sparklyjojos

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The stated thesis of early Jorge Joestar is: hurt people hurt other people, intentionally or not. The examples given are plentiful and often tragic: Antonio, Javier, Kenton, Penelope.

One person hurt another, that person hurt someone else in turn, and that person developed a strange power that let them harm a number of strangers, and those strangers created locked rooms and murdered people in them.

The complementing antithesis of Jorge Joestar, on the other hand, is: hurt people will help other hurt people.

Erina, who herself went through a horrible patch with Dio, will take in the messed up young Penelope who was also abused by a man, and will provide gentle assurance to Lucy even though she has never met her before. Penelope in turn will then do anything to protect Erina from zombies.

Steven's wings are his hidden trauma embodied, and what he in the end brandishes openly and uses to save people.

Tsukumojuku will, as is implied, want to save a proven serial killer from police violence because he understands the abuse the killer went through, and he will help the equally traumatized victims including Penelope. Years later, he himself will be unknowingly aided by Penelope in the form of the Arrow Cross House, allowing him to in turn help Jorge overcome his own trauma and stand up to the monster haunting him--truly nothing more than an empty shell of his childhood bully spouting childish insults.

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I'm sorry if it's not who you want to be I never had a say in making everybody me

every face in the world is mine. every story in history is about me.

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I finally read the Umineko VN last year and had the funniest possible experience:

Finished Episode 1. Sat down with a pen and paper and meticulously solved the epitaph in a way that incorporated tons of Japanese wordplay to arrive at another thematically appropriate kanji wordplay riddle, the answer to which pointed to a specific location. Was completely incorrect.

(under read more because massive spoilers for Episode 1 and one technically Ep3 spoiler re: the "village" and someone's name)

My base assumption was: the names of the victims, in particularly kanji wordplays, are needed to solve the epitaph--a classic trope of shinhonkaku where the longer the case goes on, the more punny 'clues' are given, with the solution being either an admission of guilt or a clever misdirection.

I also figured out that the "village" refers to the 'ri' in Maria's name and that the river is the family tree (you can imagine my satisfaction when they actually brought it up two episodes later), so even more hints that you should be looking at the family's weird names.

My thinking process:

First Twilight - four people with their faces smashed in + two people with only half their faces destroyed. Human face = their identity = their name. You pick the six "chosen as sacrifices", therefore the four full names and halves of the two remaining names. Anagram time! Unfortunately I lost my notes and don't remember the entire thing I figured out, but the only truly important syllables were "on" (音) from Shannon and the "goh"/"gou" (郷) from Gohda.

Second Twilight - tear apart the two who are close. Well, how can you signify that two people are close in the first place? You can use a possessive: Eva's Hideyoshi, or Hideyoshi's Eva. In Japanese, you use the particle 'no': X の Y. The thing separating the two names who are close is therefore... the particle の itself, "no"!

Third Twilight - praise my noble name. The self-explanatory answer here is just "Beatrice".

Fourth to Eighth Twilights - gouge the head, chest, stomach, knee, leg. Similarly to the First Twilight, this means choosing parts of the victim's names. If 'head' signifies the beginning of the name and "leg" is the end, we get in order:

[K]inzou K[a]non Ge[n]ji Nan[ji]o (the hiragana is 'ji') Kumasa[wa]

Ninth Twilight - the witch shall revive (or, as is the trend in this solution, her name will be revived). How? By simply reading everything we just came up with until now--and answering the resulting riddle:

'OUGON NO BEATRICE' KANJI WA?

"What are the kanji of Beatrice the Golden?"

There are a thousands possible solutions, but the important thing is to notice that the name ベアトリーチェ, Be-a-to-ri-(i)-chi(e), contains a certain word.

For example, something like this:

TORII CHI (E) = 鳥居地へ

"[go] to the torii grounds".

You know, like the suspiciously missing torii gate that was foreshadowed near the beginning of the game? Woah, I can't believe I actually found the location of the treasure! (wait what do you mean it's wrong)

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Mystery updates:

Still no news about Maijo's Special Kid Factory. The official site finally caught up this year and changed the increasingly funny 'coming soon 2023' to just 'coming soon'

After a successful release of The Adventures of God Detective Jesus Christ, Seiryoin is planning its sequel, The Reflections of God Detective Jesus Christ: Judas Strikes Back

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Jorge Joestar translation came out 8 years ago...

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remember when 6 years ago I wrote a Maijo fic that was like 'ha ha silly bug-obsessed Kimura'

anyway I have now contributed to multiple entomological papers

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Desolation Row

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a more silly Penelope theory I have is that Maijo named her "de la Rosa" because he wanted to do some wordplay with one of the 14 phrases (Via Dolorosa) but changed his mind

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Tsukumojuku jorge edition my fav

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Let me talk about Penelope and Reimi a bit, because I only recently realized something that made everything click into place and also left me staring at a wall for an hour

[tw: sexual assault; spoiler for early Disco Wednesdayyy]

The realization: the seemingly random scenes with Reimi and the four arrows are likely meant to invoke THAT scene with Kikyou and the four fingers in Disco. The one with the supernatural version of a trauma holder having a flashback to her sexual assault. And that paints a lot of things about Penelope a certain way.

(Note: Jorge Joestar translation purposefully changed it so the arrows come out of Reimi's back instead of her rear end--while the translator meant well, it is IMO a horrible misstep.)

Let's see:

1. Young Penelope was horrendously traumatized by her boyfriend Edvard, who beat her, isolated her from her family, sold her possessions, and finally abandoned her. If a man is already doing all that, it is likely another kind of abuse is happening too (especially since it's, you know, the 1900s).

2. Penelope is a kind girl who does not want to kill anyone. Penelope is also about to murder Edvard in broad daylight for--it would seem--jealousy over the new woman (according to the teenage male narrator who is not the smartest). But let's look at what is happening closer: Penelope only becomes furious beyond reason--screaming, baring teeth, bleeding profusely from her nose--when Edvard inadvertently breaches a certain topic. What does he say again?

"So I was lying in bed-"

"He was standing at the base of the bed-"

"Then he spoke. 'Close your eyes, lie down, and think about tomorrow-"

"I don't know what he meant, but I knew one thing…this black winged man was going to do something awful to me…"

3. Earlier, Jorge assumes Penelope's Wound is a reaction to Javier Cortez trying to get her to murder someone. ("You are much too scared of that clown that wanted you to commit a locked room murder. You couldn't take the constant fear, and it gave you a strange power, the ability to make locked rooms. But since you don't want to do that, you make the clown do it, and because you don't want to kill anyone, you kill this doll. And it all gets shut inside a locked room.")

That is certainly a fitting interpretation, but we can debate how right Jorge is here. Javier Cortez was more of a straw breaking the camel's back, but the heavy baggage had already been piled on. It is possible the murder clown concept was just mixed into the trauma that was already there; giving the unspeakable a shape. Penelope can be going about her daily life, but just one unsettling thing happens and the door snaps shut, he is there, he attacks the doll.

"[The doll] had no clothes, and a shapeless face with eyes and a wide open mouth stitched on. (...)"It's…" "Dead. It's supposed to be me, I'm sure."

4. Reimi is the approximate age Penelope was at the time of her trauma ("still in high school", "a little older than [detective Jorge]"). While Reimi's situation with Rohan is not the same as Penelope's with Edvard, she--the Arrow Cross House--is literally a man's owned possession, stuck unable to do much else than spin in place.

("[Edvard had once] treated Penelope like his property")

She is able to provide safety by keeping a person in a state between life and death--stuck in suspended animation, yes, but this is the only way for them to survive what they're going through.

5. Reimi is in a different universe than Penelope, quite literally the farthest possible place and time.

(The book earlier, regarding another Wound user: "I assume some sort of abuse was involved. (…) Whatever was happening to his flesh was so horrific he had to escape it. Which implies the abuse was likely sexual. (…) It's nothing but a hypothesis, but I've begun to believe that continual, repetitive suffering can lead to the development of unusual powers that help the sufferer escape.")

5. In terms of literary techniques, it is interesting that revelations about Reimi and Penelope happen in tandem with revelations about Giorno-Diavolo.

6. Penelope not only appears to have two different stands, she is able to use Das Boot's Stand disc on top of that. While JJBA canon has instances of a Stand user using another's disc (Emporio), I find it interesting how with Penelope it's treated as so normal and unremarkable that you can miss it while reading.

7. Penelope's happy ending involves moving to a completely new world (where Reimi is) and finally getting a happy relationship and family.

tldr; Penelope plural coded, or just straight up plural in the supernatural Maijo way (like Kozue)

--

Some additional quotes that I think are interesting in the light of this interpretation, but I ran out of analysis juice:

"The Arrow Cross was built around the Cube House, but the original building remains – and you work inside of it. Right?" Sugimoto seemed very impressed by the accuracy of my deductions. "Wow. You're absolutely right."

--

"I believe the four arrows and this central building are not actually linked. They appear to be part of the same building, but are technically two different pieces."

--

Breathing heavily, she said, "I remember now, Rohan. About myself, and about my Master." She picked the arrowhead up off the floor. "I was asked to keep this arrowhead, and make sure nobody else took it. (...)"

--

"Reimi, I get that you're a very unusual stand, but fundamentally every Stand has a 'Master' and they're job is to 'stand by' that Master, right? I would definitely say a Stand forgetting their Master is kind of an exception, a pretty unique situation. Especially for Stands with minds of their own, forgetting their Master when they 'grow' or 'evolve' would be kind of a big problem. (...) That's why I don't think you grew or evolved. I think it was more like…something shocking happened to you." (...) Trauma. Wounds. (...) "Reimi, do you remember being injured, or suffering in any way?" I asked. Her eyes really did look like a human's. There was a light in them, and that light went out at my question. It was like I was tumbling into a deep abyss within them. My words had struck a nerve. "A wound," I said, the certainty of Beyond behind me."

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oh god my jorge joestar side is getting dragged back up into the light. oh No

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Alright get in

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You’ll never guess what I’m reading again

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Incredible realization by meeee

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JOJO

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there will be new editions of both Cosmic and Joker released as well??? What on earth are you planning Ryuusui

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And the new grand mystery novel Seiryoin just announced for planned 2024 release is titled...

*drumroll*

THE ADVENTURES OF GOD DETECTIVE JESUS CHRIST

Trailer here

Truly, we live in the funniest timeline.

Apparently Seiryoin alluded that this will be connected to Cosmic somehow.

This MIGHT mean a new JDC installment/spinoff (the 神探偵 in the title is almost the same as Juku's title of God of Detectives, who technically also wields the title of a Jesus Christ)...

...but knowing Seiryoin, it might just be something like "well, Cosmic was my old self's mystery debut, and this is my mystery debut as a ~new Christian person~" and it literally will be How Jesus Solved The Mystery Of Salvation lmao