#I'm also not caught up with that vn so I can't comment on it

[crowroboros]

ur the person i know who's good at understanding abstract concepts and weird timelines and shit. can you explain what's fucking going on with Echo and Arches??

Alright sure.

This Post Will Contain Spoilers for Echo and Arches

Right so first thing to establish is that with Echo, no route is more canon than the others. There isn't a "true ending". In fact, that's actually a big part needed to understand certain aspects of Echo and Arches: There isn't one single timeline, but many branching timelines covering many different possibilities.

The most apparent example of this are the various routes: Carl's Route; Leo's Route; Jenna's Route; TJ's Route; and Flynn's Route. But the Good and Bad endings that some routes have are also examples of this.

Each route in Echo corresponds to a route in Route 65 as well. Jenna in her Echo route mentions that Chase first came out to her before anyone else, but Flynn says the same in his route. Other little details—such as who Chase considers his best friend—also vary between routes but do line up with what happens between Chase and that specific character in Route 65. Specifically, whoever Chase first confides in about his sexuality and the situation he finds himself in at the beginning of Route 65 will be the same character he goes after during the prologue of Echo after the big fight that kicks off the story.

So what we have with the Echo Universe is something akin to a tree: Several "branches" splitting off from each other linking back to the "trunk". This applies to Arches as well.

We of course have the Arches VN, but Cameron and Devon both appear in the epilogue of several routes in Echo: Flynn's and TJ's where they take center stage, and Leo where they're mentioned (as a "bear and coyote") when Chase visits Leo two years after the Hysteria, but not named.

It can be assumed that Cameron and Devon make their way to Echo in the other timelines as well, but what must be noted is that Arches VN and the routes we play through in Echo are in different timelines. Details in every route contradict what happens in and before Arches VN. Things like: Cameron and Devon meeting up with Chase to give a tour of Echo; Duke being killed during the Hysteria; Brian being killed during the Hysteria, the Hysteria in TJ's route happening in 2017; Cameron and Devon visiting Echo in 2017 in Leo's Route all contradict the events of Arches VN, but a version of Arches VN still takes place in each of those timelines.

Going further, as you know there isn't any choices that the player makes during Arches that changes what happens. That's because the timeline split in Arches is written into the story. At the end of Arches when Cameron, Devon, and Brian are in the mines together, Brian has a shotgun pointed at Cameron's head. Two timelines branch off from this point: One where Brain shoots and kills Cameron, who then possesses Devon and leads to the events of the short story Vessels four years later; and the timeline we play the rest of Arches through, where Cameron (who just saw a vision of the other timeline) pushes the shotgun away mere moments before Brian can pull the trigger and narrowly misses being killed.

So all in all, the timeline looks like this:

(I apologize for how this looks. I had to do it on my phone rather than my laptop so it isn't as good looking as my Zelda timelines, which you can check out here if you're curious)

The Echo short stories that take place from January 2010 through October 2014 happen the same in each one of these timelines from what we can tell. There's no evidence to suggest that the short story Runaway in the Flynn Route Timeline is any different from the Runaway in the Leo Route Timeline for example. Same goes for Benefits.

To end things off, these timelines aren't completely separate. As briefly mentioned earlier, it is possible to peer into one timeline from another if someone has any psychic or supernatural abilities. Cameron Wilson is one such person. During the epilogue of Arches, he peers into the timeline in which he died several times, even briefly communicating with that version of Devon and Cameron (who, again, is possessing Devon). In Vessels we get the other side of this: Devon and Cameron—who are reliving their college memories in a psychic/dream plane within Devon's psyche—are confronted by Cameron from the timeline in which Cameron survives. Though this seems to only be a mental thing, as Cameron isn't physically there but his mind and consciousness is.

The Socket Man is another example of someone not bound to one specific timeline. Despite only being created in the Flynn Route Timeline, The Socket Man appears throughout the VN: He kills Duke in Leo's Route; he appears several times in Jenna's Route; he appears in Arches just to stare at Arturo; and even appears before the route split and in timelines that we never play through otherwise.

So...that's pretty much all there is to it. I hope this cleared up how Echo and Arches and the Echoverse timeline as a whole operates. Or at least, I hope you have a better understanding of it.

[kagaminelen]

REJOICE!!!! for I have found that there is loads of Higurashi content that I have yet to lay my eyes on!

I think it will be harder to live blog it if it's not split up into episodes but alas that is my cross to bear

I think the next stop is Hou. I don't know if there's a particular order to this, I already watched Outbreak (the anime was not that good, the VN is probably better but I don't feel like watching that at this time).

I'll watch Hinamizawa Bus Stop then

We've seen this bust stop before, most notably where Rika first met Akasaka.

Mion's so cute.....

I wonder what the silhouettes are for? I wonder what that's all about. I'm sure reddit would tell me.

Maybe this one-off arc is just character exploration between Mion and Rika.

Mion has a confident, yet still slightly insecure vibe to her. She's loud, and says what's on her mind, but in reality she is insecure about what other people think of her, how people perceive her. That's why she is (probably) jealous of how feminine Shion is. She knows she isn't that person, but she thinks other people (Keiichi) would want that, and feels bad that she isn't that. Her comment about being so much of a tomboy that she should've been born a boy is indicative of this...

You don't see too many one on ones of Mion and Rika. I can't think of anything. Meakushi doesn't count cause that's Shion ;P

it's taken me 12 hours to get through 8 minutes of this. Dear lord is it boring. But in the name of lore I will watch this

Perhaps I'm more used to Rika acting like a mini-adult but she feels very much like a child in this story.

This shit between the two of them is giving "Harold they're lesbians"

there's a lot of terminology related to dams. Did the author do this much research about dams? Also is a very educated 10(?) year old when it comes to the pros and cons of dams.

Also it turns out Mion doesn't really have an emotional attachment to Hinamizawa? She borderline detests this place.

What is it with Japanese people spending two seconds in the rain and then getting a cold. Like I swear I have gotten caught in the rain dozens of times, been soaking wet, and have never gotten a cold.

anyways, I did some poking around the 07th expansion wiki and found that this is actually a type of........prototype Higurashi. Most of these characters either exclusively appear in this arc, or are "prototype" versions of characters we know, hence why they are silhouette versions of the actual sprites. This also explains why Rika is sounding so mature, because in the console version of Hou that Rika actually looks a lot older, possibly only a year or two younger that Mion.

So this is basically the very first bit of Higurashi....a piece of history, if you will. cool. let's move onto something else

[crowroboros]

Anymore chase insight?

I'm going to do the same thing I did with Carl part 2 where I just throw out random thoughts.

I wonder how his arachnophobia came to be, if there was any inciting incident at all. I suppose it could just be a natural fear he has, though he lives in Echo so I wonder if there was anything paranormal at play to spark that. Perhaps he saw 88883 or something. That's very unlikely though and definitely isn't the original intention behind it. Again it is probably just some random phobia he developed. I also wonder just how intense his arachnophobia is in terms of any spider imagery. In person it is obvious very very intense, but I don't have it or any fear that is adjacent to it so I can't comment on how it works when seeing a picture or anything like that; could he play Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess? Is Gohma too much or is it fair game cause she's fictional? If the 3D model makes her too spider-like then is Gohma in LoZ1 or in Link's Awakening any better cause it's just sprite work?

Maybe I'm a boring, rock-like personality having, "never-speaks-at-a-party" wallflower, "just-kind-of-there", not very interesting person but I never really saw Chase's blandness as inherently being a bad thing. I never really understood why in-universe people got on his ass about being "uninteresting". I also just don't agree with the sentiment of him being boring, but again maybe I just fit the criteria.

If I remember right, I think Chase's family has been living in Echo for a fucking while so I wonder if any of his ancestors will appear in TSR. I'm not caught up on that VN so maybe they already have and I'm unaware, but I haven't been seeing any posts about it so I assume they haven't.

It's 100% because he's an anthropomorphic otter and it would probably look much worse on a human but I don't think Chase's attempt at a goatee is that bad looking. Dare I say he actually rocks it pretty well.

Chase was actually how I discovered Echo VN and FVNs as a whole. You know those memes where someone sneaks Goku into an image where he isn't meant to be? I saw one of those but with Chase and I was so confused and intrigued that I worked tirelessly to find out what this fucking otter was.