#kinzo was born

[suinicide]

All these tags and I didn't even finish getting through the backstory. But it does contain a lot of spoilers.

[kushanna]

what gets me about the ushiromiya western names is that they're christmas themed. kinzo sir you do understand you named your sons after santa klaus and rudolph the reindeer right. you cannot have the names klaus and rudolph together and not evoke christmas. i hope you're aware of that cause if my father had named me santa klaus i would also not hesitate in keeping his dead body a secret from the rest of the family

[pochapal]

so if this was a known old story among the siblings during their respective childhoods (which given their approximate ages would probably be somewhere around the mid/late 1940s) that once again gives the obtaining the gold enough timeline wriggle room to have occurred during the second world war

[heartgold]

(incest, csa, suicide cw)

umineko is full of complicated and fucked up parent/child dynamics, so the way kumasawa and genji were like the parent figures sayo always wished she could have and then turned out to be the people who hurt her with the most intent often flies under the radar. but I'm constantly thinking about it.

they never saw her as more than an extension of her biological mother and a way to personally atone for failing her... by ultimately failing her daughter too and in very similar ways. kumasawa incentivised young sayo's beatrice roleplay and taught her magic bc "it was like it was meant to be". in kumasawa's eyes, it was as if beatrice's daughter unknowingly shared a connection to her mother thanks to the whims of fate. but to sayo, the magic she was taught became an intrinsic part of her identity, her primary way to cope and to find some confidence in the face of the hardships she was going through. of course the idea of no longer being 'yasu', the clumsy servant mocked by everyone, but rather the powerful witch beatrice who inspires their respect became so important to her! but then as she learned later, she spent all her life playing the part of her dead mother who was horribly abused (and whose abuse was enabled and covered up by sayo's parent figures!) and by then she had all but absorbed her as part of her identity and sense of self, all while being secretly primed to ultimately play her part and finally "become" her in genji's bullshit redemption arc plan for kinzo. kumasawa knew everything and intentionally encouraged this while sayo had no idea. it's no wonder beatrice went from being something empowering to sayo to the cruel voice tormenting her in her head, reminding her of her worst thoughts. beatrice became an embodiment of trauma! not just sayo's trauma but also her mother's, which she took upon herself. all of the people who knew the truth manipulated her into walking the path of becoming her mother and saw her as nothing but that. a replacement, a vessel for the "true" beatrice. the very same idea behind her mother's grooming and abuse.

the cruel irony here is how all of this was done to prove a point about kinzo not repeating his actions and to relieve his guilt in time before his death, with genji/kumasawa/nanjo celebrating kinzo being "successfully redeemed" by not raping his daughter again... all while sayo comes out of this horrific situation terribly sexually traumatized regardless. all at once, she learns the depth of violation she suffered from some of the few people she thought were on her side. the way she was manipulated and gaslit all her life about the circumstances of her birth, her parentage, her body, her entire identity and personhood. how they were willing to risk her safety by making her work under kinzo to prove that he wouldn't sexually abuse her. the shock of learning what happened to the mother she was unknowingly raised to become, and how those people did nothing to help her back then either. how her mother, too, was groomed into playing the role of her own mother for kinzo!!! the horror doesn't end. the traumatic impact and consequences of all of this on her life were never in their minds, only making sure sayo would play her role in granting kinzo a peaceful death. putting kinzo's guilt to rest was always the priority, and by trying to prove he wouldn't repeat the past, they did so themselves by dooming another beatrice into becoming a vessel for her mother and shouldering generations worth of trauma.

there's this metaphor in umineko about the powerlessness of children before their parents and how many are born to fulfill a specific purpose for them, becoming an extension of their parents who project on their children and try to shape them into a specific kind of person to successfully play a role. having a child is compared to creating a fictional character which is compared to inserting a piece of yourself on a gameboard. this goes for every parent/child dynamic in the story including allegorical ones such as bern/erika, and of course this reflects the way the only people sayo could call her parent figures shaped her into an accessory in her father's narrative. she was always their means to achieve that, not even a person in the grand scheme of things. a piece of their own creation, shaped and molded into a role, without autonomy of her own. furniture in every meaning of the word in sayo's personal lexicon.

it hurts how she trusted them and even made fantasy versions of them to include them in her world! she wanted them to be part of it and that's a precious thing to her! and then turns out the characters she created were much better people than their human vessels. even more encouragement to reject reality altogether and immerse herself even deeper in a rabbithole of fantasy to cope with her real life being almost unsurvivable after nonstop betrayal and hurt!

the nail in the coffin is, after doing all of... That out of his fucked up sense of loyalty to kinzo, genji goes on to enable and help out with sayo's mass murder-suicide plan... as his way to atone for how much suffering he caused her? the results of his actions were a major driving force in her suicidality and furniture complex among all the many factors pushing her into a corner, and then he reasons that agreeing to help her kill herself along with literally everyone and providing her with the means to do it is the correct thing to do for her??? genji's undying sense of duty and loyalty is truly his worst and most terrifying quality. he'll stop at nothing to honor it.

[best-nun-tournament]

Grand Final

Krauss, Eva, Rudolf and Rosa Ushiromiya (Umineko) vs Cersei, Jaime and Tyrion Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire)

Propaganda under break

Krauss, Eva, Rudolf and Rosa Ushiromiya

The four children of billionaire Kinzo Ushiromiya. Every year, they return home to Rokkenjima Island for a family conference. With Kinzo's health declining, to the point where he hardly ever leaves his room, the only topic on their minds is how to carve up his fortune.

Krauss is the eldest, and Kinzo's successor. Even if he's not the smartest of the siblings, his position as heir and imposing physique let him push them around. He even used to beat his younger siblings. Now, they suspect him of abusing his position as Kinzo's caregiver to embezzle their rightful share of the family fortune.

Eva is the second child, and incredibly resentful about it. She despises the fact that despite being so much more intelligent than Krauss, he's always above her just because he's older and a man. She's devoted her whole life to usurping Krauss' position, and then devoted her son's life to becoming the next heir instead of Krauss' daughter. When not scheming against her brother, she loves finding ways to torment and cruelly provoke her siblings, sister-in-law, and the servants.

Rudolf is the third, and with little hope of becoming heir, became a conman and a playboy (though he eventually settled down as a married man and white-collar criminal). Suffering from his sibling's bullying, he turned all their physical and emotional abuse on his sister Rosa. Though unlike Eva, he's stopped being cruel to her as an adult.

Rosa is the youngest sibling, and she's had a terrible life. Even as an adult, she's still terrified of Eva and acts dumb around her for fear of provoking her. But if she was given the opportunity, she could easily make them pay for what she's suffered.

Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion Lannister

Cersei HATES Tyrion. Hes not a big fan of her either on account of her absolutely hating him. Cersei (and her twin Jaime, who is actually a good brother to Tyrion) were born a few years earlier than Tyrion, and blames him for "killing their mother," because she died in childbirth. Everyone in their family (except Jaime) hates Tyrion because he has dwarfism, but Cersei hates him more than anyone else and has wanted him dead since childhood. (spoilers beyond this point for the books and show both) When Cersei's son is killed, her immediate instinct is to blame Tyrion and throw him in jail. She does everything in her power to have him killed.

------

The incest for starters. The fact that Cersei doesn’t see Tyrion as human. All the backstabbing. And that they made their own family problems everyone else’s tragic backstory and present out of their own lust for power

------

here's a quote from one of tyrion's chapters: "When your sister cries, you were supposed to comfort her... but this was Cersei."

[knaveumineko]

Umineko Episode 3 Blog: Once Upon A Time

I had a feeling a topic like this would eventually come up. There are only so many "unforgivable" things a man in Kinzo's position could have done to his unrequited love. Somehow, it seems the truth was far worse than I thought.

I had found Episode 2 to be a largely uneventful affair. I liked the focus on Shannon and Kanon's characters at the start, and their relationship to "Beatrice," and Rosa was a riot as usual, but beyond that a huge chunk of it felt like I wasn't really getting much new information. Episode 3 kind of feels like Episode 2, but better. The magic part of the story is more interesting and has more meaningful implications on the mystery side of the story instead of being random nonsense, the game throws interesting twists on the mysteries of the previous games (killing off all of the servants on 1st Twilight was such a cool idea), and Ryukishi has provided so much important context regarding the killer's motivations, where before all we knew was that it was Sayo and her reasons had something to do with her solving the epitaph.

I'm told that people at the time found Episode 2 too difficult, and Episode 3 was in some ways a response to that, which is why we get treated to Virgilia explaining what an unreliable narrator is to Battler for the sake of those poor souls who hadn't caught on up to this point. It seems like Umineko has finally finished establishing its basic narrative tricks, and now we get to just have fun with it, although "fun" is maybe the wrong word for the main topic of this post.

Beatrice gets a bit shifty about explaining her backstory, as we'd expect from her. She wants us to believe that her death, as witnessed by Rosa, makes it impossible for the secret mansion to have any connection to the Rokkenjima murders, but it's clear that the Beatrice in the prologue is not the one from Rosa's story. Unfortunately, we've gone full Yu-Gi-Oh at this point and we have way too many different Beatrices running around, so for the sake of my sanity:

Beatrice I: Kinzo's mistress from long ago. May or may not have provided gold. Commit suicide after her daughter was born.

Beatrice II: Daughter of Beatrice I and Kinzo. Met Rosa. Died after falling off of a cliff.

Beatrice III: girl who broke a vase in the prologue. Describes Kinzo as her grandfather, which, troublingly, means she's probably Beatrice II's daughter.

Beatrice: Battler's nemesis in the meta-plot. On a metaphorical level, she's sort of a vague amalgamation of everything and everyone who's received the name of the golden witch.

Virgilia: Beatrice III's caretaker, who appears in the meta-plot and magic narrative as a mentor witch. In reality, Virgilia is Kumasawa. It's a well-executed Chekov's Gun: we were told in Episode 1 that Kumasawa often quits and then comes back after a while. The implication seems to be that whenever Kumasawa "quits" working for the Ushiromiya family, she's actually just being reassigned to the secret mansion to look after whichever Beatrice is staying there.

Sayo: masterminded the Rokkenjima killings, while occupying the role of the golden witch.

Eva: Kinzo's eldest legitimate daughter. Took over a significant chunk of the killings in Episode 3, after solving the epitaph. Was it simple greed, or are we again finding out that the epitaph hides an additional secret that makes those who solve it lean toward committing the killings?

EVA: Eva's inner child turned witch. Typically appears in the magic narrative to explain away the killings. Symbolically represents that Eva and Sayo do not have the same ends, even if they end up using the same means.

Ange: I guess they're just letting anyone be a witch these days.

Beatrice's explanation about being locked in the body of Beatrice II tells a horrid story between the lines: Kinzo had a daughter with his mistress, and after her death, he groomed his daughter to serve as her replacement. The fact that Kinzo has an extra grandchild we can't account for would seem to imply that he tried it twice. Beatrice tries to obscure this fact by working through Rosa, who didn't have enough context to understand the situation.

In any case, based on the timeline I'm guessing that Beatrice III is Sayo. She's the only realistic candidate I can think of who's involved in the story, and explains a lot. The servants are willing to work with Sayo out of a sense of obligation toward her, both because Kumasawa at the very least probably feels a lot of guilt at being complicit in the situation, and because Sayo probably became the de facto head after Kinzo died. I bet he'd sooner appoint her than anyone else in his family, although the rest of the family would certainly have disputed the claim if she'd come forward initially.

I do wonder what Kinzo was thinking having Sayo become a servant. Maybe a cover story, since the truth behind her birth was too shameful to admit? Another possibility is that the servants just got one over on ol' Kinzo and sent Sayo to the orphanage at some point, pretending she was someone else. I feel like Sayo had to end up at the orphanage somehow, even briefly as part of her cover story, since she needs to meet Kanon at some point.

The implications of this on Sayo and George's relationship aren't great, but we've already crossed that line by now, and Episode 2 did establish that Shannon avoids being physically intimate with George. Did Shannon enter this relationship in some attempt to get control over the family's assets, knowing that her claim would not be respected under normal circumstances, or did she only come to fully understand who she was and where she came from after solving the epitaph?

Sayo's connection to Beatrice feels very different now. Sayo probably doesn't even remember her mother, so the closest she's got is the legend of the witch. No wonder she takes on that role to get revenge on the family. The whole theme in the first letter of taking back what's rightfully hers fits much better as well.

We still don't fully understand Sayo's motivations. The whole conversation on the beach about Battler's childhood crush really feels like it's foreshadowing a reveal later. I'm guessing it's something like: Battler threw out a cringy line about coming back for Sayo on a white horse because he was 12, and then ditched the family. Back in Episode 1, George asked Shannon why she had stayed employed as a maid for so long, after already saving a fair amount of money. The truth was that Sayo was envious of Battler leaving everything behind, and, like her mother blindly trusting Rosa, she secretly clung to the childish notion that one day he really would come back for her and take her away from Rokkenjima and the Ushiromiyas, but instead Battler came back and implicitly revealed what she probably should have known: he never took it seriously, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

That's enough of that depressing topic. Next time, we get treated to Peak Eva Content.

[queenoffishingandcookies]

Something that made me feel like an idiot was not getting how the written form of Battler’s name was actually read (in Kanji).

I knew it was weird because it was foreign, and the way that the kanji was read was strange and different from normal readings.

However, I did not get that the jist of why Battler’s name is so weird is because the kanji isn’t read the same way that it is pronounced.

As in, the actual reading of the kanji doesn’t matter - it’s the meaning of the two together where Battler gets his name from).

(I spent way too long trying to figure out why 戦人 = Battler, when none of the different readings had the sound of ‘ba’ or ‘tora’. I was literally looking at the reading of them. This is what screwed me over when trying to make a name for Fem! Battler a while back until I figured it out).

戦人 is two kanji, which have several readings.

Kun’yomi is the Japanese reading usually used for singular words. On’yomi is the original Chinese reading usually used for compounds (and that also differs depending on what period of time they come from), and lastly Nanori - readings of the kanji that are usually only used for names.

戦:

- ikusa, tatakau (いくさ、たたかう) = Kun’yomi

- sen (セン) = On’yomi

- se (せ) = Nanori

人:

hito, ri, to (ひと、〜り、〜と) = Kun’yomi

jin, nin (ジン、ニン) = On’yomi

ji, ne, hiko, fumi (じ、ね、ひこ、ふみ) = Nanori

Neither of the kanji are read as syllables for Batora, or, anglicized, Battler (though in the valor post I needed to break them down that way for her kanji or I’d lose my mind). In the VN, Battler himself mentions that most people misread his name as Sento.

However, the translated meaning of the two kanji together can mean Battler.

戦 means war, or battle, or fight.

人 means person.

So - taken literally - his name is Fighting Person, War Person, Fight Person, etc. Transliterated, it could be either Soldier or Battler.

In English, Battler literally means a person who fights, a soldier, etc.

Battler’s name isn’t meant to be read with any sort of native kanji reading, On’yomi or Kun’yomi, at all.

It’s pronounced as a foreign word that the meaning of the Kanji translates into - Fight + Person = Battler.

The reading doesn’t matter, the meaning does.

Which I find interesting, considering the rest of his families names.

Example: Jessica.

Different from Battler, whose name is read not from Kanji pronunciation but their translated meaning, the kanji in Jessica’s name seems to have been selected for the sounds they made - not their meaning.

In Kanji, Jessica’s name is written as 朱志香.

朱 means red, scarlet, vermillion, cinnabar, bloody, etc. From what I can tell, there’s only an on’yomi reading - シュ (shu). In Nanori, it can be read as a, aka, aki, and su (あ、あか、あき、す).

志 means intention, plan, resolve, motive, hopes, etc. It’s Kun’yomi reading is こころざす or こころざし - romanized as kokoroza(su) or kokorozashi. In On’yomi, it’s read as shi (シ).

The Nanori for it is: じん、べ、べし、ゆき - jin, be, beshi, or Yuki.

香 means incense, fragrance, perfume, smell, etc. In Kun’yomi, it’s read as か、かお��� (ka, kaori). In On’yomi, it is either コウ or キョウ (kou, kyou).

The Nanori readings are こ、こお、ひゃん、and よし (Ko, kō/ko-o, hyan, yoshi).

In Jessica’s case, the kanji reads On’yomi for the first two characters and Kun’yomi for the last one - romanized as shushika, though it is pronounced as Jeshika, or, Jessica.

In English, the name Jessica means foresight, to behold, to see something (oh the irony). This doesn’t align with the kanji used to spell her name, though the sound does.

Jessica’s name, in Kanji, can be read as the crimson fragrance of purpose or perfume of crimson purpose - or something along those lines, I think. They were chosen not for their meaning, but for the sounds they read as which were closest to the pronunciation of the name elsewhere.

I’m…pretty sure the rest of the family born into the Ushiromiya Blood (Kinzo notwithstanding) follows Jessica’s naming tradition, where the kanji is based in the sound they make and not the meaning.

So Battler is the only Ushiromiya whose name isn’t meant to be read by the kanji, but by the translated meaning, whereas everyone’s else’s names are read with either On’yomi or Kun’yomi or both.

(I can not remember for the life of me where it is mentioned, but I think it’s implied that Kinzo either named or had a hand in naming his grandchildren? Rosa mentions in a conversation regarding the epitaph I think, he was very upset when she named Maria without his input.

So Battler’s complaints about their parents giving them their weird names can actually be pinned on Kinzo, depending on how involved he was).

[natsuhi-supporter]

the thought was put into my brain and now i must give birth to it to get it out, I'm way too tired to formulate well, and i don't have energy to write about Eva or Kyrie, i hope I'll do it later, you can add on if you want to. i was thinking about how different patterns of pain and how the moms deal with it. Like, it's not just "i was hurt so I'm gonna hurt ya", it's more nuanced and complex.

With Rosa is about being burdened with other people's responsibility and/or violent loss of innocence/purity of some kind. Like, the mildest example is the dish on, in the ep2 chapel scene where they found the bodies, I'll just put the whole thing here, bc it'll be easier than explaining

[ Rosa remembered a gross out meal, a turkey that had been served at her own birthday when she was a young girl.

When it had been cut with a knife, from the inside, things she loved, but which she had not heard about at all... bright-red, bright-red... ketchup omelet-rice had poured out like blood-stained maggots, buwaa, dripping, slimy, pulpy, sticky!! ]

About being responsibility of is kinda obvious with Maria's father, she trusted him, and was taken advantage of, and now she's gotta pay off his debts. But also, in a way, by Beatrice Kuwadorian. Hear me out, i love Beatrice Kuwadorian and want her to have good life as the other guy, but she still, through no fault of her own, relied on 14 yo to save her from abusive environment. A 14 yo who was in very similar abusive environment, they literally share a father! And it was also violent loss of innocence because she saw a girl die and assumed responsibility for it! The pattern!

And she goes about it by doing sorta same thing, in ep1, when we first see Rosa slap Maria, Battler tries to stop her, and Rosa tells him "to think about her [Maria's] future" and stuff like that, she's burdening him with responsibility of caring about her daughter's future! And, also, yeah, she relies on Maria for emotional support, she expects that Maria will forgive her even though Rosa herself doesn't think she deserves it, it became Maria's responsibility, and it also goes for loss of innocence, i hope i don't need to explain that one, i just remembered the "Sakutaro is dead" page and what effect it had on Maria, and i can't talk about it.

Then we have Natsuhi. I think for Natsuhi the pattern is about humiliation and being treated as subhuman for something she has no power over. It's kinda obvious, i don't know if i need to explain, but i think about Natsuhi more than normally ppl do, so just as precaution I'll say examples.

1. Bit controversial for me, but generally her born family. Like, we don't know about any instances of humiliation bc we don't know anything abt that time, but we do know that at some point Natsuhi didn't agree with her mother's behaviour but then had a change of heart. I think it was "discipline", even Natsuhi says that her born family was strict

2. Her marriage circumstances. She literally just was born into he priest family, what the fuck, kinzo, she was 17, she should have been doing her homework

3. The way she was treated because she couldn't get pregnant.

4. The way she is still treated by Eva because she isn't perfect, because her servants aren't perfect and make mistakes sometimes.

5. The way Erika treated her in ep5, especially when she denies this particular statement of Natsuhi "i loved my husband! I kept this emotion to myself, it was too intimate. Do i need proof that I'm in love?"

6. Krauss sexist treatment of her.

Natsuhi never intentionally hurt ppl bc of it, her main coping mechanism is her pride, humiliation becomes pride, she prides herself on being a good wife, a good daughter, good mother etc, she prides herself on upholding and fitting the rules and morales she cares about and she was taught. So as a way of upholding these rules she enforces them, with Jessica, her heart is in the right place, but she's still doing the same thing she suffered from, she's scolding Jessica for being the way she is, she strict with Shannon in particular, Shannon has no power over how clumsy she is, but it's still Shannon's fault in Natsuhi's paradigm. I also need to talk about the whole baby thing. Natsuhi was heavy with shame and resentment so she couldn't see baby as properly human or care for it because it became symbol of her humiliation, of "her failure as a woman".

[aihoshiino]

I‘m reading through Umineko atm and am at the last episode of the answers arc and that made me think a lot about ONK for some reason (or rather they‘re both occupying the same amount of brain space atm lol)

Super big fan of both and I still love ONK and many of its characters for what it tried to do, even if i really don’t enjoy the direction the ending is heading at the moment for many reasons, but one of them is the whole wrap up of the revenge-plot and Hikaru and Ai‘s relationship. I loved the 2(?) chapters where Aqua confronted Hikaru with Ai‘s timeless love letter, because it felt so human, their relationship and how deeply tragic and emotional it was but also very… real? So, to see the last few chapters flip-flop between „Kamiki is a really fascinating character with a lot of depth and deeply human“ to „He is just a mastermind manipulating liar and is just flat evil“ is really sad.

Hope it’s kinda understandable what I‘m getting at, english isn’t my first language so excuse any mistakes…

Maybe I’m just spoiled by how Umineko handled murder-mysteries and also tied those mysteries to its themes of love and relationships but, oh well.

ANON!!! I'M GRIPPING YOUR SHOULDERS!!!! THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING ALL THIS TIME!!!!!!

Obviously OnK even at its best doesn't quite reach the same heights as Umineko and even when the character drama and story are in their most well-realized forms, OnK's mystery is still kind of half baked lol. Which to be fairness to Akasaka, is a VERY different skillset than what he made his bread and butter doing but still. Very funny.

THAT SAID... I do think it's really fun to put Umineko and OnK in conversation with each other if only from a thematic/vibes perspective because I think they have some surprisingly similar things to say specifically about misogyny, autonomy and abuse. They were coming at it from very different directions, but they arrive at very similar places. "Lies are love" and "without love, it cannot be seen" aren't... not basically expressing the same sentiment after all.

Those similarities really do make it all the more disappointing where OnK ends up, though.

(Umineko spoilers behind the cut, as well as some trigger warnings; ROT13 filtered because the CWs themselves are also spoilers lol - traqre qlfcubevn, fhvpvqny vqrngvba, puvyq nohfr, cneragny vaprfg & pfn)

As much as I constantly joke about Ai of B-Komachi being Hoshino Ai's Beatrice, I think Hikaru is actually the most Sayocore character of Oshi no Ko which makes it so much more of a let down that OnK fumbles him like it does.

Like... Umineko lets you see Sayo at her absolute worst, the peak of her traumabrained depravity and nevertheless trusts that you will be able to look at her with love and empathize with her when the time comes and you start to see her heart. It treats her with such tender care, letting you excruciatingly understand every step she took down the path to finding the gold and blowing up the shrine until you realize that there really was no other way things could have gone for her. The environment of the Ushiromiya family is so incredibly poisonous and putrid that she was already one foot into suicidal ideation before she found out about her heritage and what Kinzo had done to her mother. Even if you can't agree with her actions, you can understand and sympathize with why she ends up taking them.

OnK... sort of seems like it's setting up to be doing this with Hikaru then takes a massive swerve?? It's bizarre. We even have an accidental parallel to EP8's "an accumulation of sins" moment during Ruby and Hikaru's first meeting where she fucking looks into the camera and is like "btw nobody is born ontologically evil, when people commit violent and antisocial acts their environments are almost always to blame" and that combined with how Aqua's first confrontation with him plays out and tbh the Movie Arc's characterization of Hikaru as a whole really makes it feel like the story wants you to see him as we're asked to see Sayo in Umineko - with love (read: empathy and an open mind).

But then ig it turns out he was, actually, ontologically evil and also has a serial killer cult??? So who even knows lol. What I wouldn't give to be able to pick Aka's brain for even 5 minutes as to wtf he even thought he was cooking with Hikaru in the end

[batbeato]

One of my favorite parts of Umineko is not only how it talks about how difficult it is to break the cycles of abuse, but it also allows for characters to escape it and break it while still acknowledging the past and their (family/personal) history.

Battler's parallels to Kinzo are a signifier of how Sayo/Beatrice look to him as the next incarnation of Kinzo, just as Sayo is the next incarnation of Beatrice, and instead of Battler continuing the cycle, continuing to abuse Beatrice to overwrite her narrative with his and to make her a victim of love/obsession/greed, he instead refuses to make Kinzo's mistakes in Episode 6, where he is meant to invoke Kinzo the most.

Just like Kinzo, Battler is about to be trapped in a loveless marriage (Erika) when he is saved by Beatrice. His marriage to Beatrice, the way it makes their relationship official as well as inviting Beatrice into the Ushiromiya family and creating an equal partnership with her, is symbolic of how the cycle is broken. Beatrice is no longer a mistress who is not given a name, voice, or body: she is not the Beatrices of the past who took Kinzo away from his family rather than being a part of it, or who were abused by Kinzo without any legal identity in Japan or any recourse, a secret kept from everyone.

Battler's marriage to Beatrice is one that everyone witnesses, confirming her existence, their partnership, and their love. Rather than how Kinzo gave Sayo the Headship after his death, forcing them to reckon with a level of power that they never wanted to have, Battler offers it to Beatrice but ultimately keeps the Head's ring. Instead, he gives her her own ring, to mark them as equals, but to symbolize that she can hold her own position and power without being forced into that role.

This ring is also the one that Lion holds in Episode 7: a silver ring that marks Lion as the Successor to the family. Lion, like Beatrice in Episode 6, is freed from the cycle of Kinzo-Beatrice abuse. While Beatrice is freed by Battler, who refuses to re-enact the violence Kinzo caused and struggles with this horrific family history, longing to make amends for his personal sins against her as well as those of the Ushiromiyas overall, Lion is freed by Natsuhi. Lion is freed from abuse because they were loved and accepted and adopted as Natsuhi's child: Lion's freedom is one of ignorance, where Lion is not at all aware of their family history, or even that Natsuhi adopted them.

And Lion's happiness and freedom, born of ignorance, is ultimately cut short and ends in tragedy: they aren't aware of the darkness of the Ushiromiya family, and are killed by Kyrie. Without fully understanding the cycle of abuse, one can never truly escape it.

Regardless, that silver ring marks a position where Beatrice and Lion can move into the Headship position, but have not yet done so. It marks being given more of a willing choice, or at least gradually being lead to that position of power, rather than having it thrust upon them along with various horrifying revelations after Kinzo's death. It marks that rather than taking a position that they thought was always meant for someone else, perhaps even 'stealing' that position, they are taking a position that was always meant and set aside for them if they do become Head.

Meanwhile, Ange takes a different path: while Battler tries to help Ange and redeem the family by showing her a brighter side to them, perhaps even a flanderized one, she rejects this. However, the ultimate resolution is that Ange is able to learn in totality about the history of her family, and able to make a knowing choice about her future based on this new knowledge. And, in doing so, she is able to continue living, and, in the Magic end, willingly abdicates the power and name of the Ushiromiya.

Umineko ends with the cycle of abuse broken: in memoriam for Sayo, in perpetuity for Beatrice, and for the very last time with Ange/Yukari.

[most-screwed-by-writers-tourney]

Propaganda:

Beatrice and Battler: This is not really a ship as this relationship is cannon. As for the fucked up part.... it is fucked on many levels, but it does involve major spoilers. TW: incest, rape Non-spoiler parts: In most of the games, Beatrice and Battler engage in a wit battle about the existence of Beatrice. Beatrice will show gruesome murders of Battlers to make him acknowledge that she killed his family by magic, and Battler will try to prove that a human did it without magic. While nobody forfeits, the game continue. This game is qualified as an "endless torture" for both. BIG BIG SPOILERS parts (please include a skip): Basically*, Beatrice is the persona of Sayo Yasuda. Sayo is the child of Kinzo (the grandfather of Battler) and Kuwadorian Beatrice, and Kuwadorian Beatrice is the daughter of Kinzo and Beatrice Castiglioni. Sayo was born after an incesteous rape. So Sayo is related twice to Battler. Also Sayo has a two alters: Shannon and Kannon. They are both dating a cousin of Battler (George and Jessica). Six years prior to the story, Battler and Shannon had a teenage crush. Battler promised to come next year to Rokkenjima and "with a white horse". He completely forgot it never came to Rokkenjima. Shannon, then Sayo, suffered a lot about this and sank deeper into depression. Finally, Sayo didn't actually killed Battlers family, but they was ready to do it. To conclude, this is a doubly-incestuous relationship between a suicidal system who is ready to kill the other's family, and a dummy incompetent who make other suffer by negligence. It also involves other members of the family. And rape backstory. * I know it's more complicated, Umineko fans don't kill me!

[inky-scientist]

Naruto characters hypertranslated

Part 1: Team 7 and Team 9

Naruto

Uzumaki Naruto Uzumaki Naruto is a ninja of the Konoha clan. A jinchūriki is born with nine hearts. After a childhood accident, she gave up hope.

Today is Lalam's birthday, whom he has hated since childhood. It's dog time.

Sasuke

Sasuke Sasuke (本ちとさスけ, Sasuke Sasuke) is a member of the Sasuke clan in Konoha. Sasuke is the last son of the Kinzo clan. When Itachi's brother killed his parents. Sasuke then retaliated by killing Itachi's brother.Attaji gave a summary of SARS.

Sakura

Sasuke Sakura (Uchiha Sakura, Haruno Sasuke) is the protector of Konoha. After three years of training, Sakura Tsunade realized that she was not interested in becoming the best doctor in the world and became the seventh ninja. Sasuke finished tying his tie. Sakura is currently in 7th grade.

Neji

Hyuuga Neji (Hyuuga Neji, Hyuuga Neji) is a ninja from the Hyuuga clan who possesses a hidden sword. Only women can get respect in the family. Hinata (Hinata's wife) Hinata Neji.The Yucca family is complex, but not simple. This is the first time this has happened. Naruto didn't like that Uma's family brought Nachi home early. I know this to be true. asked Najib. Naruto didn't answer.

Tenten

This place is not far from Konoha. But I want to talk about the sand. But it was sad. Improve your tennis skills.

Tsunade's sister ran to help. But he knew he didn't have a team to help him, but Fujitsuno improved his equipment and approach.

Rock Lee

Like most ninjas, Hana's sister Rosario (Rock Lee) can't use magic. But you can go to a good school and make money.

As a Konoha ninja, Hans cannot use ninjutsu or genjutsu. After special preparations, the mattress entered the ring and won.

That's it. Thank you for reading.

[kushanna]

a. 1952 mansion finished being constructed supposedly -> 1967 kuwadorian person dying -> 1968 battler is born -> 1976ish shannon starts working at the mansion -> 1977ish maria is born -> 1980ish asumu dying (?), rudolf remarrying, ange being born (?), battler leaving the family and being involved in some shit he doesn't seem to remember (?) -> 1984ish a lot of sketchy stuff like writing the epitaph, building the guesthouse and hiring gohda. shannon probably broke the mirror here too -> 1986 massacre, everyone dying many times -> 1998 eva dying

b. people we don't talk about enough:

asumu

kinzo's wife

[pochapal]

associating the gold with kinzo's occultism...thinking thoughts here. thoughts that correlate to some of the more obvious darker political associations of mid 20th century western aesthetics married with certain strains of occult practice and then also considering the intersection of gold with all of these things.

[colourful-void]

umineko sliding scale as of rn for me to how sympathetic i find each character (not necessarily how much i like, just like. i get where they're coming from) as of right now bcs theres like a bunch more of the story so its bound to change.

"i was born to understand your visions" -> maria and shannon "i really feel for you here" -> natsuhi and kanon "yeah, i get it" -> kumasawa, jessica, kirie "parts of you i cannot resonate with, but others i am either compelled by or can understand" -> battler and rosa "no paticular thoughts" -> genji, the doctor i forgot his name, "more of you i dont sympathize with than i do, but there's still elements" -> eva, hideyoshi "you're gonna have to show me something more for me to understand where you're coming from" -> gohda, krauss, rudolf "i dont sympathize with you (as i understand you now.) -> george and kinzo

beatrice exists outside the scale bcs i dont understand anything shes got going on but i am compelled. maybe once let sjust let her win i wanna see where this goes

[dysfunctional-family-fight]

Round Three

Big Mom Family (One Piece) VS the Ushiromiya family (Umineko When They Cry)

Big Mom Family

Members: Linlin “Big Mom” Charlotte, Katakuri, Pound, Cracker, Big Mom's 82 other children, and her 43 husbands

Propaganda:

"They are a giant family that is also a pirate group. Everyone is married and born to fulfill Big Mom’s desire to have a family. Basically all of them hate each other." "Big Mom...so first let me note that this woman marries a man for her poliical convenience, gets pregnant, then divorces him as soon as she has his kids. She maintains complete control over the destiny of her children. They will join her pirate crew, they will fight for her, they will marry as she asks, they will grow up to serve her. They won't know their dad, or anything else, and she will even kill them when she doesn't get like a food she asks for, for instance." Note: edited for length, full submission here

The Ushiromiya family

Members: Kinzo, Krauss, Eva, Rudolf, Rosa, Jessica, George, Battler, Ange, Maria, Natsuhi, Hideyoshi, Asumu, Kyrie

Propaganda:

"PEAK weird family drama. Fighting over the inheritance leads to multiple people dying in gruesome ways" "The whole plot of the game is that they all are so dysfunctional it would make sense for any of them to commit murder" "This family is dysfunctional and abusive on every levels. The parents are fighting for the inheritance, because the elder embezzled money. The grandfather, Kinzo, hides in his room and never shows up. Not unusual, he neglected his family his whole life. Seems that he preferred a mysterious mistress than his family. When he talked to his children, it was to scold them for being incompetents. The atmosphere is oppressive. The children of Kinzo were bully. Krauss bullied Eva, who bullied Rosa. Concerning the next generation: Battler is in conflict with his father because he cheated on his mother. Natsuhi is putting pressure on Jessica for her to become the heir of the family, and is losing contact with her daughter. Eva has deciced what the life of Georges is becoming, and that he will not marry a servant. As for the relationship between Rosa and Maria, this is just the best mother-daughter love-hate relationship ever. And everything ends in blood, for ever and ever." More propaganda here