#like how itll fit into the larger story...

[snobgoblin]

oughhhhh...... oh I could hurt Reise and Valdemar so much. imagine pretty late in the story when Valdemar has gotten kind of close to them. imagine Reise gets like. FATALLY injured. and they're just terrified for someone else for the first time in thousands of years. for the first time in all that time, they're actually not delighted at the thought of someone else dying

[misarem]

Umineko Episode 5 Thoughts: The Part Where I Try To Lock In

I feel the need to just get this out while I have the chance to do this before I start episode 6. I think I finished this episode over a week ago at this point and have since been doing other stuff, been too busy with real life to pour over this vn, etc. My thoughts on the episode itself will be kinda minor but I'll compensate with my current theories on the overarching mystery and the murders. What I'm hoping to do is have preliminary theories ready for episode 6 so that I can develop them while reading it and be ready for endgame. I even started making a physical journal of my thoughts on each murder, character, and rule because after like 80% of my life in the education system this is all I know how to do to retain information, plus! itll be cute. but anyways

Doing what's easy for me and starting at the beginning and just working my way through. I'm still kinda burnt by Beato in episode 3 but I really do wanna believe she's like fully dejected now that Battler isn't matching her as an opponent the way she thought he would. Surreal to see her practically dead but I guess this is signaling that the game is becoming something much bigger than Battler vs Beatrice, to the point where Bern and Lambda are more active and Knox is now involved. Through some meta lens I almost wanna read this as like, an event within the world of detective fiction where a story spirals out of control and the foundations that do exist need to intervene. Feels like commentary on stories as a whole, what has been established as "good" and "reasonable" and what it means to subvert those paradigms, and how far you can reasonably go. And having these larger themes on fiction as a whole run parallel to the events of Rokkenjima, with the ideas of love and trust being established and broken between family mirroring the trust between an author and reader and the love for reading and storytelling, is very satisfying. And if you read the witches as authors and critics of mystery stories, or just stories in general, then the idea of fiction giving our lives fulfilment and meaning also operates on all these levels: the witches weave the narrative on Rokkenjima from a higher plane to stave off their boredom, those on Rokkenjima cope with the dire situation by blaming the murders on witches and demons, and outside of the murders, the people who struggle because of this family cope with fantasy, from Ange and Maria easing their loneliness with the sisters and Sakutaro, to, as we see later, Natsuhi finding refuge from her responsibilities in an imaginary Kinzo and his furniture.

Going off my ideas about black and white magic in the last episode, Natsuhi herself is beginning to resemble a white witch in the same way Maria did. Her and Jessica finally beginning to come to an understanding of one another only in the dire circumstances that were the murders of Rokkenjima was one of the first terrifyingly realo depictions of strained family relationships I latched onto in the game, and I was sorta sad to see her fall to the wayside in the rest of the Question Arcs (altho everyone else getting some focus was important). Very nice to see her in the forefront again here, this time focusing more on her self-sacrificing nature and her sense of duty to the image and wellbeing of the Ushiromiya family that feeds it.

Having THIS be the backdrop of her inner monologue is fitting considering the way everything she faces ends up spiraling into her own guilt and self-loathing, and how she needs to take everything on for her family. I can't even blame her at this point for imagining Kinzo recognizing her for her work cuz idk how else I would live like this. And when she tries to help her husband and he just keeps making the same types of decisions that fail his business ventures and she ends up just acquiescing every time. Wow its just harrowing. They can never make me hate Natsuhi. Also I forget if I addressed Maria's torture of Rosa in the last write up, I don't wanna say a whole lot besides the cycle of abuse within the Ushiromiya family is horrifying, and that it feels like this chapter, Maria's turn to inflicting harm on others to cope feels unaddressed in a concerning way. Like I'm scared

As for the new characters, I like Erika a decent amount so far, I'm mainly just waiting for her to fly off the handle because she was just so dominant here until the end of the episode. Her being an avatar of Bernkastel almost makes me think of her as like a joke on author insert characters in fiction, also makes me wonder just what Erika is, if she's supposed to be like a meta entity like the witches even tho she's meant to be a human? Does she just exist between reality and fiction as Berns fucked up creation? Its interesting to me. Also they keep namedropping Ange when talking abt Erika as a piece and its getting on my damn nerves keep my homegirls name out your mouth. I like Dlanor a lot too and how cordial and nice she can be. even tho formally she's usually an enemy.

Not much changed here besides moving Natsuhi up and Krauss down again lmao. I'll keep doing these just to track my opinions but it might be good to be more nuanced with it, add a few more tiers or find some other way to address the cast overall altho by this point, almost all of them in the okay tier or above are so well established and integrated into the story. If I take anything from this vn its gonna be the cast.

The murders themselves I was like fine with. I hope Jessica died painlessly she deserves a break. Obviously things went way differently but, I thought the way it worked was a little boring and I almost expect episode 6 to be some sort of do-over for it altho that feels unlikely at the same time. Altho I do understand it, this is supposed to be a breaking point for Battler, seeing someone actually be (wrongfully?) implicated but being powerless to fight against it before he has his epiphany moment so it's fine. The court scene also made up for it just in its style alone, the sound design, visual effects and transitions are such a treat and give this game such a strong identity among visual novels. The OST with tracks like patchwork chimera, ACI-L and totemblume is like incredible, -45 does such incredible work and I wish I could have them all on my vgm tag on this blog. I might need to liek stop being lazy and do my own vgm uploads and quit replying on other blogs to do it if i want them on my blog lmao. Still a good episode and it's obviously setting up for greater payoffs but it's hard for me to imagine that Bern and Lambda find this first game of theirs particularly interesting before the court scene.

What I'm interested about thought is Natsuhi's baby, if that will end up being a full-fledged piece of Lambda's, and if its the character who I think it is from the little snippets of him I've seen in the intro. It does kinda tickle me that the first twilight murders were all very deep, clean slices to the neck and there's just a Battler-aged, brown haired dude in the intro with a sword. Considering how hard he implicated Natsuhi by controlling her movements, his presence in the story is cooperative with Erika's sleuthing and I'm curious if they'll end up working together as, I guess meta entities in the story? We'll see.

Like I said before I go into ep 6 I wanted to just get down what I have as the solution so far. Nothing concrete still, and I know the how is super important even tho I kinda only have the who and sorta the why, but again I'm hoping episode 6 will help me develop that.

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Anyways I really think it's Kyrie. PIOKJHGFHJKL:L I can't help it. I almost feel like I'm approaching it at the wrong angle and that she's a red herring or something, and I keep going back and forth, but at the same time, so much of the movement of the characters makes sense when you think of it as Kyrie manipulating things. Her face being completely smashed in the first twilight of episode 1. Her being the one to rile the other parents up by warning them about Beatrice in episode 2. The details she reveals about herself in episode 3 and the part of her and Hideyoshi's characters tab that alludes to her shooting him (maybe an accident but ???). And the way she positions herself slightly under Krauss when they're in the dungeon of episode 4, letting him take the reins but still having a lot of influence and command as well as watching them all die as they escape, being the only one to make it inside, being "missed" a bunch by the Chiesters and telling Battler in her own words to believe in magic while her version of the actual events as it is given to Battler is glossed over by the narration. The mystery of the code above the parlor in (i think) episode 3 and half of the numbers corresponding to Battler's birthday. And that, as Beatrice said, because of Battler's sin, people on the island die, that the sin feels like it could be connected to his unclear parentage and that the sin, by the fact that it occurred 6 years in the past, was close to Asumu's death, Rudolph's marriage to Kyrie and Ange's birth. Again I could be barking up the wrong tree cuz I really don't have the how or why down like, in a concrete way yet but I don't know it just feels so likely like I just feel it. And she at least has Genji or Shannon in cahoots too, not committing the murders but just helping with keys or acting as certain people. It would be easy to say they're acting on Kinzo's will but he's dead now so idk. But my vague guess is she wants revenge against the Ushiromiya family for how (like how it affects literally everyone elses like a huge trauma abuse machine) it affected her life, her relationship with Rudolph and the birth of her child. Maybe Battler really is hers but was taken at birth because Asumu's child had died or she has miscarriage and the family wanted to save face. And I think by manipulating the situation and her in-laws she managed to create a state of paranoia on the island, which facilitated most if not all of the murders even without her needing to act. Just because of some of the ways she dies, and some of the red truths restricting the possibilities, I don't know right now if it's possible for her to have killed everyone, but I think it's possible for her to have led people like Rosa and Eva to kill.

Kyrie is shown early on to be among the most shrewd and observant people on the island, at least concerning the battle for inheritance, and since her and the other siblings, besides Krauss and Natsuhi, are already in cooperation against Krauss, I don't find it hard to imagine that she could splinter the group further by influencing any one person in it on her own, away from the others, and I feel like that's how she got some things done in the first couple episodes, and maybe episode 3? Like for the first, I can imagine Kyrie taking Eva aside and using her competitiveness and resentment to convince her to go along with her plan to kill all the other siblings, blame Natsuhi to get her out of the way so the inheritance can be enjoyed by Eva and Hideyoshi with Kyrie taking a fraction while pretending to be dead. Eva goes along with it and after the murders, where Kyrie's whole face is obscured (and Shannon's half-face is hidden from George), and after they return to the parlor, Eva implicates Natsuhi heavily while stoking tensions even further by leaving with Hideyoshi and being very overt about setting the chain to their door and only coming out at precisely dinnertime. Going with the idea that Kyrie's still alive, she hides out in the designated guest room and kills the couple, escaping when Genji and Kanon discover it but leave to get help, escaping and resetting the chain from outside somehow, like with some sort of tool perhaps? and draws the magic circle and leaves, or if we believe Shannon is also alive, that her face was obscured for a reason and any confirmation that "Shannon is dead" can be bypassed with a loophole about her real name (Sayo I think I remember but if I google it I'll get spoiled), Shannon makes the circle and when Kanon and Kumasawa cut the chain, enter and move away from the door to one of the bodies, Kyrie slips out. I can't find any specific red text for this specific locked room other than the one for all locked rooms, so I'm guessing the instances where the entrances are unattended are deliberate. Kanon's death, from what I can find, isn't denied to have been with a trap like Natsuhi's is, so I'll guess that and then say the rest of the deaths were committed straightforwardly, with Shannon disguised as Beatrice for Maria and possibly Natsuhi as Kyrie kills them.

Episode 2 is weird cuz I don't feel like I can act like Kyrie can be proven to be alive atm but it feels like she could have been in contact with Rosa instead, potentially starting with the appearance of Beatrice at the "19th guest". Rosa witnesses her and while it isn't revealed in this episode, it's feels possible that this is likely Shannon in disguise having an effect on her because of how she watched Beatrice die as a kid. Kyrie is in the entrance when Beatrice "enters the mansion", and I think she likely pretended to see her to rile up the other siblings, saw Rosa as potentially weak and had her corroborate to seem more convincing. And later that night, at the chapel, Rosa kills the other siblings. No set motive for this, but when I read the red text which specifies that the key to the chapel didn't pass thru anyone else's hands before Rosa took it, it didn't, to my knowledge, specify that Rosa only took it once, so she could have grabbed the key around midnight and let them all in before killing them, forgetting or pretending she didn't, and then locking and leaving. I also think that the reason they were all at the chapel was over the gold, which we see three ingots after the discovery of the bodies. If the gold is real, I think Rosa could have solved the mystery here considering she solved it in episode 3, and brought some gold as proof, or Kyrie could have solved it and not said anything although that somehow seems less likely. Either way, over the fight about the gold, Rosa in a stupor or frenzy or something kills them and leaves. Since Shannon isn't shown here, maybe she pretends to be the Beatrice we see talking to them here and guts the corpses after, also placing the magic circle, but having Rosa return the key for her to find again. I don't know about the later deaths though I still have to work some of them out. Like what we see as Kanon being warped away and suddenly trudging around outside the kitchen might just be him being killed or gravely wounded and the body being taken and laid against that back door for Gohda to find. Stuff like that but I need to work it out.

Eva in episode 3 almost feels so obvious that it seems like a red herring. If Shannon and maybe Genji and mayyyyybe Kanon? are in kahoots then the six part locked room seems more doable. Eva killing the five after that feels really on the nose, I'm wondering if Beatrice losing some of the games to Battler's Eva culprit Hideyoshi accomplice theory was her playing her own game against him. Altho even with that there's still some mystery like the floating gun killing Hideyoshi which the character tips seem to imply was Kyrie's doing. Battler also proposes that Kyrie's idea about going to the mansion was to privately confront Hideyoshi, in his eyes to confirm that Eva was going out because Eva hated his smoke but a cigarette butt was found in an ashtray of the rom, and I think this is likely, but I also think that maybe, potentially like episode 1, Kyrie colluded with Eva and Hideyoshi and she wanted Hideyoshi to explain why Eva was acting suspicious, in the privacy of the mansion as the smaller guesthouse leaves more opportunity for conversation to be overheard. I also wonder if Kyrie knew that Eva found the gold. If Kyrie was with Rosa here the way she might have been in episode 2, Rosa might've told Kyrie that Eva found it, and besides that, I feel like Kyrie is the type of person to be able to deduce that Eva found it, but this is speculation. No clue what was happening as Kyrie's stomach was bleeding out in front of Eva though.

But this kind of is the best I got right now before I go into episode 6. All of this is assuming Kyrie's able to fake her death as a couple key points and that multiple murderers and servant accomplices are even permitted, I don't think I saw anything in red or any Knox rules against these things but that theory just makes things work better. Technically a lot of these murders can have anyone as the culprit with someone like Shannon as an accomplice but this is the most complete idea I can come up with. I don't even know about episode 5. Hopefully ep6 elucidates some things. Maybe Eva knew Kyrie was a killer and that's part of her resentment of Ange. Maybe there is some fucky true identity shit with Asumu and Kyrie. who knows! Also I had to text search and replace every time I called an episode a chapter because I'm barely cognizant of all the names of the individual chapters within the episodes and I'm just thinking of this like a big book god help me

[bitternanami]

i didnt really understand why the yellowjackets s2 finale was called 'storytelling' when the scene where a story gets told is so short, and gets interrupted right as it starts anyway. not just that, but the name seemingly has nothing to do with the adult timeline at all.

but i think its supposed to be a reminder that a Story Getting Told can encompass a lot more than the plot of a movie or a fairy tale, and that a close-watch will emphasize that larger notion, saying things that arent true in a way that makes it feel as though they are. that they might as well be. self-deception, in other words. storytelling.

(spoilers for both seasons under cut)

what im finding is that van is getting to be really thematically important. even from the start, she never ever ever stops contextualizing her experiences thru stories, not from the point they crashed up to now, because media makes Sense, a narrative makes Sense, and what the team is going through now doesnt but she can force it to anyway if she just frames it right.

she asks taissa and herself why shes survived all of these things, because she doesnt know what the next narrative beat is for herself. van cant figure out an outline and its incredibly upsetting for her because her still being here Has to foreshadow something. there MUST be a meaning to it. finding that meaning is the only way she knows how to cope with this.

but by this point van has already found meaning, because to the group, she now embodies an idea. she has from the start: shes the storyteller. shes where everyone turns for escapism. shes the one to tell people what they need to hear to make things fit into a narrative, a cause-and-effect, springboarded from the things lottie is perceiving.

we see this in her scene with travis most obviously, and its chilling, and its exciting, because she understands what shes supposed to do, now. finally, she has a narrative for herself, and shes going to lean into it as hard as she can.

iirc van is the first person to use the phrase 'the wilderness chose' in response to death (they all chose, it was easier like this. all of them are capable of killing a child, and they could try to grapple with that and reconcile that with their senses of self, but the toll would be immense. what van is saying makes much more sense.) thats the story they all keep telling each other, telling themselves, over and over and over. the forest itself wanted this, we didnt make this decision, it wasnt us, it wasnt us, its not our fault.

and then, years later, the story goes: we can separate ourselves from the people we were back then. we can live our lives like none of this happened at all. (is it any wonder that taissa, queen of willfully ignoring her problems, still feels so comfortable with van, even with decades of separation between them)

so the throughline, then, is that theyre all still telling that story, and it feels realer than anything else theyre experiencing. realer than simone or sammy or jeff or adam or jessica felt, certainly. they let themselves believe it up until the point where they cant anymore. the truth catches up with them at the same time that the violence does--it falls on one of their own, a teammate, at the hands of another one, right in front of their eyes. its hard to make the story fit right, after that. when season 3 happens, itll be interesting to see whether they continue to try anyway

[hydra-collector]

ive got the sudden urge to write fanfiction of characters meeting in different ways, what r some funny ways u guys met ur friends

[obitv]

compiling all my un-witness protection hcs into one post because. well why not

deadwood as whole is a fairly small town. one small school, the only highschool is actually outside the town. everyone from deadwood gets the bus out there and theyd all know Of eachother if they dont know everyone personally

because deadwood is Fucking Weird kids from there struggle fitting in once they go to the highschool. while a lot of them would be in larger more typical cliques, they tend to group together whenever they can

abilities like seeing/talking to spirits arent.. uncommon? its not like everyone has them and generally it isnt Spoken Of but theres a much higher concentration there than youd find in any other city or town in prime

which is how the upp formed! group of highschoolers from deadwood, all from different social groups who would never typically interact all realise they have some sort of Sight

i just realised theyyre literally like in scoobydoo. this wasnt on purpose oh god

anyway. the group was probably formed both by william (wants to investigate the goings-on but cant actually talk to spirits, only see them) and a more popular, extroverted girl who like probably had a bit of a crush on him but also agreed that something needed to be done and they could do it

just bc deadwood doesnt have heroes doesnt mean teenagers wont get hero complexes! erm

onto the actual upp! theres around 5-6 of them. 2 girls, 3 or 4 guys. i havent fully decided on a number, maybe one guy drops in and out.. for future consideration

im hesitant to give her names but one girl Is called mary. not the extroverted girl, id say shes more of their navigator and is big into survivalism. urban trespassing girlie

theres totally a jock. like there has to be. hes actually a lot smarter than people give him credit for

i think for abilities.. william has the weakest Sight but his investigative skills and motivation make up for that. also sometimes he throws sticks that helps

another one of the guys has the strongest abilities. he can see them vividly and can speak to anything that CAN speak. probably in the same boat as william, he'd be an outcast without the upp. maybe theyre close friends :)

they dont actually go into the woods unless they have to - theyve grown up on stories of how dangerous they can be and how easy it is to get lost or turned around or just Taken, even in groups

typically it was graveyards, old buildings, maybe a trainyard or something idk whats in america

if they were dealing with aware spirits, typically all they needed was some sort of easier seance/exorcism, maybe just having someone to tell their story to, maybe a mystery solved

theres monsters in deadwood too, though. procedure for them varied wildly from RUN AWAY to finding out who they once were and helping them back to that, and then the typical seance/exorcism, to just asking it to go away

after williams incident, they dont fully drift apart. maybe for a while after he left, until they were sure whatever curse he had brought on them was gone with him. they tone down the investigative side of things, and have less cases as a result, but they still do what they can

cant wait for all of this to get decanonised ^_^ itll be awesome. um hope u enjoyed. feel free to ask more details bc i left a lot out actually to try focus on the group instead off Just william. a few of my general deadwood hcs are in here so you can ask abt those too ^_^

[laughsinthiccc]

Wait for me. /// Kirishima Eijiro

Hi! Can I request a story with kirishima where the reader is knocked unconscious during a battle and Kirishima crawls over to her and holds her in his arms (theyre in a fire) and whispers "itll be okay" and then he passes out. BUT THEN he wakes up in a hospital and he asks for you only to learn youre dead and he apologizes to you because hes sorry he couldnt protect you. I mean make changes as you see fit I just like the idea. THANK YOU!!! Have a wonderful day!            

Hey, I’m sorry I’m doing this sooo late >~<

I tweaked it a little bit ... I hope this is good enough, i intend to do this over in the future probably. But, as of right now i think it’s pretty decent..ANYWAY.

Hope you enjoy ANON! <3

/////

Your blood was warm, warmer than you had originally thought it was. The fire that surrounded you didn't help the feeling, the flames grew hotter and larger as you laid on the floor. The dark smoke that hovered over you was a warning, a demand that you stayed down. A demand that you lay there to die.

The yelling of your name was the only thing keeping you conscious though, the sounds of your friends calling to you was like a song to your ears. You couldn't move, much less say anything to direct their attention to your body. Tears fell freely from your eyes, your body too numb to attempt to stop them.

As you stared up at the darkness above you, the sounds of heavy footfalls hit your ears. Your eyelids were getting heavy, Yet the moment your eyes began to close the clouds were pushed away from you. The sound of heavy feet colliding with the floor next to your head was the thing that made the muscles in your neck tense, but the sight of a pair of familiar tear flooded eyes come into your view.

Kirishima.

"We'll get you out of here okay." His large hands went to push your hair out of your face, the corners of your mouth turned up as he pressed a quick kiss to your forehead. His voice wavered as he began mumbling to himself, his eyes falling from yours to trail down your body; the mere sight of your injuries made his heart stop. His jaw clenched as his body tensed up, he couldn't risk leaving you there to get backup, but moving you would be too difficult with your wounds.

The hand that trailed down your body to move what was left of your costume to check for more injuries was being stained with your blood, the sight only made him more anxious.

As he attempts to wrap and keep what blood he could inside of your body, your vision was slowly getting worse, the smoke that hovered above you was descending over the both of you; somehow even heavier than before. The smoke was quick to cover most of Kiri's head and he ducked to avoid what he could, working faster to dress your wounds.

As you slowly began to nod off into unconsciousness Kirishima's hand slides underneath your head, giving it a soft shake. His voice cracked as he whispered to you, his fingers threaded through your hair as his head turned; his mouth moved, a sure guess was that he was calling to whoever was near. Your hearing is normally the last thing to go as you die, but you guessed it would be the first to go in this instance, all you could hear with a soft ringing and your slowed heart beat.

His tear stained face came back into your view, his begs and pleads for you to stay with him fell onto deaf ears, his fingers that were weaved into your hair had tightened around the strands, slightly pulling them as his upper body curved over your own.

Your vision was going fuzzy, the things in your view had slowly became blurry blobs, yet Kirishima was the thing to stay completely visible. His body shook with his sobs, His head only coming up from his curled position to call out to his partners. Every time he had took a breath his form shook even harder, his grip on you had tightened as you both had waited for backup.

The smoke that sat above the both of you had almost completely fallen over Kirishima, forcing him to fall to his side; resulting in him pulling your limp body to his chest. He had stuffed his face into your burnt, disheveled hair, his hand still was gripped around your hair, his other hand had found a spot within your limp palm. His fingers tightened around your palm in a weak attempt to work some life back into your palm; silently begging for you to grip his hand in return. Yet, all you could muster was a small twitch of your fingers.

As your eyelids began to close, the bright light of a search light had broken apart the smoke settled above you, the sight making the corners of you lips to curve upward. As Heroes had stumbled towards the both of you, Kirishima had already pulled your form away from him and jumped off the floor.

You didn't want him to let you go. As you attempt to move your hand in a weak attempt to get his attention, your body is quickly lifted to a stretcher, Kirishima flying to your side as they pull you out of the area.

His hand gripped your own, his face contorted into fear and worry as his eyes flew from the two Paramedics at your sides, your hearing had been long gone as his face switches to one of pure anger. His mouth opened and his sharp teeth were barred at the two Paramedics, his form shook and before he could rare back his fist two sets of arms wrap around his own.

And as you're rolled away, your eyelids finally fall.

////

"Hey there Beautiful. Sorry I'm visiting so late. Got caught up at work, you know how it is. Uh .. Hope you're doing alright. I miss you. God, I miss you so much. It ... It's really, really hard doing this without you." As Kirishima sits before your grave chatting about his day, he had sat the large bouquet of flowers next to your tombstone. His hand trembled as he slowly pulled away from the plastic wrapped around the stems, his heart shattering in his chest as he stares at the engraving on your stone. The moment was interrupted as he's called away by his co-worker.

"I gotta go for now. I'll come visit you soon though. I promise."

As he walked away, he had found himself visiting your grave less and less, the flowers he would leave there for you had slowly died away, the grave keeper had long since been taking care of your grave after Kirishima’s final visit.  The last thing he had left for you was a velvet box, a rather beautiful ring sat inside. A firm metal box and some rather intense melting of the metal on the bottom had kept it in place; an extra level of security keep his gift safe from thieves.

His final words to you were simple.

"Wait for me y/n.”