Eve" to the index.
- Nunnally wrote "Anything could be written here.", "Miss Erika is lonely." "Her teammate has expressed the desire to do better by her, and the hope that she will do better by her team. A change in the situation is possible.", and "The guest might still arrive."
- Nunnally also tore up her memory of the bottom level of Rolo's heart a bit so she will have a hard time remembering it clearly.
- Lambda wrote "We aren't so different." (And also some blue truths about the hidden passage, but those won't have an effect.)
- Tyki wrote 'Stories from other worlds'. A description about a fat, jolly man with pointy ears and a top hat, and how this man can bring back the dead from a 'hateful god'. and signed it Rook/Tyki. Erika will remember it and also that Tyki is his name!
Where specifically the books ended up on the shelves/on the desk isn't important because Erika will mentally reorganize and reindex everything as soon as she's consciously aware of it.
Level 3: The Pit of Oblivion and Feelings
This was the least organized part because I ran out of stamina in planning, but that's okay because Erika doesn't organize her feelings!! The Erika down here was the True Heart, or at least the closest Erika has to a True Heart because as far as Erika is concerned she doesn't have any truer desires than what she shows to people all the time. So it was more like how Erika pictures herself, at the core. It was some combination of an ideal (she's a white queen) and reality she can't deny (she's a piece controlled by her master, she's eternally on the precipice of falling into the depths of oblivion and only her purpose of seeking the truth prevents it). True Heart Erika was also somewhat emotionless, reflecting her ideal that deep feelings don't matter to her!! (Even if in the face of unpleasant truths about herself.) However, she couldn't actually... get rid of her deeper feelings... because they were in fact true feelings and her truth net wouldn't let them through! And she didn't want to put them higher up in the heart because that would mean showing them to people. So instead they were just a mess of confused feelings-representations.
The final test of the heart was to tell important truths about both yourself and about Erika. This was to prove you were capable of both getting to the truth of someone else (Erika) and facing the truth about yourself! Erika won't let anyone not willing or able to do that get that close to her.
Changes Made
- Erika won't actually remember any truths spoken down here, but she'll have somewhat greater respect for everyone who said them. That's Beatrice, Lambda, Battler, Nunnally, Seth, and Sakuya.
- Lambda pulled Swift's feelings knight upright and Beatrice further organized all the feelings chunks a bit. This doesn't make a huge difference, but Erika's internal feelings will be slightly less of a mess.
- Seth asked Erika about whether she could choose to cut her strings and gave her own knife to do so if she wanted. Battler later cut her strings himself so she can't do that, but Erika will generally feel she has external support in detaching herself from Bernkastel/her past/authority/people who want her to do things.
- Nunnally gave her a paper crane and shared a bottle of wine with her. Like Erika said, she doesn't go much in for symbols, so the paper crane will just give her the sense that Nunnally gave her a gift. Since the wine was an information gathering tool from the first level, she will also feel slightly more free with information, and like that will inspire other people to share information as well.
- Battler cut her strings with bolt cutters. This completely removes any lingering belief Erika had that she is controlled by Bernkastel's wishes. Erika is now acting independently and no longer thinks of herself as Bern's piece! This also means True Heart Erika could theoretically move somewhere other than suspended over the depths of oblivion but she'd have to... make somewhere else to go first.
Questions, comments? Let me know if I missed anything because I probably missed things!
Thank you once more to everyone who played in my heart, it exceeded my every expectation. ♥
no subject
no subject
obviously we need to continue later!!
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject