#Endless Witch Beatrice

[evangelifloss]

Beatrice pfp spotted

Even worse, I made a far shittier edit of the og sprite complete with bad resolution

[blueredyellowart]

A referenceless Beato for your perusal.

[gnsleepsheep]

- 𖥨¡! ❝ [υмιиєкσ ⋆ єνα вєαтяι¢є] ❞

▸ 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 ꒷꒦₊˚・

[fandom]

Ships

Unexpected connections happen in two places: the Ships list and Feeld—a dating app for the curious. On Feeld, finding like-minded people is as fulfilling as finding yourself. In celebration of ships, here are this year’s iconic connections.

Ineffable Husbands +17 Aziraphale & Crowley, Good Omens

Steddie Steve Harrington & Eddie Munson, Stranger Things

Destiel Dean Winchester & Castiel, Supernatural

Byler -3 Will Byers & Mike Wheeler, Stranger Things

Wenclair Wednesday Addams & Enid Sinclair, Wednesday

Bowuigi Bowser & Luigi, the Super Mario Bros. franchise

Huntlow +7 Hunter & Willow Park, The Owl House

Avatrice Ava Silva & Beatrice, Warrior Nun

Hannigram +2 Hannibal Lecter & Will Graham, Hannibal

Buddie -4 Evan Buckley & Edmundo Diaz, 9-1-1

Vashwood Vash the Stampede & Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Trigun Stampede

Zelink +80 Zelda & Link, The Legend of Zelda

Lumity -6 Luz Noceda & Amity Blight, The Owl House

Ghostsoap Simon “Ghost” Riley & John “Soap” MacTavish, the Call of Duty franchise

Blackbonnet -11 Edward Teach/Blackbeard & Stede Bonnet, Our Flag Means Death

Wolfstar +8 Remus Lupin & Sirius Black, the Harry Potter universe

Merthur +12 Merlin & Arthur Pendragon, Merlin

Jegulus +25 James Potter & Regulus Black, the Harry Potter universe

Bumbleby +48 Yang Xiao Long & Blake Belladonna, RWBY

Bakudeku -4 Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku, Boku no Hero Academia

Dreamling -1 Dream of the Endless & Hob Gadling, The Sandman

Soukoku +60 Nakahara Chuuya & Dazai Osamu, Bungou Stray Dogs

Firstprince Alex Claremont-Diaz & Prince Henry of Wales, Red, White & Royal Blue

Wesper Wylan Van Eck & Jesper Fahey, the Grishaverse

Wangxian -8 Lan Wangji & Wei Wuxian, Mo Dao Zu Shi

Satosugu +23 Gojo Satoru & Geto Suguru, Jujutsu Kaisen

Imodna +8 Imogen Temult & Laudna, Critical Role

Kanej +44 Kaz Brekker & Inej Ghafa, the Grishaverse

Bubbline Princess Bubblegum & Marceline, Adventure Time

Ladynoir -17 Ladybug & Chat Noir, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

Twiyor +6 Loid Forger & Yor Forger, SPY x FAMILY

Loustat +43 Louis de Pointe du Lac & Lestat de Lioncourt, Interview with the Vampire

Zosan Roronoa Zoro & Vinsmoke Sanji, One Piece

Marichat -12 Marinette Dupain-Cheng & Chat Noir, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

Serirei +65 Serizawa Katsuya & Reigen Arataka, Mob Psycho 100

Adrienette -21 Adrien Agreste & Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

Chenford +24 Lucy Chen & Tim Bradford, The Rookie

Petrigrof Simon Petrikov & Betty Grof, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake

Kavetham Kaveh & Alhaitham, Genshin Impact

Griddlehark +54 Gideon Nav & Harrowhark Nonagesimus, The Locked Tomb series

Raeda -13 Raine Whispers & Eda Clawthorne, The Owl House

Tomgreg -19 Tom Wambsgans & Greg Hirsch, Succession

Hanamusa Jessie & Delia Ketchum, the Pokémon franchise

Zolu Roronoa Zoro & Monkey D. Luffy, One Piece

Narumitsu -12 Phoenix Wright & Miles Edgeworth, Ace Attorney

Sonadow +23 Sonic & Shadow, Sonic the Hedgehog

Ineffable Bureaucracy Archangel Gabriel & Beelzebub, Good Omens

Spirk +9 Spock & James Kirk, Star Trek

Ballister x Ambrosius Ballister Boldheart & Ambrosius Goldenloin, Nimona

Nandermo -42 Nandor the Relentless & Guillermo de la Cruz, What We Do in the Shadows

Jonmartin -15 Jonathan Sims & Martin Blackwood, The Magnus Archives

Punkflower Hobie Brown & Miles Morales, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

AkiAngel Aki Hayakawa & the Angel Devil, Chainsaw Man

Ronance -49 Robin Buckley & Nancy Wheeler, Stranger Things

Superbat -11 Superman & Batman, the DC universe

Shuake Ren Amamiya/Joker & Goro Akechi, Persona 5

Geraskier -48 Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier, The Witcher

Hualian -18 Hua Cheng & Xie Lian, Tian Guan Ci Fu

Sulemio Suletta Mercury & Miorine Rembran, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Sterek -5 Stiles Stilinski & Derek Hale, Teen Wolf

Gumlee Prince Gumball & Marshall Lee, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake

Shadowpeach Sun Wukong & the Six-Eared Macaque, Lego Monkie Kid

Drarry -29 Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, the Harry Potter universe

Wilmon Prince Wilhelm & Simon Eriksson, Young Royals

Harringrove -34 Steve Harrington & Billy Hargrove, Stranger Things

Kazurei Suwa Rei & Kurusu Kazuki, Buddy Daddies

Lestappen Charles Leclerc & Max Verstappen, Formula 1 drivers

Zukka -5 Zuko & Sokka, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Codywan +8 Commander Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Solangelo -23 Will Solace & Nico di Angelo, the Percy Jackson universe

Catradora Catra & Adora, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Shadowgast -4 Caleb Widogast & Essek Thelyss, Critical Role

Stucky -43 Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes, the Marvel universe

Tarlos -18 TK Strand & Carlos Reyes, 9-1-1: Lone Star

Johnlock +21 John Watson & Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock

Sasunaru -24 Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Naruto

Locklyle Anthony Lockwood & Lucy Carlyle, Lockwood & Co.

Lokius Loki Laufeyson & Mobius M. Mobius, the Marvel universe

Supercorp -67 Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Supergirl

Piltover's Finest Caitlyn Kiramman & Vi, Arcane

Helnik Matthias Helvar & Nina Zenik, the Grishaverse

Prohibitedwish Scarab & Prismo, Adventure Time

Klance -12 Keith & Lance, Voltron: Legendary Defender

Reylo Rey & Kylo Ren, the Star Wars universe

Hanazawa Teruki & Kageyama Shigeo, Mob Psycho 100

Cockles -44 Misha Collins & Jensen Ackles, Actors

Percabeth -46 Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase, the Percy Jackson universe

Astarion x Tav Astarion & Tav, Baldur's Gate 3

Timkon Tim Drake & Conner Kent, Young Justice

Davekat Dave Strider & Karkat Vantas, Homestuck

Cynonari Cyno & Tighnari, Genshin Impact

Creek Craig Tucker & Tweek Tweak, South Park

Klapollo Apollo Justice & Klavier Gavin, Ace Attorney

Style Stan Marsh & Kyle Brovlofski, South Park

Korrasami -11 Korra & Asami Sato, The Legend of Korra

Bill x Frank Bill & Frank, The Last of Us

Nick x Charlie -51 Nick Nelson & Charlie Spring, Heartstopper

Dreamnotfound -50 Dreamwastaken & GeorgeNotFound, Streamers

Dinluke -33 Din Djarin & Luke Skywalker, the Star Wars universe

Rhaenicent Rhaenyra Targaryen & Alicent Hightower, House of the Dragon

The number in italics indicates how many spots a ship moved up or down from the previous year. Bolded ships weren’t on the list last year. Explore your desires on Feeld. Within a safer, inclusive space, you can feel free to connect more intimately to yourself and others. Choose from over 20 gender and sexuality options and explore solo, or with a partner. Curious? Download the app today.

[canmom]

what's the book for? part 1

[here's an intro where I talk about the three hour video essay that inspired me to do this]

This is a part of a series about TTRPGs! I'm looking at the relationship between the book and the thing you do, the play.

That forum, the 'Forge', was founded on the premise that, in Edwards's pithy slogan, 'System Does Matter' - which is to say Edwards believed that the formal and, perhaps especially, informal procedures you follow when you play a roleplaying game have a large effect on what kind of experiences you can have there. Kind of tautological, but I'll let him have that. It is true that there are many different activities that fall under the heading of 'tabletop roleplaying'.

Edwards and his pals wanted to have a more explicit and intentional 'creative agenda' when playing a game. In general this is something that the players were supposed to get on the same page about when they sit down to play a game. To the Forge mindset, the ideal is for everyone to be pushing harmoniously to the same thing; the root of 'dysfunction' in TTRPGs was seen as arising from an unacknowledged clash of these agendas.

The solution found by the Forge was to design new game systems which put their preferred agenda, 'narrativism', front and centre.

Many more words could be written about the Forge, a lot of them quite mean, but let's bring this back to game design. What is it good for?

Why do we buy all these books anyway?

What is 'an RPG'? On the shelf to my right are... hold on let me count... some 27 different D&D books, mostly from 3.5e. Also a couple other TTRPG books (including Apocalypse World). On my hard drive are... some 94+ other games accumulated from various Humble Bundles and similar. I have played only a small fraction, and honestly, read only a slightly larger fraction.

What is a 'game' in this context? Generally speaking there's a book, and maybe some other tools like character sheets, which theoretically provide what you need to get together with some friends and do an activity that it defines. Sort of like a recipe. But the book itself is not the game; the book anchors the game, which is something rather nebulous, into a thing that can be bought and sold. The game is an activity, which 'exists' when it gets played. However, consulting the book is (usually) part of the game!

I rather vaguely say 'what you need', because it's more than just 'rules'. Lancer, for example, is full of colourful, vivid pictures of giant robots; these pictures do a lot to get players' imaginations thinking about what sort of giant robot they might pilot - how cool it would look and what sort of sicknasty shit it would do. I doubt Lancer would be even a fraction as popular if it didn't have these artworks to get you on board with its fantasy. The pictures are a very load-bearing part of creating the 'game' here.

We could say the aim of the TTRPG book is to convince you that the game "exists" in a concrete enough way that you can actually play it. Much like the Golden Witch, BEATRICE. Then you can gather your friends and say, 'hey, do you want to play Sagas of the Icelanders', and they will say 'yeah, what's that?', and you'll show them the book and sit down and attempt to follow whatever idea the book has imparted of 'how to play Sagas of the Icelanders'.

So, the relationship between TTRPG book and play is rather nebulous. This is something of a problem if you are an aspiring auteur designer who would like to impart something specific to players. Who knows what they're going to do with that book?

let's talk D&D - on the 'proper' way of playing the game

D&D is the oldest roleplaying game, and still by far the biggest. Many TTRPG players will only ever play D&D. Many others will play games derived from some version of D&D, like all the different games belonging to the 'OSR'. It's a point of endless frustration for indie game players, who have to deal with being a satellite to this juggernaut, which they see as poorly designed. If only these players would recognise how could they could have it!

But the interesting thing about D&D - and TTRPGs in general, really - to me is that it's folklore. It's not a product you buy.

How do you learn to play D&D? You could go and buy the 'core set': the famous Player's Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide, a tripartite division that has existed since the days of AD&D. However, for all their glossy art and flavour text, these books still do a pretty dire job of actually getting you up to speed on how the game is played, especially for the Dungeon Master.

No, what you actually do is: you join an existing D&D group. Or, in the modern day, maybe you listen to an 'actual play' podcast such as Critical Role. This furnishes you with a direct example of what D&D players say and how that results in a story, far more vividly and concretely than you'd ever get from looking at a book.

Once you're convinced that you wanna join this weird little subculture, then perhaps you go and grab some books, run a published module, create a character, whatever. Maybe you go on D&D forums and read endless arguments about the best way to play the game, which all the while serve to define what that game actually is in your head.

A lot of critics of D&D complain that the rules of D&D as written do a pretty terrible job of facilitating many of the purposes that D&D is put towards. They tend to argue that there are games better suited to it, often from the story-games milieu. If people say 'sure, but we change the games in x, y and z way', this is seen as a bit of a joke - "well you're not really playing D&D at that point, are you?"

If you view 'D&D' as defined by what's printed in the books printed by Hasbro, sure. However, D&D is not really that. D&D is the label we apply to a huge nebulous body of lore, from the Dread Gazebo and Tucker's Kobolds to weirdly endearing monsters derived from knockoff tokusatsu figurines. It is all the ideas you've received about what it looks like to play D&D from listening to a podcast. It's arguing about what Chaotic Neutral means. It is 50 years of material - of frequently dubious quality, mind you! - that exploded out from that time some nerds in the States decided to explore a dungeon in their wargame.

If whoever had the rights to use the Dungeons & Dragons trademark never printed another book, that would not kill D&D. In fact, there's even a condescending nickname, courtesy of Edwards, for people who cook up their own slightly-different spin on D&D and try to sell it - the 'fantasy heartbreaker'. The concept of D&D has considerable inertia.

It's pretty, but is it D&D?

In this perspective, defining what D&D 'is' with a strict demarcation is kinda impossible. Gygax himself was very inconsistent on this front, favouring strict adherence to rules at times (declaring of houseruled games that 'such games are not D&D or AD&D games - they are something else'), and encouraging changing them at others - rather depending on whether he had the rights at the time, and his conflict with Dave Arneson.

"Since the game is the sole property of TSR and its designer, what is official and what is not has meaning if one plays the game. Serious players will only accept official material, for they play the game rather than playing at it, as do those who enjoy "house rules" poker, or who push pawns around the chess board. No power on earth can dictate that gamers not add spurious rules and material to either the D&D or AD&D game systems, but likewise no claim to playing either game can then be made. Such games are not D&D or AD&D games- they are something else, classifiable only under the generic "FRPG" catch all"

In this he sounds rather a lot like Ron Edwards declaring that only his perfect design is the true and correct version of Sorcerer! And to both these fellows, we should say, who gives a shit.

So at this point, beyond the (so far) 11 'official' versions of the books published by TSR and later Hasbro, there are hundreds of offshoots that bear a heavy amount of D&D in their lineage and function almost identically even if they don't bear the trademark... and an uncountable number of small variants, whether explicitly houseruled or just different habits forming from 'who speaks when' or 'what rules we ignore' to the focus of the game.

So. Imagine a person who was inspired by the D&D milieu, gradually figured out their own taste of what they like to see in a TTRPG over many games of 'D&D', and is now having a good time playing a game of 'D&D' about tense feudal politicking, even though they almost never look at a D&D sourcebook and frequently defy the rules printed in there. Is this person 'playing D&D'?

How about someone playing an OSR game derived from early D&D, that can't legally use the D&D trademark, but still uses THAC0 and maybe the occasional Mind Flayer(R)?

Now let's try someone who read Apocalypse World sometime and got inspired to try DMing in its style - asking players leading questions, acting to separate them, applying a cost to a desired thing or rearranging things behind the scenes when a roll goes bad... but they still consider what they're doing to be D&D, and they're strictly speaking playing by the book? After all, D&D doesn't say a thing about whether you should do that stuff or not.

Bit of a tough question imo! Maybe we should call Wittgenstein.

the scope of the book

There are so many different kinds of TTRPG book.

Some are very specific - a game like Lady Blackbird, The King is Dead or Hot Guys Making Out overlaps heavily with something like an adventure, giving you just one very tightly defined scenario and mechanics that only make sense in that context. This isn't a new thing, either - a game like Paranoia (1984-) is designed with a specific game structure in mind, where the characters each have a variety of explicit and secret objectives that are all at odds with each other.

D&D was originally a game like this, though it didn't last long. The earliest editions of the rules instruct the referee to draw out 'at least half a dozen maps of his "underworld"' filled with monsters and treasure, representing a "huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses". As far as I understand the history of the hobby, though, people almost immediately started getting into character and using the game for other things than exploring a dungeon.

Other game-products leave larger gaps to be filled in by the player...

a game like Shadowrun or Eclipse Phase, or D&D settings like Dark Sun or Eberron, will give you huge amounts of information about its setting, but leave 'what you do it in' to the GM's discretion.

a game like D&D gives you various setting elements, and there are many adventures and modules you can elect to 'run', but it is the GM's task to pick and choose some subset of those pieces and build them into a custom setting for that game.

a game like Apocalypse World gives you quite explicit instructions for how to set up a first session, and works very hard to set a vibe with the many examples and general style of its rules, but it tells you next to nothing about a predefined setting.

a game like Fiasco or Microscope offers only a loose structure, that your job is to fill with content over the course of the game.

All of these games market themselves with the same type of promise: with our book, you will be able to have this kind of experience. Like all marketing, they will tend to overpromise! But the marketing is, vexingly, itself part of what makes 'the game' happen.

In the video, Vi Huntsman roughly argues that this marketing is the core of what Root: The RPG is actually doing, trying to sell you on Forge ideology rather than provide anything helpful for running a tabletop game; and that the way it attempts to provide this experience is through crude 'buttons' which are inherently limiting, belonging more to the mechanistic worlds of computer games or board games than TTRPGs.

I kind of agree, but the problem is that... to some extent every game does this exact kind of marketing. For example, here's the Bubblegum Crisis RPG (yes, there was a Bubblegum Crisis RPG, published by Mike Pondsmith's company R Talsorian Games in 1996) which announces:

Those words are lyrics from several songs from the Bubblegum Crisis soundtracks, and they encapsulate the kind of action and drama you'll find in the Bubblegum Crisis Boleplaying Game. With this book, you'll enter the world of MegaTokyo and the oppressive megacorporation Genom—a world where monstrous Boomers, desperate AD Police and the mysterious Knight Sabers battle for the future of civilization.

This copy serves as a promise of what the game will bring, but also a prompt that tells you what kind of game you should use its tools to make. It's attached to exactly the sort of licensed game that Vi Huntsman criticises, applying an existing framework to a licensed RP as if to imply you need this book in order to tell a Bubblegum Crisis-inspired story.

Why? Huntsman called it 'reproducibility'. If every game that ever runs is a uniquely circumstantial snowflake, there is nothing to sell. But if you can offer someone the tools that they surely need to do that thing they heard about...

The problem is that what makes an RPG memorable is something that arises when you get a group of friends (or strangers!) to sit down together and make up a story, and that kind of definitionally can't be reduced to instructions in a book - it's too personal, too specific to the people involved. But we live in the era of capitalism, so... RPG companies and independent designers alike need to have a product to sell to this 'RPG player' subculture-identity.

The drive to somehow make reproducible experiences dates back all the way to the very first time people heard about that crazy game that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were doing at their wargames club and Gygax and Arneson decided to print a book to help people do that at home.

And with many RPGs on the market, they need further to differentiate themselves: to tell you that they're offering something you can't get elsewhere.

So what is that something? In the next post I'll get into that!

[pochapal]

Umineko Liveblog: Thoughts/Theories [Episode 1 Chapter 13 Edition]

In Umineko chapter 13, it happened again. Barely three chapters after the previous slaughter, the second twilight unfolds. The two who are close were torn apart, in a gruesome and inevitable moment that shocked everybody and nobody. It is a compact chapter that almost entirely hinges around Eva and Hideyoshi’s demise.

However, that’s not all that’s going on here. Beyond the shock and the horrors, some of the more salient elements of the story are slowly simmering to the surface. Eva and Hideyoshi’s involvement in the first twilight, the nature of the witch narrative, Genji’s role in these grim events, and Kinzo’s potential bizarre and horrifying motive.

And also try to figure out just what went down in that locked room.

Our first stop on the chapter 13 writeup brings us to the titular two who are close. I’m not yet talking about their corpses or the seemingly impossible closed room they were killed in just yet. First, I want to think about the very loaded conversation between Eva and Hideyoshi in the opening half of the chapter.

At first glance, it feels like nothing more than an endless parade of death flags. They comment on how proud they are of George, they affirm their love for one another, and then they talk about their plans to travel somewhere beautiful once this is all over. There was never any subtlety about what was going to happen to these two in this chapter. The surface level reading is incredibly apparent.

What’s less apparent is what else can be gleaned from this conversation. Yes, Eva and Hideyoshi are having their “when we leave this place” doomed by the narrative conversation, but there is one specific death flag that doesn’t get tripped. Not once do either of them talk about the murders, or Beatrice, or any fear they may have for their own safety.

Eva and Hideyoshi not necessarily caring about their murdered siblings doesn’t come as a surprise. What does come as a surprise is that Eva, who spent the last two chapters mercilessly interrogating the mystery of Kinzo’s disappearance, has very little to say on the matter of these bizarre murders. They briefly comment on how Natsuhi is letting the power go to her head now that Krauss is dead and that it’s a relief that Shannon was killed so George now cannot marry her. That is the extent of it.

It is almost out of character how far removed from the situation Eva and Hideyoshi appear to be in this conversation. After all, the killer is still at large and there are still twelve hours until the boat gets there. So why are they so completely unbothered? It’s almost as if to them, this murder business does not concern them.

And why would that be? Why would Eva and Hideyoshi be acting without fear despite having no outward reason to do so?

If they are unafraid, that indicates that they believe, for whatever reason, that Beatrice and the killings pose no threat to them. This is something that was evident even in the previous chapter when the two of them broke off from the group despite the clear risks associated with that. It’s also reinforced by the fact that they make plans to escape to the Maldives in a few weeks’ time – there is not a shred of doubt that they will be leaving the island alive. Everybody else on Rokkenjima is panicked and terrified, but not Eva and Hideyoshi. In short, in private, they are acting as if there is no threat to their lives at all.

This is of course a wildly bizarre stance to take given the situation they find themselves in. What’s important here is trying to find a reason as to why these two would act like this and say the things they do. What they talk about is reaffirming their future and going away on a luxury trip. No mention of the murders, the epitaph, the gold, or the inheritance.

Almost as if these problems are no longer a concern for Eva and Hideyoshi, despite half their family being killed and them still in the red financially. Those things might as well not exist behind closed doors. Why is that?

I think figuring out a compelling reason for this relies on a prior assumption almost certainly being true: Eva and Hideyoshi were involved in the first twilight. More specifically, they were helped along in whatever they did by the originator of the Beatrice narrative enough that their culpability has been taken care of for them. If “Beatrice” is making their problems disappear with “magic”, then of course it would be no issue for the two of them to play along with the witch narrative as long as it continues to benefit them. Hideyoshi leaning in on the “demonic” nature of the magic circles despite his prior skepticism towards Beatrice makes complete sense under this light.

This would also be why Hideyoshi chastises Eva for her receipt ploy with Natsuhi. The witch narrative works on ambiguity and uncertainty, of not looking too deeply or closely at the mysteries. If the Kinzo death embezzlement theory is true, then the coverup is operating on the same logic as the narrative that is protecting Eva and Hideyoshi. If Kinzo’s death is unmasked by the family, then so too can Beatrice be unmasked. And if Beatrice is unmasked, then Eva and Hideyoshi’s role is exposed.

Further, this can also be used to explain away their Maldives plans. We are presented with a very Romantic vision of Eva and Hideyoshi making peace with their lot in life and renewing their love for each other in the wake of tragedy, the facts of which can only be contradicted via attacks on their character and not via logic. However, if we use the Detective’s approach and separate the actions from the emotions, what are we left with?

Eva and Hideyoshi, who are no longer concerned about the inheritance and Kinzo’s fortune, are making plans to be out of the country in a remote location about twelve weeks from the present moment. This would leave them totally unreachable and untouchable at what would likely be the height of the police investigation into the Rokkenjima murders. They would be in a foreign nation under foreign jurisdiction right around when they would be scrutinised either as witnesses or suspects. They will be out of the country, and thus uninvolved with the immediate management of the Rokkenjima estate in the absence of pretty much every other viable next-of-kin.

Why would they be out of the country at such a crucial time, and why would they not be concerned with taking control of the family’s affairs? I think two points can be extrapolated here.

The first is that they need to be out of the picture so as not to be a suspect. On its own this would not make sense because them being unreachable would only serve to make them more suspicious, so it stands that there is some kind of contingency they feel is protecting them. The second is that they don’t challenge the succession/inheritance because they either already have everything they need, or they know that it is a matter of time before they get it anyway. Eva is ambitious and desperate for the top slice of the Ushiromiya pie. She would not back off without a guarantee.

What this tells us, I think, is that there is an individual who exists to take the heat off Eva and Hideyoshi in some way. Some person who would be infinitely more suspicious than even the only surviving beneficiaries who have fled the country. Some person who, in some way, will guarantee that Eva and Hideyoshi will still have access to the Ushiromiya fortune when all is said and done.

A perfect candidate for this sort of person would be a hypothetical individual who has already seized ownership of the headship and the fortune who otherwise should not have it, and who will very quickly get caught out by the police for having wealth and power above their status. Someone who is, say, a servant who solved the epitaph and gained control of Rokkenjima and its gold. A servant who will most likely be swiftly arrested, not believed, and their stolen wealth immediately returned to the highest-ranked Ushiromiya still alive. This is everything Eva wanted and more, and all she has to do is sit quietly and let events fall as they will. Like Kinzo before her, she will be bestowed untold riches through Beatrice’s magic, so long as she keeps her mouth shut.

Ultimately, when Eva tells Battler to think more deeply on what she said before leaving the parlor, she is obviously imploring him to consider Natsuhi as a duplicitous hypocrite. However, if your thinking extends beyond the “who” and into the “how” and “why”, then Eva’s trick with the receipt provides a solid blueprint for breaking down the witch narrative. This is, of course, almost certainly not something the person behind Beatrice expected to happen when they stepped in to clean up Eva and Hideyoshi’s mess. If the witch narrative is destroyed too early, then not only does whatever Beatrice’s plan is get thoroughly ruined, but also Eva and Hideyoshi get suspected as culprits and lose everything.

Each one has the power to destroy the other. However, while Eva and Hideyoshi cannot survive without the witch narrative, the witch narrative can certainly survive without Eva and Hideyoshi. So Beatrice cuts her losses and disposes of the two of them before they can become a liability in order to keep the narrative going.

And of course, the witch narrative itself plays a central role in this chapter as an unseen yet glaringly visible force. We’ve already gone over how and why Eva and Hideyoshi would play into the witch narrative, so now let’s examine the broader narrative that exists beyond the two of them.

Until now, it was fairly easy to read the witch narrative as a mere metaphor coverup for the killing of the Ushiromiya siblings. It cloaks the murders in obscurity and makes it hard to understand anything other than the hard fact of death. The first twilight is a masterclass in a mystery that gives nothing away easily. Not so much with the second twilight.

A lot of this comes from the fact that the interim chapters between the two twilights have been peppered with glimpses into how this narrative is being constructed, and who is telling this story. The scenes between the servants talking about Beatrice reveal that whatever is going on is much more than a little bit of occult obfuscation. Beatrice is made into a consistent character with concrete personality traits that are completely superfluous to the “a witch is murdering everybody” scenario. Why does it matter that Beatrice is respectful to those who respect her in kind? Why would Beatrice have a propensity for pranking? Why does the story of Beatrice, in Battler’s words, have to bring everyone on Rokkenjima into another world?

This still mostly touches on elements of the witch narrative that are hard to figure out at this point, related to things like the paradox of an unsolvable mystery begging to be solved. I don’t think this chapter does much to advance my understanding of these issues. Instead, I want to examine the way the witch narrative is working around the second twilight, and what these features can tell us.

The first thing I noticed on this front is a soft culmination of the recurring image of the TV. Since the first twilight, there has been a narrative emphasis on Maria being totally absorbed in watching TV, except for the moments where the narrative flares up and she gets the chance to be witch-Maria. The TV here is used as a symbol for the unreality of the situation – the programs Maria watches are fictional, a fantasy to keep her absorbed in. The witch narrative is similarly an all-absorbing fantasy, and during the scenes in the parlor when everybody is discussing Beatrice and the occult, Maria is able to turn her attention away from the TV. When they are not talking about the witch narrative, Maria returns to the TV.

If you view Maria as totally fantasy-absorbed within the story, then the only times she stops watching TV are when the fantasy has spilled out into the material world. The TV, then, is a stand-in for the witch narrative – only those invested in perpetuating the witch narrative watch TV. The TV itself is also a signifier of the fiction contained within the screen leaking out into wider reality.

This is all important because in chapter 13, the TV features heavily in the guest bedroom. Alone in the room, Eva and Hideyoshi turn the TV on, and it becomes the only audible sound aside from the rain. While discovering the murder, Kanon remarks on how the light and noise from the TV grow stronger and stronger until they are the only thing he can focus on. The TV strengthens throughout the chapter, right up until the moment where Eva and Hideyoshi’s bodies are found.

If TV = witch narrative, then chapter 13 is a steady progression of the witch narrative increasing in strength. Despite the seemingly disconnected shock of the murders, there is still that Beatrice-shaped throughline linking it to the first twilight. Whatever happened to Eva and Hideyoshi is part of the same continuity of killings that was responsible for the deaths of the other siblings. This is perhaps the most important takeaway from this observation: we must consider the two sets of murders as a continuous series of events. Whatever caused the first twilight is still happening.

More than that, it also means that so much of this scene is shrouded in that misleading obfuscation inherent to the witch narrative. It’s hard to know for sure what’s going on since the important parts of this chapter were entirely relayed through a third person outside perspective and not through Battler’s eyes, so if there are discrepancies in presentation they are not yet known. All we have to work with is the singular, third person series of events. If there are incongruities to be found, it is too soon to speculate on them. The only thing that is certain is that if the witch narrative is in play as strongly as the story would suggest, then it must not be taken for granted that everything here is as it seems.

The other witch narrative element in this chapter comes in the form of more occult symbols, of which we get two: bizarrely-decorated icepick-esque murder weapons, and a freakishly elaborate magic circle.

The icepicks, or whatever they are, are a little easier to puzzle out. The characters remark on how bizarre and out of place they seem to be, not knowing how or why they got here and were used in the murders. Regardless of how truthful you may assume these observations to be, I think it’s fairly easy to say that the weird ornate weapons came from Kinzo’s collection, same as the gun. If so, then these picks may have either been obtained the previous night when Kinzo’s study was entered to prepare for the first twilight, or at some undisclosed point beforehand depending on how much in advance these murders were set up.

What the picks actually are is a little less straightforward. If you’re going by the rules of occult symbols and weapons, the first thing that naturally comes to mind when thinking of “conical object with a fancy handle” is some kind of stake – I’m thinking more along the lines of blood sacrifice than demon slaying here. It was described as being like an icepick but not an icepick, and similar to a spear but too short to be called a spear, so I think some kind of modified sacrificial stake is the best fit. I said a second ago that I think the intended evocation is of ritual sacrifice rather than the killing of something demonic, but in the prior scene Eva describes her own toxic ambitions as a “devil” in her head. Killing the “devil” inside Eva by running a stake through her has a nice ironic thematic resonance to it that I think further justifies considering this object as some kind of stake.

The other issue, however, is that stakes are almost only useful for piercing soft flesh – the traditional image is of a stake through the heart, and not through the forehead. It is far easier to pierce the chest than it is the skull, so if this is some kind of stake (not that the exact nature of the weapon matters that much), how did it do that?

I think that, both like and unlike the first twilight, it’s worth considering a more mundane tool here. In order to get something thin and piercing through a hard to penetrate surface, you need to apply a lot of force. The gun could not be used since that is still in Natsuhi’s possession, so some kind of shenanigans there is automatically out of the question. Given that, what’s left to us?

What’s worth noting is that we never get a good look at the weapons, beyond seeing their handles and that they are roughly conical in shape. How they are embedded in Eva and Hideyoshi remains unknown. My thinking is, given the size and shape and purpose of these wounds, that a drill was likely used to create the effect seen. A drill could, with enough pressure, pierce into someone’s skull. It would then either be a case of having the weapon attached to some kind of screw as it is drilled into them, or sticking the weapon into the hole after the fact. The drill could be easily sourced from the same tool storage room Kanon acquired the bolt cutters from, and easily returned without suspicion.

One question that arises from this is that it is once again very unlikely that Eva and Hideyoshi died by having their foreheads drilled through. Given the list of suspects and the logistics of the killing, it is most likely that the mutilation happened posthumously like with the first twilight. Which means, again, that Eva and Hideyoshi were actually killed in some other way that left no other visible signs. And once again, I have reason to believe that may be poison.

Before I consider who could have administered some kind of poison to the two of them, let’s also think about the magic circle for a second. According to the narration, Kanon first notices the magic circle when returning to the bedroom with the bolt cutters – a more elaborate magic circle than the first has appeared on the door. Kanon and Kumasawa both react in shock upon seeing it – Kumasawa because it is so ghastly, Kanon because it was not there less than five minutes ago.

On the face of it, this is another impossible-seeming occurrence, even more so than any other occult symbol seen so far. That said, if you keep in mind the overwhelming swell of the witch narrative and the reliability of our narrators, then it becomes less impossible to consider. Going back to the Detective/Romantic narrative viewpoint, we need to remember that these third person scenes are more about being faithful to the emotional truth than the literal truth – the why is accurate, but the how and what may not be.

For the magic circle, what we get is the emergence of this symbol accompanied by Kanon’s shock, fear, and helplessness. Kanon is not in a good place when he looks upon the magic circle – his distress culminates in the appearance of this symbol. This does not necessarily mean the magic circle literally materialised in a handful of minutes, but it does mean that the magic circle’s emotional relevance only became clear upon Kanon’s second known trip to the bedroom.

Now that Kanon has the means of entering the locked bedroom, the witch narrative bleeds out into something concrete and grim. When the bedroom was still a sealed space, there was no occult iconography. The appearance of the circle, narrative-wise, marks a point of no return. As readers, we know what this means: the epitaph murders have continued, and Eva and Hideyoshi are absolutely super dead. There is no avoiding or delaying that inevitability. Likewise, Kanon having the bolt cutters means that he, too, can no longer ignore the writing on the wall.

The bolt cutters break through the material lock on the room. The magic circle breaks through the immaterial lock of obfuscation. We know exactly what is in there, and how to get there. There is no use in pretending. Truth, or some form of it at least, rules the moment. Beatrice shows her hand when she knows we can no longer deny her presence.

So we see the magic circle and understand. So Kanon has the bolt cutters and can step into the room. If the witch narrative is about one thing, it’s the conferring of understanding onto observational parties. Despite the obscurity and mystery surrounding everything, the signs and symbols are remarkably devoid of ambiguity. Magic circles indicate that a completed murder lies behind the door. The imagery of the first twilight goes from a spectacle to a pattern.

Of course, this still means that this is the witch narrative, and this still means that the information we are receiving Is obfuscated. Under the witch narrative, the magic circle inexplicably manifested within a few short minutes as a signpost by the Golden Witch. If you take away the witch narrative and apply more of a Detective’s logic, you then also have to come up with an alternative explanation that conforms to human rules and human logic.

If there is no witch and no magic operating on the physical level, that means that the magic circle was materially constructed by a material entity. With the previous circle on the storehouse door, I reasoned that the six hour timeframe is more than enough for the culprit to draw it. With the second twilight. However, that timeframe has rapidly shrunken. The one that the story offers us, of less than five minutes, is plainly not feasible. Therefore, like other mysteries in this story, we’ll have to extend that window as much as possible.

We know from the chapter breaks that chapter 13 starts at 19:00. We also know that Eva and Hideyoshi are alive at this time. During the discovery of the bodies, Nanjo remarks that they have been dead for roughly an hour. This chapter doesn’t end with a clock transition, but from this we can roughly surmise that the family finds the corpses at 20:00, thereabouts. An hour is still a tight timeframe to produce a magic circle that complex, but infinitely more feasible than five minutes.

Another detail we’re given about the circle is that the paint still appears to “drip”, so assuming that to be true, an hour would still be enough time for the pain to be fresh enough to still run. Really, depending on the type of paint used, this “wet” period could last as long as two to three hours. This was obviously less of a problem for the first twilight, given that the paint was exposed to the rain the whole time and would therefore have difficulty drying. With the second twilight, this is on a door in a sheltered, likely heated, hallway. Even with upper estimates, the amount of time the paint can be visibly wet for is limited.

So what is the earliest that this could have been done? The first major hurdle that needs to be eliminated is Eva and Hideyoshi. If the circle was on the door before they entered the room, the initial assumption is that they would have reacted to this in some way. This, of course, is also predicated on Eva and Hideyoshi having minimal involvement in the witch narrative.

However, the past couple of chapters have proven that Eva and Hideyoshi are, if not producing, at the very least perpetuating the narrative. Like I thought about before, it’s likely that they’re choosing to play along as insurance to protect themselves against being caught out with their involvement in the murders of the first twilight. There’s also the sealed letter found under their door that we never get to see – perhaps these are/were some kind of written instructions on how they were to act for the rest of the weekend? An updated primer on the witch narrative to keep their story straight as the story evolves? Either way, given that, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine that they’d ignore the existence of the magic circle under instruction. After all, whatever keeps the suspicion off them works.

Where we do run into an issue is that prior to this, Natsuhi and the servants performed a full sweep of the mansion in search of Kinzo. Unlike Eva and Hideyoshi, Natsuhi is not embroiled in the witch narrative in the same way, and absolutely would have said and done something had she encountered a magic circle while searching the mansion. This means that either Natsuhi never went near the guest rooms (unlikely) or that the magic circle was painted after her search was complete and she returned to the parlor with the gun (much more likely).

If that’s the case, then that pushes the window of opportunity back by an additional hour or so. This also, ultimately, leaves us with a very small pool of suspects. In an anticlimactic fashion, these are basically the same people who were the only ones in a position to draw the magic circle on the storehouse door: Genji and Kanon.

The servants excuse themselves from the parlor early on even in spite of Natsuhi’s attempt to keep everyone in one place. Ostensibly they are in the kitchen to prepare dinner for the family. Kumasawa is shown to be the one most involved in the cooking process, only calling upon Kanon to help her plate up and serve. This gives Kanon and Genji a lot of leeway to move about the mansion and prepare things for the second twilight.

This also, by extension, puts Nanjo in a less favourable light. He spends time in the kitchen playing chess with Genji during the timeframe when he and Kanon would be coming and going. So either Nanjo was completely oblivious to this happening, or he is complicit on some level in what is going on. As always, the dilemma of Nanjo remains ever present and ever unsolvable. His positioning here only adds to the question, and helps very little in pinning anything down. Nanjo is there. This kind of makes him suspicious. It also kind of might not.

More relevantly. I want to instead examine my new prime suspect of the day. Up until now, my prevailing theory has been that Kanon has been the one behind the witch narrative, with Genji as an accomplice. This was mostly based off considering who could have been responsible for giving the first letter to Maria, and who would have the strongest motive to tear down the Ushiromiya family. However, after this chapter (and percolating on things from the last few) I am reporting that my stance has totally shifted. Genji is the orchestrator, and Kanon is the accomplice. I got it backwards.

Too much falls into place too perfectly if you consider Genji to be the “mastermind” of the operation. The bizarre coincidences with everything on Rokkenjima either being out of service or out for repairs specifically over the weekend of the conference makes a hell of a lot more sense if you consider it to be Genji’s doing. The only people who could have done this are those with any degree of authority with household management, which shrinks the circle to Kinzo, Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji.

Natsuhi has already been eliminated from the suspect pool a million times over, so I won’t spend time repeating myself. Kinzo is too far removed from reality to care much about the specifics of sealing Rokkenjima off from the outside world (although I do have more to say on Kinzo shortly) and also he may or may not actually be alive as of this October weekend anyway. Krauss is a possibility, but him being killed during the first twilight the way he was seems to indicate that he is not involved in any higher-level machinations. Genji, however? Genji is very much perfectly placed to do this. As the defacto senior member of the household staff and as the one person on Rokkenjima who actually has Kinzo’s favour, Genji has a lot more options open to him than the self-professed humble “furniture” would have us believe.

Of all the servants, Genji is the one who can most easily move about unchallenged. Natsuhi and Krauss distrust him too much, and fear Kinzo too much, to make any serious attempts at obstructing him. Kinzo does not care enough to take that much of an interest in anything Genji does. The other servants are either beneath him or unaffiliated with him (as is the case with Gohda). Genji just is, able to go about his business while assumed to be untouchable.

Even if you were to suspect Genji of ill intent, he very effectively wields his position as a servant to deflect. Genji is one of three servants on Rokkenjima to bear the label of “furniture” – a term that is associated with being in Kinzo’s inner circle, and with being a victim of Kinzo’s abuse. For Shannon and Kanon, to be furniture is to be less than human, it is to be the servant before the person. It is to be so folded into your position of servitude that nothing else can be permitted to exist, save for your function of being at the mercy of your superiors. They are powerless teenagers trapped in a cruel situation. For Genji, though, this narrative does not quite click.

Yes, he is bound to serve Kinzo regardless of his personal will. Yes, he has almost totally given himself over to his role as a servant. Yes, he is seemingly “stuck” on Rokkenjima. But it’s not the same as Kanon and Shannon. Genji was not plucked from birth and forced into this position. He was, by all accounts, a good friend of Kinzo’s in their youth who chose to become his personal servant at some undefined point decades in the past. Genji entered into this arrangement willingly, even if the present circumstances do not necessarily match the starting conditions.

But Genji still calls himself “furniture”. He is deliberately positioning himself as part of the same class of individual as Shannon and Kanon, despite ostensibly having more in common with someone like Kumasawa. She is another elderly servant with enough leeway to get up to antics, but she does not refer to herself, or anyone, as furniture. She lacks Kinzo’s favour, but in all other measures she is equivalent to Genji. Furniture as a term used to browbeat junior servants into complacency checks out, but furniture being used to describe a man who willingly entered into the service of his once good friend does not track in quite the same way.

In an earlier chapter, Genji pulls Kanon to one side and discusses with him how they are in service of both of Rokkenjima’s masters – Kinzo and Beatrice. There is a sense that this private conversation carries with it a degree of sincerity. Genji is autonomous compared to the other servants, and yet he is still bound. This is a glaring contradiction in Genji’s psychology that continues to undermine the notion that the Beatrice narrative is all a farce put on by a cynical and crafty servant. There is a sincere notion of a belief in something underpinning the goings-on here, something that drives Genji to step further into whatever unpleasant role he is assuming.

Genji is furniture in service of his master. This statement alone reveals much of the truth we need to understand what is happening here, or at the very least cobble together a compelling theory.

What we know of Genji is that whatever he and Kinzo have goes far back into the past. There is, or was at one point, a genuine affection between the two men. The scene between the two in the study is proof of this, no matter if you subscribe to the notion of Kinzo being alive or the notion of Kinzo being dead. If Kinzo is alive, then the affection is straightforward and reciprocal if erratic. If Kinzo is dead, then Genji is evoking a mirror to feelings that are deeply true in his own heart if nowhere else. And ultimately, what Genji feels matters more than what Kinzo feels, especially for this theory.

The theory is as follows: Genji is the orchestrator of the witch narrative, and Kanon is his coerced subordinate. Where this differs from my earlier Kanon theory is that rather than try to shoehorn a reason into why Genji would so intimately know all this occult stuff in order to deploy it for the murders, I instead think that while Genji is executing this scheme, he is not the mastermind.

The mastermind of the witch narrative, and the originator of “Beatrice”, is actually Kinzo. Or, to be more technical, the ghost of Kinzo.

In order to explain this, we need to go back to the very start of the story, to the prologue scene between Kinzo, Nanjo, and Genji where all three men discuss the issue of Kinzo’s last will and his declining health. This scene has always been a little structurally weird, owing to the fact that it never really connects neatly to anything else in the story. We have no way of knowing when or why this scene happens. All we know is what, and the “what” of the scene is that Nanjo declares that Kinzo has not got long left, and that he should really get to making a will before it is too late. And Kinzo, in response, says that all he cares about is Beatrice, and he would happily throw all his family and all his possessions in the fire for one last glimpse of the Golden Witch.

One implication of this scene is that Nanjo was subtly pushing Kinzo to seek absolution for some undisclosed sin that hangs in the air. I do not think this is what happened – In Kinzo’s own words, he has no regrets. Instead, I think the shift in conversation conveys a literal truth in reasoning. Kinzo’s final choice is to offer it all up to the Demon’s Roulette for the witch. It is not that Kinzo refuses to make a will, but that he does choose to produce one, albeit on his own spiteful, warped terms.

For this to work, I firmly believe that, regardless of everything else going on, Kinzo was definitely alive in this prologue scene. This may have taken place days, weeks, even months before the 1986 family conference, and while that could be pinned down by examining certain actions taken on Rokkenjima and Krauss’s embezzlement efforts, the exact timing does not matter at this exact moment. What matters is that Kinzo formulates some kind of rotten plan before he dies.

What we know here is that Kinzo longs to see Beatrice again, and that according to Maria and the epitaph, Beatrice is in/from the Golden Land. From the few bits of information we have, we know that Beatrice is an unreal ghost-like entity, and that the Golden Land seems to be some kind of afterlife/world Beyond. Or at least the supernatural definition of Golden Land – I also believe that the gold vault is another kind of Golden Land. Glory in life, glory in death and all that.

From this, we can extrapolate that “reunion with Beatrice” is fuelled by some kind of death drive. To meet the Golden Witch in the Golden Land is to cross the threshold of death. The material world must be departed from in all its forms, otherwise there is no point. And more than this, any deaths offered during the twilights are consigned to be little more than sacrifices for Beatrice’s power.

This poses a conundrum for Kinzo. If he dies as a sacrifice, then he is very unlikely to be graced with Beatrice’s smile. If he survives the whole ordeal, there is every chance he just does not see Beatrice at all. For him to get what he wants based on what we know of how this system operates, he either needs to die before the epitaph murders, or after. We know that Beatrice is a ghost. It stands to reason that “Beatrice” would also be a ghost. In other words, I think Kinzo died at some point between the prologue scene and the family setting foot on Rokkenjima. Or at the very least, gave the total impression of death to everyone that matters. Whatever it took to put him in a position where his last will could be carried out.

A spiteful last will, designed to ruin the family that Kinzo so loathes, and to bring him closer than ever to his deranged fantasies. A scheme twofold in its purposes, one final echo of the Ushiromiya patriarch’s abuse, inflicted from a place that totally shields him against any kind of retaliation. The abusive father “exists” in the shadows, forcing everyone on the island into the role of frightened and helpless children, where adulthood and money offer no defence against the horror. The wry and scheming Eva is, in the end, as powerless as Maria in the rose garden. The witch narrative becomes a grand and cruel equaliser only interested in pain.

And, of course, for Kinzo to be the phantom behind the stage, this means that there must be somebody carrying out this violence in the material world. We are given exactly two people who would be privy to this plan of Kinzo’s, if it exists: Nanjo and Genji. Nanjo may know, but Nanjo lacks the power and influence to do much more than potentially splutter out some regurgitated nonsense about the witch narrative and maybe a lie a little about the state of crime scenes. Genji, however, has intimate knowledge of Rokkenjima and of Kinzo, and command of the household staff, including whatever control and leverage is used to keep the other “furniture” in line. One final request to an old friend, one last blood-washed sin to see it off.

The big question, of course, is why on earth Genji would do something like this. We know that there is some kind of unfathomably deep devotion towards Kinzo in spite of everything the man is. We know that, in Genji’s heart at least, there is a fondness that is one of the major components keeping him going. I don’t think it’s as literal as I’m positing, but I do think there is a sentiment towards Kinzo that Genji harbours which goes beyond servitude and friendship and into something resembling love. Be it romantic love, or some other kind of bond formed by history, companionship and proximity, I am not sure. But Genji feels strongly enough about Kinzo that he is willing to bloody his hands in this dirty business simply to fulfil his dear friend’s final wish. The nature of this bond is less important than the fact of its existence.

Genji is acting as Kinzo’s “furniture”, as a manipulated piece on a board that further manipulates pieces beneath him to adhere to the plan. Kanon, then, is trapped under a new layer of torment and abuse as Genji’s fanaticism takes centre stage. He loses his sister and dirties his hands for the sake of a dead man. He has no other option except to acquiesce, because unlike Genji Kanon does not have the luxury of saying “no”. He has nothing of his own, nowhere to go, nobody in his corner. Kanon is little more than a tool, the ultimate embodiment of the “furniture” concept. Kinzo is gone, but the power and abuse dynamics remain as alive as ever.

This is the stage of the epitaph murders. Genji, acting out a rehearsed script bestowed onto him by the evil master he will follow into the depths of hell. Kanon, forced to play deuteragonist no matter what he would rather want for himself. The other servants, the supporting cast of varying relevance. Everyone forced into carrying out Kinzo’s final wish to see his family destroyed in the name of his fleeting, warped dreams.

Keeping that in mind, let’s now try to sketch out what I think happened during the second twilight.

We already know that Eva and Hideyoshi are involved in the first twilight, be it as culprits or accomplices. As the only surviving siblings of that eventful night, they are absolutely painted in suspicion that has taken the witch narrative firing on all cylinders just to keep at bay. And even then, it was only a matter of time before Eva’s ego and the family’s reasoning would lead them to the conclusion that the two of them had some degree of involvement in the deaths of the six. And from there, that would of course lead to the witch narrative potentially being uncovered and the entire scheme falling apart. The two of them are liabilities if “Beatrice” is to have any longevity.

I do not think Eva and Hideyoshi at any point thought they were in danger. They were so secure in their innocence and survival that, after separating from the rest of the family, were willing to make plans about what would happen after the conference. Disappearing into the Maldives for a few weeks at the height of the criminal investigation into the murders indicates that at the very least, the two expect to have the means to do this. After this weekend, they will no longer be in need of a lot of money right now. All they need to do is keep up the pantomime for a few hours longer.

Even if Eva and Hideyoshi weren’t always intended to die, their performance that morning solidified that keeping them around would jeapordise the witch narrative immensely. So either Genji/Kinzo intended to betray them from the start, or this decision came about after witnessing them flail to keep their cover in the parlour. Whatever the case, their decision to break off from the group and retire to the guestroom was actually them stepping into a trap.

Depending on the timeframe of the magic circle, there can be a case made that at some point during the afternoon Genji and/or Kanon painted the door, and Eva and Hideyoshi were told to head to this room at a certain time. Perhaps they were told that staying in a room with a magic circle would make them look like survivors of an attempt on their life in a scenario akin to the stains on Natsuhi’s door, and take the heat off them in the same way as it did Natsuhi. Perhaps they didn’t think to ask questions, so long as they were confident in both their survival and their financial gain. Either that, or the magic circle was painted after they had already entered the room. Both cases are viable, and neither one detracts too much from the overall shape of events.

While Eva and Hideyoshi are in the room talking and doing all the other stuff they were doing, Genji and Kanon are almost certainly preparing the murder. This would involve taking the picks from Kinzo’s collection and painting the magic circle, depending again on the timeframe we’re working with. Either way, that first hour is spent closing the trap in.

At some point in a nebulous timejump, either Genji or Kanon enters the guestroom. Most likely this is done using the pretence of the second letter, which they may have believed contained further instructions for the rest of the conference. I also think that, going by the pattern of culpability, that the person who greets them at the door is Kanon.

The most likely scenario is that Kanon knocks on the door a short while after Eva and Hideyoshi have finished making love. Eva is found dead fully dressed on the bed, and Hideyoshi is found dead naked in the shower. I think you can extrapolate from this their final actions: Eva cleaned herself up first, and Hideyoshi was about to enter the shower when Kanon arrived.

So it is most likely Eva that let Kanon in. She does this because she believes she is not at risk of further harm, and because Kanon and Genji have the blackmail of her involvement in the first twilight over her head. With no choice but to receive further instruction, Eva opens up the guestroom.

In order to kill them, Kanon likely serves Eva and Hideyoshi something poisoned. This was most likely prepared by Genji using whatever poison Krauss and Gohda used in the first twilight. Ironically, the paranoid Eva would not have thought to detect any poison at this stage, and will die of the exact thing she taunted Shannon and Natsuhi about earlier in the story.

After serving them the poison and having some kind of interaction with them, Kanon most likely leaves the scene. What follows next is that Eva chooses to lie on the bed, while Hideyoshi enters the shower. The poison takes hold and kills them a short time after that, leaving them in the positions the others would later find them in.

At this point, Kanon and Genji would likely return to the scene with a drill and the picks to dress up the murder scene with occult accessories. Their heads are drilled through, the picks inserted, and the letter placed under the door. Then, via whatever method achieved such a thing, they lock the room from the inside with the chain and left the scene.

An amount of time passes here where Kanon and Genji help to prepare dinner and dispose of the leftover evidence. At around eight, as we see in the chapter, they return to the guestroom to complete the charade. Genji knocks on the door, receives no reply, and then he and Kanon “discover” the letter. To keep up the illusion, Genji and Kanon return to the kitchen in a panic. Kanon and Kumasawa seek out bolt cutters, while Genji and Nanjo return to the guestroom.

Once Kanon and Kumasawa return to the guestroom with the bolt cutters, they “discover” the magic circle. Kumasawa acts shocked, but it cannot be discounted that this is also part of the act. Whatever the case, the magic circle has been here for some time, and only now is Kanon permitted to acknowledge it. Kanon then unlocks the door chain with the bolt cutters, making quick work of whatever method allowed the room to be sealed in the first place, and Eva and Hideyoshi’s corpses are “discovered” in their final occult resting positions. This is, I believe, the overall gist of the second twilight.

The major question that lingers is “how was the locked room constructed”, something for which there is no answer at this stage. The major outlier with the second twilight concerns the drilled heads. Unlike the poison, this is not something that could have been passively set in motion before the locked room’s construction. We also know that there was nobody in the room except for Eva and Hideyoshi, so it’s not like somebody could have stayed in there and done the drilling after the room was locked up.

There is also not really enough time for Eva and Hideyoshi’s heads to be drilled after the room was unlocked, either. Even if that was somehow managed, the issue of hiding and disposing of the drill becomes much harder than my earlier theory. Ultimately, while I could tie myself in knots trying to pin down the locked room, I don’t think the “how” is too important. We already know the who and the why, and changing the how doesn’t change either of these factors.

So, to sum up: Eva and Hideyoshi were killed by Kanon and Genji as part of the witch narrative. This was done first via poison, and then via posthumous mutilation. The servants took advantage of the nebulous timeframe to set the scene, and then pretended to discover the crime an hour after the fact. This was done under Genji’s instruction following a plan most likely sketched out by Kinzo in advance, carried through out of some kind of sick and doomed devotion. Case kind of mostly closed.

What now? Eva and Hideyoshi were the loose end of the first twilight. There are no such ends this time. Just the culprit and his accomplices. Kanon and Kumasawa are not liabilities in the way the other two were, so the next twilight will most likely not occur under similar circumstances. There aren’t any hostile actors left in the Ushiromiya family, either. Just Natsuhi and Nanjo and the cousins.

It is very hard to see what circumstances would breed the next murder under the current conditions. With the death of Eva and Hideyoshi, a kind of equilibrium is reached.

However, one thing worth noting is that the third twilight makes no reference to murder. All it asks is for Beatrice’s noble name to be praised. In more plain terms, this may equate to a kind of acknowledgement of the witch’s existence among the survivors. Perhaps the aftermath of this murder starts to genuinely convince people of Beatrice’s existence, and this “praising” leads to a schism between those left standing that breeds new conflict.

Perhaps the praising marks a threshold point where Beatrice can now for real start interacting with the world, growing more and more capable with each sacrifice. Perhaps we will see the witch narrative scheme fall off the rails in favour of the real murderwitch in action. I don’t know. There are a lot of directions the story could go from this point.

But let’s see how the pieces fall first before we start doom forecasting again. There is another lull between twilights to digest, and more non-murder based mysteries to consider. Let’s see what’s next.

[familyabolisher]

what do you think of Umineko so far? I’ve tried reading it but the first episode is reaaaally slow

the first episode is SLOW to the point where every time one of my friends starts reading it i am compelled to send them this tweet

that being said, i'm currently on ep4, and i'm really enjoying it now that i'm starting to get a proper handle on the discourse of the text. [spoilers for eps 1-3 below]

for one thing, i think it's well-conceived! like, i think the conceit of an endless murder mystery puzzle which keeps resetting & in which [almost] everyone could feasibly be killed in any given order & the narrative functions as a 'gameboard' is really really good. it's an attractive premise.

& i, on account of who i am as a person, have obviously latched right onto the kinzo/beatrice situation, and these gestures towards dynamics of entrapment and coercion which create/nurture some kind of 'eternal' being, beatrice the golden witch rather than beatrice the human. i'm v caught by what we learn in (i think?) ep3 - that 'beatrice' is not the name of the individual with whom battler is playing but in fact a title that others (virgilia, EVA-beatrice) can claim. obviously, like, individual/autonomous selfhood subjugated (and like, moulded/disciplined) into an abstract state - a state of Being A Metaphor, A Metonym, A Synechdoche, etc - taking place along the discursive bounds of sexual violence is v much my whole area, cf. salolita, cf. alecto, cf. dante's beatrice and her whole cultural cache! i feel like this angle is what's piqueing my interest the most right now - these (still to my mind v open) questions of beatrice's body as a resurrected 'cage of flesh,' at once flesh and automaton similar to what we see of the "furniture" (hello kiriona gaia!), what it actually means to call beatrice a "witch" or a "human" (ie. the central 'goal' of battler's game) under those particular terms. i'm like an animal with my ears pricked up.

[batbeato]

I have a lot of headcanons/theories/thoughts about Black Battler but I... usually put a lot of them into my fics and don't really talk about them. Maybe a bit too much "show, don't tell". So here we go.

First thing is: who created Black Battler? Since he was meant to be in Land, he was originally created by Sayo (which is sort of supported by how Beatrice mentions Black Battler being her "piece" and asking him to entertain her in a Golden Fantasia story). But, in forgery no. XX, Black Battler isn't being written by Sayo - he's being written by some unknown forgery author, and it's implied that there are a lot of authors/witches who write him.

There's also Tohya to consider - Black Battler explicitly addresses Tohya in forgery no. XX, and Tohya also seems to worry about Black Battler - or at least, about the possibility that Battler was the culprit. Since Black Battler is an "Ushiromiya Battler who can be the culprit", there's a connection there from Tohya's end too.

In forgery no. XX, Ryukishi invokes the idea of the eternal catbox of Rokkenjima as a cyclical nightmare, where Black Battler lives and continues to act out bloody forgeries ("After all, the eternal catbox truly was in his hands. After all, the recurring nightmare was how he imagined it."). He talks about how Black Battler is given his power by the witches/spectators who want to see a culprit Battler ("Who even called someone like you here?" / "It was the unstoppably huge number of spectators who expect to see me as the culprit, and those nameless conductors who bestow that dream upon me", and "With every forgery that is written, ...and with each story that is spun around Ushiromiya Battler being the culprit, ...the entity called 'me' is growing in power"). We also have other lines in forgery no. xx, like "I will repeat this mad night for eternity... just the way you like it" followed by "Let's fall together to the bottom of that eternal darkness, while we tightly embrace one another" which seem to be directed at Sayo (framing this repetition as a 'romantic' and twisted act) and affirm the idea of Black Battler existing in a catbox of eternal suffering, just as Battler and Beatrice exist in a catbox of eternal happiness. And, just as Black Battler's existence is supported by more and more authors/witches writing about him, Battler and Beatrice's existences and happiness are supported by no one touching their sacred and final tale - a small golden catbox at the bottom of the sea, meant to rest undisturbed for all eternity. In this way, Black Battler is made out to be a lovely foil for Battler, one that I would have loved to see more of in Umineko.

Black Battler expresses concern about whether or not he is 'properly written' (an interesting idea to explore - if you are aware that you are a character, and you have many authors, how do you know if you're really you?), but in the context of "can I commit and take pleasure in violence and murder?". He defines himself by his violence, rather than any other trait, and seems to take enjoyment and pride in it, and its capacity to entertain the witches of the future. However, he also asks people to try and stop him, as he does in forgery no. XX with Tohya, and in his Ougon story with Kanon.

For me, that request - "please stop me" - is reminiscent of Sayo and also implies, to me, that he, in some part, is uncomfortable with his role. If he stopped performing his role, he would stop existing - he is only a separate entity from Battler and has an identity at all as an "Ushiromiya Battler who can be the culprit". He doesn't have a choice as to whether or not he wants to perform his role - and though he does seem to enjoy his role of enacting endless violence for entertainment, he may have more complex feelings about it than he visibly lets on.

My personal interpretation of Black Battler is someone who revels in his violence, whether it's physical or sexual, but also has a capacity for gentleness and kindness that he doesn't often exercise. It may come out veiled with that violence, or "behind the curtains" when he is not in a forgery setting, but never directly and 'publicly'.

I also see him as having a history with Sayo, imagining that they created him to cope with their feelings for Battler and to be an accomplice for them, to bear the burden of the murder. Since the Battler they knew would have been pained by committing such crimes, no matter the reason, Black Battler was made to enjoy them. His cruelty towards Sayo (towards Shannon in Ougon, and Kanon in forgery no. XX) is because Sayo doesn't feel comfortable with creating a self-indulgent kind, loving Battler, or accepting that love. It's easier if Black Battler is abusive and shows his affection in that sort of twisted, toxic way (...not very healthy, Sayo). However, since Land was lost, Black Battler was 'abandoned' by meta-Beatrice, and only has the Sayo who exists alongside him in the catbox/forgeries. While the 'real' Battler is in the Golden Land, Black Battler can never be invited there and has been forgotten about, building resentment.

I also have an AU where Tohya is a system and Black Battler is an alter, to focus more on the idea of Black Battler as Tohya's survivor's guilt and fears of Ushiromiya Battler/identity loss. It's fun to play with Black Battler in different contexts.

If Umineko ever starts receiving more new writing from Ryukishi, I hope Black Battler gets to have a role in it.

[aperturecity]

Umineko Spoilers!

Tonight I am thinking about Umineko's "Kiri no Pithos" PS3 Anime opening, specifically the line, "It's a story of my love."

"Umineko is a story about love" is, in itself, a mystery given to the reader. A solvable, rewarding challenge for everyone.

Thinking about "It's a story of my love" is perfect. Beato wants Ange to avoid the heartache of "the singular truth" so she makes up the legend of the witch, to make herself the bad guy, to give Eva an ever growing sliver of plausible deniability that she didn't kill everyone like how ep3 theorizes. how ange herself theorizes until after Eva's death…And the other part is that, instead of just writing endless "happy endings" in the message bottles she humanly, personally, wants Battler to remember his promise. she wants his love, it's a story of her love, that she tries to reconnect with him over their shared interest in crime whodunnits. Beatrice has been hurt so much but still wants to forgive Battler…without love, it cannot be seen.

[kaushibael]

I wish the endless witch beatrice would show up on jermas awards stream and start blowing him up into chunks of bloody gore and proving magic is real to an audience of tens of thousands

[dead-dove-moment]

Three Witches, Three Knights

Soren Kierkegaard, one of the founders of existentialism, imagined three tiers of philosophical maturity: the "slave of aesthetics", the "knight of infinite resignation", and the "knight of faith". The characteristic way to tell them apart, which he discussed in his pseudonymous essay "Fear and Trembling", is to look at how they wrestle with an impossible ideal.

I'm not an existentialist myself, but, ever since going back and reading Alliance of the Golden Witch, I've been struck by how well this formulation applies to a discussion of the magic wielded by the witches of 1986's Rokkenjima, and the angles by which they tended to approach the impossible.

The vast majority of people, in Kierkegaard's view, were merely in the aesthetic realm, where, if one's ideals prove to be impossible, one recognizes the impossibility and responds by lowering one's standards. "My ideal can't be achieved in reality; therefore, I will give up on it, and instead live for an 'easier' ideal which I know I can reach." This is the kind of motivated thinking that makes people passive - that makes them, in Kierkegaard's view, live a life they will inevitably look back on and regret.

In Ushiromiya Eva, we see a prime example of the aesthete's ruin. When her ideals become impossible, she allows her high ideals to change to something more 'realistic'… and, because a person's life is long, change stacks on change until she is left with nothing to live for at all. As a child, she understood that Kinzo's sexist nonsense was wrong, and rebelled against it, with "the headship" as her impossible ideal, a benchmark of everything she was striving against. As an adult, she came to understand that Kinzo would never move on the topic… but, instead of throwing away Kinzo, she threw away the ideal that he was making impossible, in order to adopt a lower, more realistic ideal: her son as the head. Then her son died, and she adopted a lower ideal still: to at least raise Ange, the other survivor, as well as she could, and heal both their hearts. When Ange rejected her love year after year (egged on by the Tanabata Witch's lies), Eva was left believing in nothing.

An Eva who had continued to believe in breaking the sexist norms of the Ushiromiya family (the core of her ambition to "become the head") would've been able to emerge from 1986 - though wracked with grief - with something to live for: proudly fighting that same battle in the boardrooms of all the companies the Ushiromiya Group conquered.

The Eva we know, in contrast, abandoned ideal after ideal, and died in 1998 with no ideals at all, a broken wretch of a woman.

How can we avoid this degradation of our ideals? Kierkegaard proposes the path of the the "knight of infinite resignation", who responds to the crisis by a different method. Instead of giving up on their impossible ideal, they accept its impossibility and in doing so turn that ideal into something quasi-religious. Perhaps it's impossible in this world but possible in the next. Perhaps it's an asymptote, but there's still virtue and value in striving to get as close as you can, as often as you can, for as long as you can. The impossibility of the ideal makes it something higher than the heavens, and thus, something you're all the more able to devote your life to, like a knight oathsworn to a holy order.

In this, one is not released from pain… but at least finds a kind of peace which balms the pain, and in the end should be able to look back on their life confident that they did what they could.

Beatrice is the Endless and Golden Witch.

As the Golden Witch, she understands that even with a mountain of gold, some miracles are beyond reach.

But as the Endless Witch, she is able to take her impossible longing, and resign herself to its impossibility in this world. Instead, she pushes that longing into the next world, into eschatology. In the Golden Land (the world erased by the Endless Magic), all those with minds are equal; therefore, by looking ahead to the Golden Land (creating endless bottle Fragments), she can resign from finding satisfaction in the Rokkenjima of humans.

(It was only Battler's return in 1986 which - by throwing her understanding of what was 'possible' or 'not possible' into disarray, and making her uncertain as to whether her ideal was really what she wanted - broke her resignation.)

But there's one step further than this. Kierkegaard imagines the "knight of faith", a level which he believes people have occasionally reached, despite it being something which should be "beyond humans". Imagine a knight of resignation, who has accepted everything the knight of resignation has accepted. "My ideal is impossible. It's worth striving for even if it's impossible, but that doesn't make it any less impossible." But then, she becomes a knight of faith by taking this one step further: "Even if that's true, the world is absurd. Impossible, insane things happen every day. And so why should I be resigned to failure? I will believe in this despite its impossibility. Despite its impossibility, if I strive for it, that's an opening for it to become true."

And Beato, too, recognized the existence of that step which was beyond her. She recognized it because she witnessed it in someone else: her apprentice.

Maria, you must understand, knew how magic worked, or else her diary would never have been able to instruct Ange so well. She wasn't delusional. She understood that Sakutarou's mind existed only by virtue of her active effort to manifest him (in other words: his mind existed only within her own).

But the world is absurd. The incidents of her life, even if she understood them, were senseless, her Mama's behavior especially. And therefore, whatever meaning she gave the truth still had value. She was able to look at the impossibility of her magic, say "even if that's true", and believe in it regardless.

She was able to create her own happiness within the misfortune, without ever deluding herself about the misfortune's existence.

In "Twilight of the Golden Witch", Ange is finally able to reach this level. Instead of knuckling under to despair upon learning the truth of 1986, she realizes the senseless absurdity of it all, and in that absurdity finds the audacity to make the impossible move that characterizes a Knight of Faith, which Maria had been trying to teach her all this time: believing her family resurrected, despite knowing and understanding that their deaths have been declared in red. Knowing her family's sins, and yet being willing to see them as their best selves.

And decades later along this road, Kotobuki Yukari discovers, impossibly, that hope does not disappoint.

[blueredyellowart]

[gnsleepsheep]

- 𖥨¡! ❝ [υмιиєкσ ⋆ єνα вєαтяι¢є] ❞

▸ 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 ꒷꒦₊˚・

[4thmagicwielder]

I'm going to word this terribly, but I find Yasu's outlet and the difference of when it is actually carried out to be a very interesting note on the difference between taking out and expressing oneself through a fictional outlet and carrying out one's harmful thoughts beyond that. Beatrice is the endless golden witch with a (seemingly) impossible mystery across perhaps dozens and dozens of messages in bottles metaphorical or literal, and would later be carried on by those beyond her including Hachijo Tohya and Hachijo Ikuko among many unnamed others. Yasu can express themselves and their pain and hatred and even love through fictional mysteries starring their entire family whom most of which don't even know they exist, let alone that they're their family at least in blood relation if nothing else. When they try to carry it out however as they've given up on life or just about hoping that Ushiromiya Battler would solve their mystery however, everyone actually dies horribly and they end up regretting it and likely kill themselves as or after Ushiromiya Eva and Ushiromiya Battler escape. Only one of their mysteries led to death, and it was the one attempted in reality. They never had to feel that regret in any of their previous mysteries for writing them because no one was harmed, and though they at the very least in part meant well and hoped for everyone to reach the golden land in great part out of love, they spend the last moments of their life forced to live with the very real reality of death that in part was a result of their actions.

Then later on even after death, even their fiction in a sense comes into reality and is quite literally experiencing a mass movement of sorts of death of the author. It again was fine when the stories were just an outlet of their continuously traumatized imagination, but now twelve years later it is being treated as simply a work of fiction, divorced not only from the author but from the victims and reality of said victims including not only the author but all of the dead family members. The golden witch survives even after her death or third death when considering Kuwadorian and Bice Beatrice, but without any of their original agency or personal connection or care for those she both loved and hated because the vast majority of the writers are now divorced from it all entirely and only relate to the tragedy via fictional writings they are personally divorced from.

Umineko truly is meta in the actual sense and not the just trying to sound cool or smart sense. There's so many things and ways and levels you can look into it, including from a writing or writers perspective and once again as I've said many times, it is a work that only gets better the more you think about it. Again, sorry if this was all worded terribly, it just popped in my head on a whim.

[pixxyofice]

Okay, so prior to getting into in stars and time I was into Umineko (or its English title When the Seagulls Cry) so whenever Loop addresses Isabeau as the Fighter I can't help but read it in the same cadence as Beatrice from umineko adressing Battler (the protag of umineko) (btw i know this ask is about loop, but i have to say we the readers dont actually know if Battler is his real name and I hc that it isnt but beatrice obscuring it, but that more of a loop thing that reminds me of beatrice than beatrice thing reminding me of loop) . Just stretching the absolute shit out of those vowels in a mocking tone to hide the pained yearning they feel upon even just thinking about him.

Honestly the only thing stopping loop from going the same direction narrativly as beatrice umineko is that the majority of their problems come from the inside, meanwhile all of the problems beatrice faces are external, that and the fact she was dropped of a cliff as a baby

Also loop is far nicer to siffrin than beatrice is to her counterparts. Like if I was looop I would have resorted to murder a lot sooner (which beatrice umineko does. Repeatedly) For understandable reasons they don't do that, but still,it is a remarkable showcase of self-control, in my opinion

All of these thoughts make me want to draw them as a umineko style witch, I already know what style of fashion their witch form would take, 1950s femme fatale obviously. I can't quite pick what their witch moniker would be though.(for context beatrice holds the titles Witch of gold and the Endless Witch, the second title reffering to her ability to rewind time) I could imagine them jokingly introducing themselves as the witch of loops, even tho they very much do not control the loops.

Anyway as a fun fact, while scrolling down the creator's tumblr I found that they had drawn umineko fanart back in the day, and my first thought was "of course!"

i do not understand the comparisons to umineko but i see... them in other outfits...

and adrienne's been places... fandoms.... all sorts of fandoms. putting this out there

[revindicatedbyhistory]

umineko spoilers

each of the witches associated concept is the narrative they needed to believe in to "escape their hell". erika became obsessed with the concept of objective truth, maria coped with her loneliness by creating imaginary friends

beatrice managed to cope with her pain by you know "creating all these stories" about the endless posibilities. her problem was that she still saw her unhappiness as being almost certainly a constant