Thanks to chapter 2 I have created myself a serious earworm with this song (also stunning visuals, I think):
I hope it will get better over the next few weeks 
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Wow. Today I fell into a deep deep rabbithole 
Yesterday I read chapter 3 halfway through and then realized that I had no clue who they were talking about. So today I decided to change that, and basically spent my whole afternoon to create
and now all of a sudden everything makes much more sense
I’m still only halfway through, so I guess it might still change a bit going forward, but I hope that most of the information is in. This contains everything from the chapter (up to where I read), enhanced with Wikipedia information where I thought it made sense.
I discovered one interesting mistake: The book states (twice even!) that Thomas Walsingham is Francis Walsingham’s son but according to Wikipedia this is not correct; have a look at my sheet to get more insights into their relationship.
And now I should actually continue reading 
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Holy crap. That is amazing, NicoleRauch. 
Like, holy crap. Thank you so much for sharing! I’m gonna give this a thorough lookover. Man, I’ve got such good fellow F&B readers. ;_; You guys are awesome!
(Man, you even put the suit cards in there and everything…)
And! And and! So you guys know I’ve been buying up F&B-adjacent material, and I was flipping through some it some time ago and saw a comment from 松岡先生 herself about this! Took me a bit to find it, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to, but here you go:
史実ではトーマスはウォルシンガムの息子ではなく、年下の従弟。これも二つの世界の差異なのです。
(This comes from the Curtain Call ライターズ・コメント section in the 2007年12月号, vol.17 issue of 小説Chara.)
F&B5 was published June 23, 2003, according to Amazon, so this little commentary tidbit of hers is quite after the fact. Could be it was a legitimate mistake at the time, could be it was intentional, but I thought the coincidence was curious.
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Thanks! 
I must say I was quite impressed by the outcome myself…
Whut! 
YOU are amazing!
Haha, what a nice cover-up I mean, the previous glitch we observed was there for a purpose: a) to make Kaito notice it, and b) to make Kaito realize that the worlds are drifting apart. But in this scene, there is no Kaito to notice, so what would be the purpose of this glitch? And why is everything correct except this teensy weensy detail? 
No, no, I guess that’s a legitimate mistake on the author’s side. Maybe she misread something, or her source material was faulty, who knows.
Now that’s another interesting way to phrase it! Made me realize that the technical description would be “his cousin’s son”. This Japanese version is at least somewhat more understandable to me than the English “first cousin once removed” (like, what gets removed here?) or the German “grand-nephew” (Großneffe in German) - the German one is at least logically structured but not really understandable from hearing the word in my opinion 
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Glad to hear you’re all better now! <3 Also, yeah Kaito is building his own personal harem it seems. XD
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OMG! You are amazing! 
I’m relieved that I wasn’t alone in being confused as the conversation moved along in that chapter. So many names and so much scheming! XD
I’m going to have a good look at this chart and do a revisit of ch 3, see if I can make more sense of it this time round. 
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This is really interesting stuff! 
Thanks for looking up the comment again and sharing with us. 
<3
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Finally finished Chapter 3! After the long history lesson on all the entanglements in court, I’m happy that Nigel and Jeoffrey made good use of their time without Kaito by talking about their feelings and how they see their relationship going forward. Very happy to see that they remain on good terms! It would be impossible if both started fighting with each other (and also pretty childish imho but )
EDIT: Now having read your comments, I’m glad that I’m not the only one who lots track and needed a diagram
Hahaha! I hadn’t yet thought that far, but I was thinking that we haven’t seen Vicente for a while now…
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AAAAAH
omg omg omg
I can’t believe we’re going this direction in chapter 4. I’m like two pages in and I can barely read because I’m so excited!!
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I need to do lots of chores and read some more Kafka, and now you’re writing THIS 
Ok hold on a sec, I think I can do a bunch of my chores real quick
and then I need a break, that should be pretty obvious 
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O.M.G.!!!
First I thought it was a dream because it spoke of neon lights, steel desks and telephones, but then the name appeared! I don’t believe it
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Chapter 10 thoughts
Well, it’s finally time. Kaito is taken to the Star Chamber at the Palace of Winchester where they will pass judgement on him.
It’s difficult to read, due to the sense of dread and despair from Kaito as he’s faced with all these powerful men, who have little intention of letting him go free. He’s clearly already convicted in their minds. Y_Y
It seems Walshingham is also not content with the murder accusation, but also wants to draw doubt to Kaito’s “origin story”, that is “how he was caught by pirates etc and arrived in England.” Walshingham is going all out to accuse Kaito of being a catholic, with a motive for murdering the bishop, which is pure lunacy, but expected at this point. As well, as the following-up accusation of Kaito being a spy for Spain..
Finally, toward the end, Nigel and then Jeoffrey speak up for Kaito. Jeoffrey, wants to speak to Kaito alone first though. He’s clearly up to something…
Major SPOILERS
Turns out, there really were only one way out of Kaito’s predicament, and that’s relying on a rule of one-time-forgiveness for any given crime. Meaning, Kaito is given a “guilty”-judgement, but after that, Jeoffrey asks for the rule to apply, which Elizabeth is more than happy to do. But those that have received this forgiveness, must wear the brand of a criminal. 
Yeah, Kaito never gets a break, but he’s both out of prison and no longer bound to the Elizabethan court, but is finally free to return to the Gloria and the sea. 
And Blackie! 
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Finished up chapter 4. That flew by with how the chapter started; I wasn’t even that upset to return to Kaito.
I wonder if we’ll be seeing more cross-world dreaming in the future? Sure seems like we’re setting up for it. Also makes me wonder what part Kazuya’s going to be playing in the future, now that he’s back on stage.
Onward to chapter 5!! Dang, this book has really exceeded my expectations, considering we started off with, “yeah no, Walsingham is totally going the torture route.”
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This is definitely setting up the stage for something, but as for what we have no clue. I’m glad Matsuoka decided to not loose sight of the real world completely, including what’s happening to Katsuya. It creates more tension and makes you wonder about Kaito’s role back in time as well.
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Chapter 11 thoughts
This chapter allows us to land a bit, after all the royal drama, court scheming, trial and personal suffering for Kaito. He wakes up to Jeoffrey by his side and they are allowed a respite of actual calm together. And Kaito is finally ready to openly convey his feelings to Jeoffrey. 
They can finally go back to Plymouth, together. 
Lol that Kaito is so overly businesslike about these things. For me, it just feels super odd to decide in advance when and where to have sex. Either you are in the mood for that or you’re not. It’s not something to overthink like this, but yeah, I’ve said all those things before about the oddities of BL.
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Finished Chapter 4! (and also my chores, yay 
)
As I suspected at the very beginning, this was Kaito’s dream of how Kazuya was imprisoned. Or maybe Kaito tunneled to his original world in his sleep? We don’t know… At least the timing seems to be utterly off, as the Kazuya scene is bound to happen at most one or two days after Kaito transitioned to his new world, while Kaito already spent a significant amount of time in his new world (how much, by the way? At least two or three months, I’d guess?). One can argue that time passes at different speeds though… everything stays confusing and thrilling. Anyways, halfway through the chapter we jump back to Kaito who is still tied to the chair, facing more “love and care” by the Raven…
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I would like to mention that we have seen a discrepancy between current day and Jeoffrey’s time already: back in volume 1, it was summer when Kaito slipped back in time, and spring when he actually showed up there. Plus, at the end of the volume, Vicente got back to Spain way quicker than he should’ve. So there’s some fast and loose time shenanigans for sure.
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Oh yes that’s a good point, thanks! Also it of course makes sense that the time runs at a different speed, given this is a different world.
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Finished chapter 5. Not a whole lot went on here, surprisingly. Jeoffrey and Nigel talk to like, two people and pin their hopes on one of them. I’m extremely curious how this “trial” is going to go; our heroes don’t have a whole lot on their team, sadly. :\ I guess if nothing else 松岡先生 is running headlong with her usual pace, so things are moving quickly.
This is about halfway through the book, at least according to my Kindle, so I’m expecting the prison bit to be wrapped up be the end of the book. I really hope so, at least. :S
Jeoffrey once again confirms love rival status re:Nigel. Man, I’d love to have a section from his perspective. We haven’t seen through Nigel’s eye(s) yet, right?
Expect little to no reading update from me tomorrow, potentially; I’m expecting work stuff to take up my whole day tomorrow, so I’m reading extra today. Plus it just feels good to sit down with some F&B, even the scary parts. If only I were this good about reading my other books…
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I’m about halfway through chapter 6. It’s amazing; very little has technically happened to Kaito, yet I still feel slightly nauseous when I read it. Do I need to keep reading in-depth, @ekg, or would it be okay if I skimmed a bit?
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