User blog:Revriley/DMDP Timeline

I would ideally like the wiki to have an article dedicated to a timeline of the ongoing story events, but drafting a timeline in a blog post first allows for the opportunity to work out major discrepancies or confusing / vague areas with the help of others. It also allows for freer experimentation with formatting.

I'll first copy over what I've jotted down so far in my private notes, i.e. events pre-reincarnation and events in t the first (estimated) two weeks following the Reincarnation Event (here labeled as 'Day One'). I've stalled with regard to the week between Sorimura's escape and his comeback performance; specifically, I'm uncertain as to which day his break-in at (Yougangumi?) takes place. If anyone can puzzle it over with me, that would be swell.

My preference for formatting timelines on wikis is usually via tables rather than section headers, so I was thinking of doing the same here. The big question, of course, is how to handle the Other World chronology; the story very much continues in the Other World post-Corpse God's reincarnation, after all. One column for Our World/Earth and another for the alternate universe might make sense, but the sequence of events in the Other World isn't as clearly defined (or estimated) as the events in this world.

Maybe a combination of section headers and tables would be better than one or the other. Probably the safest way would be to keep Other World and Our World events separate rather than adjacent.

Some days have a lot more events happening (simultaneously) then others, e.g. Days 15, 24, and 25. Currently they're outlined in so much detail as to be blow-by-blows, but the intention is to trim them down to decent size thereafter. "Shakuzawa Fire incident takes place," "Human knots incident takes place" was the precedent for the smaller incidents, but the question is whether summing up Day 15 as "Shinoyama Estate arson takes place", for instance, would be too reductionist. A compromise is likely.

Day 1 = Reincarnation Day

Day 16/17
Here's where I'm having trouble: I'm not sure which day Sorimura's break-in at Yougangumi / mafia subsidiary front takes place.

Sorimura breaks into the front and has a brush-in with Fire-Breathing Bug, who is more interested in burning the place and its people down than in him. Sorimura steals a scroll made of skin, not parchment (he suspects human skin) from a safe; on this scroll is the simplified Byandy symbol. He decides this will be the main feature of his comeback performance once he escapes to a rooftop..by which time it's night, since the moon is high in the sky (Chapter 23). Night is not rainy.

After he obtains the symbol he visits The Grocer to ask for info on it. It isn't clear if this visit takes place immediately/soon after the break-in (that is, the same day) but it's reasonable to think Solitaire wouldn't want to waste time.

It's mainly the fact that it's nighttime when Sorimura holds the skinscrap aloft on the rooftop that confuses me. We know he visits the VR Zone on the morning of Iwanome and Arase's visit to the Fortuneteller Shop, since Xiaoyu hears someone mention it when he goes shopping. It looks like daylight when he breaks in to Yougangumi, and since the break-in scenes are interwoven/shown during the day Iwanome has his fortune read (Day...17?) I initially assumed it was the same day. But it's not even afternoon when Iwanome and Arase do the fortune reading; Sorimura's nighttime "let's get the whole world pumped" panel is shown 'well before' Day 17 is actually evening.

So I could just be overthinking it; that is, perhaps the break-in does happen on Day 17, Narita just decided to 'skip ahead' in Solitaire's narrative while keeping the Corpse God/Iwanome narrative at the same temporal pace. However, given this is Narita, non-linear presentation isn't out of the question--maybe the break-in actually happened on Day 16. One question is whether Sorimura's "performance in six days" quip outside VR Zone is including 'that very day' in the estimate or not.

Either way I still can't be sure what day the Grocer visit takes place. I guess if I want to progress with the timeline I'll have to guesstimate.

Some of the confusion also stems from the fact Iwanome says to Corpse God they haven't come to ask questions about "yesterday's fire," but to get their fortunes read." Naturally we assume he means the Shinoyama arson, but he can't actually be visiting the shop on Day 16; a whole day passes between the fire and the fortune reading based on Xiaoyu and Sayo's sleeping arrangements. ...Right? (Even in the scenario where the break-in occurred on Day 16, it wouldn't make much sense for Iwanome to ask about it). Could be another case of Narita's infamous typos.

Days 25/26

 * This night is very long, and it is difficult to guess what occurs before midnight and after midnight, let along ascertain which event is truly the last nighttime event.