Author's Notes, III:

Welcome back! Hope you've enjoyed Innocent Sin in the time between chapters. A request to my readers: I've been gratified to have my story listed on TV Tropes for P3 and P4... but since the Remixed edition began, I've been hoping someone would update those entries to note that the story is once again ongoing. I would never ask people to add material on Tropes - that's always up to the reader - but if they could make the correction, that'd be great.

And away we go:


Chapter Six:

-And so here you see my compromise: in Hamuko's timeline, Vincent did indeed live in Iwatodai, whereas in Minato's, he lived in America. We can guess that Vincent received True Lover's Ending in Minato's timeline, and now we know that the "alternate ending" of the Babel stages happened in the other. What prompted Vincent's geographic switch? We'll hopefully get to that. As I said before, this is an imperfect compromise. Obviously, in P3P, Minato can meet Vincent as well – and Babel does not exactly occur within a telling of Catherine's events. It is, however, the only way to make things as workable as they are now. I hope this is a level of indulgence that keeps the story moving in an acceptable way.

-Some people have said that my Tatsuya is too, I dunno, boisterous. I'm not sure I agree, but I'd point out that we don't actually know much about this Tatsuya, after the events of Persona 2. I do think we have to believe that he's happier than he was in Eternal Punishment, even if what happened to him was very sad.

-There have been some extraordinary stories about Aigis and Teddie meeting, and I cannot hope to top them, but I notice that rarely do they meet in a way where Aigis is initially hostile. Aigis grew a lot in the final act of Persona 3, as well as The Answer, and she is no unthinking weapon – and I do believe that she has mixed feelings about Ryoji (and arguably Metis). But humans act on instinct, especially when that instinct lines up with their "programming," and I think that the idea that she'd register a Shadow as a threat first isn't unreasonable. That she is eventually able to look past that is what proves that she's growing.

-I can't really get into it in this story, but the idea of Baofu and Ulala having to struggle as an agency because the Kuzunohas and/or Shiroganes are too good at their job would make a great story on its own, I think.

-Yeah, I'd say that in the "new" timeline, Yukino and Shunsuke finally make it work.

-Honestly, Katsuya showed Nanjou and Elly a lot of deference in Eternal Punishment. But Kei is an arrogant prick, and I don't doubt that Katsuya kept half an eye on them. He could just leave it to Baofu to voice the paranoia for all of them.

-"Wouldn't Nanjou know who Tatsuya is?" Yes, obviously. But if it's an undercover operation, then Tatsuya is no doubt wearing a disguise. More to the point, the operation wasn't supposed to be Tatsuya in the first place, and Katsuya has no way of telling his brother "He already knows who you are!" without giving the game away. He's trapped, basically.

-If there was no clearer sign that this story does not take P4UM into account, it's that the Personas, and the last uses of them, take into account facts that we knew before that game was announced. At the time that I'm writing this, it's not clear why things in the TV world are the way that they are in that game, let alone what will happen in that game's story, and I'm choosing not to think about it. Most fic for continuing stories gets canceled out eventually.

-So, it's clear now for followers of the original "After the End" series that a lot of this chapter was originally going to be written for the infamous "Aeon/Judgment" chapter that never materialized. It was too much all at once to frame in my head, dealing with Aigis/Teddie and Margaret/Theodore and making a single comprehensible short story out of it. Here, able to mix it with the other subplots and dole it out in a few short scenes at a time, I'm having a much better time of it. Because of this, though, I'm probably not spending as much time on the adventures of the Velvet Siblings on the road in the real world as they probably deserve. They could easily fill out many chapters of a story on their own, and it would destroy what little pacing this story has. I'm hoping that the middle ground is engaging for readers as-is.

-Hey, yeah, why did Igor and Margaret go to the school festival? Aside from "because it was funny?"

-All theorizing about how the Velvet Siblings exist in time is my own, but shares ideas with a number of other fan theories.

-That Kashihara still had anything to do with Okamura and the Sudou family in the revised timeline is my own invention, but given the way things played out, it's not an unreasonable idea, considering here the man does the right thing and re-devotes himself to Jun, who didn't have his Masked Circle playmates this time around. The idea that Sudou and Saga once may have faced each other in a courtroom is my playful indulgence, but it makes for a great image.

-More to the point, though – yes, time is shifting. It's a testament to the comparative sizes in Western audience between Persona 2 and P3/P4 that nobody seemed to notice that the timeline was seemingly off. Based on Todoroki's notes in Innocent Sin, if nothing else, the game must have taken place in 1999. If that's the case, then (for instance) the event at Smile Mall that was previously portrayed in this story (a possible birth of the "Shadows" as we know them in later games) may have occurred at the exact same moment as the Nyx Avatar breaking loose from the Kirijo labs. The other chronology and ages, though, might not line up quite right that way. Aside from being a plot point in this story, the time hiccups may explain any discrepancies in the timeline. Got it? Got it.

-I haven't said anything about how I've used Teddie and Metis in this story, and I'm not sure that I need to. You're either with the theory, or you're not. If you're not, I hope it doesn't damage your opinion of the story too heavily.

–The Amala Network, of course, is from Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, and as it represents the flow of Magatsuhi, it has to be at least "next door" to the collective unconscious, if it isn't that itself. It is also Hell, in some fashion, obviously, but we know most significantly that it's a nexus that touches all parallel realities. Whatever brought the Velvet Siblings there, it's arguably exactly what they wanted. Be careful what you wish for!

-People who wrote in, the last time around, were angrier at me about Adachi dying than anything else that I did in any story. First of all, I take issue that we should mourn a barely repentant killer over someone like Tamaki Uchida. That said, please maybe hang on and see where the story is going. Everything has a reason, okay?

-The lyrics to the Karukozaka High School song were taken directly from the "Persona Thief" quest contained on the PSP version of Persona 2: Innocent Sin – my dream of a tie-in quest to this story was, as everyone knows by now, dashed entirely with the removal of the quest creator from English language versions of the game. Boo! That said, at least the quests that we did get provided me with a better way of writing this tragic moment – a story decision that I've always felt guilty about. She deserves better – but sometimes stories are like that.

-People responded well to "The Eagle and the Butterfly" - for which I've always been grateful – but it was labeled in at least one place as a "Fix Fic," which I always objected to. That sort of thing implies that I thought there was something wrong with how Persona 3 ended. Nothing could be further from the truth. And especially, once I added other stories to After the End, I felt that you couldn't consider this situation a fix at all. Minato looks young, and has returned years too late. Yukari is old. This is an awful thing, and the gravity of it mattered to me. I was worried, the first time through, that the time slip didn't really register because of the split stories. That he arrived in 2011, but we didn't see him until later. The addition of the timestamps, and his vocalizing the problem, hopefully makes the situation clearer. This isn't going to be easy for them.


Chapter 7:

-This story marks the inclusion of the last two stories from the old version of After the End. Sharp-eyed readers may notice some bits here and there from the old stories that are still missing – largely Yukari and Minato's reunion – but for the most part, we're catching up to what had been done in the past. That said, I have a lot of material that didn't get published last time around, and I'm looking forward to that material getting seen for the first time, but the other side of this argument is that with all-new content being the majority from here on out, my production rate will likely slow down. I hope you all can bear with me as we slowly get closer to the big confrontation.

-This chapter required substantial revision on my part. While these sequences had some bits that were highly regarded (the dance in Tartarus, Reiji and Miki), they also had the ones I was least happy with, and had my biggest mistakes. The first one, obviously, is the relationship Reiji has with his family. I was basing things on incomplete information. Having seen the material now with my own eyes, I went in a different direction that was, I think, truer and more fair. In the process, I found myself with a really funny idea for the future that I hope I'll get to share with you eventually.

-Mistake #2: my timeline for the events of the first Persona were out-of-whack. As both quests have to occur (and both are "canonical,") you have to coordinate who is where and when in order for them both to make sense, and my original take just did not fit the facts at all. Hopefully the revision here reads more sensibly, based on what we know. "Earring" must be in the school, and so must Nanjou, though he's wounded. Brown can't ever make it to the police station. Reiji, of course, is already in the "Ideal" world.

-The currently-available translation of Eternal Punishment lists Reiji's son's name as "Takashi." I don't know Japanese names well enough to understand if this is a deliberate change in meaning, while keeping the intent. Given everything that happens and the tone of the dialogue in both the Nanjou route and Nanjou's reaction to the name, it's clear that Reiji is naming the boy after Kandori. Given how awkward naming schemes are in the current Eternal Punishment ("Chris," etc.), I've opted to make the boy's name "Takahisa," which is Kandori's actual name. Whether my change is correct or not, the intent is clearly the same. Mark's comment about the baby is in the ending titles of the first Persona.

-I'd never intended to make Reiji a cheater, although some people thought the original version of the story made him out that way. Nuh-uh. He loves that boy, and he'd never put the kid through what he went through – remember, Reiji's whole deal was fighting for his mother's honor. Nor did I ever want to imply that Yukki being a little flirtatious with Reiji was at all inappropriate. She's happily married. She's just trying to get through to the lunkhead with whatever it takes. Hopefully you can see him a little better this time around.

-An addendum to that second mistake is located in the poker scene – now all nine of them are there, even if they don't all get dialogue.

-As mentioned before... Obviously, we cannot assume that the events of Devil Survivor and Strange Journey happened exactly the way that their games played out. The events, though, were likely similar enough to be recognizable. To that end, the demon relationships within the Schwartzwelt were likely the same – hence, the relation of familiar details here.

-And now we come to "the timeline." Ah, yes. Well... here was also, apparently, an area where I needed to make some adjustments. Exactly what had been changed prior to the Devil Summoner titles, and what did Raidou himself change? It's not clear. As it is, Raidou the Fortieth suggests that Raidou the Fourteenth actually preserved the original timeline – which we know isn't true.

-The timeline itself – the events as described in the main timeline are a little awkward, when you consider how often the world is destroyed and reincarnated. But what we know is that such a thing does NOT happen in the "Persona Timeline." Except, arguably, in Persona 2.

-All of Tamaki's "research material," of course, are works that either inspired, or were very similar to, various elements of a MegaTen title.

-The, uh, "blond-haired man" offered quite a bit of help to Raidou the XIVth in the second Raidou title, at least.