#//yeah lambda's a mess lmao

[mechahero]

@dragvnsovl asked- ⊙﹏☉（；へ：） headcanons! (accepting)

⊙﹏☉ = What flusters the character

It'd be easier to list off the things that don't fluster him, to be honest. Whatever flusters him is relatively basic (or kind of pathetic from whatever way you choose to view it). That would be things like compliments or nice words in general directed towards him, small gestures of kindness, maybe even the occasional gentle touch or kiss.

He can't quite wrap his head around it and yet it embarrasses him nonetheless.

（；へ：） = What makes the character cry

Sad moments in movies, sad songs of any kind, love related or otherwise, people failing to understand what he's saying to the point where if he gets so frustrated he'll either start shouting or end up crying out of said frustration depending on the day. Lambda also does tend to cry over hurt animals as well.

He cries about a lot of things, actually. He's a bleeding heart like that.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

truly lmao 2024 lambda literary award finalist wynnstannery

[transsexualhamlet]

asmr i psychoanalyze my favorite war criminal, aka calling out norman the essay

basically all of my thoughts on norman on one callout post because i care him (both manga and anime are discussed)

LINK TO RAY PSYCHOANALYSIS:  https://chaoticgaymess.tumblr.com/post/646749875570196480/ray-81194-the-long-explanation 

this is going to be ungodly long so here’s a keep reading, essay below the cut

((tw for suicidal ideation and self harm, brief discussion of eating disorders))

Disclaimer: no shipping is included here this is just about norman also they’re kids who call each other siblings

Thoughts: So you may be thinking, Rowan, why do you yell about the colorless war criminal so often? Well the answer lies in your honor the court hates to see a girlboss winning. Norman is a girlboss :) Yes norman is a tiny twink who can't lift a milk jug. And he is a girlboss :) Obviously I don't condone, um, eugenics and all, but that's not the point the point is that he satisfies my need for more characters like Levi motherfucking Calder from Unwind because I’m apparently an edgy 13 year old. Also all of his problems are violently things I can fix and I keep him around as a pet project because someone needs to give him a hug and slap him on the face

I diagnose him with things: 

-pisces man :pensive:

-is he albino? Not literally. Is his skin so pale he would catch fire if he went outside at noon? Yes.

-autism: Yes I’m aware that calling him autistic makes him, problematic rep by perpetuating the autism unfeeling savant stereotype whatever but have you considered i’m autistic and I’m projecting also he’s L with standards? Anyway traits of AuTism he has: hyper   fixation, canonically breaks and fixes things over and over because like ofc he does, doesn’t understand Emotion, hyperaware of body language at the same time as it all somehow flying over his head, low empathy, sensory experiences™, min maxed in certain areas, and I don’t think he’s got social interaction quite right? There’s something off about it

-gifted kid (derogatory) This is self explanatory but basically him being the smartest and the best in a competitive environment caused most of his issues, such as the perfectionism, the need to succeed, the lack of self esteem and ridiculously high expectations on himself, giving himself no breaks or time to relax, the “i must be productive with every second of my day or i will die” deal, the “peaked at 11” thing, the way in which he goes through life like there’s going to be a fucking test on it

-Eldest Daughter™ lmao. Norman’s always had to be mature, he’s always had to be the best, he’s always had to do the things Ray got out of bc he’s a snitch and Emma got out of because Isabella likes her. Norman gets respect from Isabella only if he excels, and her bar for him is astronomical. He doesn’t have the Mommy Issues that Ray has, but it’s because for him Isabella basically just reflected his expectations on himself, whereas with Ray it was more personal.

-low empathy (part of the autism thing): this one needs more explanation, but it’s not a bad thing in and of itself. Cognitive empathy is a thing and he can use it, but he does not instinctively understand other people’s emotions, or even recognize them properly, especially when the person is not like himself. This is obvious in Emma. Man has no fucking clue what’s going on in her head or why she does what she does, but he can predict what she will do in any given situation very well. He could understand the suicide attempt from ray he predicted more because Ray’s an easier equation to solve, and someone who’s more similar to him. I know he gets it because, well, motherfucker’s just as self desctructive as him, just in a more dignified manner.

-he’s got some sort of chronic illness. This is also me projecting and a headcanon but he’s got something going on, even before lambda pumped him full of growth hormones or whatever which they maybe should have Not Done but oh well. (I assume this just didn’t happen in the anime, since he’s still so fucking short) But he's So weak. He passed out when it was too hot. He passed out when it was too cold. He can’t open a pickle jar. His skin is too pale and he’s skinny af. He’s much more prone to sickness and probably has asthma too? But in the case that he did actually have something going on, I don’t think grace field would see the need to treat it, if it didn’t impact the quality of his meat? Isabella’s probably just “you have chronic pain and you get migraines? Great, take some tylenol and do some calculus.” Can’t say that probably helped anything.

personality type: ISTJ

Basically, he’s the most boring personality type to exist, and personally as an enfp i do not respect him. But basically this means he’s a fucking nerd that gets his projects done for school the day they’re assigned, is probably the president of the Anime Student Council™, and could probably get away with premeditated murder (ok actual istjs this is a joke don’t skin me)

The only trait that norman doesn’t have on the istj thing is telling the truth. Yeah, he values the truth, but like, that doesn’t apply to him, clearly. Bitch is a notorious liar.

The only other personality type he has any similarity with is intj, which is the same except it’s more rare and a purple theme instead of a blue theme. Sadly, that’s not him though, because although he can care more about some kinds of philosophy overall this isn’t the case and ray already occupies this personality type tbh. 

strengths and weaknesses: This one’s kind of obvious, but he is aside from the crazy insane intelligence good at planning. Extremely good at planning. He can predict any outcome and figure out how to prevent it, using all his resources. For example he’s physically weak and someone could literally just walk up and stab him, but it doesn’t impede his progress on his goals because he’s surrounded himself with strong, mentally inferior people who would die for him in a heartbeat. He never gets stuck in some “everything is shit and i can’t do anything” deal like Emma and Ray do, he always works through it and has confidence in his abilities (in as much as he will solve the problem or die™. Weaknesses other than his twink body include his Low Wisdom score. It’s funny how he’s often associated with an owl, the mans is 14. He thinks he knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t. Plus obviously his fundamental misunderstanding of so much of everything going on around him, the fact that he lies not just to the world but himself, his refusal to take care of himself and his incredible cowardice. His achilles heel is being forced to, actually confront his actions.

what he likes about himself: He does pride himself on his mental abilities, and his judgement, which in his opinion is the only correct opinion and the only correct way. In the past, he likes being seen as a leader, he likes being responsible for other people. He likes his ability to manipulate and lie, because he sees it as an asset, and I honestly think he enjoys being william minerva more than he enjoys being Norman. He prides himself on his unhealthy expectations and the fact that he is able to meet them. Honestly, he does think he’s better than everyone else, mentally, though it’s humbled by his self hatred. Cursed thought: If Norman had self esteem he would be light yagami. 

what he doesn’t like about himself/insecurities: Oh god, nearly everything. His appearance, his status, his superiority, his physical inability, his own mess of a mind, also have I mentioned his appearance. He’s obsessed with self control. He wants everything he sees wrong with himself gone. And I understand why having control of everything is necessary and appealing, everything for him has always been rigid and planned out from moment one, he was even more regulated in lambda, and though he desperately wants to Not Be Food, he has no idea what to do with the chains now that he’s broken out of them. So he just wraps them around himself. Regulates to an unhealthy degree when he sleeps, what he eats, when he actually takes even minimal care of his own problems, what he looks like, how much of himself he lets show, the expressions on his face, the literal thoughts inside his own head he will shut down if they are not Correct. It’s literal self harm. Norman, please stop it.

motivations/goals in life/general philosophy: To be honest, I’m not sure he knows what he wants. He sure thinks he does, he could sure give you a memorized answer, but it means nothing. He wants to excel. He wants Emma to be happy. He wants to be perfect and for that to make everything perfect. But he doesn’t realize everything he’s working towards will do pretty much the opposite of that. He’s a crippling perfectionist, and pretty much everything he does is motivated by his fear of failing. He picks the certain path, he doesn’t wait for anyone else, he doesn’t care if it’s not nice. Emma foils that a most of the time because he cares about her, but it can only go so far, especially after he’s had so much time without her to develop a Complex. His philosophy is very contradictory, basically the tokyo ghoul “everything bad that happens to you stems from a lack of ability”. All of his problems are his fault. All the world’s problems are his to fix. If he can’t fix them, it’s his fault, it’s because he wasn’t strong enough, and not being perfect condemns someone forever, including himself.

how he’s perceived by others vs how he actually is: In most people there wouldn’t truly be much of a difference, but with Norman things are different, because, well, most of his personality in grace field is a put on, as well as the tough guy dictator thing he radiates after lambda. How he appears to someone is determined by the context of their meeting- the kids at grace field see him as a nerdy, weakish, pretty boring kid who is really caring and kind. The researchers at lambda see an obedient, beaten down and perfectionistic boy. The lambda kids see him as an infallible leader, ruthless and genius, a good man who knows what’s right. But in truth none of that is him. It’s a fucking chess game to him, putting on different faces, lying and pretending and treating everyone differently. In truth? He’s a fucking coward. He’s scared out of his mind and he’s tired and he can’t take pain, he’s obsessed with reaching some goal he deems is necessary that in the end is going to be his death because he doesn’t want to face the consequences of his actions. He’s taken on the role of someone evil, though deep down he’s not, he feels it’s easier to live that way because it strips him of his conscience. 

interpersonal relationships: In general, Norman sees all relationships in a pretty dim light. He sees everyone as black and white, for the most part, and other people make no sense to him intuitively, he has to figure them out like a puzzle. He’s manipulative and not particularly kind, but he follows all societal expectations to a T, overly focused on his appearance and placing the person he’s interacting with into a Category™. So he can be truly kind, to people he feels deserve it, to people who he values and doesn’t see flaws in. He gets incredibly attached to people he loves, protective, though he often doesn’t take their own feelings on the matter into consideration, and he’s ruthless with anyone who he deems a bad person. With people he understands and relates to, though, things can be different. If he sees someone as like himself, he will drop all the social interaction police bullshit and cut to the chase of whatever he wants or needs from them, and he’s not very forgiving in any manner, if he thinks what someone did is actually bad.

Emma: Norman obviously cares a lot about Emma, and honestly views her as better than anyone else. He realizes her moral integrity and all of the things she has and he doesn’t, and admires it. Because of his black and white view, Emma is like an angel to him. She couldn’t do anything wrong if she tried. But he comes to treat her as something to be protected instead of respected, and although he realizes she wouldn’t like what he’s doing, he fundamentally cannot empathize with her and doesn’t try to understand her. Their personalities are very literally opposite. Norman really needs to fucking listen to her. And Emma needs to understand that Norman doesn’t have a single ounce of empathy and you really do need to spell it out for him. Emma can only convince him when she has logical reasons for her actions, which she, doesn’t often have. And Emma gave Norman too much slack, because she didn’t see past the surface, and Ray never wanted to warn her, even though he knew the dude was showing a bunch of red flags, because you know. It was kind of an unspoken deal between them. (on ray’s part)

Ray: His relationship with Ray is a lot more complicated than with Emma. He understands Ray, where he doesn’t understand Emma, and he can see right through anything Ray does. And this makes things really tense between them, because Ray doesn’t, take kindly to being psychoanalyzed. If someone perceives him he will deck them and Norman is just there silently perceiving him at all times when Emma doesn’t see it. They are both constantly in competition with each other, but they care about each other a lot, though it’s kind of in a derogatory way. They both recognize each other as fundamentally fucked up, and silently agree never to bring it up with Emma. They’re nice to each other when she’s around, but all pretenses disappear when she’s gone. Ray is always frustrated with Norman, because Norman’s never been intimidated by him, and though he tries his best not to be vulnerable around him, Norman can always see through it, whereas Ray can’t crack Norman’s fake fucking smile no matter what he does. Norman will always take Emma’s side, and doesn’t see Ray as a good person at all, but he still understands and can excuse him, he takes measures to be… worse than Ray, which is better in his mind, because it’s rational, and ‘not selfish’.

Isabella: She has always had ridiculously high expectations for Norman, and treats him kind of harshly compared to the others. Bitch has heat stroke and Isabella’s first question is a calculus problem instead of like, “are you ok”. She knows he doesn’t complain about anything ever and she doesn’t stop him from being Terrible to himself, because it makes her job easier. They want smart kids, not mentally adjusted kids. She does really care for all of them, but she basically overrides it, she gives them what they want, not what they need, lets them be exactly what they’re making themselves. Isabella is distant with Ray but gives him anything he wants, she’s close and super nice with Emma, but Norman is… it’s weird. Isabella is proud of him because he meets her astronomically high bar. But at the same time, Norman never really cared for her that much and has never pretended to. Once they discover The Thing, though, he has a revelation, and it doesn’t take him long to switch his entire perspective about her. He’s pretty much like. Oh. She’s like me. That explains it, time to treat her like I treat myself: fucking brutally. Passive aggressive as hell. The kind of energy the :) emoticon at the end of an email gives. He does like just go “yeah we should kill her” at one point, which. You know, ok. When he got shipped out it was hhhh really interesting because Isabella knew full well he knew he was walking to his death and Norman was like “are you Truly Happy?” and just went :) and she was like h u h and tried to get him to talk while they were walking there because she feels Bad about it and he just. Did not. He didn’t say a single word just kind of smiled menacingly at her and I think it was half a sort of rebellion and half because he viewed her as similar to himself and therefore felt no need to put up any front with her, no words were necessary for him to impart exactly how he felt about it

Lambda kids: His relationship with the lambda kids is weird and bittersweet. I think he really truly does care about them, they were in a similar situation to his and he wants them to get what they want. However it is not a healthy or beneficial relationship, they see him as a god and don’t realize that he’s killing himself to give them what they want, he’s basically adopted them when out of anyone norman’s the one that should least be in charge of kids. I think he’s honestly younger than them but I’m not sure if they even know. He acts like their fucking mom, and that’s from what he thinks mothers are like… like isabella?? Giving them what they want, not what they need, lying to them, showing a front, caring deeply for them but at the same time using them for his own ends. And it’s not helpful for him. He thinks he knows what they need, but what he’s doing is what they want. What they need is therapy,(and so does norman), and he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with using them as weapons because they love him. It makes him feel good, to be seen as perfect, to have people who don’t know how weak he really is. But it’s only making him worse, and he’s enabling everything the lambda kids are doing wrong as well. They need like, Yuugo and Lucas. Some actual adults who are actually wise and have the ability and the knowledge to take care of them and understand their mental problems and maybe actually address them. And actually be nice to them. But um sadly. 

what he’s doing wrong: It’s pretty obvious, but… Norman, you maybe *shouldn’t* commit genocide? You’re not helping emma, you’re not making anything better. You’re not helping the lambda kids, you’re enabling them. You’re not helping your friends from grace field, you’re ignoring what they want. You’re not helping the world, you’re eradicating an entire race from the face of the earth and murdering the poor for the crimes of the fucking 1%. You’re not being a martyr, you’re a selfish piece of shit liar you little coward, you just want an easy way out and you want to die on your bloody fucking hill instead of admitting you’re wrong. Grow up, cringe little man.

why he went wrong: I think most of the reason this happened was the way he was raised combined with the kind of person he is. Norman would have turned out fine, if there has been good adults in his life who actually cared about his well being. Instead he got people who just wanted to control him and make him what they needed, and family who largely didn’t realize there was anything wrong. Ray being an ass to him most of forever probably didn’t help but well, that’s just Ray. Even then, he would have managed alright if he escaped with the rest of the kids because he would never have been separated from the experiences that caused the rest of them to realize demons weren’t all evil. In lambda he didn’t have anyone supporting him or telling him when things went too far, so he fell into relying on himself alone, pushing himself further with absolutely no limits. All he saw was enemies and allies, and things got stratified. He never had a lucas or a yuugo or mujika when he would have needed it, instead he found children who wanted him to be in charge and a world that made it so he had to be. Everything was an echo chamber for his worst thoughts, so they just became more and more dominant.

what he needs: To put it simply, he needs Emma and Ray to cut to the chase and slap him across the face and make him take care of himself. He needs to be forced to see everything for what it really is- this edgy 14 year old committing atrocities to feel better about himself? He needs to be told that what he’s doing is irrational, because in reality, it is. There are better solutions that he’s ignoring, both to his own suffering and the demons, and the way he’s going now no one will truly be happy because of it, that there is no requirement that things be perfect and this bullshit doesn’t make him stronger. He needs someone responsible to take the fucking dagger out of his hands. He also needs someone to babysit him and make him go to bed at a reasonable time.

i describe his personality through songs on my spotify playlist for him:

-outrunning karma by alec benjamin: this one super applies because it calls him out for making shitty decisions, being manipulative and a liar, and having blood on his hands in a very calm and subdued manner, that he knows this is wrong and yet he chooses to keep running faster and faster towards destruction, that he means to escape it through death

-empty by boyinaband and jaiden: yes this is a song about anorexia yes it also applies to norman i’m not saying norman literally has an eating disorder (but honestly it wouldn’t be far out of character if he did) but metaphorically this applies to his method of ignoring his needs, both emotional and physical, in favor of seeming in control 

-toxic thoughts by faith marie: this one speaks to his gifted kid trauma. Man’s got perfectionism running his entire soul. He’s terrified of failing, because he’s always been at the very top, he’ll beat himself up over any miniscule mistake and forces himself to keep at bad habits that keep him Productive, but he won’t ask for help no matter how much he’s suffering because that would be failing, he fights with his mind, this song basically tells him “yeah i feel you but you need to stop that”

-no time to die by billie eilish: ignore the romantic overtones but this is emma and norman, emma who trusted norman and was lied to, betrayed, for norman’s greater good, and norman who refuses to feel or hurt because of it, who refuses to apologize or see himself as wrong, pushes forward because he’s going to Pass Away

-achilles come down by gang of youths: hhhhh it's like. His vibe. Obviously you can disregard the lifestyle specific shit but it's. It's achilles come down you have to understand it’s like the same deal as friend, please just like french and longer

-friend, please by 21 pilots: i feel like i don't have to explain this one but it’s more to the manga (not the anime where he kind of figures out he done did wrong by himself instead of committing unforgivable sins and still going yeah this is valid before emma is like holy fuck). He is like sorry emma I cannot fix anything I’m going to die :) *coughs blood* and emma going like stop it stop it stop it fuck you see you fucked up and i forgive you just stop don’t walk away while he’s like “no<3”

why im a repressed little norman kinnie even tho he’s my exact opposite: I don’t generally kin ppl like norman, honestly he’s an infj I have no clue how it happened but I’m pretty sure it’s because of my intense desire to project onto a little man who cannot lift a milk jug and has chronic pain and decides you know what I AM tired of being nice i DO wanna go apeshit. Also he’s a twink. A little bastard. He’s a terrible person and I go mood every time he does anything. I said mood when he fell out of a tree. Don’t know what this says about me, I swear I wouldn’t commit no genocide. He’s like the inverse of Yoichi Saotome, and somehow i kin him too. Damn.

Miscellaneous headcanons:

-man’s SO attached to his william minerva cloak. He’s a wispy little bitch, you know he’s wearing that thing inside the house, he’s fucking cold. It also makes him Look Important he can retreat into it like an emo middle schooler with an oversized sweatshirt

-although you could probably get Mad street cred from having two whole brands you know he’s not gonna whip it out and show off his lambda thing he’s incredibly self conscious and his chest hasn’t seen the sun in years

-norman’s got MAD laundry skills to be able to wear like, all white all the time while constantly murdering people. I think he’s the only one who knows to do the laundry. And Ray is the only one who knows how to cook.

-but even then there’s gotta still be a few questionable stains on that thing, but if anyone asks he’s like “ketchup” “I’ve literally never seen you eat anything with that much color” “ketchup :)” *coughs blood*

-he’s probably thought “well i have not literally coughed blood yet today so I am not legally obligated to take care of myself”

-He probably adopted much of his current personality from taking on the persona of william minerva. I’m calling him out for being like me, he’s a blank motherfucker, he absorbs personality traits from characters he plays! He’s just not in theatre so it’s a bit more intense!

-the first time he sees barbara Eating Demon Meat he kinda stares and goes oh cool! not for me and violently exits the room. Like it's hilarious bc he thinks that's really gross on a moral level though he understands why she would do it 

-Which is even funnier bc I’m not sure about the canon on this but there was That Chapter Cover that one time that kinda seemed to imply norman eating demon meat which i absolutely latched onto because I’m terrible. He was just politely eating it. With a knife and fork like why dude. As to a possible reason for him doing that I can come up with, of course barbara does it out of spite, but man we don’t know the properties, if it had some sort of painkilling aspect to it or it was like, caffeine, you know he would, but he would Definitely not talk about it

-I kinda disagree with what the anime did in episode eight? It was good I liked it and the imagery was fantastic but also have you considered Norman could not kill someone with his own hands if he tried, or even physically injure them? That’s what his minions are for shawty. That doesn’t make it any less bad, of course, but the manga captured it perfectly by the fact of he carries around a dagger and a scepter in the capitol battle, but he never even raises it out of more than intimidation. He walks through calmly like he’s not scared at all but he makes sure all the lambda kids do all the actual murder, he just stands there impartially, clearly The Mastermind, as the kids fucking murder the queen of the demons. And I think that’s more profound because he’s, a coward. And he doesn’t realize being the one who orders the strike makes you just as responsible as the one who sticks the knife in someone. The knife is just there to Compensate™  for the fact that he weighs like eighty pounds.

-he’s more of like lady macbeth (because he’s a girlboss) than macbeth himself. He has blood on his hands, but it’s the kind of blood that you can’t wash off. He never killed anyone himself, and he cannot admit he never would have been able to.

-the last thing is that there are definitely epic things about the anime, episode 8 was my favorite so far, goddamn that imagery and the bitch walking through the city while it burns down with the screaming asmr going on behind him my god. We stan. But like the downside of, letting Emma and Ray get to him before he commits first degree murder makes the whole thing lose a lot of his value. In the manga (oh my god look at me being a pretentious manga fan please) it fit more of his ideas- he never backed down, and he planned for Emma coming and trying to stop him. Of course he wanted Emma to stop him, he wanted it with all his fucking heart he was pleading for it to happen but the man wouldn’t give himself what he wanted if he was held at gunpoint. He knew she’d come and he made absolutely sure she wouldn’t be able to stop him. So when she came and he said “you’re too late”??? It kind of said it all, in the fact that he was disappointed that he got his way. He still thought he did the right thing, but deep down there where he shoved all his thoughts and feelings he desperately wanted to be saved from himself.

So yeah, those are my thoughts. Feel free to eviscerate me if these are not Correct he is just my favorite girlboss who I feel the need to yell at

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep17

Haha yeah at this point I give up on thinking this is newcomer-friendly, lmao.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut [plus Umineko spoilers]

Well this sure was an episode, lol.

At this point I think that regardless of how the rest of the show goes, it kinda just definitively doesn’t work properly as something for new fans to enjoy. It’s not like it wouldn’t make any sense, but it’s just a straight up inferior experience to watching this as a sequel after the VN. Even with the fast-paced montage of Matsuribayashi plot points, new fans still don’t even know stuff like what Takano’s whole backstory is, what her motives where, and what her actual plan even WAS in the first place beyond just ‘she’s gonna kill everyone somehow for some reason’. And I doubt that we’re going to get much time spent at all on Rena and her backstory to explain what she was doing in Onidamashi.

I think Gou works fine as a sequel to the VN, but as a starting point for new fans it just throws enough spoilers at you to ruin the experience of reading the VN afterward, without enough time spent on those plot points and characters to make it worth it. Though I also have to wonder now if it was even worth spending 13 episodes going over mostly the same events as the original question arcs if immediately afterward they were going to drop all pretenses of this being a remake.

I’m pretty negative about this whole aspect of the show, but I still think that the sequel aspect of it is good and interesting. Even if a lot of that is just me being desperate for any amount of indirect Umineko content, lol.

This episode might have spelled out that Satoko is the second looper on the gameboard, but it seems pretty obvious that there’s a higher power influencing her and giving her the power to loop in the first place. I’m still suspicious of Hanyuu/Featherine, but this episode made me think it’s much more likely that it might actually be Lambda.

I wasn’t really sure about it earlier since it felt like wishful thinking, but the whole beginning scene where Takano apologizes to Rika and says that she wouldn’t believe her even if she explained why she suddenly changed her mind about her mission seems to indicate that Lambda has basically abandoned Takano and revoked her blessing of certainty, and she seems to remember the events of Matsuribayashi anyway, so she’s basically just accepted her defeat. I don’t think it’s as simple as that, though, because of what Takano said about Rika not believing why she changed her mind, so I think it also involves her connection to Lambda.

It might actually be a lot like how Lambda acted in Umineko, where she took over the game master position for a while after Beatrice abandoned the game. This might be Lambda taking over the Higurashi game board because Hanyuu abandoned it, and she’s decided to make Satoko her new piece.

We’ve already seen Satoko talk about how Oyashiro contacted her and made her into his new priestess because of Rika’s sins, so I think Lambda probably just posed as Oyashiro to convince Satoko to become her piece.

It’d also help explain how weird a lot of Gou’s game board feels, and how silly the whole concept of Satoko being a criminal mastermind is, if this is the Higurashi version of Umineko Ep5, where Lambda created a ‘game without love’ where she didn’t technically contradict anything about the story or the characters, but pushed the limits of how out of character she could make them act.

I’ve already felt for a while that Nekodamashi in particular feels more like a case of the culprit just trying to unfairly torture Rika instead of trying to present her with a fairy mystery to solve, and that’d definitely fit with the idea of Lambda just wanting to mess with Rika and manipulating the pieces and the game board to do so.

It kinda risks entering the catch-22 territory of something being ‘intentionally badly written’, in a sense, if the whole point is that the real mastermind is just being sadistic and not trying to establish a fair mystery, but it’s at least something that’s been established before in the overall franchise. I dunno how well it works to have that be the premise of an entire season, though, compared to how only one episode of Umineko worked this way, and it was already established there that Lambda was the new game master at the very start of the episode, so there weren’t any surprises or secrets there.

Either way this could basically just be the hand wave-y explanation for any questions of how Satoko apparently managed to obtain the syringe in each arc and inject all these random people successfully in each arc. And also why it doesn’t even seem to make sense from Satoko’s POV for her to act in such a roundabout and risky way.

Honestly, it kinda reminds me of the whole mentality some people have where they wonder why Rika doesn’t just use her supernatural knowledge of everything going on to perfectly game the system and manipulate everyone. The whole point there is that she’s just a little girl who’s only physically capable of doing so much without outside help, but Lambda might be straight up giving Satoko the unnatural ability to actually do all of this stuff even as a random little girl. Which, again, feels kinda iffy as a writing choice, but it’d also fit with a lot of the commentary Ryukishi likes to do about this type of stuff.

One thing I’m curious about is if the next arc will start off with a new loop, or if this one will keep going. Usually we don’t have loops carry over between arcs, and with how this episode ended we might just find out that Satoko immediately shot Rika, but considering how Rika obviously planned this whole scene to happen, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s able to stop Satoko from shooting her.

I didn’t think this up, but I’ve seen other people theorize that part of the ‘birthday party preparation’ involved Rika explaining everything to her friends off-screen and getting them to help her deal with the whole Satoko confrontation, which I think would make a lot of sense, and it’d make it a lot more likely that the next arc will start with Satoko getting stopped before she can kill Rika. Although if the next arc starts that way, and everyone’s already aware of what’s going on with Rika and Satoko, and we’ve already gone through all the stuff with Takano giving up her plans and leaving the village, I have to wonder what they’d even spend seven whole episodes doing, lol. All the stuff with Takano and the clinic in this episode also makes it feel like this will be the ‘final loop’, since it’d feel a bit weird to have to go over it all again later on, but we’ll see.

I’ve also seen people point out that Satoko’s gun at the end seems to be the same type as Mion’s toy gun, so instead of her getting physically overpowered, we might find out that Rika got Mion to swap her gun with Satoko’s. I dunno exactly how Rika would have known about Satoko having a gun, or how she’d be able to make the swap happen without Satoko realizing it, but I could see it playing out that way.

Anyway, this really feels like it’s shaping up to be a Bern vs Lambda game, where Lambda’s whole goal is just to keep Rika stuck in this loop as long as possible no matter what. And I still feel like if they’re gonna go this hard into the Umineko connections, they should really just go the whole nine yards and have this lead into a proper Umineko anime remake. Otherwise it’d feel like a wasted opportunity where Higurashi fans get disappointed that their series got ‘tainted’ by Umineko-related story baggage, while Umineko fans are disappointed because it’s not the sort of content we’ve been hoping for, and it’s not as substantial as a full remake would be.

It doesn’t help that Okonogi and Amakusa both show up in this episode, lol. I know they both show up in Higurashi, but still. At this point it’d just feel cruel if all this teasing doesn’t actually lead to anything noteworthy.

Also, even in spite of how much this episode explained about the whole mystery, I feel even more confused about what the whole final arc could possibly be about at this point, especially if I’m right about this loop continuing for maybe the entire rest of the next arc. It kinda feels like we’re already at the endgame where both sides have revealed their intentions to each other, and we more or less know exactly what the mechanics of everything going on behind the scenes are. It feels like there isn’t really any mystery left to unravel, aside from maybe the specifics of what happened to Satoko after Matsuribayashi that clearly lead to her getting influenced into doing all this. But we still have seven whole episodes left to go, so clearly there’s a lot left to happen.

Ideally they’re going to find time to actually go over stuff like Rena and Shion’s backstories, and the exact details of what happened in the previous years of the curse killings, and Takano’s whole backstory and what her big evil plan actually was in the first place, so those things don’t just end up left in the VN for new fans to not find out about, but I dunno. Ironically, I don’t think there’s *enough* episodes left to properly go into all that, unless it’s as fast-paced as how this episode went through a bullet point list of details from Matsuribayashi.

There’s still the question of if we might get a second season, but I doubt it. Maybe it could be a one-cour second season, but it already feels like we’re at the end of the story. We’re basically at the equivalent of the end of Minagoroshi, and there was only one more arc after that in the VN. But if we’re making comparisons to the VN, then we’ve still basically skipped over Tsumihoroboshi and Meakashi, lol.

Also, before I forget, it still genuinely bugs me that even though Rika apparently remembered Takano being evil this whole time, and clearly still thought she was evil this whole time, she’s apparently done absolutely nothing to try and investigate or stop her in any of these timelines, and she spent all of Nekodamashi being like ‘wow, I can’t believe people are going unnaturally L5 and killing me while taking about parasites . . . . who could possibly be behind this . . . . . .. .  oh well guess I’ll just die lol’. I don’t want to call it a plot hole, but it just feels like genuinely bad writing caused by the unnecessary conflict of Gou trying to appeal to new fans while also being a sequel. But in the end they ended up giving a sparknotes version of Matsuribayashi that spoils Takano being evil anyway, so it feels kinda pointless that they sidestepped the issue so hard up to this point, at the cost of having Rika basically act like an idiot who doesn’t bother acting upon any of the knowledge she has.

Anyway, if we don’t get a full Umineko remake out of this in the end, they should at least just have the next arc turn into full on Umineko shenanigans with logic battles and witches with laser swords and shit.

I might sound like I’m just really negative toward Higurashi in general compared to Umineko, but even though I prefer Umineko, I really like Higurashi, and that’s a big part of why it bugs me so much that they didn’t just commit to this being a proper remake. An actual remake of the VN that has more concise pacing and works better as an anime would be genuinely great in it’s own way, but that’s not what we’ve ended up getting, lol.

[vicehectic]

Reaction to The Promised Neverland Ch. 125

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Me: OH. OHHHHH. THEY EAT THE DEMONS THAT EAT THE HUMANS. THUS THEY. okay

Friend: yeah when i saw that i was like "ah that makes more sense"

Me: shit. That big brain.

Friend: 999999999999iq

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Me: So because the plantation humans arent actually like alive in the brain the demons can have em. And fuck the ratris.

Me: wait what. You can have the ratris and cultivate them???

Friend: >>>

Me: And continue to punish their descendants for shit they didn't have a part of????

Friend: >>> norman definitely needs to like take a chill pill.

Me: Norman is way too fucking confident. I feel like he's riding on this high. "My first plan didnt go well and I would be dead if I didn't get sent to lambda. I am not throwing away my shot. I can't mess up now, freedom is right at my fingertips with Emma and Ray by my side. I have to get this right. I can't afford to fail. I won't get another chance" but he's too confident. He's too insecure of getting his planned ruined again

Friend: 100% there's gonna be something that ruins his plans. Maybe even get himself killed.

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Me: hey return of the scrambled name

Friend: this scrambled name better be something good

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Me: Wait. Do you know what this means? Dude. Don't you see?

Friend: ????

Me: ITS BEEN SO OBVIOUS

Friend: WHAT????

Me: We've just been reading haikyuu

Friend: FUCK

Me: Emma is hinata. Ray is Kuroo. And.

Norman is Bokuto!

Friend: you fucking got me. i thought it was gonna be something groundbreaking

Me: lmao I love that I got you

Friend: u boomed me

Me: 메롱

Friend: ;-;

Me: ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[transsexualhamlet]

norman hcs no one asked for

hi im here to bully the whitest white boy to ever autism

-yes he is aromantic. yes he is gay. no i will not elaborate

-one time grace field tried to put on a play and norman was the worst actor literally anyone has ever seen, while ray was practically hamlet

-as a fellow left handed bitch i can attest to the fact that norman’s handwriting is Incorrectly Built he writes his letters upside down but they look indistinguishable from fucking arial font

-he acts like his william minerva cloak is just there for like disguise reasons but in reality he will pose in front of the mirror with it on every day and think about how cool he looks in it

-ray started a rumor that norman simply was not a real person when he was like eight and half the orphanage believed him and norman like didn’t even notice it happened until emma told him

-norman is scared of dogs :) he sees a great dane and screeches he thinks it will kill him or maybe touch him or lick him this is the same thing actually

-as an official autism this man needs so much structure in his life it’s insane. what lambda really didn’t understand is that to mess him up all you’d need to do is make him do the test ten minutes later than usual he’d fucking fail  

-when he was at grace field he always secretly wished he would get taller but then lambda happened and he’s like yeah but not like this

-the thing is even when he got taller and Larger that did NOT mean he got stronger in any way. In most ways, he’s even weaker, given he thinks not sleeping or eating or taking his meds is a power move.

-I think norman can play the piano just my personal opinion he’s like way too good at it bc isabella gave him lessons and he worked hard on it because it earned him PointsTM but drops it completely as soon as he’s allowed to

-he hyperfixated on fucking calculus when he was nine and it was hilarious bc he would just spout unsolicited math every time you said anything to him and everyone would be like oh my god norman literally no one cares

-his main special interests are languages and codes, which helped him out a lot with like, learning demonese or whatever, by the time he’s Minerva he knows about seven human languages and two demon variants and has gotten increasingly cryptic in minerva communications and everyone is extremely frustrated with it because no one is going to be able to decode that, norman, please do not make it in french as well

-the lambda kids are getting tired of his scholarly bullshit (except for vincent lmao) and have taken to speaking in pig latin at him every time he writes messages in actual latin. norman hates this with a burning passion

-no one in the orphanage knows their actual ethnicity but norman has decided completely of his own accord to self id as fucking british and will 100 percent mention it to anyone

-Norman brushes his hair. Which is hilarious seeing as there’s about two centimeters of it, like four when he’s older. No one knows why he just Has To or he will feel Unprepared

-he’s the kind of guy who you think is going to go to ravenclaw like his color palate is even set up for it and then boom. slytherin

-Ray constantly attempts to put Flavor on norman’s food because he knows norman will have a heart attack if his white bread is too spicy. However he has never once succeeded at tricking norman into putting something Rigged into his mouth and it’s like kind of an inside joke/game at this point he’ll be like “ah thank you so much for this lovely biscuit ray but oops it appears I have dropped it into the well :)”

-no one is quite sure how he ever wins tag but the real answer is that he hides in the same spot every time and no one’s ever figured out where it is because when they give up he emerges from the complete other side of the forest like hello besties :) 

-Emma forgets how Frail norman is a lot of he time and he now gets a favor every time emma tackles him from behind and nearly murders him. norman just saves these up like he’s going to use them to go to college and she’s getting concerned about what he’s planning to do with all of them. he simply never uses them

i have many more but like norman my beloved (derogatory)