#could it be that beatrice is a shadow play put on by these two for their own specific aims?

[pochapal]

so kanon also saw it, you say. huh. isn't that interesting.

[frankensteined]

31 Days of Dragon Age (Day 13)

Oct 013 - Introduce your Hawke i have a buncha hawkes that i'm fond of (and still no screenshots of them, thanks ps3), so i don't have a "main" hawke, but my main four are:

aelia hawke - mage with the force mage spec. - blue personality

aelia was my first playthrough hawke, which was kind of a new experience for me because i typically play a dual-wielding rogue on my first playthroughs, but i wanted to have carver around because he reminded me of my own brother, so i went with a mage. i'm glad i did, because aelia was frequently out of her element and Trying Her Best, while obviously being as pro-mage as she could be. she romanced anders, because of course she did, and ran away with him after fleeing kirkwall. had a friendship with everyone except for fenris, who actually turned on her at the end of the game for siding with the mages (a game feature i was really impressed by! love character agency!) carver joined the grey wardens on this playthrough, which was my favourite outcome for him, and his relationship with his sister is probably one of my favourite ones in the series. della hawke - archer rogue with the shadow spec- blue-turned-red personality

della was my attempt at making a wholesome, positive character, and then slowly showcasing how kirkwall just beats you down over the years. she started out kind and helpful, but by the end of the game she was aggressive and reactionary, pitting her against anders at the end. she ultimately sided with the mages, despite killing anders, solely because bethany was a part of the circle, and that's something that kind of kept her from becoming the worst version of herself in the end. that, and her beloved merrill, who was absolutely della's blindspot in pretty much every other regard. della didn't always agree with merrill, but she always acted out of the interest of protecting her, even if it resulted in disagreements.

judith hawke - two-handed warrior with the templar spec. - red personality

judith was my most Eldest Daughter of all the hawkes i made. she took her role as the twins' protector seriously, and never forgave herself for losing carver in lothering. this also put her directly at odds with leandra a lot of the time, too, so it was a lot of fun getting to roleplay that element with her. with this in mind, she actually got on well with gamlen eventually, and i like to imagine that she and her uncle developed a close relationship over the years, despite everything that's happened to their family. bethany was a circle mage on this playthrough as a well, and with playing judith as a devout andrastian who was trying to balance her faith with her love for her sister, i ended up rivalling bethany for the first and only time! it was weird! judith also ended up in a friendship romance with sebastian, which sort of added to that whole mess. ultimately, sided with the templars to maintain order and stayed with sebastian to help restore what was lost when anders did the thing (regardless of what varric's narration said lol)

beatrice hawke - DW rogue with the assassin spec. - purple personality

the purplest of purple hawkes, beatrice was playful and sarcastic, and has never met a quip that she didn't want on her tongue right away. she actively ran away from responsibility every chance she got, and it was only by sheer dumb luck that she happened to let anders tag along on the deep roads expedition, thus saving her sister's life. after losing bethany to the wardens, beatrice kind of smartened up a bit, and out of gratitude to anders, she started being more assertive in helping the mages of kirkwall. flirted with him at first, until he did the whole "i'll only hurt you in the end..." thing, upon which she backed off and the two ended up becoming really close friends instead.

something really fun happened with beatrice's actual romance stuff though: she initiated the romance with fenris, but after he left her following their first night together, she eventually moved onto isabela, expecting a casual fling would help her get over the sting of that rejection. she ended up liking isabela a lot more than she'd expected though, and very quickly, at that. however, the romance flags in the game got bugged, and fenris' was never turned off. so, following "all that remains", it was fenris who came to comfort her, which really allowed me to headcanon that he was able to shelve his own complicated feelings for her to be there for her when she needed someone the most. it was very sweet, but i didn't know which romance was actually "active" anymore. fastforward to act 3, and one of the first banters i got was merrill and fenris' "you're in love..." "no i'm not!" banter. thinking that it meant that fenris was the canon romance now, i went to talk to varric, only for him to talk to beatrice about isabela instead. and, indeed, as act 3 progressed, it was isabela's romance scenes that followed, and fenris' were the friendships ones.

except...i also triggered the banter between isabela and fenris, about them hooking up too! because the flags were a mess! so, naturally, i had no choice at all but to assume that they were in a poly relationship at that point, and that's the story i'm sticking with. Canon.

...anyways, beatrice also sided with the mages and sailed away with isabela (and fenris) after the fight at the gallows, despite sebastian offering to marry her at one point too. the flags! they were a mess! but it made for a really compelling story!

[after-perfect]

I'd like to know what they're sabotaging - I mean, what goal is each group working towards that the other would be trying to stop? Because there are some things that neither group is going to achieve, with or without outside interference. Or is the point just for each group to make the other as miserable as possible? I'd also like to know if we're including Rebecca herself as a character, even though she never appears onstage, because she could make quite a difference.

But for the most part, yeah, there's no contest. Der Tod could take down both Maxim and Danny with a well-chosen comment or two about Rebecca (about whom he presumably knows everything). He could quite easily send Maxim retreating into himself as a spooked, brooding cypher, and stir up Danny's grief and anger to the point where she'd be just as likely to sabotage her own side as her opponents. "Ich" can be more of a force than anyone (including herself) gives her credit for, but also easily put down and easily distracted if something seems to be wrong with Maxim. Besides, if living in Rebecca's shadow was tough for her, she'd have one hell of a time with a woman who had Death himself in love with her.

Of the other Rebecca characters, Beatrice might get out fairly unscathed, but I'm not sure she'd be all that effective; ditto for Giles and Frank. Favell could do a bit of damage, but would be pretty easily neutralized. Oddly enough, Mrs. van Hopper's boundless confidence and complete inability to recognize when she's being snarked at would probably make her the most immune to a lot of what the Elisabeth crowd could throw at her.

And that's without bringing any of der Tod's abilities - say, killing people - into play.

Okay, important question:

[pochapal]

umineko opening live reaction post

due to spoiler avoidance this is now only happening after i'm already like two thirds done with episode one BUT thanks to the magic of trusted followers giving me beautiful spoiler free links (everybody say thank you to @coolstuffiseverywhere) i can now Bear Witness:

immediately noticing from the first three seconds that this is NOT the same opening/song i'm used to skipping. umineko project starts with a shot of i think a record being played?? and then i don't know the rest

this is a very hype-building type song for sure lmao

hi beatrice

the music is very much giving getting turnt at the medieval fiefdom. i'm kind of living for it????

is this what the og version's backgrounds looked like? very dreamlike water painting quality to them

SHE!!!! SQUISHY MARIA!!!!! I HOPE YOU ARE DOING WELL AND ONLY GETTING GOOD THINGS IN THIS WORLD!!!

a shadow falling over maria....how prescient

squishy battler......nobody understands how badly i need to put this boy in a microwave

suuuuper interesting that our first glimpse of george is fogged-glasses Adultsona george before the mask lifts and we see a friendlier face

clock striking twelve + the overlay of the first twilight's sacrificial/freedom magic circle + natsuhi in the corner....much to consider

weird pulsating heartbeat effect over what i think is the ushiromiya eagle? the symbol as the rotten heart pumping the poisoned lifeblood throughout the story perhaps?

failsibling void....mimicking the dining room's seating hierarchy?

them!!!! shannon!!!!! kanon!!!!!!!! of course they're presented as part of the Sus People slideshow but that's okay because neither of them ever committed a single crime ever <3

the failsiblings have Become The Joker

more seriously thinking about the comedy mask presentation here....multiple lies and multiple farces define the ushiromiya siblings so this is extremely apt

kinzo => blood splatter => the epitaph (?) is a Very Leading sequence of images. encouraging certain audience associations from the very start.

the image effect here is really making the mansion's windows look like a stained glass relief. evocative of church imagery. thinking about this in correlation with the floating topic of christianity. of the recurring motif of faith and the demonic. of the gospel house. rokkenjima as a corrupt altar.

it would be false advertising to call you game "when they cry" and not include anyone crying in your opening

uhhhhh that's. that's. blood. on maria's sprite there. a bloody maria besides beatrice. symbolically a representation of maria's use as a pawn in the slaughter or foreshadowing some horrible thing that hasn't happened yet? hope it's the former because Maria Covered In Blood is incredibly something i don't need to think about lol.

a.....bottle? wine bottle on the beach? with. is that paper in there? a message in a bottle? really conspicuous image when compared to the western style ornate envelopes that have otherwise been the defining method of written communication in the story. i can think of a couple of things a message in a bottle could refer to/be used for as fits both the witch narrative and the epitaph puzzle.

seagull sighting!!!! after so very very long the titular umineko reveals itself

so that was the whole opening! first thought is the song is an absolute banger and i WILL be extracting an mp3 file from this video because even listening to it a couple of times is super pumping me up to want to read umineko right now lol.

second thing is that i am very interested in the sequence of images/events portrayed in the latter half the opening. the first part clearly maps onto the failsiblings argument and kinzo's demon's roulette and the clock striking midnight ushering in the killing, feeding then into everyone being upset and arguing. but then we get a bloody maria by the portrait, a message in a bottle on a calm beach and an image of a seagull flying under blue skies. some kind of symbolic representation of how episode 1's gonna end? something Bad goes down with maria and the storm breaks and we get the final word via a message in a bottle and then the seagulls cry?

this is almost certainly something that will make an extreme amount of sense after the fact but mostly right now i'm instilled with a deep anxiety for maria. there were a lot of ominous shots of her in this opening. i worry.

but yeah!! glad to have finally seen this!