#I was not thinking of Umineko gold when I decided to do this but one of the Guests mentioned it

[construingseacats]

Umireread: Legend of the Golden Witch - Chapter 14: Boiler Room

Sun, Oct 5 1986 - Indeterminate

The following contains spoilers for the entirety of Umineko. Please do not read if you are yet to finish it.

And we’re off… with another Wikipedia section.

I kind of let it slide last time, when they were talking about Maria and childhood development, but I want to take that back now. George lost both his parents in a horrific murder moments ago. There is absolutely no way he would be engaging in intellectual discussion about the specifics of locked room mysteries, in the same way that the trio shouldn’t have been going “this is also interesting from a sociological standpoint!” a couple hours after they saw their parents/love interest mutilated in an abhorrent murder scene. Bad writing.

Gonna be real: this is fairly uncomfortable. It’s played lightheartedly, but hitting Maria several times, even semi-playfully, feels very inappropriate after the scene in the rose garden. None of these characters are acting anything like they should under the current circumstances.

This story is very obviously fictional and fantastical in nature.

And so we get to the big scene. While the first twilight is my personal highlight of Episode 1, I’m pretty sure most people agree that this one is probably the most important.

So, Yasu throws away the title of furniture, and sacrifices the Kanon persona, knowing there is no turning back now - there’s no shortage of analyses for that. What really stood out to me here was the roulette discussion - it’s something that has been brought up quite a few times, as the concept of the Demons’ Roulette is pervasive throughout Umineko, but I haven’t had any major thoughts on it so far. Here, as the focus, I think the roulette is a reflection of the massacre as a whole.

Yasu wants to be stopped - but she, at this point, knows that’s almost certainly not going to happen. The family are too caught up in their own drama, they’re too self centred, their thoughts have turned to staying alive rather than solving the Epitaph. They want to solve the murders, but they’re not on the right wavelength to understand Yasu. Her motive is inscrutable, her methods esoteric. The Ushiromiya family is doomed. The roulette is red or black.

She, however, is the zero on the roulette. Yasu is the green. When Kinzo spoke earlier of the high risk, high reward of the roulette, this is what he meant - either everyone dies, Yasu gets her revenge, we see the likely outcome of red or black. But if someone solves the Epitaph - if someone understands Yasu - if someone discovers her, this extra spot on the roulette, they win. And she wants to be understood. By someone - anyone. She wants them to win.

Beatrice’s game is one where she always wins; she casts a dice and cares not for the result, as she is content with any. If the roulette is red or black, the house wins, she profits. But if the house loses - and the family are rewarded with their 10 ton payout - she still wins. Because she has traded all the gold for an honour that no money could ever buy.

Man, it always feels unfortunate when I have to go directly from making a deep point to a more surface level observation, or comedic note - but I do like the consistent use of “makeup” across the murders. Very funny when it’s quite literal for the faked deaths. But even for the real bodies - earth to earth - it adds this layer of doubt and fantasy to the level which should have none.

Yasu has had little control in her life. She has suffered because of the actions of others, from the moment of her conception to where she is now. The events of October 4 and 5 - presuming the roulette hits red or black - is a final gambit to wrestle control back from the world that denied her. And just as Yasu decides to go out on her own terms, Kanon wrestles the stake from his chest, a final action that gives him the say in his own demise. It is an act of agency - an act of one who is no longer furniture.

Kumasawa, once again, is having WAY too much fun with this. She can’t even hide the smile this time.

I think there’s something to say about the Ushiromiya pride being their downfall here - bodies are dirty. They don’t want to disgrace their own hands with them. They must send for the doctor so that they may make the inspection. If any of them had taken a pulse, checked for themselves, or even tried to rush to assist - the plan would be over. But Yasu knows that these people will fall prey to the fantasy. Why would they help her? No-one ever has. This must have been cathartic to write.

So given the Kinzo situation, this must be the moment that Natsuhi immediately clocks the servants as being culpable. Being aware of what she knows, and aware of what she knows they know, contextualises a lot of her upcoming jitteriness towards them.

You know, we haven’t had Kanon’s death tip yet. I suppose it might be because they’re going with the whole “he could be alive in Nanjo’s office”, but it’s another cute little hint that something’s off here.

Oh we have it again with the characters going off about the history of polydactyly in the family. Umineko is at its best when we are really feeling the human behind these characters. It’s at its worst when they’re listing off facts in a scientific manner right after someone close to them just died.

Oh yeah we get Kinzo’s death tip before Kanon’s. This scene is so suspicious before you even start to really think about it.

So that means Krauss and Shannon are in the clear, right? After all, we saw Krauss with half a face, and Hideyoshi told us that Shannon was there with half a face as well. It’s a good thing that there are no co-conspirators here who would lie to us to preserve the mystery.

Oh, the clock’s getting bigger as we progress through the Epitaph. I like that a lot. Very imposing.

#umireread #umineko #umineko spoilers

[whenthechickencry]

Umineko EP5. Part 1

Props to Battler for finally trying to understand her, but reminding the person who gave up on everything due to not seeing room for understanding that you do, in fact, not understand her is a choice Battler.

Bernkastel and Lambda are not really wrong here, per se. This game, while having Sayo with differing main motivations than other times, does in fact provide a lot of hints. But also promising to understand someone and then being like "we will give you training wheels" by a third party does seem pretty bad.

Again though, she literally does in fact do that despite the framing as if she's just saying this to mock Battler.

Yeah, this is the best way to describe it, the murderer and the rules are the same but the *motivations* behind it are a bit messed up, still I think showing you someone else's interpretation of Sayo's trauma does help in getting a full picture of her...

The contrast between episode 4 ending with Battler going about how he's gonna kill her she's evil die etc to a guilt-ridden Battler trying really hard to understand her is quite interesting.... one big push made him give up on understanding her and another big push put his mind into understanding her. To be fair, the ending of EP4 was a huge degradation of his character. He was gradually being pushed into this direction, otherwise.

I am sure one person who realized they were never in the same room with Battler before this had a heart attack during this scene.

Hiiiiiii!

Natsuhi is about the only person in the world who would be legitimately weeping at Kinzo dying, it's kind of insane how much of a tryhard she is at keeping her Kinzo headcannons in order to not hate him. It's kind of funny Nanjo says like 3 times Kinzo held no regrets.... seems at first he is just saying that but it is quite true.

Narsuhi's magic doesn't stop at Kinzo, either, she has a whole writing of Krauss and this strong, silently brooding man destroyed by his father's death deep down when he is in fact thinking about how tf to not lose his dad's wealth rn.

lol

Natsuhi is a lot smarter and more competent than Krauss but Natsuhi feels emmasculated and ridiculed by this so he would rather trust a man scamming him than the woman he married. Natsuhi, despite being constantly discarded and lied to and treated as lesser writes headcanons where she is her husband's only ally and he really appreciates her help and respects her secretly even if he fucks up. He will still lie to her about the gold for a couple extra years after she saves his ass here btw.

god man this scene hits so differently now. I was Natsuhi during an abusive relationship during the time crypto and scams were becoming popular. I was the person begging someone to not use the last of their money on moon tourism and getting mistreated in result.

A very heartbreaking thing in both this scene and the one where Rosa reveals her thoughts about her husband leaving her is that Natsuhi and Rosa decide they are both fundamentally at fault for the errors of the men in their lives. They struggle with men being the ones at fault because they were always taught women were the issue.

Even after revealing to Natsuhi they might lose the literal place where she lives, he refuses to give all the information to her, fuck you Krauss.

Natsuhi is letting him off as something he couldn't have predicted but he literally could. He knew Kinzo was dying. Man is old.

Natsuhi I think it's more productive if you take these thoughts of self-blame and put them into murdering Krauss.

"Had become" as opposed to choosing to.... can't bury your true thoughts that deep I guess. Also stop demonizing yourself, does are completely fair thoughts not dark at all!

this kind of would have actually worked, which is funny with how desperate he is being. I mean, it might get complicated with Sayo, but.

I don't remember if it was Beatrice or who that said Natsuhi had no propensity for magic but they were so very wrong. Natsuhi is the Witch of Rebirth, a witch who can change someone's soul into whatever form she desires (in her head).

Natsuhi can't admit that Kinzo and Krauss are bad husbands because that would make her a bad wife.... Kinzo can, though.

Again, Natsuhi is very attuned to magic.... I might be delusional but I think Sayo and Natsuhi could have gotten along, if things were different.

It's interesting how fantasy Kinzo has said this for both Natsuhi and Kyrie. I don't think Kyrie is as desperate to be acknowledged for her efforts as Natsuhi is, but, it does show a certain discomfort about how the men in their lives control them, I think.

I can't help at magic being used this shamelessly, lol. Genji probably went to consult with Sayo right away about this lol. Kumasawa and Nanjo probably feel conflicted enough about Kinzo to just take the money without much guilt.

This scene shows us Kanon and Shannon were told I guess, Natsuhi doesn't really like them so I guess she just felt obligated to do that, though. With them being one winged servants and all.

It is kind of sad that it sees that Kinzo's wife only really exists in Natsuhi's world.... because she can relate to her. And with all the info we have, relating to her isn't exactly a sign of happiness.

.....well. You sure did know her when Beatrice was young but not vice versa I guess.

This is an answer arc, as you can tell by the game handing you answers. Thanks Lambdadelta for magic 101! You can tell killing Beatrice has made Battler do his homework, too. He's come a long way between episodes.

Battler is kind of smugly going "Heh, your easy mystery gave me answers" and it's like.... yes. That's what she is trying to do in fact Battler! It's really obvious in reply that it's really just Bern, not Lambda, that fucking hates Beato.

Lambda's not really wrong here, even if she's coming more from the angle that "anything fictional is a waste of time", which is wrong obviously.

....And the one pointing out this way of fighting is hurting Beato is Lambdadelta, again. It's really obvious she is partial to Beatrice, in her own way.

"Kumasawa, you really are quite an actress. All that panic in the corridor made it seem like Father really was there." Again, this is an answer arc. Where else has Kumasawa shown weird, overreacting terror?

#umiepisode5 #umineko

[disquiet-doll]

Current Umineko Speculation after Episode 1:

First of all I am standing by "It both was and wasn't Beatrice doing it with magic" - I think somehow the magical explanation and the mundane one will both be true

Which like, magical one's easy: she did it with magic

For the mundane ones...

Kinzo did the first 6 to begin the ritual. Simple as that. That doesn't quite explain why the scorpion thing stopped it, but I can see the original intent being to kill Krauss, Natsuhi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa and Battler - Kinzo's children, their spouses, and the one least likely to believe among the grand children. This puts the most suspicion on the servants - something that seems to be the intent for some reason, what with leaving the bodies in the shed - and Eva, who I'll get to.

Then after seeing the scorpion charms, Kinzo decided that would leave too much of a hole in the Witch Theory when having everyone present at the end believe that is the intent. So plan B: Kill 2 servants. Gohda is an obvious choice not being one of Kinzo's favored ones, and Shannon... I'm not sure. Perhaps the best choice of the furniture, since Kumasawa needs to die near the end for reasons.

Anyway, all that leaves Eva as one of the prime culprits, which means killing her (and Hideyoshi) next makes sense. Whittling down the obvious culprits. Same with Kinzo himself being next. I don't really know who would've done this one though, or how they would've done it...

(Perhaps Kinzo killed those two and them himself too? That's... A lot, though.)

(Also: Were Eva and Hideyoshi really torn apart? They were killed, but...)

No clue for Kanon, although... He died alone with Nanjo. Perhaps it was a non-fatal injury from another source and then Nanjo killed him in the end? Gouge the chest and kill? Hmm...

Then, the last 3... This one is a bit much if you assume they all had to be killed at once - there's no way Maria could've done that - but I can see a situation of...

Genji was revealed to be an accomplice - maybe not even killing people, I suspect he drew the magic circles on Eva's door and in the study, and that might have been enough to drive one of the others to kill him. A stab to the stomach.

Then, Kumasawa kills Nanjo for some reason - perhaps for killing Genji, or for the Kanon thing above - disabling him with a stab to the knee first.

Finally, Maria - fully on board with the Beatrice thing - overpowers the old woman, stabbing her in the leg and leaving her as the last alive there.

Natsuhi... I'm not sure, but if she was responsible for Eva and Hideyoshi's death or something else like that, perhaps genuinely believing in Beatrice after finding out the gold does exist, only to find out none of it was real? She may have committed suicide then.

I... Don't know what happened after that, with Beatrice appearing for real. Although the fact that George and Jessica were described as discarded meat, the jawbones being found... Perhaps some kind of fire or explosion? Although I think that would've been mentioned...

So yeah. Not a full picture - doesn't really answer all the locked rooms, for instance - but... Some of this I think is probably true?

At the very least I believe this: Kinzo - and anyone else involved, but I'm damn near certain he's one - wants it to look like it must have been a witch, and specifically to whittle down the possibilities as the ritual progresses until those who are left alive must believe it was Beatrice. It has to happen that way for her to be revived.

(I also suspect the situation mentioned at the end - that the story of the Rokkenjima massacre spreads with "it was a witch with magic" as an explantion - it also part of the intent. The more people who believe the better, after all.)

#umineko liveblog #UmiLB Ep1

[greengargouille]

It’s been more than a month since I told myself I must reread the Umineko canon-adjacent Forgery of the Purple Logic to try to tackle the mystery, and since I was at the end of my tab cleaning spree, I figured that today was the day. I already had read it out whole before- I considered stopping before the last chapter to try to solve it, but couldn’t resist. Not that it mattered much ; I was unaware then that no, the answer to the game isn’t given, and there in fact no official one. (spoilers for the whole thing underneath)

Of course, it is much easier when you already read the whole story. Knowing Erika is the detective, Battler and Maria are innocent (and so Rosa too) and Nanjo is a big liar, it becomes much easier. Now, Nanjo’s statement about his accomplice wasn’t in purple- so for all we know, he sincerely thought there was only one culprit responsible for all the murders besides her own, and that culprit is a woman. ...It’s pretty obvious who it is with the early murders. Regardless of how we think about Nanjo’s declaration, Erika confirms the culprit is a lone woman ; the second twilight’s murders were committed by the same woman, who is able to use the wire cutter- that leaves indeed both Jessica and Natsuhi able to do it. ...I admit, I thought for a moment that they were both culprits, due to their purple statements toward each other in the warehouse, so that threw me on a loop when Natsuhi is confirmed dead by Battler, which I did not remember. I had to go back to realise the trick in the wording. I also got confused about the seals things since I thought it was Battler who said it, it’s only after rereading the statements on the wiki that I got corrected on that it was Nanjo who said it. Which makes it much easier. I suppose, he left one exit unsealed, Jessica left, and when the group checked whether a seal have been destroyed, he then applied it or lied about said seal existing ; because they didn’t want to break the seals, they couldn’t check whether the bodies were still here. ...Now, that means that after Battler was murdered, Jessica came back to the warehouse, and Nanjo killed her here and (re)sealed completely the place before coming back to the latest crime scene? All of that without the rain indiscriminating their clothes? Feels like it would take some time, but then the warehouse is near the guesthouse, and I feel like that’s the only possible solution? -- ...I am so curious about Jessica’s point of view in this though. She was frustrated with this island and this family, to the point of murder when Nanjo encouraged her, but we don’t know much more than that. Did she decide to do it during the family reunion on purpose, to eliminate her extended family, or was it because they happened to be here when now was the ideal moment, with the typhoon? Did she have any particular grief against the servants? ...Was Shannon’s absence an unexplained convenience for the game we’re supposed to go along with, or does it have relevance within the game? It would be sweet but mostly hilarious in a dark way that Jessica asks Shannon to go on vacation during this period, because she doesn’t want to kill her friend, only for, you know... Then, given this is a little game made by Beatrice. How likely it is Sayo thought of such a scenario? “I’m going to write a story where Jessica murders everyone and then rejoin Shannon with all the gold, and they spend the rest of their days happily together. *scratch scratch* Hm. This is difficult. Maybe I should introduce another character. Should I give Jessica an accomplice, too? It would really make it easier for me if this was Dr. Nanjo. As for the reason... Let’s make him the one who solve the epitaph and discover the gold. *Hours of writing later* ...Wait, actually. He would probably just kill her to cover all evidences, wouldn’t he? Damnit, I got too caught up in the murder mystery, why can I never write happy endings.”

#umineko #umineko no naku koro ni #...If I procrastinate so much on rereading a 10 chapters game then wow I will take forever before I finally decide to reread the main story

[gothamcityneedsme]

I saw this bouncing around my dash and decided to fill it out myself for fun :)  I decided to not double-list any games, and I tried to mix up the companies I used too so that the list would be more unique.

Long post, so I’m doing a readmore for my longwinded part lol.

(read more)

Favorite Game: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords - I could talk about this game forever.  How it tears apart the Star Wars universe from within, how it creates a compelling story while challenging the usual themes, etc.  I could talk for ages about the characters and how their motivations slot in place, and how this game lends itself to interpretation and analysis alongside roleplay.  It’s just a wonderful game, one I deeply love and will always love.  It’s a game that isn’t afraid to have you talk to other characters for twenty or thirty minutes at a time and honestly I’m always riveted at every line.  This game deserves the cult fanbase it has, but I think there’s a lot the fanbase misses in appreciating this game.  (Note...gameplay is a little janky and a community made mod restores a lot content that was cut before shipping-the game wasn’t properly finished).

Best Story:  Fallout New Vegas - It’s the setting that makes the story here, and all the moving pieces and factions alongside the main conflict really make this game stand out.  There’s so many little pieces to find along the way in the world and the way the main quest splits based on who you want in power feels important--and you are choosing a future for this whole region.

Favorite Art Style: The Witness - This game is peacefully wonderful with its visuals.  There are wonderful nature scenes and nests of wires and panels spreading in various parts of the island that are fascinating to look at.  The environment is half of the gameplay in most areas, so it’s important to look around even though exploration is not really the gameplay.  You find puzzles in the world, even in nature, and it’s fascinating.  The colors are bright and beautiful.  There is even a map in the middle of the island inside of a lake that helps you track your progress if you notice it (it isn’t like a normal ‘map’).

Favorite Soundtrack: Shin Megami Tensei IV - I love video game soundtracks, but SMTIV is something special.  The music booms in ways that make you really understand the atmosphere of the world, and there’s a great mix of different kinds of tracks for different places.  I love the tracks for the other worlds you enter, and the themes of the different routes are done so well.  Some of the music draws from past SMT games, but the remixes done for this game really are stunning to me, and there’s so many fantastic original tracks.

Hardest Game: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - I love this game but I literally never touch it without a walkthrough, which is why it gets to be the hardest game on the list, despite being a point and click adventure game lol.  Also just emotionally this game is challenging too, but I definitely mean this more in terms of getting a ‘perfect run’.

Funniest Game: The Stanley Parable - Trying to make this list has taught me that I don’t really play many ‘funny games’.  I don’t know if a game where multiple endings demand that you kill yourself should count as a ‘funniest game’, but it is also a game where the narrator tells you to stare at a fern and memorize its features, so....it counts.

Game I Like that is Hated: RWBY Grimm Eclipse - I’ve been playing this game since it was in early access and have loved it the whole time.  I find the gameplay soothing and fun, and I like playing the different characters.  It’s a game I play to chill out and just enjoy some fun battle mechanics.  It’s a fun game and I’ve spent over 100 hours in it, so I hope I like it, lol.

Game I Hate that is Liked:  Nier Automata - Neither this game’s gameplay or story impress me, and the fact that you have to replay basically the same stuff from a more boring-to-play-character’s pov in order to SEE all of the plot is a huge damper on the experience.  The story, to me, someone who engages with a lot of robot-focused fiction, is far from impressive or new, and it hardly engages with genre specifics at all, let alone in a new or interesting way.  I view this game as ‘a story with robots in it’ rather than ‘a story about robots’, which, to me, is a detriment.

Underrated: Nevermind - This game is amazing and very unheard of--and when it is heard of, it has been marketed incorrectly.  Nevermind seems like a horror game, and does market itself as one a bit, but it’s much more than that.  It’s more about trauma, recovery, therapy, etc.  This is a game that is so mindful about the topics it engages in that I am impressed by it every time.  It’s heavy with symbolism and character, despite lacking conversations or other similar game mechanics.  This is a lovely game that I really wish more people knew about-`p5-all of the patients are so interesting, and the focus on recovery and mental health is impressive.

Overrated:  Fire Emblem - I sort of mean this as the series as a whole really.  I have enjoyed the entries I have played somewhat, but I overall consider the series much less impressive than I was led to believe by others.  The gameplay especially is not impressive to me in any regard, even though I sometimes do find myself enjoying it.  The stories are alright, but many of them are weighed down by the gameplay and as a writer and person who likes to analyze writing, it’s very hard to do so when it isn’t able to fully exist under the chains the gameplay forces on it.  There are ways to mix gameplay and story well, Fire Emblem has not really done that in any of the entries I’ve played.  That being said, I don’t regret playing them, and I will occasionally replay, but I consider them mediocre games at best.

Best Voice Acting: Devil Survivor 2 - I love the voice acting in this game.  I feel like all the characters are really suited to their voices, and it’s really easy for me to visualize their voices.  They really bring the game to life and make both the dramatic and the funny scenes more enjoyable.

Worst Voice Acting: Jedi Knight Jedi Academy - I love this game, I really do, but some of the voice acting is janky.  Some of it is okay too--I think Kyle Katarn’s voice actor does fine, and some of the others I like NOW but hated when I was a kid, but the male protagonist voice in this game is just awful.  Which is bad when Jennifer Hale is the female voice actress lol.  His performance is passable though unless you’re playing darksided--the darksided ending to the game lacks all punch when you’re playing the male protagonist.

Favorite Male:  Battler Ushiromiya from Umineko no Naku Koro Ni - He’s the protagonist for most of the visual novels and I adore him utterly, especially once you move past episode 2.  He’s a wonderful character who I care about deeply.  I love his drive and how he fights--he’s someone who is easy to cheer for.  He matures well throughout the series and his character development is just wonderful.

Favorite Female:  Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4 - I really like how Naoto fits so well in the game, especially for being a final recruit--oftentimes the final recruit of Persona games (post 3) have a bit of a more difficult time feeling right with the group.  Naoto works really well though, and I love her struggles and story as well.  I think the difficulties she has concerning living as a woman in her field hit very deep to a problem that has existed for a very long time.

Favorite Protagonist: Connor of Daventry from King’s Quest 8 Mask of Eternity - I’m like, one of four fans of this character in the world, lol.  KQ8 is not a very well liked game and it does have a lot of issues, both with age and with how much of a departure it is from the series prior to it.  It’s strange to take a puzzle adventure game and make it a hybrid with what basically is a shooter, and it doesn’t really work.  Add to that the fact that you spend most of your time in the game without anyone around to talk to and it leads to this really polarizing and weird experience.  For me, Conner goes through what I would consider to be the ‘Ultimate Nightmare Scenario”.  Everyone in the world is turned to stone except him (and he survived out of mere chance) and so now it’s up to him, practically alone, to save the entire world.  There is no game lonelier than this.  I adore him for his bravery in the face of it, and how he just picks up to do what must be done because someone should do it, and if no one else can, then he will.  I also really love how he apologizes to people who are encased in stone while he takes money from their houses to help him on his journey.  I really do think he went back after the game was over and gave everyone heaps of gold to pay them back with interest lol.

Favorite Village:  Oakvale from Fable - The first Fable is the only one I really like, and it was one of the games I played when I was little, so the hometown in the game always meant a lot to me.  I like how you grow up there and how your tragic backstory is there--and then how you get to return to the town years later after you’ve come into your own, and you can see it completely rebuilt.  I like to spend a lot of my time in this town, just wandering around it and playing the minigames.  Even though I have a house in every town, Oakvale is where my hero calls home.

Most Hated Character:  Merril from Dragon Age 2 - I don’t really want to lay into how I feel about Merril, but what I will say is that it was suggested to me that I totally ignore her when playing, and I did so.  I only met her for her quest, dropped her off in town, and literally never spoke to her or interacted for the rest of the game.  I had a much better experience for it, honestly.  She appeared after I made my choice in the end of the game, which felt weird since I hadn’t spoken to her in several ingame years, but other than that, the game was totally fine without her.  I sort of just wish you could kill characters in DA2 the way you can in DAO, then I’d just do that, tbh.  It doesn’t suit very many (or any) of the characters I rp in DA2 to keep her around or support her in any way.

First Game I Played: Mixed up Mother Goose Deluxe - I’m not actually sure if this is the FIRST game I’ve ever played or not, but it’s one of the first I played alone as a kid.  I really loved it--this is probably what created my love for point and click adventures, and the game was very silly and fun.

Favorite Company: Bioware - I’ve always been a sucker for Bioware games, ever since Knights of the Old Republic 1 was my favorite childhood game.  I love how they do stories and party members, and while I’m not a fan of all of their games, I really love what they’ve made and their style of storytelling and character driven plot.  Even though sometimes their stories get cliche, I think the suit video games well and most of my early gaming was within their games.

Hated Company: EA - Bioware truly only started to go to shit after the EA acquisition, so I fucking hate EA.   I know Bioware had issues before EA too, but I definitely don’t think EA has helped the situation whatsoever.

Depressing Game: The Beginner’s Guide - I relate to this game as a creator and a writer, and it affects me deeply because of the story it tells and the questions it raises.  It makes me reflect on how I think of myself as a creator, and it reminds me of friendships I used to have.

Creepy Game:  The Path - God, I love this game.  It’s just aimlessly wandering around and finding symbolic scenery and watching your current character comment on it.  Then, you go off to find your girl’s wolf, and each one is different and unique to her, and you watch it ‘kill’ her--and facing her wolf is the only way each girl can truly mature.  Whenever you get to grandmother’s house, the camera switches to first person, and your eyes keep closing, so you can only see while clicking to move.  It forces you to keep moving so that you can see, but since you are moving, you only get to see things somewhat vaguely.  It’s got a great atmosphere, and I love the symbolic storytelling.

Happy Game: Eastshade - This game is so sweet.  There’s some drama around to with many of the quests, but I like this as an rpg without combat, and I think this would be a really good kids game.  There’s a lot to see and explore, and the game was made to be really pretty so that you want to paint several aspects of it.  It’s really lovely to just wander around in this game and bike around the area, painting anything that suits your fancy.  As long as you don’t finish the main quest, you’re free to wander, and materials do respawn, so you essentially can infinitely paint once you get far enough.

Favorite Ending: Virtue’s Last Reward - I love the questions this game asks and where the ending goes.  It thematically ties together--the whole reason the game itself exists is to get the attention of a ‘higher being’--the player, essentially.  I love how it plays with that concept, and even though the final game in the series doesn’t entirely pick this idea up where this game left it, standalone this game is stunning in how it comes together.

#shitpost #long post #this was fun to do #i made it so every answer was a different video game and i tried to mix up my companies as well #got 3 atlus games on here but mer #2 obsidon #llol #2 sierra too haha but still #beginner's guide and tsp were made by the same guy too but #STILL I LIMITED MYSELF OK #these answers aren't absolute because i was trying to have a good diverse list lol

[moonlightreal]

Winx season 8/17

Now three or four people are reading these, and I am very happy.  =)

In which we root for Stormy.

17 Dress Fit for a Queen

So, a Stella episode.

Alfea!  And we’re returning to the simulation class from season one!  It’s not called the “magical reality chamber” this time around because honestly, that name is a little silly.  But here’s Palladium all dapper in his vest and long hair asking the girls if they’re ready for a “special kind of test.”

Bloom is unsure.

Stella is ready for any kind of test… “as long as it’s about makeup or changing clothes.”

But this test is about visualizing your deepest insecurities, exactly what Stella isn’t an expert at.  The cute minor fairies look worried.

Stella says she has no insecurities, but it’s Musa who hops up to go first.  

So, what are Musa’s insecurities?  Riven.  Her taste in boys.  Her mom obviously. Choosing to do music against her father’s wishes, though now that the girls are successes I assume Ho Boe would’ve calmed down about that.

Good callback, the set is the same—a door, then a bridge into a domed room that projects the simulation.  

While Musa’s insecurities play a Palladium voiceover explains that everyone has insecurities—like, “some are afraid of making mistakes” Virtual rocker Musa flubs a chord.  

“Some are afraid of being unable to help others.”  Virtual Flora can’t revive withered plants.  

Some are afraid of losing control over a situation.”  Virtual Tecna has built a humanoid robot that she’s controlling with her phone, making it do dance moves.  But her phone control stops working and virtual Tec has to flee because it looks like the robot is going to attack her. Also, virtual Tecna is sitting in a lavender diamond shaped hovering chair that you can get in Winx fairy school.  The robot bangs the chair on the ground, it’s funny.

Virtual Aisha is climbing a climbing wall and falls.  “Some are afraid of losing their nerve.”  

Virtual Bloom gets dumped by virtual Sky. “And some are afraid of losing the one they love.”  She runs after virtual Sky, very upset.  When real Bloom walks out she says the simulation feels so real.

What’s this test about anyway?  It seems kinda traumatic!  But Stella has no fear, she thinks she’ll have to ‘come up with a tiny little insecurity I can visualize.”  Stell, I know it was an alternate you, but your Nemesis slapped you around with your insecurities not that long ago! I love Stella, but she has the self-awareness of a turnip.

Virtual Stella is in her pajamas and encounters three dressed-up courtiers.  They titter.  She wonders if she’s under-dressed… nah, they must be overdressed!  She snaps her fingers and poofs them into pajamas too, welcoming them to her sleepover.

Then her parents come out and shame her.  Stella stutters, falling apart a little. Then the simulation ends.  Stella walks out looking mad, and says she could’ve fixed things with her parents if she’d only had more time.  Her voice sounds sad but she looks pissed off; I wonder what tone of voice the Italian voice actress had.

Palladium just says, “Of course you could have, Stella.”  her doesn’t sound sarcastic, or particularly anything.  Then he says they’ll have another class tomorrow morning and leaves.  I expected something more like “this test was to help you understand yourself not fix problems in the simulation, which isn’t real after all.”  but nope.  I kinda wonder if Italian Palladium was sarcastic, maybe I’ll look this episode up on RaiPlay.

Back in the Winx common room the girls talk about how down the test left Stella, and how she never really got over her parents’ separation.  Flora comments that Stella always cheers other people up, but hides her own problems.

So the timeslide has not rewritten Stella’s parents splitting up—though in US law ‘separated’ is different from ‘divorced’ but I’m not sure a kids’ show would care about that.  Probably nothing.  Also Stella’s wish in season 5 seems not to have gotten her folks remarried as was wondered.  We haven’t heard much from Luna and Radius in a while.

Star case appearance!  It speaks!  The next star is on Solaria, conveniently. “It’s easy to be seen but to get it you must be wearing the confidence of a queen.”  Was that an attempt at poetry?

The girls look worried, not thrilled.  But Stella comes in and she is thrilled: that’s her homeworld!  Musa wonders what confidence of a queen means, but Stella knows!  It just means a dress!  And that’s right up her alley!  Bloom is unsure.  But Stella has her plan: make a dress and wear it!  “After all, nobody’s more confidant than I am!”

Valtor is watching. He dispatches the Trix to get the star first.  Stormy says a test of confidence will be child’s play for her, and she’s kinda got a point.  I’d put Icy with her “Defeat the Winx once and for all!” every season like clockwork high on the confidence meter.

I have been watching the Trix very closely.  This season has a prize in the bottom of the box, and I know mostly what it is so I’m looking for any hint of foreshadowing… so far I have seen not a single hint.  I wonder if the prize was added late in the writing of the season like the gang at Rainbow suddenly decided this season needed a little something more, or something.  One thing I wish they did was have foreshadowing in the opening sequence—like in anime ops, there will often be a hint, characters with their faces not visible or only shown as a brief flash so you see just enough to suspect…

(see the Umineko game opening for an example.)  But this season of Winx the entire op is just clips from the show itself so nothing in the op can sort of contain the whole season’s story… if that makes any sense… yeah, I think Winx ops could be better than they are.

Cut to gorgeous Solaria background.  A little bay, the palace, and a… giant building like six times bigger than the palace?  Do Solarians live in arcologies instead of normal cities? (spellcheck does not know the word arcology.)  there are also some viking style boats in the bay and random crystals spiking out of the water.  Very pretty.

The girls on their winxboards fly past the crystals, which are beautifully colored. Stella says her mom can help with dressmaking but her dad can’t even combine colors.  Heh.  But he’ll be happy about the surprise visit!

Throne room!  One throne, two lion statues, the usual drapey above-throne fabrics. Radius sits reading a scroll.  He gets up to hug Stella and calls her “Little Star.”  Aaaaaw.  Then immediately starts a lecture on how busy palace life is and how she should’ve called before visiting.

Stella blows him off, “Fine, fine, we won’t bother you, byeeee!”  and leads the somewhat embarrassed Winx out of the throne room.  Stella has an idea: her dad seems stressed, he needs a party to cheer him up! Aisha reminds her of their mission and Stella says she can do both. If her friends help.  The girls follow, their expressions neutral.  I would be having an expression of ‘concerned’ at this point.

  Outside the palace Stella walks with her mother while the rest of the Winx wait on a bench.  Bloom comments that it’s nice Luna is still living at the royal palace… what IS her status as the king’s ex?  Is she a queen?  She clearly still rates a royal look and that cool moon crown.

Luna suggests they look for supplies at Muppy village.  Whatever that is.  Before we can go find out Stella has another idea: a party for her mom too!  Bloom wants to talk some sense but before she can get one word out Stella conjures her winxboard and hops on, off to see the muppies!

Bloom doesn’t know what muppies are either.

They seem to live in houses made from mushrooms around the bases of trees, but the front door is size that a person can go in, so those must be big trees.  Stella says muppies are great craftsgnomes and they’ll have all the supplies Stella needs for her gown.  Musa sensibly asks why the muppies would part with rare supplies but Stella says all she’ll need to do is make them laugh.  The rest of the girls look more and more unsure about all this.

The Trix are of course watching from above.

Inside we see many bolts of fabric.  Stella sees some bluewhite fabric and decides that’s fit for a queen.  It matches her mother’s dress, a nice touch.  Then some muppies walk in, they’re short and look about like adult male pixies would, I think.  No wings.  And way too small for the scale of their shop.

Stella attempts to pay for the fabric with a joke, but it flops.  She’s so earnest about it, it’s adorable.

Musa summons soundwaves that make the muppies’ hair and beards spike out.  They see each other and burst out laughing.  Score!  Stella gets her bolt of fabric… and immediately dumps it on aisha to carry while she does some more shopping.

In the next shop Stella finds a spool of gold thread.  She starts to tell her joke then rethinks and asks Tecna for help.  Tecna conjures a funny robot that rolls around, juggles, then drops the balls on its head.  The muppy proprietor laughs.  Tecna says , “achievement unlocked” which is becoming slightly annoying as a catchphrase.  Stella gets a box of spools of thread… and immediately gives them to Aisha to carry.  This’ll end well.

In the next shop they’re coming to buy jewels to put on the dress.  This muppy has a big jewel on his hat.  Bloom offers to provide the laughs and does a really cool trick with little streams of fire from her fingers.  But it’s not actually funny, and the muppy seems worried his shop is going to catch on fire.  As Stella tries to reassure him she knocks a bowl of jewels down on her head.  Laugh achieved, she wins a bag of jewels… and immediately dumps it on Aisha to carry.  Aisha says she should’ve brought a shopping cart.

The girls hop on their winxboards (Aisha’s burdens seem to have vanished) and head back to the palace.

The Trix hop down for their turn.

Darcy: “We don’t have to make these things laugh to get what we need do we?”

Icy: “I’d rather make them cry.”

Stormy: “We’ll let the Winx do all the work for us then take the prime star from them when they least expect it.”

Too bad, it would’ve been fun to see what kind of dress they’d have made.

Back at the palace Stella is working on a dress not unlike the folded-chiffon dresses they wore on Andros in the Sirenix episodes.  It’s pale blue/lavender with a skirt that’s short in front and long in back, blue ribbon trim, one shoulder, a wide ribbon choker, and jewels on the bodice.  it’s not at all in Stella’s colors and really looks more her mother’s style.  I wonder if that’s on purpose, a nod to Stella seeing her her as a true queen.

The other girls bring party stuff: flowers and ribbons, chocolate cake and lemon cake.  As you can guess, one parent likes one thing and one parent likes the other.  Stella decides they’ll use both decorations and magics the cakes together into a lemon-chocolate cake which is not a flavor combination I have ever heard of.  Lemon-cinnamon cake, however, is amazing.

Bloom manages to reroute Stella into trying on the dress.

Nighttime, outside, Stella is wearing the dress and her Solarian crown.  The other girls admire her confidence… and a door of light appears!

Cosmix time! Through the door!  The Trix follow, because of course they were hanging around.

The girls appear outside a beautiful pearly sphere with another sphere inside it. Inside is the prime star.

Everybody tries to fly in, but only Stella and Stormy can pass through, maybe because they’re the most confident.  But when they grab for the prime star they get zapped to…

Stella in her dress meeting the same three courtiers from the simulation.  Stella guesses this is a magical test, but at least this time she’s dressed for the setting!  She sees her parents and runs to them, asking if they like the party she set up.

But Radius says they have nothing to celebrate: Luna is leaving.  Stella can choose who to go with.  She looks back and forth between them, unable to choose.

Stormy arrives back at Valtor’s place where he yells at her for being late.  Stormy says she can come and go as she pleases and Valtor blasts all three Trix into the walls.  Icy and Darcy fall down into the chasm on either side of Valtor’s throne, hanging on by their fingers.   Valtor declares he’s powerful enough not to need them anymore.  Icy and Darcy yell for help, saying they can’t fly anymore.  Stormy does an evil grin that kinda makes me root for her.

Back at the palace Stella watches her parents walk away.  She starts crying, saying she doesn’t want to choose.

Stormy gets her badass on!  She can still fly, and still do magic, and she throws some at Valtor.  “You can’t treat me like that!  And you can’t treat my sisters like that!  She rescues both Icy and Darcy and declares, ‘Because I’m the most powerful witch in the magic universe!”

Go Stormy!

Back with the prime star, Stormy wins!  She gets the star!

Stella realizes, “It didn’t mean a dress, it means the confidence a queen uses to fulfill her duty, no matter how difficult.”

But it’s too late, Stormy’s got the prime star and the Trix escape with it. Stormy also said, “Guess I showed you two!” to her sisters, which did not make Icy a happy camper!

Stella stands defeated.

Stormy presents the prime star to Valtor.  

“I knew I could count on you, Stormy.  Keep this up and you’ll earn more than compliments.  I’m talking about your freedom from my magic bond.”

Stormy gloats.  Icy snarls.

Back on Solaria Stella’s wearing her new dress and the other girls are in their dresses from Andros.  Party time!  Stella worries about the preparations but it’s all perfect.

“No it isn’t! I failed the test!  I wasted time on that dress instead of focusing on my confidence!”

Bloom says anyone could’ve made that mistake, and Stella says, ‘Except that I did!”  and now the Trix have the star.

Cute moment of Bloom saying they love everything about Stella, the way she’s there for them, not just her confidence, and the Winx get all teary. Stella says she’s lucky to have friends like them, and Bloom says she’s lucky to have family that love her.

Luna comes in and admires Stella’s dress.  Stella says her mother was her inspiration, so I guessed that right.  Radius loves the chocolate-lemon cake.  They tell Stella that she’s their happiness, and there are hugs.  Aaw.

#winx club season 8 #winx club

[neko-when-they-cry]

Trick of the Golden Witch chapter 1

After the death of her aunt, Ange decided to go on a quest to find out the truth about the Rokkenjima Massacre. She ended up asking the help of a certain detective.

So here's an Umineko fic based on my theory regarding the Trick Ending. Spoiler for the end of Umineko. Enjoy!

Ushiromiya Ange remained still in front of the detective agency. Not that she was hesitating to enter or anything, she was simply lost in her thought. Her aunt Eva recently passed away, but she wasn't sad about it. She always hated her ever since she became her legal guardian, and it was mutual. Ange always felt like Eva was keeping the truth from her, about what truly happened in the Rokkenjima island. She was suspecting her of being the culprit behind the tragedy that took away her family, but she still needed concrete proof. Ange was desperate to know the truth, and quite frankly, ready to try anything. Now that Eva was dead, she was free, the chain keeping her from finding out the truth had been broken, and she was ready to investigate this mystery.

"What are we waiting for, oujo?"

Ange sighed. Hearing him just reminded her that she was stuck with him. Amakusa Juuzo, her bodyguard. Hired by Okonogi to protect her. Quite frankly, she would do perfectly fine without him, but he didn't seem like he had any intention to leave. Well, at least he wasn't preventing her from looking for the truth, so his presence was bearable. At least it gave her someone to talk to.

"Nothing, let's go," Ange said as she stepped inside the agency, followed by Amakusa.

The agency was rather small but well decorated. They walked in a small corridor until they reached a door, which Ange knocked at. After a few seconds of waiting, someone opened the door. It was a middle-aged woman with short dark blue hair barely reaching her jaw, lighter blue eyes and wearing a rather professional outfit. She smiled politely at Ange.

"Oh, you must be Ushiromiya Ange-san. Please come on in."

Ange nodded and stepped inside the office, followed by Amakusa. Inside was a desk, a couch with an armchair in front, with in between a coffee table. The blue-haired woman put two cups on the table and poured tea in it, before sitting on the armchair.

"Please take a seat, Ange-san."

"I suppose I'm not invited," Amakusa said.

"No. Go wait in the corner and stay quiet," Ange ordered him.

"Roger, oujo."

Her bodyguard did as she told him and she sat on the couch. The woman took a sip of her tea, smiling in a serene way. Ange looked at her tea, with no intention of actually touching it.

"You know, I always wanted to contact you, but your aunt never let me. Not that I'm happy she died, but at least I'm free to talk to you know."

"You can be happy. She was a bitch," Ange replied bluntly.

"Ouch, I see you two didn't have quite the aunt-niece loving relationship. Well then, I'll be frank. Her death was surely in my best interest."

Despite her cruel words, the woman was still smiling softly. Ange felt that despite her rather elegant appearance, this woman was much sinister than she looked like.

"Let me introduce myself again. I'm Furudo Erika, nice to meet you."

Ange remained quiet. After her aunt's death, she looked for the second survivor of the Rokkenjima Mass Murder Incident, Furudo Erika. Totally unrelated to the Ushiromiya family, according to what she read she would have ended up on the island after a boat accident. But Ange knew that there was more to this. So she contacted Erika and organized a meeting between the two of them. Since she was a detective, it seemed that she might be even more useful to her investigation.

"Why did you want to contact me?" Ange asked.

"Well, since you were one of the only Ushiromiya left, I wanted to talk with you, and hopefully learn more about your family. But your aunt never let me, she was quite protective of you."

"Bullshit. Eva oba-san never loved me, she didn't care about me."

"If you say so. Anyway, I simply investigated on my own to find the truth, but I never had any conclusive result. I kind of give up, but when you called me, it made me want to continue my investigation."

"What a coincidence, I also want to investigate the Rokkenjima Incident. I want to know the truth, and I was hoping you could help me."

"Oh my, so here's why you called me. I feel like we'll get along just fine. Both looking for the truth-"

"Tell me what happened on the island."

Erika remained quiet for a moment, before taking a sip of her tea and putting it back on the table.

"You're not sugarcoating it, I like that. Well, it's not like I hide what happened to me on the island. I fell from a pleasure boat near Rokkenjima and in some miracle, I survived and arrived on the island. The Ushiromiya family welcomed me as their guest, and I spent a lot of time with the younger members of the family, including your brother Battler-san."

"No need to tell me superficial details, come to the point. I want to know about the murder."

Erika chuckled.

"Very well then. It all started during dinner, Maria-san brought back a letter that she claimed was from a witch named Beatrice. It was a riddle, the Witch Epitaph, to find Kinzo-san's gold. Whoever would be the first one to solve the epitaph's riddle would inherit the gold and become the new head of the Ushiromiya family. The adults asked the kids to leave so they can talk about this mysterious letter alone, and even though I wanted to be part of it I was forced to stay with the cousins," Erika started to explain. "Then the cousins were called by Rudolf-san apparently on the behalf of Kinzo-san. Apparently he judged all his children to be unfit to be his successor and wanted to test his grandchildren instead to choose his heir. Jessica-san was asked to go to the parlour and George-san in front of the chapel. When those two left, I stayed with Battler-san and Maria-san in the cousin room."

Ange took the time to think about it. Her father called Jessica and George on the behalf of Kinzo? Somehow, that sounded fishy. Almost like a trap.

"Later, Battler got called at the chapel and I remained alone with Maria-san," Erika continued. "But my instinct told me something was odd. I knew there was something wrong. This epitaph was highly suspicious to me. So I decided to leave the cousin room and go investigate on my own. I went to the parlour and discovered… Jessica-san's corpse."

"Jessica's… corpse… how did she die?" Ange asked.

"Are you sure you want to know? It was pretty brutal-"

"Tell me. I'm here to know the truth after all."

"Very well. Her face had been smashed beyond recognition. I only knew it was her because of the clothes and the hair," Erika revealed.

Ange felt a little bit nauseous. Such an awful way to die. Whoever the culprit was, she would never forgive them.

"What happened next?" Ange asked.

"Well, I realized that there was a murderer on the island, so my detective senses got quite stirred. I decided to go see the chapel and on my way, I found Rudolf-san's corpse. He looked like he was shot twice, once in the chest and the second time in the head. I also found George-san's corpse in the forest near the chapel, similar injuries as Rudolf-san. I decided to go back to the cousin room and on my way found the corpse of most servants, and later Maria-san with her throat slit in her bed. I left once again, looking for any survivors, and found Kyrie-san's corpse in the garden, a bullet in her throat. The only people I haven't seen their corpse were Battler-san, Shanon-san, Kanon-san and obviously, Eva-san."

Ange felt sick. To learn how her family died, especially her parents, was truly awful. But she repressed those feelings, she had to remain strong, for the sake of the truth.

"Then, how did you escape? According to what I read, you found a boat and left the island before it exploded. How did you find that boat? I don't recall reading about that," Ange insisted.

Erika became quiet for a moment as if she was hesitating to continue.

"Well, that's when things become really weird. I didn't tell anyone about this because I didn't want people to think I was crazy. But since you are an Ushiromiya, I suppose you have a right to know," Erika started to say.

Ange became tense. Whatever Erika was about to tell her, it must be shocking. But she was ready to face anything, she wasn't scared of the truth. Whatever it was, she would accept it.

"I saw… the Golden Witch, Beatrice," Erika revealed.

Ange became speechless when she heard that. Beatrice… the woman on the portrait? She remembered talking about her with Maria as a child, when they played witches together. Beatrice was the witch Maria admired and respected. But she wasn't real, right? Just a child's delusion, so how… ?

"You saw… Beatrice… ?" Ange wanted to confirm.

"Yes, I did. She's actually the one who saved me."

"But… how? What happened!?" Ange demanded, more and more flustered.

"She brought me to an underground tunnel and we reached a boat. She told me that since I wasn't linked to this family, I didn't deserve to die. Obviously I asked her for an explanation, and then, her expression changed. She grinned in such a malevolent way and laughed madly, saying that she was the one who killed everyone because the Ushiromiya owed her. She took back everything that belonged to Kinzo, and that I simply wasn't part of that."

Ange remained quiet, clenching her fists in anger.

"Are you telling me… that my family has been killed by a witch?! That magic is real!? Impossible! I won't believe such foolishery, this is insane, it can't be the truth!" Ange shouted.

Most to Ange's surprise, Erika's smile turned into a sinister grin as she suddenly burst into an almost demonic, before she gazed at Ange with such arrogance.

"Of course not! Do you think I'm dumb enough to believe in magic? Obviously she wasn't a real witch, only a human wearing a fancy costume and a wig! But this human pretending to be the witch Beatrice may be the culprit we are looking for, the one behind the Rokkenjima Incident," Erika said.

Still shocked by Erika's sudden outburst, Ange remained quiet for a moment, before feeling relieved. She was worried that Erika actually believed in magic for an instant.

"Who is this culprit? Who was this person pretending to be Beatrice?" Ange asked.

"I don't know. Either one of the 17 people on the island, or some mysterious 18th person. My bet would be either a servant or an Ushiromiya."

"It must be Eva oba-san! She disguised herself as Beatrice and killed everyone!"

"Hm, I wonder. I'm still not sure if this Beatrice is really the culprit. After all, she saved my life. I can't forget this panicked expression she had on her face when I first met her, and that bloody shoulder… no, she wasn't the culprit. She had been attacked. Well, according to the Epitaph she may have wanted to murder everyone, but someone might have beat her to that. Or the adults solve the riddle before the deadline and one of them decided to kill everyone for the gold. Simply by the existence of Beatrice's wound, this level of reasoning is possible for Furudo Erika! What do you think, everyone?"

Ange remained skeptical. So this Beatrice, whoever she truly is, wouldn't be the culprit but would have intended to kill everyone for an unknown reason. But Ange didn't care with she wanted to, she was only interested in the real culprit, the one that stole her family away from her.

"So Beatrice is pointless. No need to find who she is, we should focus on the actual culprit," Ange said.

"Well, the fact Rudolf-san called us for some kind of test and before going there were killed is highly suspicious," Erika said.

"No, my father can't be the culprit! After all, he was killed too. You said he called on my grandfather's behalf? Then maybe it's him, who tricked my father and orchestrated the murder of his family," Ange theorized.

"That's an interesting theory, I did think of it too."

"Is there anything else I don't know about the incident?"

"No, I told you everything I know."

"How much will it cost?"

"Eh?"

"You're a detective after all, you can't have told me all of that information freely. How much will it cost me?"

"Ah! Don't worry about that, for you it will be free. After all, I did want to discuss with you."

"Fine. Well then, if you have nothing more to tell me, I'll leave. Thank you for your time."

Ange rose up, ready to go, but before she could leave, Erika suddenly grabbed her arm.

"Wait! I'm not done with you," Erika said.

"But I am."

"Let me finish! What if we work together to uncover the Rokkenjima mystery and discover the truth?"

Ange thought about it. Somehow, she wanted to do this alone. It was her family, it felt personal. But, Erika was a survivor of the Rokkenjima Incident, she was there when her family was murdered, and in addition, she was a detective. Her help could be precious.

"Fine, let's team up," Ange agreed.

"Wonderful! How about you work with me at my agency? Helping me solve my cases, it would sharpen your skills. And we could work together to solve the Rokkenjima Incident."

Ange hesitated. Working for Erika didn't seem that much pleasant, but it was true that it could help her develop better deduction skills, which could be useful to find the culprit who killed her family.

"Okay, I'll work with you. But it better not be a waste of time," Ange replied.

"Don't worry, it won't. Glad that we'll now work together, my dear new assistant."

Ange sighed. This alliance was the start of her quest. The quest of the truth regarding the Rokkenjima Incident and the murder of her family. And she was determined to succeed, no matter what.

***

Suddenly, a truly devilish smile appeared on Erika's face. Under Ange's expression of disbelief, Erika started to shrink, her hair grew long and was now tied up in twintails, and her clothes changed for a fancy white and pink dress. Her smile softened as she grabbed her dress to lift it a little and bowed elegantly.

"Allow me to introduce myself properly. I'm Furudo Erika, the detective, as well as a Witch of Truth."

Ange remained shocked by what she witnessed. A middle-aged woman just turned into a teenager in front of her eyes! And now she was calling herself… a witch? She looked around and discovered that Amakusa had disappeared.

"It can't be true… magic can't be real, you can't be a witch, you said it yourself that they don't exist!" Ange exclaimed.

"Magic and witches do in fact not exist, in your world. But this isn't your world anymore. Welcome to the Meta-World, Ange-san."

"I… I don't understand…"

"It's fine if you don't. Anyway, whether I truly am a witch or not doesn't matter. It's Beatrice's status as a witch we need to disprove."

Ange reminded quiet for a moment, still shocked by what she saw, but eventually come back to her sense and regained her composure.

"No. We need to discover who the culprit is. If Beatrice isn't the culprit, then there's no point in finding out her true identity," Ange said.

"But you can't know for sure that she isn't the culprit. Wouldn't it be better to discover who she is in case she is the culprit?"

"But didn't you say yourself that you didn't think she was the culprit?"

"The Erika of this world did, but I'm not her. I'm the Erika from another world. But I do know everything about this world, but it doesn't mean I agree with everything my human self said."

"Right… well then, are you going to help me find the truth?"

"That's what I'm here for! I'll be your witch guardian, and I'll help you find out the truth and destroy that illusion of the Golden Witch. Surely you know about those message bottles? Even if the books weren't written in this world, those messages still exist here, as well as all the forgeries made."

"You mean those messages signed by Maria onee-chan? Yeah, I know about them. Different scenarios about what happened on the island. A lot of people become fans of those theories and started writing their own, I suppose that it was your mean by forgeries."

"Creating a perfect catbox for the Rokkenjima Incident. But together, we'll open that catbox and reveal the truth. Let's put an end to those theories and destroy that illusion once and for all! Join me on that quest and be my assistant, Ange-san, fellow Witch of Truth."

Erika held out her hand, smiling. Ange hesitated. This just sounded all so crazy. But she did want to know the truth, and she hated all those forgeries. Her family's death shouldn't be a show or something to theorize about, she wanted them to finally rest in peace, and the only way for that was to reveal the truth.

Ange made her choice. With a serious gaze, she grabbed Erika's hand, who immediately grinned in a way only a witch could.

"Good. Very Good."

A world where Erika survived and become a private detective. My interpretation of the Trick Ending.

This story might stay as a one-shot, but I do have a full plot in mind. So if you're interested let me now, leave a note or a comment and follow the fic here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20956274. Thanks for reading and maybe seeya next time, bye!

Oh, before I leave. I made a When They Cry discord server, to talk about Higurashi, Umineko, Ciconia and other 07th Expansion series. You can join here: https://discord.gg/NhwaPX7

#umineko when they cry #umineko no naku koro ni #umineko spoilers #when the seagulls cry #erika furudo #furudo erika #ange ushiromiya #ushiromiya ange #trick ending #fanfiction

[rontra]

ANONYMOUS ASKED:

i really like mwot and was wondering, do you wanna talk/loredump/etc about mwot during this blessed month of pride? (if not that's totally cool!!! i really like the au and am curious about it!)

REPLY:

YES!!!!

umineko spoilers below and LONG POST KSDJDKSKD i really went infodumping......you got me right in an infodumping mood....

also im being very casual in this post so if something is like weird or vague its probably because i got tired of thinking about it and skipped ahead. SKJDSJD

mwot is an umi au and its very gay and very trans because i, a gay trans, decided it was TIME to INDULGE

LIKE A MOUNTAIN WIND FALLING ON OAK TREES also known as MWOT, MW/OT, Mountain Wind + Oak Trees, MW+OT, or literally any combination of its parts, is an eva/natsuhi au, set in a vague modern big city setting

https://rontra.tumblr.com/tagged/mountain-wind-oak-trees

it’s a comedy, mostly? it has elements of backstory transphobia and  stuff like that but that’s not really the story i want to tell with it, so  i don’t go too deeply into it in the main fic. it’s mostly comedy and Self Care: The  Story (once these nerds get around to acknowledging that self care is  good, anyway!!!!)  

Eva is 20, nb lesbian (though she doesnt know half of it to begin with). generally a bitchard at the beginning but also deeply craving that Validation. Invested in making the fic harder to write due to pronoun shenanigans (shoutout to the lengthy section of intimate emotional scenes that uses no pronouns at all for eva but is narrated by them in 3rd person)

Natsuhi is like 21 i guess because im a sucker for her having like an annoying 1-3 years on eva bc eva would get mad about it. Also she’s trans, gray-ace, hopeless romantic, generally full of “quickly raising your eyebrows and looking away while sipping your drink and thinking Yikes” energy. weaponizes indifference but is no stranger to harder means. she’s a smart cookie

Sayo is also 20, gender clown car living her best life. Presents differently depending on mood and whim

krauss is like 22 or whatever. for housekeeping’s sake, rosa and rudolf are too young to matter (8 and 10, or something like that). dont even worry about it

honestly the weirdest part of the au is eva and sayo being the same age

also this au is the origin point of me & my friends using akikaze as nat’s maiden name. the more you know!

-

USHIROMIYA GOLD dishes up that yellow metal like you wouldn’t believe. led by kinzo whos so fuckin good at sniffing out that sweet sweet gold people are half convinced the man has psychic powers. Any piece of land he’s got his eyes on, he WILL get his hands on, no matter who owns it right now.

the land kinzo wants At The Moment is owned by the AKIKAZE FAMILY who have been notably on the decline recently. they’re in the economic shithole so this land is basically all they’ve got right now, so when kinzo wants it and it suddenly Has Value, they’re like “oh, shit,

anyway the deal basically shakes out that like, he gets the land and all the gold that may or may not be in it. he offers his eldest son in exchange for this land, to marry their daughter: in the bonds of marriage graciously ensuring a part of the winnings will spill over on them, while keeping them under his control without money coming into the picture.

Everything’s working out great and coming up kinzo. the deal is closed and everyone’s happy (i guess). until ONE DAY, just a few narrow weeks before the akikaze girl is set to move in with the ushiromiyas,

KINZOS

OLDEST

SON

DISAPPEARS

!!!!!

Krauss dislikes being told what to do, and his father’s ideals never lined up with his own. He thinks this entire thing is sort of fucked up and can’t live under his dad’s thumb anymore. That's why, immediately following Kinzo’s agreement with the Akikaze family, Krauss disappears. He’s just kinda left for greener pastures, to unfold his own life and pursue his own interests independent of the Ushiromiya name. He leaves behind a letter explaining it & basically he forfeits both name and inheritance, and Kinzo’s incredible deal is suddenly in jeopardy.....

obviously this is kinzo though, and all of his solutions are like, 20 times more complicated than they have to be? he’s DETERMINED to have this land so he’s like “i need an eldest son. shit rudolf is only like 9. fuck. well okay i have an eldest daughter with a deeply complicated need for validation and success entirely driven by her overall neglect at my hands“ and the rest. as they say. is history (???)

Ushiromiya Eva always saw Krauss as unworthy of the inheritance, and to her, his disappearance confirms this. She grew up always being made to feel inferior to her older brother, usually being ignored in favor of him, and it's bred a complex need for validation in her. Her values and strengths are more like Kinzo’s than her brother’s, and Kinzo recognizes this in the wake of Krauss’ disappearance.

basically he concocts this really wild scheme where eva has to pretend to be his oldest son and marry this girl or whatever so he can seal this stupid gold deal and she’s like “well lol if i get to be family heir” and hes like “yes that’s what im saying” and shes like “awesome let’s do it”

all of the servants are in on it too of course. specifically kinzo enlists SAYO who works there as normal staff and isn’t otherwise tangled into this family’s mess in any way whatsoever. she’s just here to serve tea and looks. anyway he’s like “you work on this with eva--i mean evan, my son, you must have misheard--and eva you have to listen to whatever yasuda says” and eva is like “that last part will not be frustrating for me at all”.

Yasuda as reigning Household Gender Presentation Expert is like “i think i just got orders from the master to bully eva?” and eva is like “i wish i could fire you but my dad just banned me from doing that” and then gradually...over the course of the project......they become....friends.........

(the au is tagged eva & sayo for a reason. they become FRIENDS!!)

mostly its just various combinations of shkanon dunking on eva and its all VERY good.

during all these shenanigans we make some startling realizations like “gender euphoria is a hell of a drug” and stuff, which is extremely harrowing for everyone (note: not for everyone. just for eva, who makes 10,000 realizations every day, and should not have been counted.)

(ok sidenote did anyone else put on their first binder & go like “hmmm. i live here now” because. mood. im projecting entirely into this fic)

Gender Clown Car yasuda (currently as lion) is like “you know there’s like more than 2 genders” and eva’s like “you fucking wehat”.

i also make a REALLY INVOLVED JOKE ABOUT CASTIGLIONI GOLD, THE RIVAL COMPANY, and how BEATRICE’S KID LOOKS A LOT LIKE LION, and EVERYONE thinks this is all VERY funny

(i would like to see it. also kinzo owes beatrice castiglioni $20 and she’s never let him forget it.)

now wrapped up in this stupid impostor scheme AND full of big wild nonbinary energy AND!! WITH AN INFURIATING NEW FRIEND!! IN THE STAFF!!! this one funky ushiromiya is all ready to get in on an arranged marriage or whatever. provided NO ONE EVER FINDS OUT that they’re faking it and replacing the Actual Heir, which would no doubt ruin the scheme AND bring kinzo’s wrath on everybody involved, of course.

-

AKIKAZE NATSUHI IS READY TO PUNCH HER FIANCE IN THE THROAT IF HE EVEN LOOKS AT HER but she understands what’s happening here. she knows she didn’t have a say in this from the very beginning. that the deal was sealed for her as soon as the name “ushiromiya” was said. she knows her family married her off quick in a bid to get rid of her. if she’s humiliated by this ordeal, she is far too proud to show it. she packs her bags and walks into the mansion with her head held high........and immediately has this exchange with her fiance

and this one

so that’s kind of the energy we’re going for with these two.

(natsuhi’s line in the second cap was going to be removed for being Way Too Intense, but everyone i talked to said it was too hot to cut, so i decided to indulge us all. blame the lesbians)

they IMMEDIATELY don’t get along but they kinda agree to like, mind their business, since neither of them are interested in playing house here. if they can get the wedding to go off without a hitch they can basically go back to never talking to each other again.

natsuhi’s entire angle here is essentially: her family was not that good, and this family likely won’t be better, BUT here she has a chance to build something new for herself. she’ll be out of her parents’ house. She needs this deal to stay for her own sake, but she has to get out ahead of her husband and set up a dynamic that favors her. when she meets evan she essentially gauges the kind of person she’s dealing with and picks her approach accordingly: this is not a soft man, and she has to be hard in turn to avoid being steamrolled.

and its VERY hot

anyway some stuff happens and it eventually they both sorta get each other’s secrets. eva is not the firstborn son and natsuhi is not the card kinzo thought he was pulling from her family’s hand and theyre both toast if word hits the public. directly after the wedding they establish a tense alliance of keeping each others’ secrets....

and then they.....fall...in l

there’s some fun tensions and realizations. eva is like “so im quickly catching on that no praise i ever received from dad was on my own merit and he’s kind of a dirtbag all around and his validation is kind of not worth it” and nat is like “word our parents are chains” & they run kinzo over with the down w cis bus. it’s fine. they get postcards from krauss sometimes. he has a motorbike now.

DID I MENTION THE PRACTICE KISSING

BC THEY HAVE TO PRACTICE! FOR THE!! PUBLIC WEDDING!!!!

and thats mwot i guess. it’s my au where natsuhi’s accent color is red and some other stuff happens too. happy pride month

#mwot #second time's the charm

[goldenkamuyhunting]

The more I think about it, the more I think that there is no gold. Maybe Wilk dumped it in the ocean or something. I believe his "plan" for Asirpa might be to bring people together. Also, Noda gave all these characters tragic backgrounds and they have no families. I think maybe Asirpa can unite them.

Well...

in itself is a really interesting idea.

Now I’m not sure Wilk could drop 75 tons of gold in the sea.

According to Umineko this is how 10 tons of gold look.

75 is 7 times and a half more.

It would be a lot of work to drag it out of its hideout to the sea and sink it.

The idea currently is that Wilk told Asirpa his name Wilk ‘went away’...

...as in he was assumed to be dead.

This means he really had short time to hide the gold.

If anything the gold should have been hidden/tossed away, before the Ainu were murdered.

After all it would be reasonable to assume they were murdered near to were the gold was.

But it can be that the hideout for the gold is as such that it can’t be retrieved so that Wilk discovered the gold was ALREADY under the sea or something and that’s part of why he didn’t hand it to his revolutionary friends and he has no problems in starting a gold hunt.

If the gold can’t be retrieved even knowing where it is wouldn’t change anything, people could just watch it without never being able to reach it.

It0s hard to say what exactly Wilk wanted to do with Asirpa as, I think, Wilk was a character who evolved.

He likely went to Hakkaido solely to find the gold, might have married with that purpose but then... he might have fallen in love with his wife and he might have started to see in his daughter something more than just a way to continue rebellion.

At the same time he might have fear if war were to come to be anyway, she might need to defend herself and so he might have trained her.

This way she would have a choice if fight or surrender.

Still, it’s pretty hard to judge Wilk. We rarely hear ‘his voice’ most of what we hear is people’s interpretation of Wilk and his actions the thing they remember about him and how they judged them.

Inkarmat says Wilk couldn’t kill the Ainu but, unless Inkarmat know more than she’s telling us, she can’t know.

Wilk was a man capable of killing and since Kiroranke know this very well he insists Wilk killed the Ainu.

Now... I don’t think Wilk killed the Ainu, I think he was genuine when he said he didn’t kill them but I think that both Inkarmat and Kiro’s opinions are subjective and not really reliable.

We need to know more about Wilk, and we need to know it from a more subjective source in order to be able to judge him correctly.

So I can’t really say what Wilk’s plan was.

I think Noda’s plan is to have Asirpa bring people together. It was Asirpa’s other goal to bring people together as a team, the citatap she loves to make being a symbol of how she wants them all to work together.

She’s the one who tries to save people, who worry even for guys like Suzukawa, who make sure everyone eats and is well cared for.

In a way Wilk was right, Asirpa is an awesome leader as she’s a very caring leader opposed to everyone else who would gladly sacrifice underlings to get their goals.

I don’t know if she can really unite and save everyone, she’s tough and well meaning but also so young and unexperiences, but I’m cheering for her with all my strenght and I really hope she’ll manage to accomplish everything she’ll set her heart on.

She has a sad background too in a way, we shouldn’t forget this, but this is also her strenght as it allow her to connect better with the others werein the others just tend to close up and whallow internally in their misery but tend to pursue self damaging goals or fail to do what would help them to get better.

While everyone else traps himself in a net of wrong choices Asirpa does her best to make the better choices for herself and everyone. I love how she’s worrying for the Ainu asking herself what would be better for them instead than just assuming she knows better or letting others decide for her.

I love how she tried over and over to take care of Sugimoto, to take care of Ogata. I love how she saved Tanigaki despite everything, how she tried to talk Nihei into desisting from his purposes.

Asirpa is awesome and I’m really hoping she’ll get all she wishes for.

#Golden Kamuy #Wilk #Asirpa #Ask #Golden Kamuy Gold Hunt

[ramblingsofthegoldenwitch]

Would battlers relationship with beato count as something... disturbing? As Beatrice was based on the child of kinzo... ushiromiya

Sorry, but I placed these two asks together as they’re somewhat similar.

First of all no, Beatrice wasn’t based on Kinzo’s child.

She was based on the legend of the Akujikijima, and how Kinzo claimed he received the gold by a witch named Beatrice (who was no one else but Beatrice Castiglioni), whom he also claimed was the witch of Rokkenjima and his alchemy advisor.

More in specific the Beatrice Battler is interacting is the soul of that Beatrice after she died, her soul was forced into an homuncolous which also died leaving her soul free again.

The Golden Witch Beatrice is fundamentally a fictional creature, a fantasy, an alias. She doesn’t exist in the real world.

But I get you two are actually thinking at Beatrice = Yasuda Sayo, who was the daughter of Kuwadorian Beatrice (aunt of Battler and daughter of Kinzo) and Ushiromiya Kinzo (grandfather of Battler).

So let’s clear up some things.

In Umineko we see the Battler and Beatrice interacting when they’re in the Purgatory. Not only they’re reduced to souls, but the bodies they have are... I don’t even know how to define them, they’re just a shape that contains their soul, a shape that can go destroyed and rebuilt at will and that can take any form it pleases them, even a storm of butterflies.

In this setting is genuinely possible what we call Beatrice’s body, which isn’t definitely the same as Sayo’s (as it could develop on its own secondary female sexual traits and, very likely, was created with primary female sexual traits, things Sayo’s body didn’t have), doesn’t even share a single drop of blood, a single gene with Ushiromiya Kinzo.

I’ve said I’ve lost count of many times that in the meta world, rules that matter in the real world doesn’t work.

Lambda and Bern can litterally tear each other apart and then sew themselves back together and it’s cosindered perfectly okay. Here it would be murder.

We don’t have an useful handbook on how the meta work... but I get the feeling it would be capable to easily erase the incest business with ease.

Of course Ryukishi didn’t really bother to develop this issue so if you want to insist that, it doesn’t matter if the body isn’t genetically related anymore, since the soul in life was, it’s still incest, it’s up to you.

Now, what will be good to wonder is:

would Battler/SAYO be incest in the REAL WORLD?

Rules according to what constitute an unacceptable degrees of consanguinity vary from country to country and from time period to time period. Some countries are stricter, some are laxer.

I’ve no idea in which country you are and therefore what your country decided was an unacceptable degrees of consanguinity and honestly, I’m not going to force a country’s standard on all the world, not even my country’sso, sorry, but the only thing I’m going to consider in this is Sayo’s country and time.

Umineko helps us in this which is why I tend to remark the importance of reading the manga.

What’s a 3rd degree blood relative?

A first-degree relative is defined as a close blood relative which includes the individual's parents, full siblings, or children.

A second-degree relative is defined as a blood relative which includes the individual's grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces or half-siblings.

A third-degree relative is defined as a blood relative which includes the individual’s first-cousins, great-grandparents or great grandchildren.

Long story short Sayo is at the same time Battler’s second-degree relative (since she’s Kinzo’s child she’s his aunt) and a third-degree relative (since she’s the daughter of Kinzo’s child she’s also his cousin).

In both cases she’s not allowed to MARRY him or to have sex with him as you commit incest when you do one of the above. Just loving him platonically doesn’t constitute incest so, as long as they stop at loving each other and never try to get further, no, they aren’t committing incest.

Maybe they would be committing incest if they were in your country, I don’t know, but that’s up for you to know. You’re responsible for knowing your country’s laws and respecting them. Battler and Sayo are responsible for knowing their country’s law and respecting those.

Is this ‘disturbing’?

What is disturbing can vary from person to person and no one should force it on others but just respect how others feelings in this regard.

If for you it’s disturbing then for you it’s disturbing. You don’t need me to agree or disagree for your feelings in this topic to be valid. They are your own so I can’t really help you here.

You’ll just have to think about the whole thing and decide for yourself. It’s your right. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

#Umineko #Umineko Chiru #Sayo Yasuda #Battler Ushiromiya #Beatrice (Umineko) #Beatrice Castiglioni #Kuwadorian Beatrice #Umineko Cast #Meta World #Rokkenjima Prime #Umineko Places

[mackinmacki]

Sweater Sweeties

Rating: K+

Word Count: 1846

Pairings: MakiPana

Summary: Several segments of MakiPana being cute (or Maki making stern calls to manga writers).

Notes: Hopefully this’ll come up on time. If so, happy birthday @the-canine-king! Hope you like it. Enjoy your day, ‘cause you’re awesome! 

Rin smiled. Well, it was more like a smirk. She tried to stop it, out of respect for her friend, but it came uninvited. So she covered her mouth with her hand, but it was obvious what she was doing. Maki put her hands on her hips and frowned, which made the sight even funnier. Soft laughter filtered out from behind Rin's hand, and though she pushed her palm harder against her lips, she couldn't stop herself. Her entire body started to shake as she dropped her hand and busted out laughing.

"Rin!" Maki huffed crossly, moving her hands up so that she could fold her arms under her chest. This was exactly why she hadn't wanted to step outside today, but Hanayo was insistent. Maki had never been good at saying no to the adorable ball of fluff that was her girlfriend. So there she was, and there Rin was, laughing gleefully at her. "Stop laughing, dammit!"

"I'm sorry, Maki!" Rin didn't really seem sorry at all, and Maki wouldn't have believed her even if she had seemed it. Her laughter gave the truth away. "It's just... that sweater..." She pointed at Maki's sweater, which was bright green with a big, red tomato smack-dab in the middle. Then she fell down onto her knees, clutching her stomach with laughter. Maki was even less amused than the zero amusement that had proceeded this moment.

"Yes yes, I know it's the sweater." Sighing in defeat, Maki let her arms fall to her sides and tried not to act like she was embarrassed. She failed. "Look, Hanayo made the sweater for me, alright? She got help from Kotori and worked really hard on it, so..." She really appreciated how hard Hanayo had worked to make a present that wasn't something Maki could just buy from a store, but... "Just don't laugh at it while she's around, okay?"

"When who's around?" Maki almost let out a very audible yelp as she jumped a foot in the air, nearly tripping over her own feet as she whirled around to find Hanayo standing there with a confused expression on her face. Rin, on the other hand, looked like she was deciding between crying and laughing so hard that she choked to death. It was clear that Hanayo didn't know what they were talking about, or why Rin was on the floor. "Did I miss something?"

"No! I just... didn't think Rin should laugh at Umi's new haircut." Maki did her best to jump out of the frying pan and not directly into the fire that was waiting to burn her alive. She glanced over at Rin, whose eyes were bouncing between Maki's sweater and a similar one that Hanayo was wearing. This one was red, though, with a big bowl of rice in the middle. "It just seemed rude, that's all."

"What's wrong with Umi's haircut?" Hanayo turned her attention fully to Rin, who suddenly realized that she'd been put on the spot. "It's not nice to make her feel self-conscious about it, Rin." Gulping, Rin wanted to point out that Maki's story wasn't true. She didn't think that Umi had even gotten a haircut since the Taisho period. However, by exposing Maki, she'd expose her own laughter at the sweaters that Hanayo had worked so hard to sew. If anything, that'd be worse, because Hanayo might cry. Plus, the way Maki was glaring at her, that might be followed by her untimely death.

"I... I'm sorry, Kayo-chin. I won't laugh at Umi's haircut again; promise." Hopefully Umi wouldn't get some kind of terrible haircut out of the blue and make her break her promise. Maki's face relaxed, which let Rin know she was in the clear... for now, anyway. It wasn't like Rin to stay in the clear for very long. "Are those new sweaters?" She couldn't resist.

"Yes! I made them for Maki and myself!" Hanayo smiled proudly, while Maki looked like she wanted to kill Rin again. "Do you like them? I know I haven't made many outfits, but Kotori really helped me out."

"They're great, Kayo-chin!" Rin's smile was enough to fool Hanayo, but it couldn't fool Maki. She'd heard exactly what Rin had said about those sweaters, which... well, it wasn't what she'd said, exactly. She had laughed, though. Maki wasn't going to be fooled. "I should go now, though. I'll leave you two sweater sweeties. alone." Maki blushed as Rin turned around and started walking away. She didn't have to see Rin's face to know she was silently laughing all over again.

"I'm glad you two think they look good." Hanayo's smile, on the other hand, was so sweet that it disarmed Maki completely. She lived for those smiles. "Maybe I'll make us some socks next!" Dangit...

"Hanayo, don't you think this scarf is a little too big?" That was an understatement. The scarf was big enough to wrap around both of their necks comfortably and still flop down on their shoulders at the ends. Hanayo didn't seem to mind, though, smiling sweetly as she finished tying the scarf around them.

"Nope! It's the perfect size!" Hanayo smiled sweetly, giving an experimental tug on the scarf. It was all good now. She had seen it in the store labeled as a couples scarf, and she couldn't resist it at that point. Obviously Maki was more resistant to it, but she'd eventually allowed it to be put around her. "Aren't we just the cutest couple?"

"We don't need a scarf to prove that." Maki blushed as she always did whenever Hanayo complimented her. It didn't matter that they'd been dating for nearly two years. She still found a way to get embarrassed at anything that made it seem like she was a softie. Hanayo thought it was cute. "What other couple is cuter than us? I'll fight them."

"It's not a competition, Maki." Hanayo giggled and patted Maki on the shoulder. Or, she would've if the scarf wasn't in the way. Sometimes Maki let her bravado get in the way and had to make things competitive to hide that she was really a sweetie at heart. She didn't want her to change, though. Her tsunmato was wonderful just the way she was. "Oh. The scarf has another use too."

"Hmm? And what's that?" Hanayo grabbed the scarf and tugged on it, pulling Maki closer to her. Their closer proximity allowed her to lean up and press her lips to Maki's, capturing her with a kiss. Maki's eyes widened, but quickly fluttered shut as she melted into the kiss, a hand reaching out to grab onto Hanayo's arm. After a few moments, Hanayo pulled away with a smile.

"Kisses whenever I want." She giggled with a hint of a devious glint in her eyes, not at all surprised by how much redder Maki's face got.

"You could just ask for them, you know." Maki kept blushing, but she couldn't help but smile as she cupped Hanayo's cheeks and pulled her into a second, longer kiss. "You little minx."

"Still love me?"

"Of course." Maki smiled brighter, leaning herself gently against Hanayo. "I'll always love you, no matter how many oversized scarves you purchase."

"So it's about... seagulls?" Maki stared at the cover of the manga, trying to see if there were any seagulls on it, or any birds really. There were none, though. Just a couple of redheads and a big, ominous-looking building.

"No, Maki. That's just a phrase that's said in the manga." Hanayo probably should've expected Maki to be overly logical about it. She was overly logical about everything. "It's a mystery manga."

"Oh, like Blue's Clues?"

"Not... exactly." Hanayo smiled guiltily, which Maki didn't seem to pick up on. Anyone would likely be surprised that someone like her read something like Umineko, but it actually turned out to be a very fascinating read, and she only cried five times. That was a point of pride in her book. "It's really deep. I think you'll like it."

"Hmm... Alright." She smiled softly, trusting Hanayo's judgement as always. "At least there seems to be fellow redheads, right? I like them."

"Mhm." Hanayo paled somewhat, awkwardly patting Maki on the shoulder. "They sure are red... heads. Redheads." Maki didn't seem to notice this either, still smiling as she opened the manga and began to read. Hanayo looked over her shoulder to read along.

"Is it ever a good idea to go to some old manor?" Maki rolled her eyes and slapped the page. "It's always haunted, or full of murder plots or something. Why would anyone ever go there?"

"Isn't your place an old manor, Maki?"

"... Okay, but that's different. Shut up." Hanayo giggled, which made Maki pout, though they both kept reading before too long. Maki did seem somewhat into it, despite her occasional cynicism, which made Hanayo happy. "A witch giving people gold? See, these are those kind of weird urban legends that people pass down because they don't remember how something actually happened." Okay, maybe 'occasional' was putting it mildly.

They both ended up getting engrossed in it, and kept on reading throughout the day, eventually moving from book to book. "You know, this Shannon girl kind of reminds me of you." Maki pointed her out in the manga, glancing back at Hanayo. "Kind of looks like you too."

"Oh... Does she?" Hanayo laughed, but it was a very strained laugh. She started to sweat, looking away from Maki and trying to whistle innocently. Too bad she couldn't whistle. "That's... really... nice." She couldn't spoil it, but gods was she about to. It took a lot of effort to avoid wiping the smile from Maki's face. The manga would do it soon enough.

"Yeah, I hope she ends up alright." Hanayo was sweating very nervously, biting down hard on her lip. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Just keep going: that's what she had to keep telling herself.

"Okay, so it's clear this is some crazy magic stuff, right? How can he keep saying that it's not?" There was so much stuff going on that defied belief, yet this Battler guy kept denying it until the bitter end. Maki didn't understand how he could be so blind.

"He kind of reminds me of you," Hanayo whispered to herself, smiling innocently when Maki looked back at her. She was still sweating though, almost unable to take Maki's innocence over the story. It was like if she didn't realize that Santa was murdered by his parents. Now that would be a dark Christmas carol. "So how are you liking it so far?"

"I'm liking it. It's dark, but it's very interesting." They kept reading, until they reached a certain part of the manga, which made Maki stop right in her tracks. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh." Hanayo thought she might cry again, but she didn't this time. Progress! "So, she's... doing alright." Maki slowly closed the manga, setting it down to her side and standing up.

"I'm going to call the creators and complain."

"Maki wait-"

#love live! #MakiPana #hoshizora rin #koizumi hayano #nishikino maki #my writing

[construingseacats]

Umireread: Legend of the Golden Witch - Chapter 16: The Golden Witch   

Sun, Oct 5 1986 - 11:30PM

The following contains spoilers for the entirety of Umineko. Please do not read if you are yet to finish it.

Given Chapter 17 is more of an Epilogue than an actual chapter, there’s something to be said about how, for “Legend of the Golden Witch”, the halfway point is “Legend of the Gold” and the final chapter is “The Golden Witch”. There’s no real meaning to this, I just think it’s a neat little thing in the choice of naming.

Full disclosure - I remember coming out of my first readthrough enjoying the prospects of Jessikanon a lot. I’ll be keeping an open mind and find myself willing to change my perspective if the story swings me that way, but I vastly preferred the idea of Kanon with Jessica than Shannon with George.

Yet again, everyone knows that knowing the meaning behind the magic circle will do no good, and simply upset them, but Battler decides to pursue the truth regardless. A harmful truth is better than a blissful ignorance.

Once again - we find ourselves in a parallel of the scene with the receipt. Everyone took Eva’s word for it when she literally could have been lying about it. Once again, no-one other than Natsuhi can confirm the letter wasn’t there before she placed the canned food, nor can she defend against the accusation that she was the one who placed it.

Hey, so about all those phone lines being out?

This definitely isn’t a plot hole, as it’s addressed by the characters in universe, so it’s pretty safe to say that they were indeed tampered by the servants and fixed at some point (if not by Yasu making the most of the time while everyone was in the study, then by one of the servants on the way back to the parlour.) Either that or, you know, magic.

Oh, this is an interesting misdirect. I like this one a lot - providing a solution to a problem that didn’t even really exist in the first place. That’s surely how Kinzo was drawn out of the study, and not, you know, him not being alive in the first place.

Yasu has no knowledge of this, right? She wasn’t there to see Battler give Maria the charm back (it would be contrived if she somehow had eyes on that moment without anyone seeing her), and I’m not entirely convinced that Maria would be bringing up the anti-magic charm to Beatrice of her own volition. With that in mind, I think it’s worth chalking this up to Yasu having a soft spot for Maria, not wanting her to die horribly - something which would match up with the second message bottle also seeing the little girl survive to the end. I think that does make the wilted rose a weak point earlier, since it seems out of character for someone who clearly cares for Maria’s wellbeing to actively torment her, but I suppose it’s not impossible to rule it as something Yasu did for the greater cause at hand, especially considering everyone would be dead within 48 hours anyway.

LIKE THE HEROINE OF A TRAGEDY.

Natsuhi’s final duel here is a thing of beauty - she’s the heroine of a tragedy, but that was the entirety of the episode behind her. Plagued with headaches, having her loved ones torn away from her, accused of atrocities far beyond her control and thrust into a leadership position that she did not want - Yasu’s writing has ensured that Natsuhi suffers at every single turn of the past two days. But not here. She’s allowed to go out honourably.

I see this as a humanised element of Yasu - a realisation towards the end of her work that, while she’s used Natsuhi as an instrument of catharsis, tormented the one who has ruined her life, perhaps she has been a little too harsh in what she has put her through. How she herself has ignored the human behind the monster; and reduced Natsuhi to naught but someone deserving of torture. In this moment of lucidity, Yasu relents, and allows Natsuhi to have a fitting ending - one where she still dies, one where she does not make it to the golden land - but not one of embarrassment. Yasu is not a cold hearted killer. There is that part of her that allows her to see the best in even the worst of people; no doubt the same part that allows her to let Rosa go out so elegantly in Episode 2 despite her horrific treatment of Maria. Yasu is human. And I think that’s beautiful.

Once again, Jessica’s VA steals the show for Episode 1. Everyone gets really good moments, no-one lets a scene down or shows any weakness, but between the wretched wailing and asthma attacks, no-one matches her level of performance.

Yet.

A gentle nod to the format of the gameboards - but a stark reminder that, at the end, it all returns to nothing. An explosive finale that ensures nothing is left behind. What a way to send us out.

And so the clock rolls over from 24 to 0.

Sleep peacefully, Beatrice.

#umireread #umineko #umineko spoilers

[miraclejewelcollection]

My Umineko Theory (not a spoiler because I don’t know if it’s true)

Hi, everyone! I've recently finished all the question arcs, and before reaching the end of the story, I want to leave a mark with my theory, which I have made myself. I want to call it: THE ALTE-ROSE THEORY since Alte-Rose is part of my name. So, I'm going to try and explain all question arcs from my point of view. Basically, my theory consists in the murderers being Nanjo, Kumasawa and Gohda, all of them working under the orders  of Beatrice (Kyrie). However, none of them knows Beatrice's true identity, so Kyrie ends killed several times. She just wanted to take revenge on the man who left her pregnant and abandoned her then. Being as clever as she is, she solved the epitaph the very first time she visited the island, and used the legend of the witch to befriend Maria and trick the servants.

LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN WITCH: Remember Gohda changed the shifts of the servants that night? That results in only him being in the mansion with the adults.Yet, Shannon decides to go help, making this night her last one. Gohda made her serve the adults some tea, which Shannon didn't know was poisoned. Then, he forced her help damaging their faces. After doing this (blood in the parlor), Shannon ran away and tried to beg Natsuhi for help. However, Gohda caught her and killed her, when Shannon was desperately trying to open Natsuhi's door (blood in Natsuhi's door). Gohda disguised himself as one of the corpses, then, he killed Eva and Hideyoshi on the corridor, and carried them to their room, where he set the scene up. He hid under the bed, and scaped when the crime was discovered. He then put Kinzo's corpse to burn. Kumasawa killed Kanon, then she or Nanjo left the letter Natsuhi found. Then Kumasawa acted as posessed by Beatrice and told Maria to look away and sing. She and Nanjo killed Gohda and then faked their deaths (you can't die by stabbing your leg and or ankle). Gohda mentioned feeling indebted to Natsuhi, since she saved him from being poor and without a job. He was probably in love with her, so he sent her a letter asking to meet, then he revealed everything to her and asked her to flee with him, causing Natsuhi's suicide with the gun. He then killed the children. The rest is unknown.

TURN OF THE GOLDEN WITCH: Kyrie reveals where the gold is, causing her recognition as the witch. She tries to kill the other adults, but Rosa ends killing her instead. Kanon sees this and thinks Rosa's killed them all. Remember him saying "what a horrible woman" when she stomped over Maria's candy? So he set up the halloween party to scare her. Kinzo had probably told the servants about the incident with the turkey on Rosa's birthday, so he knew Rosa was scared of blood and guts. He then took Jessica away with Gohda. Jessica died in her room, from an attack of asthma. This way, she couldn't react when Gohda stabbed her. Kanon saw this, and thought the servants were working for Rosa, so he tried to attack them. He was then killed by Gohda, who acted the victim. Remember Kumasawa and Nanjo's corpses disappearing? They weren't really dead. Gohda kills George and Shannon in Natsuhi's room, his own death is an illusion just like his accomplice's. Rosa suspected Battler, being the son of the woman who tried to kill her, so when he acusses Rosa, she chases him away. She then steals the gold and tries to flee the island, but is chased by Kumasawa, Gohda and Nanjo with goat masks, so Rosa can't identify them and accuse them if she makes it alive. She doesn't.

BANQUET OF THE GOLDEN WITCH: Kyrie kills all the servants but Gohda and Kumasawa, so they can help create the closed room illusion, then Eva finds the gold and kills Rosa and Maria. Since Eva found the gold, Kyrie decides to observe how the situation goes. In the end, Kyrie ends dead, Eva kills Battler, and Nanjo pretends being attacked, since Jessica was blind, then killed her.

ALLIANCE OF THE GOLDEN WITCH: Kyrie made the whole story up and told it to Battler on the phone. She then sent Gohda and Kumasawa (who faked being hanged) kill the cousins. In Ange's story, it is revealed that Kumasawa's family (as well as Nanjo's) had recieved a large amount of gold. This is what Kyrie offered them in exchange for the murders: The gold she had found on the first year. Nanjo accepted because his granchild was sick, Kumasawa wanted to be helpful to her family though she was old, and Gohda simply wanted the money. Kyrie sent some money to Ange too because she is her daughter. Ange probably wasn't even sick, but convinced by Kyrie to stay at home that year. It is possible too that Kyrie (who returned alive) told her sister to bring Ange back, since she couldn't reveal herself being alive, as well as the assasin.

This is, basically, my theory. I hope everyone likes it! :)

#Umineko no Naku Koro ni #umineko theory #ushiromiya battler #ushiromiya kyrie #beatrice #umineko culprit

[sg2tiger]

Commenting on your post about Lion's death in EP7, I doubt its Ryukishi's bullshit. Mostly because I doubt that a guy like him would make shit up as he went along. Anyway going back to Bern, considering how she never lies, I can see how a massacre of some sort would go down. However, because Bern is known to twist muddle the truth (some parts of the EP7 Tea Party were inaccurate to Prime) I think she's trolling on how the massacre is carried out.

Whoa there - I’m getting the impression that you misunderstood the point of my post!! I guess I’ll go through this point by point.

“I doubt its Ryukishi’s bullshit. Mostly because I doubt that a guy like him would make shit up as he went along.”

Well…setting aside the fact that Ryukishi himself has admitted that he does sometimes make up aspects of the story that weren’t originally intended (source: pending), that wasn’t what my post was actually focused on. My argument (backed by various pieces of evidence from the EP7 tea party itself) boils down to this: the ‘ingredients’ that lead Rudolf and Kyrie to commit the massacre should fundamentally not exist in Lion’s world. 

The argument was then whether this was Ryukishi - a human author who can, and has, made other mistakes before - who failed to consider this (his message for this scene in EP7 is to show ‘as long as the gold exists, the adults will be driven to violence’, which is true, but my point is that the tools that allowed it to extend from violence to massacre should not have been in place)…or if it was Bernkastel’s fault, who lied intentionally, spinning a false tale for the sole purpose of driving Lion (and by extension, Beatrice, for whom Lion was the only hope) and Ange into deeper despair.

But let’s focus on that ‘Bern lied’ part first.

“Anyway going back to Bern, considering how she never lies”

Can you show me where, exactly, in the VN it is ever stated that ‘Bernkastel never lies’…and then show me where it’s said in red? Because as far as I’m aware no such passage exists, and in fact there’s evidence in the story to the contrary. The only thing in Umineko that never lies is the red truth, and even then one of the themes of the story is that you can’t always believe in a ‘single truth’. The red is CONSTANTLY abused with various loopholes, so in essence, it’s possible to even ‘lie’ with the red. And yet nowhere are we ever told ‘Bernkastel never lies’…so I’m not sure where you’ve gotten that idea from.

(and let’s not get too far off-topic here, but wouldn’t the entirety of EP5 be a primary example of Bern, in fact, lying? She rigs the entire trial in favor of humiliating Natsuhi as a culprit and claiming she slept with Kinzo, who she knows is dead. The entire ‘truth’ of EP5 is one big fat lie.)

Realistically, the only canon justification for Lion’s world also having a massacre, I’d argue, is in fact Bernkastel lied. Since she’s hungry for revenge against Beato, she spun up a fake tale in her expanded catbox world wherein Lion is also gunned down by Kyrie following the exact same sequence of events as Prime. After all, she’s the Game Master, right? Game Masters can lie about scenes on the board - isn’t that what all of the magic scenes in Beato’s game show us? So it’s entirely possible that Bern created a fake scene showing Lion the massacre, because she never says it in red (she only says the truth of Prime that Ange saw is the truth in red). 

And she’s got no opponent in this game, to boot. Who’s going to stop her from doing this…?

Oh wait. Will. Bern didn’t know that Will was still around, but he was. And he comes back to save Lion and buy him time to escape. Except he’s unable to hold off Bern for very long, and loses an arm as a result. In the end, Will and Lion are overcome by Bern’s kitties, and the game fades to black. I cannot speak of what happens to them in EP8 (which you also seem to be referencing? As I’ve said before I have not yet read EP8, so I can’t comment on any of that yet), but the fact of the matter is that Will comes to buy time for Lion…and fails.

But there’s something about the idea that Bern lied that bugs me personally. If she had done so, deliberately…shouldn’t Will have brought this very argument up and been able to buy more time? As long as she refuses to repeat it in red, she won’t get a Logic Error, but it would be a painful argument all the same and keep her occupied. He should have been able to prevent these facts and buy Lion time to escape. She should not have been able to easily defeat Will, who would be able to argue back these facts that the tragedy could not happen in Lion’s world. And yet, Will is defeated…and seems like he barely has anything to argue against in the first place. Maybe it’s because Will hasn’t even accepted Prime as truth so he didn’t think of it, but…

I feel like ‘Bern is lying’ was not actually intended to be the conclusion when Ryukishi wrote it, but that Ryukishi simply didn’t think about these little details as to why it shouldn’t have happened. Note that I didn’t actually attack Ryukishi and say that he ‘made it up as he went along’ in my post. What’s interesting to me is that other people I’ve shown this post have also told me that they (the kinds of people in the fandom who love picking apart and analyzing it) never stopped to think about a lot of the factors i pointed out tells me that it’s entirely possible it slipped by Ryukishi, too. 

Remember - he is human. And a doujin (non-professional) author. Just because he wrote a story of a quality surpassing many professional works doesn’t mean he’s incapable of mistakes - and I feel like a lot of Ryukishi fans like to put him up on a pedestal simply because they love his work (not saying you do, but I have seen this attitude among 07th Expansion fans a lot). My thing is that you can love Umineko and still be critical of potential mistakes and errors in judgment. And you can author a great story and still mess up on smaller details. It’s human. I think he simply made a mistake that, while it doesn’t break the story overall, is, nonetheless, mistaken.

That said, I’d advise you to go back and reread the post in question again, but I’ll sum up my basic point - the factors that caused the massacre in Prime do not exist in Lion’s world. Because Yasu, inherently, does not exist in Lion’s world. And without Yasu, there would be no guns, no knowledge of the bomb, and most importantly of all there would be no 2 billion yen cash card.

Let’s ignore the first two, though. Let’s say that, somehow, Rudolf and Kyrie got access to the guns and learned about the bomb in Lion’s world (despite my post also going over how little sense this makes, but let’s just do a ‘wouldn’t put it past kinzo’ and say he left the guns and told them about the bomb). So their plan is…what, exactly? To kill everyone for giggles, escape to Kuwadorian, and wait for the bomb to clean up the mess? What do they have to gain for this? Absolutely nothing. Because the entire reason Rosa argued with Eva about the bomb was that the pile of gold would be wiped away by the explosion as well. 

Remember. The reason it still benefited Rudolf and Kyrie in Prime to use the bomb was the existence of the 2 billion yen cash card, which would let them be set for life. Who put the money on that card? Yasu. Who doesn’t exist in Lion’s world? Yasu. How much does a single gold ingot weigh? A fucking lot. How much does ten tons weigh? …well, ten tons. Which is even more of a fucking lot. It’s not something they could escape the island with, and as I also pointed out in my post, Krauss was stated to be the only one who could easily convert the illegal unmarked gold from 40+ years ago into usable cash. So not only would the gold itself be difficult for them to do much with…setting the bomb would destroy it all in the first place.

The only reason they commit the massacre is because they are able to take the already-converted 2 billion on the cash card and leave the island.

That. Is. Fundamental. Truth. And in Lion’s world, that cash card should by right not exist. Kinzo has no reason to convert 2 billion to cash and have a card and pin number ready to give his shitty kids. He hates his kids. Lion is his successor. He doesn’t think the others can solve the epitaph. Which he decided to present to them on a whim. Compared to Yasu, who prepped all of this in advance. If they solved it all Kinzo would do is say ‘enjoy your gold’ and leave the issue of how to turn it into cash in their hands - he wouldn’t hand them that kind of shortcut.

So???? There’d be no cash card in Lion’s world. Period. There is simply no way this makes sense given Kinzo’s character.

It can be simplified down like this: no cash card, no reason to set the bomb and lose all the gold, no reason to kill everyone, no tragedy. And that’s ignoring the other points I made about why they shouldn’t know about the bomb in the first place or have access to the four rifles and case full of bullets.

That was the point of my post. The factors that actually lead them to kill, by their own admission, wouldn’t have existed in Lion’s world, so Bernkastel saying ‘it happened the same way as the truth you just saw’ is incorrect. As fans, we can ‘correct’ this mistake and say ‘Bern lied, and because she didn’t do so in red Lion’s catbox is about as valid as the idea that Zombie Kanon killed Nanjo and Kumasawa in EP2′. That’s fair. We can absolutely say that Lion’s massacre was because Bern lied, because that’s the sort of thing she’d do. Featherine already got her answers, and Clair had already passed on. What happened to Lion after that had no obligation to be true, so we can simply say it wasn’t, and she did it for her own amusement. But to me, it seems more likely that Ryukishi probably just slipped up and ‘Bernkastel lied about Lion’ wasn’t actually the narrative intent.

Maybe my use of the word ‘bullshit’ was a point of confusion, in which case, I apologize. My intent was saying ‘somebody messed up here because these details won’t make sense’, not ‘OMG RYUKISHI A SHIT AUTHOR WHO PULLED THE STORY OUT OF HIS ASS’ (which in fact I made a post about once before as to why I don’t think he pulled the story out of his ass as many Ryukishi-negative people claim, so). But the fact of the matter is…there are too many reasons that the massacre wouldn’t have happened in Lion’s world to just throw up our hands and accept Bern’s truth. Either she straight-up lied, or Ryukishi goofed.

People can make mistakes. Authors can make mistakes. Ryukishi is not some kind of god, and we are allowed to criticize him (nothing stopped him from criticizing the readers, after all…). He’s made other minor mistakes in Umineko, as well. We can love Umineko as a story, and still analyze it as, well, a story, and acknowledge that the story’s author is not perfect, too. I may not like Ryukishi, but I don’t attack him baselessly, either…and I wasn’t even attacking so much as pointing out something that doesn’t make sense with the information presented. 

In the end, Lion’s world is entirely separate from Prime. This level of mistake doesn’t break the logic of Umineko as a whole, or ruin the meaning of the story Ryukishi set out to tell. It’s indeed a very minor thing…but it’s still a mistake, all the same, and one I wanted to analyze in greater detail.

#asks #umineko #SG2 rereads umineko #SG2 rereads requiem #down-the-rabbit-well #umineko spoilers #umineko asks

[rontra]

do you have any recommendations on how to like. Take In Umineko. I think it looks really cool and I’d like to get into it, but there’s a lot of things that are confusing (like all of the different games, the manga, the anime, ect.) and I’m not really sure where to start watching/reading it. Do you have any advice on where the best place to start is?

HOH BABY NOW THIS IS A GOOD ASK

Basically, a lot of this depends on you and how you prefer to take in media. People are different after all; some people like reading long novels, some prefer comics, u know! So let’s just go over all the avenues and how to get at them, and the rest is up to you!

I’m gonna make this post very long. VERY VERY LONG. IM SO FUCKn SORyr

First, I’ll talk abt what umineko is; then I’ll discuss the various media; finally, at the end, I’ll write down what I typically recommend to newcomers! SCROLL REALLY FAST TO THE HEADERS IF U HAVE NO TIME FOR MY RAMBLING LOL

So…here we goooo

READING UMINEKO: UNTANGLING THE WEB

OR: what the fuck is umineko and why do you want me to read it, diesel?

Since this is a general To Whom It May Concern post: Umineko no Naku Koro ni (Or Umineko: When They Cry, alternatively When The Seagulls Cry) is a murder mystery/fantasy/metafiction visual novel published between 2007 and 2011. I know “murder mystery” and “metafiction” sound pretty boring when you combine them, but trust me–Umineko’s unlike anything you’ve seen, and defies explanation. Still, I’m here to do my best!

Umineko is about a rich and complicated family, and their annual family conference–and the year it goes super duper badly. On an isolated island, in the middle of a typhoon, tragedy befalls the family–on a massive scale! Someone is killing them–all of them–and the only answer that seems to be rising is–

“Beatrice did it.”

But Beatrice isn’t supposed to really exist. Not for real!! No one by that name is on the island. It’s just a story! She’s made up–Beatrice is a legend. A witch who has lived for a thousand years–who loaned the family patriarch ten tons of gold, an insane amount of wealth, in exchange for his soul. Now she’s collecting on that loan, taking everything back, with interest–the lives of the family included.

Is the culprit a human, or not? Does the witch exist, or not?Is the culprit one of the 18 people? Does a 19th person exist? Or…?And, most importantly–when the typhoon passes, will anyone remain alive on the island?

[YouTube: Umineko opening]

I’d super-recommend Umineko if you enjoy: strong characterization, a solidly built mystery (with plenty of smaller mysteries to try your brain with along the way ;) ), complex and nuanced characters, hype magic fights, Logic-Based Combat(???), deep discussions of trauma and its consequences, large casts of characters, Genre Fuckery, coping, Meta™, and milfs Complex Lore

I would, however, NOT recommend Umineko if you are triggered by/can’t stomach reading about: body horror, gore, death, trauma, child abuse, bullying, discussion of suicide, discussion of sexual assault, etc (you can message me for a more complete list of warnings; I’m happy to provide super-specific ones if there’s something specific you’re concerned about, or even give you specific scenes to watch out for. I kept this vague on purpose, but if you message me off anon or via DMs here or at @aceyasu, I’ll be happy to answer anything!)

Overall it’s a pretty dark, emotional story, with a lot of Themes™–but it’s also full of love and genuine heartfelt Feelings. I don’t think any story has touched me the way Umineko has! Of course, everyone’s experience is very unique to them, but I think Umineko has something for everyone (provided, of course, that we’re taking into account the content warnings and excluding people who can’t/don’t want to encounter those things!). The characters, music, story and message–it all has a lot of heart and it all is very important to me as an individual. Obviously no media is flawless, but I think Umineko’s good outweighs its bad…YMMV though of course :p

Also, hype magic fights.

OKAY WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY

Umineko’s story is told over 8 arcs–styled as “episodes”. I use “arc” and “episode” sort of interchangeably! Specific ones I just call “EP#” though. All you really need to know though is there’s 8 of them, of varying length, and you have to read them all for the full story.

Thankfully they’re numbered, am i right?? HAFDmgkdfmg

Each episode has its own focus within the overarching narrative and comes with its own fun mysteries and harrowing developments just for you! yay! But basically, the important thing is that they’re divided into the Question Arcs (1-4) and Answer Arcs (5-8).

Sometimes, to make things confusing, the Answer Arcs are also called “Core Arcs” or “Chiru”. I will use “Answer Arcs” here, but if you encounter those two elsewhere, that’s what they are. :p

ACTUALLY EXPERIENCING UMINEKO

(now that im done YAPPING)

The anime

Generally viewed as a poor product. It’s a bad adaption that fails as a standalone, too, because of the amount of important scenes that are missing. Don’t watch the anime first if you really want to get into Umineko. It’s a fun watch once you know how it’s supposed to go, though :p Covers the Question Arcs only, ends with EP4–so even if it was good, it would only be half the story… press f to pay respects. The opening fuckin slaps though, and all the VAs are solid.

The manga

Each Episode has its own manga adaption, usually done by a different artist (with exception of EP1, EP3, and EP8, which are all by the same artist). Generally solid; gets the most important parts. For people who want to get through quicker, the manga helps a lot.

The primary cost is that a lot of characterization doesn’t get to shine AS bright, as there’s simply no time to get into the nooks and crannies (still a great cast, though). However, the art is usually fantastic–since the artist changes every EP, it’s easy to deal with even if you don’t like a specific one’s style. It’ll be gone by next Episode!

A lot of moments get punched up by the more visual format of the manga. You really get a better sense of the characters interacting physically with one another! You do, however, run into the Scanlation Problem…..

I know, I know–most people, when given the option to, don’t want to pay for things. So when given the choice between fan scanlations and the official release, a lot of people would choose the scanlations. And they’re fine…for the most part…except for the parts that aren’t. Some parts (notably in the Answer Arcs) are…bad. Really bad. Even I can’t really understand it sometimes, despite knowing this story inside out… LOL

If you’re good at parsing Scanlation SNAFU or can’t afford/don’t want to buy it, you can find Umineko on MOST manga hosts! I don’t know which you prefer so I’m not gonna link ‘em hahahafkgmfh I usually use Manga Rock but that’s because I usually am reading on my phone and I like their app. The episodes are all numbered, so it’s pretty easy to find your way around!

On the other hand, if you have a hard time understanding poor translations, reading inconsistent typesetting/fonts, or simply Can afford it/prefer buying media, the manga is being officially released in English by YenPress! As is standard nowadays, you can get them in both physical volumes and digital e-books! However, YenPress’ release is currently ongoing–the first volume of EP8 is slated to release in March.

[YenPress link]

The visual novel

Ah, here we are–the head honcho himself…! This is the original version of Umineko. These are the ones we call “games”, and why we sometimes say u “play” Umineko, but. Really. It’s just reading. They’re kinetic novels. Its literally just reading. So I don’t know why we complicate things like that.

(“if she an .exe, shes a game”, I guess… xD)

This is where the characterization and voice of Umineko really shines! The style is often simple to read, sometimes even comically casual, but it cuts deep when it wants to. Even really simple lines can have a really strong impact–it’s a really pleasant style to read, IMO…pretty easy to understand most of the time, but emotionally resonant all the same!

Reading the VN is somewhat of an undertaking, because of the amount of hours required…It’s a far longer read. Depending on your reading speed and whether or not you pause to think/talk about things as you read, people clock in 100-200 hours to finish it.

But, on the upside–because it has so much more time than the manga, the VN can really get deep into the characters, their dynamics, and their inner conflicts. You really get a deep sense for everyone’s character and it makes most of the cast feel fleshed-out enough that you appreciate all of them to some extent (whether positive or negative :P)

Oh, actually–the original Umineko branded itself a “Sound Novel”….as opposed to a Visual Novel, where the emphasis is on, uh–Visuals–Umineko leans more heavily on audio to create its atmosphere. And the music? Fuckin rips!! The Umineko soundtrack is huge and has tons of absolute bangers. It’s easy to see why it decided to market itself as a Sound Novel rather than a visual novel–the graphics of the original PC version are simple, but the atmospheric sound effects and BGM really shines.

Here’s some enticing tracks to pique yr interest (be careful about the comments/etc though, there’s Definitely spoilers in there xD)[worldenddominator] [dead angle] [dir] [system0] [hope]

The VN nowadays is split into the two halves; if you get EP4, it’ll include 1-3 as well, essentially. Picking up Question Arcs (or EP4) and Answer Arcs (or EP8) gives u the whole 8 episodes. Easy peasy! Because we live in the future now, and retroactive inclusion of past games is just convenient!

There is an official English release now, which is a brand new luxury. It’s even on Steam! Wow! That’s the easiest way to get your paws on the hands-on experience. The translation has been slightly updated as well! Also, they added a new set of toggle-able graphics that are…um…I mean they’re certainly new…#BarelyContainedOpinionAlert

If you don’t want to pay or can’t afford it…uhhh….I used to have torrent links but they’re all dead. :T still, you can probably just find them, if you know your way around torrents. For the translation, you’ll have to either get a pre-patched version of the game, or use the translation group’s instructions to patch it yourself. 

If you can’t do either of those, or just don’t really have a preference, or…any number of reasons, you can also find all the games fully recorded and uploaded to YouTube (with or without commentary)!

As for the links, I’ve got them right h–

Wait–oh, sh–the graphics are bad?!? You think the graphics are bad? Or you think plain reading is boring? Y-you can’t understand what the background image in this scene is even supposed to be? Ah…the post-2007 struggle….

The visual novel, Part Deux: AH, THE JPEGS edition

OKAY SO I SPLIT THIS APART BECAUSE IT*S IMPORTANT

If you wanna spruce up your VN-reading experience, here’s the thing: they ported the game to PS3, with brand new graphics and–get this–full voice acting. Wow! There’s even CGs now…Jeez!

These are NOT the same graphics as the new ones from the official English release! That’s important!

SO, if you wanna spruce up the graphics a bit, or you enjoy voice acting with your novels, you can do that! People took apart the PS3 games and made patches for the PC version to enjoy the new graphics and voices. And now it’s available for the Steam version as well!

[SPRITE COMPARISON: ORIGINAL PC | PS3 | STEAM]You pick your favorite!

ALSO VOICE ACTING! WOW!! Remember how I said the anime got two things right and they were the OP and the voice cast?

SAME CAST, BABEY!!!! They are all excellent and do a wonderful job! It can really add some more interest if you struggle with staying focused on “plain” reading.

Okay so NOW the links:

You’ll have to dig up torrents yourself if you want those, bc its 6am and I’m too sleepy to… uzu

QUESTION ARCS[Physical Eng release] or [Steam page] +[PS3 PATCH]

ANSWER ARCS[Physical Eng release] or [Steam page] +[PS3 PATCH]

YOUTUBE[Non-commentated, with PS3 patch] you can find more just by searching but this one looks good to me :p

RONTRA OPINIONS / SUGGESTIONS

Personally, I favor the VN for most scenes, but the manga for my light casual reading. Y’know? The VN can be pretty…um…dense, at times.

Ironically, I think EP1 itself might be the biggest hurdle for total first-timers. It’s definitely paced as a “part 1 of 8″ for the first solid portion! By which I mean, it really takes its time establishing the cast and their individual situations. Which isn’t a bad thing–especially in the overarching scope of how long the story is–but if you aren’t sure about the premise, format, or if you’ll enjoy Umineko at all, it can be sort of…challenging.

It all really depends on the individual–things like attention span, investment, and personal preferences, imo. Some people just don’t enjoy reading that much text at once! And that’s fine! Some people love it and that’s fine! Some people think the intro is too long, some people think it’s intriguing from the start. Some really like watching character building, and some prefer to see action happening. Either way is fine, so it’s really up to you!

Usually, if someone isn’t sure, I suggest they try EP1 in manga form first, just to see if the general premise entices them; it’s fully possible to jump back and do the VN if you decide you like it! It sacrifices some characterization in exchange for exploring the main premise a little faster.

Similarly, if you just can’t get into the VN–you can read the entire thing with manga too, if you favor action over the deepest character lore. It’s still a good time and a good experience!

Though, in EP1′s favor–if you ARE sure about it, and are able to dedicate your attention to the first 10-13 hours of set-up, EP1 has one of the most rewarding escalations I’ve encountered! If you are able to sit and read a fairly long-winded introduction, you are rewarded with the most buck wild Popping Off you can imagine.

So there’s nothing wrong with jumping right in there with the VN, if you enjoy reading!

However, if you do find that the VN is dragging too much for you, you can go in reverse too–and finish EP1 by manga, then decide if you want to jump back to the VN or not. I promise, the novels pick up the pace too–it’s just getting all the introductions down that can be daunting, when the initial cast size is a staggering 18 people (plus the LORE has to be established too)!!

Just for you–if you want to get into Umineko, but struggle with EP1, I’ll offer my private archive of YenPress manga rips for EP1–read the manga, official english translation, for free thanks to your dealer friend, rontra,You will have to message me about it, though–off anon or via DMs, here or at @aceyasu.

My favorite setups when I play by myself are either Original PC Graphics + Voice Acting, or Full PS3 Patch. I personally really like the original PC graphics, but I understand some people think they’re kinda…um…Rough, to say the least xD PS3 graphics are a close second for me though.

I don’t really like the steam version’s new sprites. Some people don’t mind them, so it’s up to you what you prefer, but I think they don’t really convey the feeling as well as their counterparts sometimes… :/

But hey, everyone’s got their own opinions!

I also prefer the EP8 manga to the EP8 VN. If I have control over someone’s first playthrough, I always push over to the manga for EP8! In my opinion, it’s a rare instance where the adaption is better than its original. People have different opinions on this, of course, but since this section is My Opinions Central, that’s my opinioooon!!! :D

SO BASICALLY MY OWN PERSONAL PREFERRED STRUCTURE IS

->TRY EP1 (jump over to manga if struggling; if enjoyed manga ep1 until the end, hop back into the VN at EP2 and come back to EP1 if you want to later)

EP2-EP7 VN

EP8 MANGA(EP8 VN if desired afterwards, once the dust settles)

But you’re free to do what you want, of course. ;9

And then after that there’s some spinoffs that I didn’t talk about because that’s a post for another time. (There’s a fighting game! It’s packed full of spoilers.)

AFTERWORD

All in all, Umineko is…big. its very very big. it has a huge cast (the final count comes out to like, almost 70 characters!) and a huge story. and huge feelings.

The manga and the VN are the main avenues of getting into it. It’s easier than it looks at a glance; and yet, more daunting than it seems…

If you have the time and energy to pour hours of your time into it, Umineko is a super worthwhile story that tackles genuinely difficult material with a delicate but honest hand.

It clowns up sometimes and stumbles over its own demographic–see: Weird Vaguely Unpleasant Anime-brand Sex Comedy that springs up a lot in EP1, some in EP2, and then largely disappears save for a few dumb jokes here and there–but overall is a solidly built and solidly delivered story about trauma, love, loss, and getting your family ritual-murdered by a thousand-year-old witch who may or may not be real.

And if you have any questions at all (or just wanna talk Umineko), you can send an ask or IM me here or at @aceyasu–you can ask for my Discord too if you wanna really get into it. Or DM me on twitter! I’m happy to answer any question or elaborate on anything you’re confused about. I tried to go over this post quickly, so if I was too vague on something, feel free to ask!

The same of course applies to content warnings; if there’s something specific you’re worried about, I can answer it for you, whether it’s “does [specific thing] happen/appear” or “how much of [thing] is there, i can handle a little bit”! Anything! Of course I want people to read my favorite, but I also more than that want u all to be safe.

I’m very sorry that this post is literally three thousand words long. Umineko’s been my special interest for almost ten whole years. I get chatty! But hopefully my passion shines through and gets you excited!!!

LOVE, A BIG NERD

#Anonymous #long post #the umineko post

[ramblingsofthegoldenwitch]

(You've commented a fair number of times about how you don't like EP7 much compared to other EPs. If you don't mind elaborating, what are your complaints about it?)

It’s difficult to explain my feelings in regard to Ep 7... and they might feel like things that affect just me so, everyone, if you feel like digging in this explanation, consider yourself warned.

In fact, to be honest, some of the issues I’ve with it are a matter of personal taste, for example I didn’t like at all how it was structured (as in the way the whole story was delivered to us) and I felt like many choices in it weren’t really necessary to the plot. All this can of course be countered by another person with a mere ‘but I liked it!’. We’re all different, after all, and my tastes don’t rule the world or dictate what should be likable and what shouldn’t.

Some issues I’ve about it are in regard to how ‘confusing’ its presentation is. No, I’m not talking about Will giving us obscure answers, I’m talking about the huge Meta structure that basically permeates all Ep 7 and that is never well explained. By now I’ve my theories and I’ve more or less sorted it out but the problem is that they’re just MY theories, MY interpretations. People come asking me what in the world is going on in Ep 7 and all I can reply to them is what I THINK is going on but I can’t say for sure and what makes it worse is that I don’t think we needed things to be so confusing. Umineko had better Meta ways to deliver things that had already been used. No need to complicate everything by making new ones. Of course, again, there can be people who loved all this.

Another issue I’ve with it is the Theatre-going authority. We’re lulled into thinking that it will push characters to tell us things, and that their testimony will be the truth. All the people Will uses it on were ALREADY willing to speak (even Kinzo was persuaded to do so by Lion) and they tell us an extremely personal, sometimes even deliberately mendacious version of the truth (Kinzo was the one who wanted to kill the Italians, not Yamamoto). The effect of the theatre-going authority is fundamentally the one of a giant fantasy flashback. We already had them, no need for it... unless they were supposed to be red herring? The only person who didn’t want to talk is Shannon, Will tries to use the theatre-going authority on her and then… gives up. It seems as if the theatre-going authority only existed to let us see Shannon going in ‘freaky/robot mode’ (it varies according to you reading the VN or the manga). It’s one of the things I felt we could go without.

A small issue is about Will, Lion and Clair. Although I love them to pieces, plot wise I feel we didn’t need those extra characters. I wave it off because… well, I love them madly because Ryukishi is awesome at creating characters. This doesn’t change the fact I get the feelings the addition of those extra was a tad forced.

A concrete issue I’ve with it is how it hand waves certain matters, just appealing to our suspension of disbelief on threat that if we think too much at it we’ll get a headache. Those things could have been explained one way or another but instead… no explanation is given for those oddities happening. They just… happens and we’re either asked to swallow them or make up our own explanation about why such odd things took place.

Will’s presence on the island? Hand waved, no one wonders how this strange got there or who he is, even though it’s a private island and he wasn’t on the boat with the adults. He walks in their private property out of nowhere and no one stops to wonder who’s this guy and from where it comes from, not the servants who should know who was invited nor Kinzo, the master of the house or… everyone else, really. Krauss asks him who he is but then he drops him with Lion and ignores the whole matter, because evidently that’s no more a private ceremony in a private chapel in a private island but a public place. Lion is the one who has a vaguely normal reaction and asks Will why he’s at the funeral, when a better question would be how he got on that island.

The portrait hanged in 1984? No reason for this is given in Lion’s world, it’s just something Kinzo decided on a whim.

Battler’s absence from the conference in Lion’s world is unexplained (yes, my Battler/Sayo heart shipper tells me it’s because Sayo wasn’t on the island but that’s my heart talking, not Umineko. Knox would wave it off as a random guess…).

The same goes for Kinzo’s decision to hold Beatrice’s funeral that year… in which nothing special happened. Kinzo just woke up that morning and decided to hold a ceremony to mourn Beatrice. When he didn’t feel like it when Beatrice truly died.

We aren’t told why Natsuhi changed her mind and accepted Lion even though it’s apparently extremely unlikely. Natsuhi just woke up and decided that hey, maybe tossing him off a cliff would be a bad idea.

Kinzo doesn’t notice how Rosa is screaming she killed Beatrice.

The whole story of how an Italian submarine carrying gold came to Japan is historically illogic as submarines in such conditions would historically go to Spain. To make us swallow it we’re told that maybe they had a reason to go to Japan but ‘nobody knows it because who knew died’. For the gold the same principle is used. It was hard enough to think it was Italian but then Will randomly tosses in it could be German which opens up an even huge can of historical worms and again the whole issue is hand waved with a ‘oh well, we don’t know’.

Clair doesn’t ask Will the solution for all the mysteries. Of course we believe Will knows everything but if we accept she believed he knew everything also then why questioning him in the first place? If I’m not wrong Ryukishi claimed somewhere he wanted to focus only on the riddles that seemed difficult but then the whole scene ends up on being a plot contrivance to deliver to the readers some answers in an obscure way. Oh, it’s artistically pretty and I love it for its prettiness, but it’s plot structure is shaky.

Note that Ep 7 (and Ryukishi) also raised questions in points that didn’t need some.

The tale Battler wrote for Beato? The fandom knew it was Dawn only EP 7 described it in such a way people didn’t really find it matching with Dawn plot so people started wondering if there was another tale written for her and it didn’t help that Ep 7 manga version didn’t bother posting the title on the book cover, something that Ep 8 has no problems making (note that, due to how the manga was printed the two scenes didn’t exactly came out at years of distance but were pretty close so I don’t see where’s the problem in confirming things in EP 7).

Battler’s letter? Maybe in the Japanese fandom things were different but I didn’t remember people doubting he merely didn’t write it until Ryukishi in an interview raised the issue there was more about it… before dropping it completely. The letter is never addressed again. Not even in Ep 8. What broke Sayo’s heart is just… hand waved. Battler doesn’t know about it and while in Ep 8 he’ll apologize for not coming back he’ll never get a head up about the letter matter.

We’re all disgusted by Kinzo’s behavior with Kuwadorian Beatrice? If I don’t remember wrong Ryukishi tells us we don’t really know how things went between them… which is true but it’s clear enough they were horrible enough to push her to follow a complete stranger and try to escape. Not knowing the details of the rape doesn’t really erase it. Unless we’re supposed to doubt the whole story Rosa told us as well as what the servants told us and think that Kuwadorian Beatrice slept with Kinzo willingly and that she left Kuwadorian only for a short walk that ended poorly.

The family conference in the year in which Battler should have come back is conveniently skipped. Or handled so poorly it seems it’s skipped. We actually have a scene from 1980… but it doesn’t look like a family conference and people talking about what will happen in ‘that year’s family conference’ (Kyrie will supposedly show up) reinforces this opinion only it turns out that the next conference we’ll see is the one of 1981… Maybe a problem in the translation? Still it doesn’t work well.

Shannon feels up on asking Genji and Kumasawa to lie to Kinzo, Krauss and Natsuhi and also… hire her as Kanon. And no one notices a thing about this boy whose face is the same as Shannon and that doesn’t come from the Fukuin house as no one of the Fukuin servants could know him but… out of nowhere, really.

Kinzo pulls out the epitaph, which is a hint to Genji that he knows Shannon might be Lion and Genji gives hints to Shannon about how to solve it but… he, Kumasawa and Nanjo don’t stop thinking to a less traumatic way to break the truth to her in those almost two month it’ll take for her to solve it as if they couldn’t realize how traumatic it would be for her. No, the idea of Ep 7 is that they had to traumatize her which requires them to be either jerks or dumb… while it could have more or less worked if everything had happened without them having the chance to predict it and so, caught by surprise, they ended up saying things in a poor manner.

We spiral down with the teaparty. We’re left with the adults in a definite situation, Eva and Hideyoshi are arguing with Krauss, Natsuhi is instead arguing with the other siblings… then all of sudden we’re told that Natsuhi jumped on Eva and this caused her to get shoot. The manga worsened things by showing that the two groups were even distant and that Eva and Natsuhi were giving each other their backs and it kept on worsening things when it insisted on how EXACTLY THE SAME THING would happen in Lion’s world as well, with the only difference that Lion would be called in Jessica’s place. I can swallow that the siblings were in economical troubles even if Kinzo was alive and hated each other so much that they would still argue and kill each other but… different conditions should cause minor shifts in the plot. Instead the only difference between a dead scene and the other is in how the gun next to Eva is placed… which can be the result of a mistake done due to the change in perspective… and well, that Beato isn’t there.

Then there’s Kyrie’s characterization. Kyrie is supposed to be suspicious, careful, rational. All this flies out of the window when she decides she can trust that the credit card really will lead them to all that money without checking first, that there’s no way to convert the gold without Krauss’ help when Sayo, in order to get money on that credit card, should have been able to do it, that the bomb will surely explode even through its mechanism wasn’t tested, that the range of the explosion surely won’t involve Kuwadorian, that the safest way to go through it will start gunning down people instead than grabbing some sleeping pills from Nanjo’s bag, drugging everyone and then gunning them down and, worse of all, she doesn’t check neither Sayo or Eva’s corpses and misses their vital points rather badly even though we were told she was good with guns. Note that I can accept that Kyrie would consider murdering everyone… but I’ve issues with how careless she becomes.

Rudolf too comes as a little odd as he knows he has a defective gun but doesn’t go take another one. It’s minor as Rudolf is lazy… but well, when you’re going on a killing spree and a defective gun can cause you troubles you should play on the careful side. But well, I can swallow it.

Battler’s ‘disappearance’ also doesn’t work well. Ep 8 explains us that the solution to this is ‘Battler left the house then, all of sudden, remembered he didn’t remember the way to the chapel and came back to ask about it to Gohda’ which feels silly as: Kyrie shouldn’t have sent him in such a place considering how it was easy to predict he wouldn’t remember where it was or should have made sure he knew the way (it’s well known that the church is hardly used and Battler had been missing from the house for 6 years, you can expect him not to remember were it is) and Battler should have asked her where the church was. So again, Kyrie comes out as careless and Battler leaving to realize he doesn’t know where to and coming back comes out as a plot contrivance.

On a general note… I think that the previous episodes better addressed Sayo’s issues than the whole of Ep 7. Ep 7 focuses a lot on how ‘it’s all Battler’s fault’, when he actually wasn’t the only one to blame, and generates the false impression that this was Sayo’s only problem. It’s true that there are hints in Ep 7 that this actually wasn’t her only problem but after getting all that ‘it’s Battler’s fault’ for so long, with Will agreeing to it as well, the other issues seem minor when they actually played a big role. Sayo also comes out as petty, pushing the blame of her actions solely on Battler, when we know that in Prime she actually took responsibility for them. So ultimately I think Ep 7 did her a disservice.

Ep 7 also lost a good chance to dig deeper into the motivations of minor characters like Genji, Nanjo and Kumasawa for setting up Sayo’s life in a manner that was… simply terrible.

I’ll let slide the whole matter of how they let her believe her sex was female without even bothering to prepare her for the fact she wouldn’t develop secondary sex characteristic or be able to become pregnant because Umineko wanted to keep in the dark Sayo’s sex and use the full trauma of her discovering her own condition as one of the driving forces for the whole thing (even though the fact that Ep 7 completely overlooked on the whole matter ended up making it look less important than it was).

Let’s focus on the fact they kidnapped Sayo and gave her a new identity so that Kinzo won’t make the same mistake and rape her, which is understandable really, but then they took her back on Rokkenjima AS AN ORPHANED SERVANT, when she was too young to work and under the disguise she was actually younger. Kinzo could have recognized Beatrice in her again, think this time Beatrice reincarnated in a person unrelated to him and rape her all over taking advantage of the fact that now she was his servant. It’s a horrible plan and their decision for going through it is… poorly explained.

Then there’s the loss of a chance to let us know more about minor characters like Kinzo’s wife (where was she when the baby was handed to Natsuhi since she was clearly still alive to scold Rosa and push her to escape in the forest and meet with Beatrice? Natsuhi claimed that Krauss and Kinzo were away but what about Kinzo’s wife? Did they drag her along?) or how Asumu, a young woman with no health problem mentioned, suddenly died, to dig a little better in Battler’s six years away from his family and his feelings for Sayo (he’s jealous she chose George but then he can brush it off… so it looks like it isn’t a big deal… only we’ll learn in Prime he risked his life for her more than once and, hadn’t she died, he was willing to spend the rest of his life with her).

Then there are issues I’ve specifically with the manga.

In the scene in which the culprit shows up for the first time… the culprit’s form is slightly kept in the dark but we can see she’s not Shannon, she’s not Beatrice and she isn’t even Clair. There’s no reason for this person in the dark to be an ‘extra’ person.

Kinzo’s wife has no face nor name. I can get over the fact they didn’t give her a name, not on the fact the mangaka didn’t give her a face as there’s no reason to obscure it. She’s not hiding some dark secret. We won’t learn the truth about her later on as we’ll do with Asumu, whose face will be showed only in Ep 8 (bless Ep 8). Yes, maybe they wanted to drive home that for Kinzo she was a ‘not entity’ (his children too get no face) but still… I don’t like this. Personal taste? Maybe.

The manga tossed in a bunch of nameless maids who… go nowhere really (when it would have been so much better if, as someone (myself included) speculated, they also were vessels for things like the Chiesters or the Eiserne Jungfraws) as they don’t get names and just… disappear, while waited to introduce Reinon. This is more or less a direct transposition of how the VN handled matters, only in the VN it worked better as there were no random new faces, just random voices so you could speculate it was a 7 sister maid the one speaking and it wasn’t so clear that Reinon popped up later. The manga makes obvious that’s not the case.

Ep 5 manga version implied the promise happened on the same balcony on which Beatrice, in Ep 4, asked Battler to remember about his sin. This was a wonderful new info but… it goes completely skipped over in the manga transposition of Ep 7. Ep 7 manga version transposes faithfully the novel and just focus on the scene in the garden… where no clear promise is made. Sayo just urges Battler to come and he confirms he’ll do but he never says ‘I promise’ nor they’ll make a pinky swear.

Overall, Ep 7 isn’t fully to blame for most of the issues I’ve with it.

The background behind the Umineko plot is one of an huge amount of extremely unlikely facts happening one after the other, most of whom we’re asked to figure out. While unlikely facts can and will happen, often, in stories in general and in mystery stories in particular the author usually avoids them or explains/excuses them. Umineko just… embraced them as if the unlikely were the ordinary and Ep 7 was the point in which we were asked to do the same, often without being given a convincing reason for having to do this beyond ‘it was unlikely but it just happened, insert devil’s proof here’.

That’s why I wish the manga had at least dimmed some issues I had with the novel version, for example handled better (and not worse) why Eva ended up shooting Natsuhi or how Kyrie and Rudolf murdered everyone in Lion’s world as well.

Most of those issues weren’t IMPOSSIBLE to handle. They just weren’t explained, hand waved with an ‘it happened, don’t think too hard at it’.

As a result, I feel Ep 7 was handled poorly and the manga version did nothing to fix it. It’s my personal impression. I know there’s who loves Ep 7 and how it handled everything and, as usual, that’s fine.

#Umineko #Requiem of the Golden Witch #Umineko VN #Umineko Manga