The best of Bookworm’s best when it comes to covers has been determined: P4V9! Truly a gorgeous piece of art from You Shiina – though I wonder, how would it have fared against P5V1 now that we’ve seen it? Hmm, maybe I should do another round of polls when we finish the series… But that’s a long ways away. Regardless, I look forward to seeing all of the covers still to come!

To all of you who voted: thank you! Whether you only dropped in every now and again or voted every single week, without you, “Best of Bookworm” would have been a string of posts where I just list off my favorite bits of Bookworm, and that would be far less interesting than what we got here.

And to round things off, here's some fun (statistical) facts about the polls :D

The best of Bookworm's best when it comes to volumes has been determined: P4V2! This volume's results surprised me the most, winning the volume poll and even getting to the finals in the cover poll - it seems to be a very beloved volume. There's always something to enjoy in a volume of Bookworm, but it was our first ditter fight over fluffy goodness that took the cake! Perhaps there are some Rauffen's and Lieseleta's out there among the Bookworm forum-goers...

To all of you who voted: thank you! Whether you only dropped in every now and again or voted every single week, without you, “Best of Bookworm” would have been a string of posts where I just list off my favorite bits of Bookworm, and that would be far less interesting than what we got here.

And to round things off, here's some fun (statistical) facts about the polls :D

If you don't want to heavily get spoiled about the events of P5V10, forget this even exists.

@15-Redstones-776rtbk
Sure; just thinking out loud - if blood is acceptable because it contains their mana, then presumably any fluid that contains their mana (maybe even potions?) would do.

Thinking however that most fluids made using mana don't actually contain mana as such - mana ink is an obvious exception, and is what nobles use instead of blood in contracts normally.

Most nobles wouldn't have a supply of mana-saturated ink just lying around though - they usually make it (using stylo) as they need it, and then immediately use it.

by implication though - that could make filling a feystone with mana and giving that to someone incredibly dangerous - they just need to push that mana out into a liquid, and they can then "sign" that contract using any old pen... and it will be binding on the person whose mana it is.

@15-Redstones-776rtbk said in Your security is kinda bad:

@DaveHowe which is exactly why I'd prefer to have a more complex system where everyone can only open the doors they're supposed to. There is no reason why Egmont and his attendants should be able to open the servant doors to Rozemyne's chambers.
Think of a unix file system where certain files can only be accessed by specific groups of users.
Different key cards for each user is something the merchant guild system already has, although they use it for transactions rather than to control door access.

It's not impossible; it would require significant work and expense to set up... but wouldn't require any cards.

Instead, like the bible, the magic tool protecting each room could allow its owner to grant or remove permission to/from named individuals thus selecting who can or can't open the doors when they are closed. They would require mana of course, but that's not a big deal as the owners would invariably be at least blue priests.

Leaving aside the complexity and expense for now, it wouldn't have helped in the Count Bindewald case; the attacker had been escorted to the HB's chambers quite legitimately, and was being walked back to the exit when they encountered Myne.

In the case of Egmont, then the bookroom incident would still have happened (he was authorized there) but for the bible incident, they would have needed to find some way to prevent the door being closed properly while her attendants were delivering divine gifts, trick/force someone authorized into opening the door for them, or override the system. The middle one there would have been the most obvious - while they didn't expect anyone to miss the grey priests from the gate, one of Rozemyne's own attendants going missing would have been a different story.

This is all overkill though. Just having the main doors to the chambers bolt shut from the inside, plus a heavy metal physical lock on the attendant's entrance (only locked when the chambers are going to be empty) would be good enough for almost all circumstances, and I suspect the former already exists (or Eckhart wouldn't have had to chop down Egmont's door to gain entry)

Given the Temple can't even manage magic tools to bring water for bathing, I don't think a complex magic solution is going to be the way to go here.

I really liked the the ninth volume cover in this part and who was hiding behind the title card plus how stunning it was. Took me awhile to realize Ferdinand was actually still kneeling from the insert color image from this volume. Below is an item that arrived today and I'd say it makes me adore this cover more than most. Plus I like how P4V9 is complimented by Drama CD4's artwork (No Title Card).

Caster Rozemyne's line is from the time where she was Crushing the exHB and noting that since he was prepared to order the deaths of her family, he himself must be prepared to die as well.

Damuel: ah paruecakes.
Philene: stay single for me.
Lutz: what are we making today?
Freida: you're for sale.

@MasterLillyclaw
This poll is especially tough, since all these volumes had plenty of great content. For me right now it's still a toss up between P4V7 and P4V9. I'm going to hold off on voting on this one until after the last part of V9 is out.

My ‘favorite P4V6-9 color insert’ vote goes to P4V6; the large amount of black is something we rarely get, and the ominous / sickly green lighting even less so, which gives the insert a very unique and eye-catching vibe. It might be cast assortment, but they’re all relevant to the ternisbefallen incident being depicted, so it works well.

P4V5 to me. We get the kindness to the FVF kids paying off with them informing of a plot against Rozemyne. We get the dying competition, where Effa's cloth is genuinely chosen for Rozemyne in spite of her attempted nepotism. We get to meet Aurelia and see that Ahrensbach isn't all bad. So much goodness here.

My ‘favorite P4V1-5 color insert’ vote goes to P4V4 – I loved the color scheme on the cover and I still love it here, what can I say. Also, while I understand their usefulness, I’m always less of a fan of the inserts that grab a bunch of characters from different scenes and slap them together, as opposed to the ones that are more clearly a single specific scene. We get a lot of new characters in P4 so there’s a purpose in getting them all designs for the readers, but this one just looks cooler to me.

My ‘favorite P4V1-5 cover’ vote goes to P4V4 – it’s hands down my favorite cover in the series thus far. P4 actually has strong covers in general, but there’s something about the colors in this one that I just love; the yellow is so bright and cheery, and it goes well with the white and shades of blue mixed in. I know that P4V5 is also an amazing cover, but hey, this is a poll for personal favorites!

Been busy and had fallen a couple parts behind... good Lord were the Murderous Myne faces everything I could have wished them to be!

Napoleon Myne was cute too, but I was most amused by Myne The Thinker myself.

I’ll try not to do this too much, but since this one has been at a tie for a bit - bump! And if you haven’t voted on the other polls, you can do those too while you’re at it :D

@Aydena
She was pretty explicit. The ratio of male to female birth is about 50/50, but boys are more likely to not get baptized as nobles and become servants instead.

A close choice, but I went for P3V5 because it was our first illustration of both Charlotte and Bonifatius.