TheBruno64

!!EVERYTHING SEEN IN THIS SHOWCASE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE FOR THE FULL RELEASE!!

Showcasing the Prologue of the fan game entry for the Strange Man Saga, "The Muffin Man", that Ive been solo-working on for quite a bit now.

Synopsis: After being forcefully paired up in a group project, Regan Blumberg and Anne Flanagan are kidnapped by the so-called "Muffin Man", waking up in an abandoned and remote location. They now have to avoid the lurking man while solving games and puzzles he left out for the two to solve with the help of others in the same conditions.

Hey y'all! The Surviving Melody AU guy here, its been some time since the last post and I do apologize, Ive just been busy with some other personal projects and Uni to really have time to develop the AU that much. BUT I decided to take this time today to do as so! And I am very happy with what I came up with.

As you can see, a lot happens here, one of the main things is Hibiki and Yoruko argument. It takes place as a semi-replacement of the Sora and Yoruko argument, happening before said happens. It serves as both more screen time for Hibiki, and also more for her to do! I think the fight was gonna happen at one point or another with how I was developing Hibiki and Yuki's relationship, both being close and there for each other when their respective "big sibling" figure dies. And with the way Yoruko treated Yuki in chapter 4 and 5, Hibiki was going to retaliate one way or another.

So what better way to do it than in the worst moment Hibiki could find Yoruko and Yuki in? In this timeline, Hibiki joins Sora after she cant find Yuki, thats because throughout the first half of chapter 5, she acts as some sort of guardian to Yuki after the chapter 4 trial and the reveal of Utsuro in Yuki, so she constantly is trying to bring that out of him. That is why she and Sora team up to look for the two.

And after finding out whats happening? Hibiki snaps at Yoruko, basically telling her off at how hypocritical and mean she has treated Yuki in comparison to the rest. Which in turns causes Yoruko to pretty much tell Hibiki what she told Sora in the original.

And then we have the final part, which... I'm actually going to leave it to you guys to theorize about! I thought it would be fun to leave some parts unexplained for now so people could come up with their own theories about it. It will definitely be explained, and I already do have why this happens, but this gives me a way for me to interact with anyone that follows these posts and to also get inspired by any ideas to develop said AU!

Hey guys! I know this is a pretty surprising twist from me, but before I continue on with chapter 5 of my Living Melody AU, I thought it would be kinda fun to go back and develop some of the changes that I think deserve a bit more of attention, so expect this one and maybe the next one to focus on the execution and the talk everyone has after Nikei reveals he is a void.

As for the execution, I thought I would take a more creative and unique approach than other Hibiki survives AUs. Most of them feature the fact that the key actually does bring one of them to safety, or that since Hibiki was being controlled it doesn't count. My problem with both of these reasoning is that Mikado would never let this happen intentionally, he is expecting 3 people dead by this case, so deliberately forgiving Hibiki on his own accord feels odd.

So the way I fixed this problem is instead make it so that its something OUT of Mikados control, and what better way to do it was with the way Hibiki was able to remove Kanade off from her? Instead of hitting Kanade a few times with the mic to let her go, what if instead something inside of her snaps and decides to finish her off and kill her right then and there? And since there is never said to be a timer on the execution, Hibiki after finishing her kill just freezes on the spot from shock. It fixes the entire problem of Mikado intervening for some reason to save one of the sisters when he needs 3 people to die.

Its also an awesome idea IMO because of how nobody wins this time:

Hibiki doesn't win because she now directly caused the death of her own sister, quite literally killing her and getting her own hands dirty. This, as Ive explained before, worsens Hibiki's mood throughout most of chapter 4 moving on.

Mikado doesn't win because now the entire case is ruined, there were 2 killers instead of 1, 1 victim instead of 2, not a void kill, and now after a lot of pressure from the others, the 2nd killer gets spared too.

the other guys don't win because now they have a broken Hibiki on their side, basically going back to not trusting anyone again and being distant, putting a strain and main cause now for Yuki to start to doubt the bond they all had.

And even Kanade doesn't win as she is now instead brutally killed by the one person she was controlling, not getting to see the death of Hibiki before her and I even wanted to make Kanade show actual genuine fear on her lasts moments to kind of emphasize that Kanade is still human and can experience said things.

Part 3 of my Living Melody AU: (Hibiki Survivor). Last post I explained how I wanted to touch more on Yuki and Hibiki's relation and here I'm doing just that. I wanted to do this specifically because I genuinely love these two together, ship or not, with just how much in common they start to have once chapter 3 rolled out. And I want to use it to its potential.

So, as I've stated before in other posts, Hibiki would take Yuki's side in this timeline when he goes on a tangent about not being able to work together after the third trial. Considering the closest person to her turned out to be a horrible person and the second closest one died by her and technically your hands as well, so i say its obvious she doesn't agree that bonding will make them not kill each other. The other reason as to why I made it so that she agrees with Yuki is to that they themselves can get closer, having someone take Yuki's side during chapter 4 ESPECIALLY after Shinji's death can honestly help him out. I doubt it would have stopped Yuki from experiencing the things he did in the original AU, but it would at least give him something to hold on to, which I think is cute.

I could see Hibiki staying close to Yuki after the talk shown above, which would happen when they're still trapped under Teruya's control in the room. In a sense, Hibiki starts using Yuki as a way to move on from Kanade and stop depending on her. As I've stated before, Hibiki feels responsible for the way Kanade started acting as a result of the harassment she inflicted on her from Hibikis inferiority complex. Having someone to just talk it out would feel refreshing and would mark as a good step in the right direction.

Another thing she would do is honestly call of Yoruko on the way she was treating Yuki this chapter, and saying Yoruko never showed the same resentment when Hibiki was the one crying instead. She basically works as a new partner for Yuki, and Yuki works as a new partner for her, they both have each others back. So you know she is going to get absolutely furious at Nikei when he reveals the truth about his plan to the rest and how Yuki was meant to be the culprit of the case.

But I think the most shocking part for Hibiki will be the reveal of Yuki being used as a vessel from VOID for the creation of Utsuro. Hibiki reacting to this and to Yuki slowly turning into him, knowing that she was also in that position and that its now happening to the person closest to her now, it absolutely freaks her out. This is my reasoning as to why Hibiki would stay relatively close to Yuki at all times during Chapter 5, trying to bring the old Maeda back and attempting to stop the transformation into Utsuro. But more on that when I reach chapter 5.

Hey, here's another little scene i thought up for this completely normal SDRA2 playthrough, AKA one where Hibiki survives her execution, AKA Surviving Melody AU, AKA Hibivivor, AKA me wanting to rant about the lack of care she got after her death and how I would have handled her, whatever you wanna call it. Since I went through what I thought Hibiki could go through after chapter 3 and what development she should go through, why not go for smaller details like... How does she react to Nikei's reveal of the digital world and that everyone is "supposedly" alive?

Before that though, I should probably clarify HOW Hibiki survives her death. As someone pointed it out last post, and I responded with this:

"I thought an interesting Idea would have been that instead of reaching for the key, Hibiki fully finishes off Kanade off my slamming the mic against her and killing her on the spot before falling to the ground in shock of what she did unable to move. From what I saw in the Original, one of them grabbing the key and using it meant the end of the execution by having the other one hanged, so if none of them could grab the key, it potentially goes on forever. Mikado eventually just says "screw it, this case is already going horribly" and just decides to spare Hibiki and bring her back. I mean, with how she is right now, she can barely do anything."

So to clarify, in this timeline, everything goes the same right up until the execution, where instead of Hibiki running to get the key after slamming Kanade with the microphone, she gets a sort of urge to just finish her off right then and there and kills Kanade herself with the microphone. From looking at the execution, grabbing the key and using it implies the end of the execution, there doesn't seem to be anything else that could kill them. So if potentially neither of them grab the key, it goes on forever. Of course, were not having Hibiki get stuck in the platform; after a bit of time and a lot of pressure from the rest of the survivors, Mikado snaps and complies to spare Hibiki from the execution. I know this wouldn't really happen per say? But I see it as Mikado thinking "This case is already fucked up enough, and also this girl is so dead inside she might as well be dead overall" Not the best reason, but it works.

Now then, how does Hibiki take the digital world reveal? Not good as you can see, not at all. I like the contrast between everyone else feeling so relieved and Hibiki just STRESSED OUT, I mean its obvious, after everything that happened with the twins last chapter, she wouldn't want to see Kanade again. Not just because of what Kanade did, but because what she herself did. She killed her sister willingly, and she is still trying to bear through that. Not to mention how I made implications that Hibiki was trying to move on from Kanade and not be needlessly dependent on someone else, and here Nikei says that it will all revert back to how it was before. She would absolutely break further, just like kicking a nearly dead horse who is cold, losing blood and has 40 different deadly viruses on its body.

Though, in a weird, twisted way, Hibiki does miss Kanade in this timeline, not because of what she did, but because she still wishes to have someone when she is scared, when she is in a moment of need, she had someone by her side. Its the same reason why she would miss Setsuka, but from what I also described last post, she would deny anyone trying to do so, because she doesn't want to see them die from (what she believes) her fault.

In the end, her story in chapter 4 would be about leaving the past behind, and Chapter 5-6 would be about moving into a new future. Even if Hibiki did want to stay behind and be comforted and catered, she knows she has to move on and develop as a person.

If I ever do more of these, next one will most likely be about Hibiki and Yuki's relation going from chapter 4 onward, how it affects Yuki and the others, and how it continues Hibikis character arc. If you have any more ideas on what could happen, leave them on the comments, I will try and take them into consideration.

I just realized I accidentally left a Sora textbox when it was Hibiki talking in image 11… Oopsie! we will just say it was a game error, kay?