#tm is basically my main source of happiness right now

[szaryherbatnik]

Alex's and Greg's dynamic on tm is sooooo precious to me, sometimes they cuddle on stage or even kiss, have pet names for each other, "you've been great" "we've been great", "you alright buttercup?". And sometimes it's this

And both are equally amazing and funny

[emperor-of-blood]

Aight so I guess I’m doing a session review?/Prediction?/Analysis of how I think @neonwolfeh session might go.

So starting this off with the premise:

It’s a normal session with no specific prototyping fuckery or trolls or whatever. and I got some brief character summaries:

Ross, Heir of Doom: Ross is a jaded, angry guy who just wants to have -One Good Daytm-.

Luca, Rogue of Life: Pretty upbeat, tries to make the best of every situation (and does not succeed). 

Kase, Seer of Rage: Fuckin edgelord, thats p much it. Full of hate and will say slurs. 

Abby, Witch of Hope: Basically a shoujo anime protagonist, awkward and peppy and sweet. 

Odin, Prince of Time: Embodiment of nervousness and jumpiness. This guy needs a nap and a hug.

Niko, Knight of Space: Like Dave Strider if he was as suave as 2012 fanon interpretations said he is.

And now for my takes on them:

So starting off my initial impressions of the session are complete failure, mostly based on one thing. Odin, the Time player. While he sounds decent enough of a guy you have to understand the reason that every session requires a Space and Time player to succeed. Technically speaking, only a Space player is needed to overcome the wall of creating a new universe. The Time player is needed because the game is just that hard. The image I get of Odin is that he won’t be actually doing much Time traveling, likely too weak-minded to believe that he could pull things off. A lot of pressure would be resting on his shoulders and he needs to answer. As I said in my Patrick Star analysis, I believe that he’s going to be wasting a lot of Time. For different reasons here though, he’s still destined to procrastinate. That is likely going to get people in his session killed. Sburb is hard and everyone involved needs to be doing their part to beat the game. 

My analysis doesn’t end with that though. We still have 5 other players to throw into the mix! Moving onto I’d like to talk about the cool cat Niko, the Knight of Space. So inherently here we have a contradictory classpect. The Knight is a protector, in their session they are supposed to cooperate with their Space player to breed The Frogtm. They are meant to be a companion. The Space class is one of solitude, barring their frog breeding partner. Space is a vast domain and both Jade and Kanaya spent most of their time alone. It’s one of their themes. They spend time worried about the bigger picture that with the smaller problems that their teammates deal with. Likely, they are very alone. And that makes me wonder, how much of the “Cool Guy” is real and how much of it is, well, him being lonely? Or a defense mechanism because of that? Keep yourself distant and aloof because that’s where you’re going to end up anyways. No reason for people to get hurt, sort of deal. 

Next I wanna talk about Luca, the Rogue of Life. I imagine her as the kind of person who is peppy to the point that it makes people uncomfortable. Trying to bring Life happiness to all of her friends by being a never ending source of sunshine. Which is all well and good, these types of people are well liked and a party falling into the traps of depression is likely to fail. That being said, I can’t help but believe that her failures come from her unending sunshine. Sometimes people just need to be sad. Life has it’s ups and down and that’s natural. People probably feel exhausted around her, much to her dismay. You must go down to rise back up. I feel like she’s probably Odin’s self proclaimed best friend and also a main source of stress for him. “You can do it!” is encouragement (He probably sees it as empty/naive), not useful advice. Her being unable to see that has got to be one of her personal challenges. She’s not responsible for rewriting everyone’s lives or fixing their problems. Those are not hurdles for her to overcome. I feel like every Rogue has some weird interaction with their aspect. As one who steals Life/steals from Life I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally. She ain’t sucking out peoples souls. I’d say she maybe has an aura of demoralization for her enemies, kind of like a mental attack? Or it could be something more direct like absorbing Life essence through contact or something. Like a magic drain attack similar to the androids from DBZ or some equivalent. The stealing from Life is maybe... just a literal item teleportation ability? Like an actual Thief Rogue. Beyond that, she can probably bring people back to life once just like every other Life player ever.

Ross the Heir of Doom is, well, kind of a loser. but he doesn’t have to be. His main challenge is going to be realizing that his “One good daytm” isn’t just going to randomly show up. It’s something you have to work for. Once he does, he’ll probably be fine. Weirdly enough the fucking Doom player is likely the most competent out of everyone, which is really funny imo. His powers are uh. Well. One who inherits Doom/is protected by Doom. I’m shooting in the dark here despite there being a canon Heir of Doom. I’d say he maybe influences enemies to fight each other? At least early on during the passive protection phase. Later on once he awakens his powers he might be able to suck “Bad vibes” into himself, weakening his enemies and strengthening himself. That might be leeching into Thief territory but I wouldn’t know what else to say here honestly. Maybe he can fix things? Inheriting the Doom of something and taking the damage into himself? It’s up for debate.

Moving on to Kase, Seer of Rage. The dude’s probably a complete asshole. The kind that you question why you’re even friends with them. Probably racist but also hates people in general and claims that it’s OK because of that. Probably gets along really well with animals because of that too. He’s probably feeding into Odin’s insecurities, which, might actually be helping him stay until he’s really ready to time travel. But that’s not Kase’s intention (Ask him about it afterwards and he’ll claim otherwise forever.). He just want’s to be a dick and thinks being edgy or ironic is cool. As on who understands Rage he’s likely well aware that it can be useful in the right scenarios. Maybe he lets himself get taken by the berserker Rage at just the right moment and come back down afterwards. But he hasn’t really come down. You can’t just have a heart filled with Rage and hate and be a normal person the rest of the time. He can probably tell when it’s time for others to let loose as well. But likely has trouble convincing them. 

Kase and Ross probably get along really well.

Finally, we have Abby, the Witch of Hope. Honestly? She sounds really basic. She’s gotta be the most “Normal” person out of the bunch. Which, when your surrounded by weirdos, is a good thing. Everyone needs someone sane to fall back on and that’s definitely her. I imagine that’s how she manipulates Hope, just giving people some reference, some piece of mind, that they haven’t gone off the deep end. Or maybe that the have and need to rethink things. She’s probably the one that’ll help Odin figure his shit out. Maybe she drafts up a plan of events he should change. Then in the new timeline he seeks out her help again and repeats this until he can do things himself. While I don’t see her as the leader of the party, she is likely the anchor. She also probably will play a bog role in everyone else figuring out their shit too. Telling Ross to shut the fuck up, Kase to man up and do something, Luca to do something productive, Niko to call her when he the loneliness starts getting to him, just to talk. Her challenges likely revolve around realizing how important she is. After all, she’s just a shoujo protag, what can she do? Everyone is out there killing monsters or solving puzzles or hacking their alchemists. Ans she’s just a plain Jane. But that’s what makes her special. Her powers are probably basic hope lasers and maybe being good at giving speeches. 

So with that out of the way how would the actual session go? Well, I think there’s a lot of fighting. I imagine Kase wants to be the leader being the “Only one capable of it” and he’s not exactly wrong. But he’s also insufferable. So it doesn’t matter that he’s competent because nobody wants to listen to him. The only other options are Luca who everyone also likely can’t deal with for extended periods of time for previously stated reasons; or Niko, who is likely to busy with their own shit to also manage the party. So I think everyone has to meet up and decide that it’s probably best for Kase to be leader and that everyone should just agree to follow him and give him some advice where they can. Kase is probably actually competent. He’s likely a bad leader but an even worse follower. I can imagine him just ignoring anyone else as the leader and going off to do his own thing and fucking shit up. With him as the leader, not causing trouble and everyone else in a kind of, secret alliance I guess, the key players are going to be Odin and Abby. Odin needs to be able to fill his role or everyone dies. Simple as that. Abby needs to a) help him figure his shit out if he can’t on his own. And b) help ground everyone else (So they can solve their problems) and keep some semblance of sanity. If they can, there’s a solid shot at victory. If Odin dies before he can Time travel, well, I guess that’s that. There’s a lot of personal challenges to overcome based on a character’s classpect and I think it really comes down to, are these people/characters capable of growth? 

Hopefully the way I viewed the characters was how you wanted but with so little to go on I might have misinterpreted somethings. Either way this was fun!

[okaybutlikeimagine]

so i wanna write more headcanons on here but to do that i feel like i need to actually explain my main headcanon about Stranger Things/Billy in general??? and i’m trying to write a fic (and i S W E A R i’m gonna finish it at some point/better finish it this summer or it’s never getting done i just am a Mess TM so bear with me here bc i have 3 WIPs right now) but I’m gonna give a run down of the main points bc otherwise I end up just saying “Billy got adopted by Hop” and I feel like that’s a major step so maybe I need to explain my thought process there. so my fic plan is gonna be going through Stranger Things S2 focusing on Billy (I know, how Original, right?? I’m rolling my eyes at myself but I’m excited to think about the thought process of our Crazy boy) but i’ll just go through the major stuff (mainly with him and Hopper)

((this is so damn long good god i’m so sorry))

so Billy is the local Menace and Hopper briefly hears about him from Officer Callahan, knows a new family just moved in from Cali, but the first time he sees him is when he pulls the boy over (with a bit of difficulty because how the hell is this boy going so fast??) and he’s pissed. Bc kids still run around this town like it’s nothing and how is he ever going to be comfortable letting El run around this town with this maniac here? so he intimidates the boy and enjoys it until he sees a bruise on his cheekbone and legitimate fear in his eyes and it gives him pause. bc Billy just got back from a beyond rough night with Neil who showed even less mercy than normal and told him to find another place to sleep tonight.

Hop catches on that something’s wrong. he doesn’t feel good about kicking a boy this broken into the drunk tank (even though the only reason Billy stopped for Hop was bc he felt sitting in the drunk tank might be better than sitting in his car through the cold night). Hop sees a bit of himself in the boy, back when he was young and stupid and fighting back an angry, drunken father. So he asks Billy who he can call to get him home safely, bc no fucking way is he letting him drive his car anywhere when he’s drunk. and when Billy comes up short, Hop curses and makes a split decision to bring him home. bc it’s way too late and the boy has school tomorrow and he sees Billy in obvious pain. and it’s not like Hopper is totally unaware. word gets around fast in a small town filled with gossipy elders. he already knows enough about Neil to know that he has some anger issues and he knows exactly what anger issues mean for a kid like this. so he thinks he’s going to regret it, but he convinces Billy to come over and crash on their couch. (and you best he’s immediately thinking of getting a CT scan tomorrow bc how many kids is he planning on adopting?? this man favors solitude over just about anything and now he’s bringing ANOTHER abused child into his home?? and he’s thinking about how hard he’ll have to threaten Billy to not say anything about El)

Billy puts up a fight, but gives in bc fuck it’s been a long night and he thinks being under a drafty cabin roof might be better than sleeping in his car, maybe. he meets El, who’s super strange (and billy isn’t well versed in the actions of 13 yr old girls but El doesn’t seem super normal to him). Hopper tries to keep their interactions as short as possible. and in the morning, when Hopper drives Billy to his house, he refuses to let the boy go in there alone. He walks Billy up to the door, explains away Billy’s absence, and sizes Neil up in his own living room as Billy gets ready for school so Hop can drop him off. Billy finds the care stifling and alien and so unnecessary, but something about Neil shaking in his shoes makes Billy cackle inside.

and back in Cali, Billy used to avoid cops like the plague, but now in Hawkins he goes speeding through the streets on nights that Neil tells him to leave just so he can get picked up and taken to Hopper’s cabin. sometimes on nights where Neil doesn’t, and he feels psychotic doing it. Billy gets to know El a lot better, and he wonders why Hopper had to threaten him so aggressively about not telling a single soul about this girl that he claims to be his daughter. She’s caring to Billy in a really weird way, giving him glasses of water and extra blankets after Hopper has gone to bed and Billy is cowering on the couch trying to go to sleep. One night Billy wakes to her screaming and crying and sees Hopper rush into her room and hears him lull her back to sleep. He asks her about it in the morning while Hop is showering and she mumbles something into her Eggos about Papa and pain and bad men. he asks her to speak up a bit, trying not to take his growing anger out on her, and she explains that Papa is a bad man who hurt her too much. Billy thinks he understands. He definitely doesn’t.

So he follows Hopper outside as they head out and swings at him. immediately swings at him bc all he can see is red bc here he thought a grown man could be something other than an absolute trash bag but here’s this man proving Billy a fool bc he hurts that poor sweet girl. he misses, and Hopper gets furious, immediately yelling, asking the boy what he’s doing. the two argue loudly, and Hopper tells Billy that he put them all in danger just for bringing him here, so Billy gets pissed as fuck and doesn’t come back.

and this entire time Billy’s trying to lay low at school about being gay. it’s nowhere near as lenient as Cali was and he can’t exactly show off his boner for Steve “the King” Harrington. so when Billy gets forced on an expedition to find his precious step-sister, he figures following a crazy as fuck noise seems like the best idea, esp after being told to go to the house of basically every child in Hawkins. hey, if he’s lucky, maybe it’ll be a hungry bear or something. but instead he finds a gross junkyard and what looks like his kid sister on top of a bus with that Sinclair kid, so he drives up fast, seeing red. it’s not until he’s out of the car that he sees King Steve himself barrelling towards Billy and dragging him behind the bus and handing him a piece of sheet metal and telling him to make do.

naturally Billy flips his shit, confused as hell and asking what that loud noise is, but Steve prompts him, telling him he knows he has something to be mad about bc he’s not exactly meditating on the basketball court so maybe he can channel the source of that anger to “maybe, I dunno, help us?” 

So they fight. and when the demodogs get called off, Billy demands a fucking explanation, getting pissed as all hell at Steve for letting his sister and her punk friends be here when it’s obviously infected with some crazy as fuck monsters?? “and what the shit is a demodog??” but they force a dazed Billy into the car and ask him to drive them in the direction of the noise, to which Billy says they’re nuts but it’s 4 against 1 and his mind is racing and he’s just angrily compliant at this point, speeding towards the sounds that they try to hear through the open windows. so billy gets dragged through it all, and learns about it all, and when they get to Will’s house he thinks he’s going to be sick and it’s Steve who helps him through it, awkwardly rubbing his back as he dry heaves in the bathroom bc “fuck this, seriously fuck this, you’re all nuts!”

Hopper briefly asks if he’s all right when Billy goes back into the living room obviously shaken. He accepts El’s hug when she comes in dressed up like a crazy punk and everyone is confused as hell as to how they know each other, esp Steve, who has never seen this girl in his life. Billy compliments her look, tells her she’s “looking rad”.

“Bitchin’.”

“Oh, excuse me. Bitchin’.”

He tells Hop and El to be safe, and he feels stupid about it but it earns him another hug from El and a nod and a small smile from Hop and he doesn’t like that it makes him feel so warm.

he tags along with Steve when they go into the upside down, making sure the kids are safe and bringing up the rear as Steve trudges ahead of them. He’s confused as fuck when Dustin talks to one of those things like it has a fucking heart. thinks maybe he can consider it some kind of metaphor of how even monsters can be friends sometimes.

when it’s all over, he’s damn glad and damn happy and feels damn lucky to be alive. he feels a weird gratefulness at having his sister alive and starts thinking of her as his sister. he hugs her and smacks her shoulder lightly and tells her to never go running off to fight monsters again if she knows what’s good for her, “especially not with prissy little Princess Harrington”. She just gives him an exasperated laugh and a roll of her eyes and he winks at a blushing and pouting Steve.

the abuse doesn’t stop. he’s out driving drunkenly again when Hop pulls him over. Hopper talks to him, explains himself a bit, with light irritation. Billy feels indignant, says he’ll just sleep in his damn car for the night, thanks, but Hop doesn’t allow it. He asks Billy to at least come to the cabin to see El, bc she keeps asking after him and his well being. and when things get worse, and Billy hashes out his shit with Hopper pretty hot headedly, he goes over to the cabin more and more, a brief and small and very young part of his mind wondering if Hopper would lull him to sleep too when he wakes up screaming from nightmares.

He gets closer to Max now that he almost lost her. he drives her to the arcade or Lucas’ place a lot more bc he sees that Sinclair is a good (enough) kid and he kind of wants to protect the little punk from his racist asshole of a father. now that he knows the boy isn’t making her cry anymore he feels a hell of a lot better about it. but his relationship with Neil is only getting worse and he doesn’t know it but when the Snow Ball comes around and he sees Max getting fawned over by her mother and he thinks about his own mother (bc tell me that boy’s expression isn’t sad when he sees her in that scene) it’s the last time he sees Max in a home that they share. That night Neil drunkenly shouts homophobic slurs at him and Billy’s done with it He can’t take it. Hopper has been telling him for a month now to just file a report, he’s sure he has enough evidence to catch Neil on an abuse charge, and so he finally does.

Hopper promises to fight for his custody, so that he has a safe roof to live under at least until he turns 18. Hopper cashes in on a favor with the judge bc somehow and for some fucking reason he says there isn’t enough substantial evidence to say anything + people are confused as to why it’s Hopper asking for custody of Billy. So Neil stays living with his wife and Max and gives away custody of Billy pretty angrily but not out of any love of him. (and is it realistic for this to happen?? i’m not sure about it but either way, i melt over Hopper adopting Billy and being brought into a family with Hop and El and Joyce and Jonathan and Will. and no matter what happens with Neil, i just can’t see Max leaving her mom. i think she would cling to any blood relation she has bc yeah, she has friends now, but her mother is her mother) Billy still drives Max to school every day and he makes her promise him she’ll tell him if anything bad ever happens bc “Hey, I have a pretty decent in with the Chief of Police now, alright shithead? You need anything done, I’ve got you.”

so now think of the POSSIBILITIES!! Billy and El as brother and sister, bickering and messing around with each other and Billy showing her new music much to Hop’s dismay but he likes that El has company! Joyce and Hop getting together and Joyce becoming a good mother to him bc lets face it, Joyce would mother the world if she could!! Him finally getting to be with Steve and not being called homophobic slurs and getting closer and closer to Steve as they become boyfriends and dads to the children!!!! the possibilities are endless for Billy Hargrove/Hopper!!!!!!!

(jury’s still out on how to fit S3 in here and how much of canon i want to put into this headcanon but imagine Billy having people in his corner after he’s been possessed and they notice a lot quicker when he gets possessed so they help him faster!!)(or he can just be at home playing board games with El on the night that he was supposed to get possessed and he’s able to be a supportive and sassy figure for El and the kids bc babysitter Steve was off trying to fight russians.)(!!! imagine concerned Billy wondering where the fuck Steve is and getting jealous that he’s out with a girl and Steve is like: “I was literally inches away from death and you’re STILL being a jealous bitch, are you serious????”)

ANYWAY this was so long and a bit unnecessary but this is the gist of what I think and when I write headcanons I’m talking about a universe where all of this took place (unless otherwise specified). Sorry for this mess, but it was good for me to write this out and if anyone is interested in my dumb ideas of how Billy’s story could have gone differently, here’s a preview of whatever dumpster fire of a fic i put out eventually. + you can always talk to me here, i’m open to excitedly yell with you ♥

[mixseungwoo]

☯ — hello! ✗

hi! alas, i bear disappointing news: i’m actually not new. this is carly, and i also rp jeonggukxmi and jihoonmi here. i’m really busy these days, so this may be a terrible mistake, but what else do i do when i get steamrolled by a new muse, right? i’ve been plotting more for my other muses while i’ve had seungwoo knocking around in my head and had to resist plotting for him even though oftentimes i had more ideas for plots with him than my other two muses. i resisted because i wasn’t sure i would actually be able to bring him, but in the end, i could not resist for long. so here we are!! i’m really excited and also terrified because this muse is simultaneously big fun and a source of immense emotional distress for me, so we’ll see what happens asdfasdf

his about page is here, but currently lacking his timeline (because i’m scared; i will man up today.) the main thing for you to know is that he’s hydrus, a hitman and also does every job where he can take his clothes off (prostitute, stripper.) oh yeah, he’s also @wonwoomi​‘s older brother and wants him dead. that’s very important. please like this if you’d like to plot, and i’ll come to you, likely on jihoon’s account since that’s where i do all of my mi plotting. i’m terrible at plotting on twitter these days, but i’m also hyeongjunsang there if you want to hmu anyway. oh yes, another thing i should mention: despite the nature of this muse, i don’t actually write any explicit nsfw, so pls keep that in mind.

anyway!! more deets on this human disaster under the cut! ty for reading

( tw: child abuse, forced prostitution, drugs, murder, severe depression, suicidal thoughts )

his family was actually super supportive of him growing up; it was wonwoo that caught all of their abuse, including seungwoo’s. he only really did it because he idolized the ringleader, their oldest brother jeongwoo, and because he didn’t know better for a while. by the time he knew better, he didn’t care, so poor wonwoo

he never had any direction or goals in his life, so he just followed his brothers’ lead in everything, and did whatever his parents wanted. actually a very obedient kid

he wasn’t and still isn’t naturally very smart so he worked his ass off in school to keep up and keep his parents happy with him

he followed his older brother and hopeful star athelete hyunwoo’s footsteps and got involved in gymnastics pretty young. he kept it up all the way into high school where it was eventually clear he wouldn’t be making the olympics like his parents hoped, and they decided having a mediocre gymnast son wasn’t worth the hit to their image so they pulled him out

wonwoo started getting his revenge on the brothers, and he started with seungwoo, who crumbled and submitted to him first. seungwoo tried to warn his older brothers about how dangerous wonwoo was but his older brothers convinced him that wonwoo could never hurt them and he was like haha you’re right

wonwoo shattered hyunwoo’s knee, destroying his future athletic career, and seungwoo and hyungwoo both cowered behind jeongwoo who began crafting a plan to get their revenge on wonwoo

the further seungwoo got into high school the more he started worrying because he didn’t know what he wanted to do, and the stress of needing to get into a good uni (his parents wanted him to get into a sky university on the mainland if possible) drove him into friendships with bad crowds in pursuit of lowering his stress levels

alcohol, the start of his hoeism, other generally stupid shit, his friends were doing drugs but he did not bite there (yet) because he didn’t totally want to ruin his life or image

he ends up going to myeongcho uni to become a doctor per the urging of his parents but he’s too stupid for it, has to work his ass off again

wonwoo got to jeongwoo first, and killed him while torturing him

seungwoo was devastated, and since he basically followed jeongwoo to make all of his decisions. he was more aimless than ever before. he got more involved in Bad Shit TM

this time drugs were included!! and one of his friends was like “hey you’d make a great stripper” and seungwoo was like why not so he became one, very smart. he got a tattoo too, more stupid shit

his grades started going big downhill, barely passed his first year of uni and decided he wasn’t going through another one. his parents did not take that. not even that they didn’t take it well, they just didn’t take it, period

seungwoo was publicly under the influence enough for his parents to notice and be super disappointed and investigate and they found drugs in his room and there was a huge blowout in which seungwoo made a very dramatic exit from the family

he had a lot of guilt about not better convincing his brothers of how dangerous wonwoo was, and about not suffering more at wonwoo’s hand than hyunwoo and jeongwoo, and was so frustrated he was too weak to help protect him and that he didn’t have a mind of his own, so he was determined to Get Stronger and then kill wonwoo

he also wanted to get out of myeongcho asap but for that he needed more money so he kept being a gr8 stripper which led to him getting forced into prostitution, and he was so incredibly miserable

he decided he was going to yeet off to china as soon as he could so he started learning mandarin and then as soon as he was able he DID

part of his pursuit of strength involved chinese martial arts, and he met a retired monk who ended up training him in wushu. this also came with a lot of chinese spirituality and discipline he didn’t previously have which really did strengthen him

said monk mentor turned out to be a hitman and seungwoo convinced him to train him in this too

as per tradition, he found his mentor dead, then tracked down his killer and killed him

after that he was like “okay, guess i’m strong enough now, let’s continue my trend of revenge” and went back to myeongcho

he joined hydrus for more connections, support, and practice

he couldn’t really keep any normal jobs so he ended up going back to stripping and prostitution again, this time voluntarily, because he didn’t think he was good at anything else (shoutout 2 the grotto)

he couldn’t find wonwoo as quickly as he wanted to

he struggled with some depression throughout all of this, understandably, but it’s gotten really severe in recent times; suicidal thoughts are a daily occurrence and he feels utterly lacking of purpose and a future

all of this being said he’s really a clown, really outgoing, always making jokes and covering all of his problems with humor and doing anything to distract himself. he genuinely likes making people laugh, but he lacks much empathy and is still really stupid. no self-preservation, manners drilled into him by his parents pretty much discarded now, he will always get himself into trouble and is down 4 anything xoxo

[hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat]

Anime Review: When the Seagulls Cry (Umineko)

On the remote island of Rokkenjima, only accessible by ferry, the esteemed Ushiromiya family gather for important family matters. The head of the family Kinzo is dying, and his four children Rosa, Krauss, Rudolf and Eva are already in talks for the headship. Their own descendants are also present; Jessica, George, Maria and Battler. Also there are the Ushiromiya servants, and Kinzo’s longtime friend and physician, Dr Nanjo. It is a gathering of friends and family, although not everybody is as happy as their family’s status would suggest. Relationships are strained, and jealousy is rife.

Not that it will matter in the end. For Kinzo has a dark secret involving the black arts and the legendary Golden Witch, Beatrice. And, in what could be a conspiracy and what could be a game, he has locked his friends and family on the island, now inaccessible due to a typhoon, and with a murderous sorceress on the loose.

When the typhoon passes, and the seagulls cry, the Ushiromiya family will be dead.

Or will they? For there is a larger game at stake here, and one of the family may have the ability to solve the mystery and change the family’s fate for good.

In the early 2000s, an anime was released based on the popular visual novel Higurashi: When They Cry (approximately translating to When the Cicadas Cry).The anime has quickly hit cult status for its severe genre shifting between soft slice-of-life and dark, horror murder mystery. And not just once, either, since the show would flip back and forth pretty much effortlessly. Whether you like the show or not (I personally appreciate it more than I actually like it) there’s no doubt that it was very good at what it did. The writing was tight and knew exactly where it was going and which cards to hold back and show at any given time. The characters were slowly explored well using a unique plot-point that kept the stakes and the mystery up. Even the cheap art style was used remarkably effectively, with the bouncy moe girls switching back and forth between cute and axe-crazy at the drop of a hat (Higurashi Face still remains one of my favourite tropes). It’s not perfect, but it’s one of those shows that I’d recommend everybody at least watch, if only to experience it.

So given the low-key success of Higurashi, it would make sense to bring back the director, series compositor and script-writer, and the same studio do adapt the spiritual successor of the VN, Umineko: When they Cry in 2009. Surely the same skills and combination of great source and great adaptation would make for another great show...surely...

(SPOILERS: It didn’t)

Let’s start with the animation. This is a Studio DEEN effort, and...yeah, it has the look of a Studio DEEN effort. I can’t really say the animation is any worse than Higurashi; they’re both obviously budgeted shows. Nor are the character designs particularly bad, especially compared to the original VN artwork (it’s kind of a ONE deal going on where the storytelling far, FAR surpasses the presentation). What is sadly lacking here though is the direction; everything just feels very flat. Bits that are supposed to be scary just sort of hover in subspace and don’t really fit, which is bizarre because the designs are far less moe-fied than Higurashi, and yet the two aspects don’t blend anywhere near as well. Maybe the increased contrast means they fit better together? Possibly.

The music is also a little flat; none of it is bad but it’s not particularly noteworthy either. However the real standout bits of the presentation are the opening and ending themes; hooooly dang, they are cool. It’s pretty much as explicit in faux-epic as you can get but the massive Italian choirs and pumping synth orchestra is just cheesy enough to actually kind of work. The singers also help, with Akiko Shikata providing a soft and slightly sinister purveyor of oncoming tragedy in the opening, and Jimang absolutely knocking it out of the park with his booming scratchy vocals in the ending, as he lays out his plans and desires as Kinzo Ushiromiya himself. Along with bombastic visuals, it’s truly wonderful stuff that is frankly far better than the show it’s attached to.

So, that plot synopsis I gave above? Yeah...um...that’s kind of a lie. I thought that was what was going to happen, since I was expecting something along the lines of Higurashi. There’s even a similar narrative plotpoint which enables the exploration of the characters and the mystery. But there are a few key differences. For one...the hints at the supernatural in Higurashi? Yeah, they’re massively explicit here. Like...they’re not just hinted at. They are spectating the events and providing a running commentary. I’m not even lying. And you know what happens when you’re taking out from one group of characters and have somebody sit in fancy chairs and explain things? That’s right, it’s really obnoxious and confusing and boring. It’s really hard to get into anything when it gets interspersed with talking heads like a friggin’ reaction video.

But, I could have lived with that. After all, there’s still the mystery which needs to be solved, and the way to save the family of Ushiromiya...oh...wait. No. That doesn’t happen. Sorry but...instead of solving that mystery, we’re going to make another mystery. Which completely defeats the point of the first mystery. There’s a game going on between Beatrice and one of the family, in which they are trying to disprove the existence of witches.

But instead of trying to solve the ACTUAL mystery, the witch makes ANOTHER mystery where she clearly is the murder, and magic clearly exists. And once that finishes, she does it again, bringing in even more magic. In fact, the only way it’s at all possible to win against her is when another witch enters the fray and passes on knowledge and magic in order to effectively fight her (in, what I will mention, are blatant VN ‘magics’ which just feel forced and wrong). So we’ve reached the point where we’re watching several different murder mysteries going on, all with different characters and motivations, all being overseen by a witch doing it basically for shits and giggles and a guy using magic to try and disprove the use of magic.

Except we’re not, because apparently the writers don’t know how actual character development works when the guy basically ragequits the game when he realises that the murderous psycho witch was actually a murderous psycho witch...and she gets all depressed and wonders what she was doing wrong. And all the while there’s all this turmoil with the family and with the OTHER witches, and for crying out loud the show just keeps rolling out character after character and dumb plotpoint after dumb plotpoint, CONSTANTLY contradicting itself.

And all the while, the actual family members are basically acting as flesh-puppets. Some of them do get some backstory and motivation, which would be interesting and allow for a motive in order to make them both sympathetic and/or a potential culprit. But we spend so little time on them and far too much on the magical bullcrap going on around them, that they all just feel so flat and two-dimensional. And don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of emotional baggage here, but the delivery is just so...out of place that at best it’s boring and at worst it’s downright unpleasant. And the fact that there are several different versions of these characters going on at the same time makes it very difficult to actually relate to anyone. The worst culprit is probably Maria, the creepy little girl who is so obviously evil that apparently she wasn’t in the end and is a Pure Sweet Cinnamon RollTM except she...never was. Not that it matters in the end because most people just die multiple times.

So what we have here is a murder mystery that is never actually solved, a family which is never explored, all looked over by a group of witches doing witch things and a main player witch who isn’t actually a witch although she is using magic to do things while asking someone to prove she’s not doing magic to do things while other witches are playing a game with her and some poor guy standing there trying to disprove magic by using magic and by the way magic here is the very pinnacle of “It’s Magic, I Don’t Have To Explain It”, except when it isn’t and it does have proper rules which they never actually tell people and the show decides to change itself up again and follow a character we’ve never met go through a completely different story which amounts to...basically nothing because we kind of end this whole debacle exactly where we started, just because somebody felt like it, and did I mention that all the servants have magical Green Lantern powers and there’s a sassy devil butler and schoolgirl versions of the seven deadly sins (for crying out loud, again?) and there are weird bunny girl demons and talking lion plush toys and

By which point any sane person has already picked up this Cluedo board and flung it out the window.

I’ve seen incompetent shows. Shows far more dull, bad, offensive and just downright wrong shows than this. But this, without a doubt, is the most convoluted and utterly insane waste of time I’ve ever watched. And you know what? Half the time...it wasn’t even that bad. I mean, the stuff on screen. There were some decent horror moments, and some moments which went so far into the degree of tastelessness that it almost felt like a fetish show. And there was an awful lot of potential in both the characters and the mystery itself.

So what happened? The only thing I know is that when this anime was made...the visual novel had yet to be released. And I must just sit back and ask myself, why. Why would you make something before the source material is even out.

But even then, it could have worked as an adaptation. There was a great Higurashi-level mystery just waiting here, blending the supernatural and the all too possible nicely. The idea that magic is dependent on faith is a great idea, and if the first mystery was far more impossible, both on a physical and a moral level, it would have made for great stakes to examine that game and throughout the story find different ways in which the murder could have been explained. While at the same time, the characters’ backstories and motivations could be discovered as we try and discover who really did it, therefore thwarting the witch and settling the family problems to rest.

But no. No, we instead got twenty-six episodes of complete and utter insanity, that, in the end, is completely pointless and non-canon anyway. Ugh. If you want to know the story, play the visual novel instead. If you don’t, then...I don’t know, play some Phoenix Wright or Danganronpa. Anything’s got to be better than this.

Despite a fantastic premise, a lot of potential and a group of people who had proved they could do this well (seriously guys, what happened?), Umineko is a great big murder mystery mess of muck. Nothing is consistent, nothing is explored, and nothing is accomplished. Despite one or two decent parts, and a few moments that were entertaining on a purely WTH level, there is nothing that can stop this show from being ultimately a complete waste of time. Not the absolute worst, but easy to skip.

My score: 3/10