This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)

#1 | Back to Top09-03-2012 12:05:54 AM

The Riddler
Saionji Slapper
From: Gotham City
Registered: 07-13-2012
Posts: 25

[Riddler] Scarecrow

Scarecrow

For Scarecrow, making diverse people live their nightmares is as easy as ABC.  If you ask me, it's because he knows that every fear is really the end of a desire.  That or it's the fear gas, one or the other.

* * *

It's a dominatrix's house.

It's all counterfeit and you're thrown into jail.

Samuel L. Jackson follows you everywhere and keeps on zapping you.

They all become straight only after you are transformed into a girl.

They change the law so that they have to play at least six of the same songs over and over again.

You now have a bomb attached to your neck; if you don't make at least one art piece per day, it will detonate.

You're a cat with a hairball problem and a gimpy leg.

You're stuck in a Lifetime original movie.


* * *

Not only have you unseen the movie; thanks to the head injury you have unseen the last 12 years of your life.

Now you know all the horrible things people really think about you.

One of them kills you because I put a hit out on you for ignoring my wish.

They appreciate it until they rinse every small portion of its beauty dry; it becomes main stream clap trap commercialized until it starts appearing on cat's hats and Snickers bars and your granny's undies.

You have no mental stamina.

You're forced to eat with Movie!Akio.

You teleport and manage to trap yourself in the middle of an astral plane.

You would never get laid.

Your new Wakaba is exceedingly clingy, to the point where you can't even go to the bathroom without her following you.

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#2 | Back to Top09-07-2012 08:43:43 PM

satyreyes
no, definitely no cons
From: New Orleans, Louisiana
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 10328
Website

Re: [Riddler] Scarecrow

[This resembles Two-Face a little, in that you need to start by asking: What am I looking at?]

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#3 | Back to Top09-09-2012 02:01:32 PM

Melancholic_Soul
Dancer Romancer
From: VA
Registered: 04-28-2009
Posts: 1514

Re: [Riddler] Scarecrow

It looks like fears. Well not fears more like nightmares, but like the riddle says, they are the results of a wish. So maybe these are the unexpected outcomes of wishes?

But why are the two groups separated? I can't figure that out at all. At first I thought there were two outcomes to every desire, but I couldn't justify that. I'm sure that thing about fear gas is pretty important.

My guess is we have to find the 'why' or 'who' behind each clue... but I've got no clue.

Samuel L. Jackson follows you everywhere and keeps on zapping you.
This tells me someone wanted to be in an action movie, or wanted  Sammy Jack as a sidekick. But that doesn't seem very helpful without a who. Maybe one outcome is connected to another?

It's possible that we need to separate the actual ends of desires from the fear gas desires. Suddenly I'm sure that's it.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v476/anthy_utena/rukasan.gif Believing in the power of Love and Justice since 1999
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#4 | Back to Top09-09-2012 02:27:32 PM

satyreyes
no, definitely no cons
From: New Orleans, Louisiana
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 10328
Website

Re: [Riddler] Scarecrow

Melancholic_Soul wrote:

It looks like fears. Well not fears more like nightmares, but like the riddle says, they are the results of a wish.  So maybe these are the unexpected outcomes of wishes?

You nailed it.  Boy, did you ever nail it.

My guess is we have to find the 'why' or 'who' behind each clue... but I've got no clue.

Also very smart.  But where would you look to find the "why" and "who" behind these unexpected wish outcomes?

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#5 | Back to Top10-18-2012 06:49:47 PM

satyreyes
no, definitely no cons
From: New Orleans, Louisiana
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 10328
Website

Re: [Riddler] Scarecrow

** SPOILERS **
This post will reveal the entire worked solution to this riddle.  If you're still working on it, stop reading here!

The Riddler tells us that this one is about “making diverse people live their nightmares” – all the easier because “every fear is really the end of a desire.”  Indeed, each of the clues sounds like a nightmare, or at least a wish gone horribly wrong.  But what to do with them?

Well, we could make a big intuitive leap, guided by these observations and perhaps by the clues' mention of Wakaba and Movie!Akio.  Or we could just plug any of the clues into Google.  The clues each return just two hits.  One, of course, is this thread.  The other is IRG's Corrupt a Wish thread.

Corrupt a Wish is a game in which one player makes a wish and another grants that wish in a perverse way.  We can Google each of the clues to figure out what wishes produced each of these nightmares.  For example, Googling the first clue yields this exchange:

dollface: I wish there was an interesting place in this town I could go to.
Prince_of_Stars: Granted; it's a dominatrix's house.

Now, what to do with this?  First of all, are we supposed to focus on the first player (the wisher) or the second player (the genie)?  Well, it's the first player who's being forced to “live their nightmares,” so that must be whom we're concerned with.  After all, it's their “desire” that's being corrupted.  So let's get the wishes that go with the first eight nightmares.  They are:

dollface: I wish there was an interesting place in this town I could go to.
Tamago: I wish I had a lot of money.
Seitokaichou: I wish I was a Jumper.
Nanami's Rose Groom: I wish all the hot lesbians on IRG were straight.
OnlyInThisLight: I wish there was a law against playing the same five songs over and over again on the radio.
Iris: I wish I had more motivation for arts.
BioKraze: I wish I were a cat.
Epi_lepsia: I wish I was a boy.

But what is “the end of a desire?”  The Riddler is very literal-minded, and we might guess that he literally means the last letter of the wish.

We can test that guess.  In order from first to last, the eight wishes in the first group would give us the letters OYRTOSTY.  That doesn't seem very helpful.  But maybe the letters are just out of order.  In fact, this is the case.  All we need to do is put the wishers in alphabetical order (“as easy as ABC”) before taking the last letter of their wishes.  For instance, BioKraze's wish comes first and ends with T; then dollface's, ending in O; then Epi_lepsia's, ending in Y, and so on.  In sum, these eight wishes give us TOYSTORY, and we know for sure we're on the right track.

We repeat on the next group, which contains nine clues.  Their associated wishes are:

Anji: I wish I could unsee the movie se7en.
KissingTKiryuu: I wish I could read people's thoughts.  Nonsense ooweeooo
Tamago: I wish I could see ghosts and spirits.
Emiemipoemi: I wish people would appreciate theatrical Sweeney Todd, not just gush about the film.
Aine Silveria: I wish that I had more physical stamina.
MissMocha: I wish I had enough money to buy dinner.
Kaelyndra: I wish that I could teleport.
BioKraze: I wish that I were way smarter than Miki.
Imaginary Bad Bug: I wish that I knew someone who was just like Wakaba.

Using the same process on these wishes – alphabetize by wisher and take the last letter – gives the word ANIMATORS.

We now have TOYSTORY ANIMATORS.  This leads straight to the riddle's solution, PIXAR.

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