Chapter Four Part 8 Up! (Feb 10th) · 10:17pm Feb 10th, 2021
Hello, yes, I am posting this on Wednesday, not Thursday. This early post is as an apology for this case. You'll understand when you finish the part and read the author's note on the part.
Everything following this is spoilers.
So, when I went to create this case, I wanted to accomplish two things: I wanted an accidental suicide on the part of the blackened, and I wanted that blackened to still be executed despite being dead. This was to create the appearance of a second double murder, as well as a twist on Danganronpa's usual Chapter Four formula of suicides being involved in some respect. I was partially inspired by a mystery in Project Rewrite which is an AU take on SDR2. Specifically in that one, a blackened killed someone on accident, did not want to be executed and thus willingly committed suicide. Not wanting to copy this, I changed it in my case to "accidentally committed suicide during attempted murder."
As such, to allow this to occur without it being obvious that's what happened, I need my blackened to stay alive after the original body was found, and then die during the investigation. The only way I could think to do this was if the blackened had an illness of some sort. Because I've suffered from mono myself when I was younger, I was aware it could cause a swollen spleen, and I knew it was possible for that to burst, causing someone to bleed to death if it was not treated. Because I had already intended to reveal that the passengers had been on the ship for much longer than they thought--as implied by Interlude 2 where it's said they were kidnapped a month prior--I decided that he became infected with mono as a leftover from that, and because of the incubation period of two to four weeks, it only manifested itself after the third trial. Flash has been increasingly sick over the course of Chapter Four.
In order for him to inflict a burst spleen on himself, he needed a sufficient impact or hit of some kind. While I considered a defensive wound from Rainbow Dash trying to keep him from killing her, I decided to go with the go-kart track, because it also allowed me to use the ice skates as the murder weapon in what I thought at the time was a clever way, but in reality doesn't make much sense. 
The sad truth is I wasn't even going to go with ice skates at first. I was going to go with something more like a drop in the wind tunnel tubes from the indoor skydiving, but when sound-boarding my husband insisted the skates would make for a better weapon and case. And like me, my husband hasn't been in a go-kart in years, and as stated previously, we both conflated the image of bumper cars as the appearance of a go-kart.
Because he was sick, Flash made mistakes. Because he was dying, he made even more mistakes, hence all the confusing evidence being distributed seemingly at random for no apparent reason. The intended misdirection in this case was everything pointing to poisoning and Applejack and/or Scootaloo as the culprit, with things like the lighter fluid being intended as a hint towards the other reveal, that of them being on the ship for longer than they thought. Which, by the way, yes, is a deliberate setup to allow me to get away with writing a "Cruise Mode" if I choose to do so. I don't know that I will, but I wanted to give myself the opportunity to do so.
But as I stated in my author's note, I failed to include sufficient information to make the mystery solvable. Again, my apologies for that. 
In my original plans for Chapter Four, before the story was reorganized, Scootaloo was the victim, and Fluttershy was the blackened. This would have come about via Rainbow Dash convincing Fluttershy she needed to escape, and while Rainbow Dash would offer to be a sacrifice to her (as a show of loyalty taken too far) Fluttershy would've refused that. So Rainbow instead would have convinced Shy to let her "take the fall" during the trial, and would set up the crime scene so that there would be an easily penetrated primary cover-up, the actual hints would all lead to Dash (Which would have been amplified by making Scootaloo's title "Ultimate Fangirl" in the Monoponi File) except for one or two things, that Sunset would realize at the last second and help everyone avoid convicting the wrong blackened. If that sounds familiar, that's because I recycled most of that into the actual mystery of Chapter Three. 
On the whole, Chapter Four of this story has proved to be my least favorite of the story when it comes to the mystery, and and it shows in that I made several mistakes in putting together the mystery that really, really should not have happened. You'd think after getting it right the first three times I wouldn't have tripped like this. These mistakes will not be repeated for Chapter Five, which will be much fairer to solve. Not easy--it is Chapter Five--but it will be fair.
Next post will happen on Saturday, or possibly Friday evening.
I'm REALLY glad you scrapped the original plans you had for chapter 4, though I wish that Dash had still remained alive even with the rewrite. Her being the victim in this case makes SENSE with the way everything went down, I just don't like it
And knowing how confusing chapter 5 usually is, I can't WAIT for it.
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I am too. I liked the idea of Fluttershy being a blackened, but... it felt really hard to justify. And when I went to reorganize, it just made so much sense to set up the mystery I did in Chapter Three that everything fell into place from there. For what it's worth, I didn't want to kill Rainbow Dash either, because she was going to be on my survivor's list, as a sort of Kazuryu role (complete with getting injured during Fluttershy's execution) but it just didn't work with the reorganization.
I think you'll like Chapter Five. It's my favorite, which is saying a lot considering how much I liked 2 and 3.
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I just got a bit more excited with it. Even more so with the knowledge you gave me
Honestly that’d be me!
If I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t have solved it even if it was obvious. Ugh. My memory’s been failing me lately.
You always seem to post a chapter at the right time. I had another stressful day/week and this was just what I needed.
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Glad to hear I was able to help cheer you up. As for solving, no worries. Even if you don't solve it, having fun trying is just as good.