#Zero Friction Cycling

[kassandra-the-witch]

Trying to make sense of Umineko while playing it for the first time, essay post-Ep1: The Beatrice lies in the details

0. On games, interactivity, roulette, and chess, or: how to lose at Umineko

Umineko no Naku Koro ni, commonly translated as Umineko: When they cry, also translated as Umineko: When the seagulls cry, also abbreviated as Umineko, also subtitled (I think?) Rondo of the Witch and Reasoning, is a visual novel series originally released between 2007 and 2010 by the group 07th Expansion, under the influential authorship of Ryukishi07, also abbreviated Ryukishi in fandom discussions. Umineko might best be classified as a story[i]. As far as the medium goes, Umineko has, as far as I understand, existed in form of an online visual novel, a PS3 game, a manga, a downloadable visual novel, and an anime, if not more. And yet, as I experience Umineko, I have paid for it and downloaded it from Steam, as well as having installed a massive and wonderful total conversion mod on top of it. The question of “what is a game” is an esoteric one, one that renders “is Umineko a game” absurdly unanswerable. But while categorizing Umineko as a game or not a game is difficult, it is easy to see that Umineko has a loaded allegorical relationship to game(s).

In Episode 1 of Umineko, Legend of the Golden Witch (to be called Ep1 from now on), two different games are brought to the table regularly, both as metaphors and games characters play: chess and roulette. Chess and roulette are very different games, almost diametrically opposite. Chess is a game in which every move can be calculated, at least in theory. While such computers are yet to be created, a computer with sufficient capacity of calculating could simulate every possible chess game, always know a certain path to victory. Humans are incapable of knowing every single possible chess game at once. Humans playing chess at a high level memorize and execute cyclical patterns and try to guide their opponent(s) into patterns and cycles they are unfamiliar with. Despite having no randomness involved, despite seeming predetermined every time, chess is a fascinating and very human game to play. And, indeed, a lot of the humans (and witches) in Umineko Ep1 play chess. When Ushiromiya Kinzo asks his resident doctor and old friend how long he still has to live in the prelude, the doctor points to a chess game they are playing to establish a metaphor. When trying to solve the death of his parents as a crime, Ushiromiya Battler turns to chess and the repeating idea of “spinning around the chessboard” to find the culprit. Who plays chess against whom and with what level of skill is a motive and allegorical theme repeated over and over and over again in Umineko Ep1.

While no character in Umineko Ep1 plays an actual game of roulette, roulette is also a repeated motive in this story. Roulette is random or not random depending on a complex philosophical debate around determinism – but on a well-designed roulette table, no human or computer is able to tell the outcome of a spin of the wheel. To many minor factors, like air flow, friction of minute surfaces, gravitational pulls, and rotational momentum make roulette highly random. In Umineko Ep1, the so-called demon’s roulette is a repeated motive pertaining to the potentially supernatural violence that characters are subjected to as the deaths and murders commence, as well as an allegory for capitalism. One character in Umineko Ep1, a child servant by the name of Kanon, wants to withdraw from this seemingly randomized violence of the demon’s roulette by explaining that he will become the unforeseen variable in this roulette game, the Zero, neither red nor black on the roulette wheel, and therefore a gamble to bet on. I do not know a lot about roulette, but if I recall correctly, the Zero is part of roulette not as a game-breaking but game-enabling mechanism; through the Zero, the house has a statistical edge on a longer and longer series of roulette games.

Be that is it may, both games are referenced and loaded with meaning in Umineko Ep1. Chess, not random and a clash of human minds, versus roulette, totally random, a game of chance without reason; this opens a spectrum through which to categorize any other game. Some characters as well as some of the menus in Umineko Ep1, particularly Lady Bernkastel in the second-order frame narrative, urge the players/readers/player-readers to treat Umineko as a game of chess, one with pieces, invalid and valid, better and worse moves. This framing of Umineko as a chess-like game implies that Umineko could be solved. The question is what it means to solve Umineko. Umineko happens. It happens to the player-reader. The player-reader cannot change the story on any level of the story. Sure, in the first-order and second-order frame narratives, the player-reader can choose to turn the descriptions of characters in the menu that functions as a dramatis personae to their respective dead or alive states, which reflects what happens when the dramatis personae updates during the happenings of the embedded narrative. But toggling states in the dramatis personae doesn’t change anything; the player-reader but sees different text describing characters. Beatrice’s entry into the dramatis personae in the first-order and second-order frame narratives even taunts the player-reader with their powerlessness, the inability to interact, when you try to set Beatrice’s entry to dead. If Umineko is a game, it is not played within the mechanics of the software. Umineko is, if even playable in the first place, played metatextually. Presenting itself on the outset as a murder mystery, solving Umineko means unravelling its mysteries as it progresses. There is no apparent win-or-lose condition to Umineko.

And yet, one does not simply commit to a story as massive and complex as Umineko without prior knowledge of it. I got into Umineko because of @siphonophorus/Ozaawa’s obsession with it. Ozaawa is a cherished discord friend, who has had Beatrice as their profile picture ever since I can remember. I had started Umineko Ep1 with multiple spoilers in mind, such as: “There is a long time loop”, “Beatrice is really queer”, “people die and get resurrected over and over again”, “magic somehow is and isn’t real at the same time”, and “the narrative structure is a mess”. But the most intriguing piece of knowledge is as follows: “you can solve a lot Umineko from very early on”. Apparently someone in the fandom named pochapal had solved large pieces of the puzzle very very early on in the course of the story. Now, since Umineko urges you to treat it as chess, there is an analogy that immediately sprung to my mind: There are ways to checkmate someone in chess in the least possible amount of moves, a common one of these strategies being called a scholar’s mate. Four moves by the player controlling the white pieces lead, under ideal circumstances, to a checkmate and victory. Without knowing the solution to Umineko, you can meaningfully solve Umineko in a (relatively) short amount of story. I call this idea Umineko’s scholar’s mate. I want to explore this possibility, one of the primary reasons why I am writing this essay and plan on writing more of them in the future; to solve as much as I think I can after every episode. Writing this essay is me playing Umineko (I think). There is however a massive problem to me being obsessed with Umineko’s scholar’s mate; namely, that I suck absolute ass at chess and detective/murder mysteries. I am also rather mediocre at literary analysis, and cannot call myself a literary scholar in a great capacity. Congratulations to pochapal for doing Umineko’s scholar’s mate or at least coming close to that, I will not be able to reproduce that achievement. I have invested roughly 31 hours into Ep1 and I still do not know where to start solving the epitaph or who was killed how by whom. I am a historian, and that is about the range of my expertise. I almost did not write this essay and had been moving into Ep2 for roughly thirty minutes before a dumb joke I made on Discord lead to a lot of pieces clicking into place and me being able to synthesize a stable, if a bit tangential reading of Ep1 (more on that serendipitous accident in section 3 of this essay).

All in all, I am obsessed with this story to an extreme level and my brain is constantly trying to crack its mysteries. I invite you to join me on this journey, a delayed live-commentary of my first play-readthrough of Umineko. That being said, given the nature of my approach to play-reading Umineko, I’d like to avoid spoilers for Episodes I have yet to read as much as possible, and I’d hope anyone reading this will respect that wish.

Content warning: Umineko is a horror story that deals with a lot of systems of violence in gruesome detail. So much violence in fact that I fear the content warning in itself could be triggering. The full content warning will be found under the Read More.

Umineko Ep1 contains in varying degrees of alluding, mentioning, and describing: extreme gore, murder, suicide, sexual assault, patriarchal violence, class violence, child labour, grooming, familial violence, intergenerational violence and intergenerational trauma, child abuse, misogyny, psychological horror, colonialism, imperialism, and fascism.

1. On Umineko Ep1, or: Synopsis

The story of Umineko Ep1 unfolds in stages. The first stage to unlock is the embedded narrative of Ep1. It opens with a prelude on the island of Rokkenjima, a fictional, circular island with a circumference of roughly ten kilometres that is part of the real-life volcanic Izu Archipelago of Japan[ii], a short amount of time before Saturday, the 4th of October 1986. A conversation between Ushiromiya Kinzo, patriarch over the ultrawealthy Ushiromiya family and man who bought himself into the title of “owner of Rokkenjima”, and Doctor Nanjo, his attending physician and long-term friend, unfolds in Kinzo’s study in his mansion. Nanjo reveals to Kinzo that the latter is dying and has not much time left, explaining to Kinzo that he might want to settle his affairs. Kinzo reacts, in the presence of a disturbed Nanjo and the much more calm and collected head servant Genji, with at outburst of anger, revealing an obsession with a woman named Beatrice.

On the morning of Saturday, the 4th of October 1986, members of the Ushiromiya family assemble on a nearby airport. Among those assembled are Kinzo’s second oldest child, Eva, her husband, Hideyoshi, and their child, George, as well Rudolf, Kinzo’s third child, Rudolf’s second wife Kyrie, and Rudolf’s son out of his first marriage, Battler, and lastly, Kinzo’s fourth and youngest child, Rosa, as well as Rosa’s daughter, Maria. These seven travel per airplane to nearby Niijima, where they meet up with Jessica, the daughter of Kinzo’s oldest son, and Kumasawa, one of the servants at Rokkenjima. They take a boat to Rokkenjima, arriving around 10:30 AM.

On Rokkenjima, the weather starts to show signs of getting worse. Traversing through the Ushiromiya family estate, the only part of the island that is inhabited by humans, they meet Godha, the ambitious and renowned private cook, and Kanon, a teenager and servant at the household, currently struggling to do heavy labour in the elaborate rose garden. The new arrivals settle into the guesthouse, separated from the main mansion by the rose garden. In the mansion, the final set of characters of importance to the story get introduced. Sayo, working under the servant name of Shannon, another young servant of the household, Krauss, Kinzo’s first child and heir-apparent to the Ushiromiya head family, and Natsuhi, Krauss’ wife and Jessica’s mother.[iii]

The children, i. e. the cousins, staying at the guesthouse, do some catching-up on their lives, while the parents, i. e. the siblings, discuss at the mansion. Between 12:00 PM and 1:30PM, the family and Nanjo assemble in the dining room of the mansion for lunch. Waiting in vain for Kinzo’s attendance, they proceed to eat without him. At around 1:30 PM, the parents withdraw to discuss finances and inheritance politics. Knowing that Kinzo is close to death, the question of who gets which part of the vast family fortune takes centre stage in their discussion. Accusing Krauss of embezzling some of Kinzo’s private fortune, namely the vast amount of it stored in a supposed ten tons of gold, Eva, Hideyoshi, Kyrie, and Rudolf (and Rosa to some degree) open with an offensive, demanding immediate compensation by Krauss. Denying the existence of the gold and shutting Natsuhi out of the conversation, Krauss counters, revealing that Rudolf is in desperate need of money because he is embroiled in legal battles in the United States, Hideyoshi and Eva are in need of money to support the shaky expansion of their business, and Rosa needs money for her fledgling business. Their talks ultimately end in a draw. Krauss later reveals to a distressed Natsuhi that the gold actually exists, showing a bar as proof.[iv]

Meanwhile, the children roam the mansion and later head down to the beach. They discuss a portrait hanging in the main staircase area, one that Battler had not seen since the last time he had been at Rokkenjima many years ago. The portrait supposedly shows the mystery woman, Beatrice, and has an epitaph underneath. Beatrice is known as the witch of the island, a myth Battler denounces as a fairy tale. The epitaph takes the form of a riddle, forecasting much death and tasking the readers with finding the hidden gold. On the beach, the children try to solve the riddle, also reminiscing on Kinzo’s biography and the history of the family fortune. While the Ushiromiya family had lost most of its wealth, means of production, and members in the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, Kinzo rose to inherit the title of head of the family. By 1950, Kinzo had (re)established the family as one of the wealthiest of the country, having successfully gambled a lot of capital of mysterious origin on the Korean War. The children wonder if this mysterious starter capital might have been the gold, and if Beatrice might have been a mysterious financier that gave Kinzo this money. Maria, autistic child hyperfocused on the occult and dark magic, insists that Beatrice is a witch and had produced the gold using a “philosopher’s stone”.[v]

In the meantime, a massive storm that had been brewing for a while turns into first rainfall. At around 6:00 PM, Maria is still missing after having been hit in the face multiple times by Rosa a couple of hours earlier as a supposed disciplinary measure. The family goes searching for Maria. She is found in the rose garden, holding an umbrella, still looking for a singular rose plant she had taken a liking to when they first arrived at the island, scared that something might happen to the plant in the storm. Going on to look for whoever had handed Maria the umbrella to properly thank them, Maria insists that the umbrella had been handed to her by Beatrice. Furthermore, Beatrice, according to Maria’s description, had handed her a letter, to be read to the family. The letter, supposedly written by Beatrice herself, reminds them to solve the riddle of the epitaph, lest Beatrice collect what is owed to her according to a mysterious contract between Kinzo and her. Distressing over the letter, the adults continue to fight each other with words, up until midnight for some of them. In the meantime, George and Sayo, secretly involved with each other, meet up in the rose garden. George proposes to Sayo.

On the next day, at around 6:00 AM on the 5th of October, the machinery of the household springs to life again, while the storm still rages on. Preparing the breakfast is impossible, however, due to Godha being missing. As more of the guests and residents of the mansion and guesthouse wake up, it turns out that not only Godha is missing, but Sayo, Krauss, Rudolf, Kyrie, and Rosa as well. After Kanon discovers occult symbols written out in blood on the shutter of the rose garden storehouse, several characters rush to open it. Inside the storehouse are the corpses of all six that are missing, mutilated, especially in their faces.[vi] The family attempts to contact the police, but the telephones have failed in the storm, similarly, boats are no option.

Retreating to the mansion, they find the dining room covered in blood. Fearing for their lives, the survivors hole up in the parlor of the mansion at around 9 AM. Afterwards, they find Kinzo missing from his study. Everyone soon falls into suspicion of each other, suspecting a murderer in their midst, but also unable to rule out other parties, namely Beatrice, being involved. Especially Eva and Natsuhi begin fighting, while Natsuhi carries Kinzo’s rifle, the only known firearm on the island. In the meantime, the children, with the help of Maria, try to discuss the occult implications of the murders, and a new letter that had been found. At some point, despite Natsuhi’s reservations, Eva and Hideyoshi retreat to their guest rooms in the mansion.

At 7 PM, the servants discover the door to Eva and Hideyoshi’s room to be painted in blood. Prying the door open, they find the corpses of Eva and Hideyoshi, with strange spikes lodged into their foreheads.[vii] Smelling a strange smell coming from the boiler room in the basement, Kanon runs there. Challenging Beatrice, which he assigns to the darkness in the corner of the room, he tries to harm her, leading only to him being mortally wounded.[viii] It is difficult to decipher his final words, I personally do not understand if he had anticipated or at least accepted the potential of his death in that action. When everyone else catches up with him, it quickly becomes apparent that the smell is coming from the boiler, in which Kinzo’s charred corpse is found.[ix] The survivors retreat to Kinzo’s study, judging it to be the safest room in the mansion.

At around 8 PM, George, Battler, Jessica, and Natsuhi look at the smaller portrait of Beatrice on the wall of the study, when suddenly, another letter by Beatrice appears, in which Beatrice gleefully celebrates her victory. Suspecting those who had not looked at the portrait to contain Beatrice or at least a collaborator, Natsuhi sends out Nanjo, Genji, Maria, and Kumasawa.

At around 11:30 PM, the phone in the study rings, revealing a singing Maria. Sensing that she might have send the four others to their doom, Natsuhi goes looking for them. Their corpses are found in the parlor, safe for Maria, who stands to a wall, singing.[x] Natsuhi runs out to the main hall, when the clock strikes midnight. She challenges the darkness, Beatrice, to a duel, which leads to her being shot with the rifle she is carrying.[xi] The children arrive in the main hall to see a woman standing, half-shrouded in the dark, who Maria identifies as Beatrice, running towards her.

The next bit of story unfolds in the epilogue, written in the style of a historiographical account. The police arrive the next day, finding everyone dead, except the children, whose corpses could not be fully identified in the gore.[xii] An urban legend spawns from these two days at Rokkenjima. Some years later, a notebook fragment lodged inside a wine bottle washes ashore at a beach. It is a fragment of Maria’s diary, reporting on the events of the days, concluding in a cry not for help, but for the someone to solve the mystery at hand.

Concluding this embedded narrative, a new chapter called the Tea Party unlocks in the game’s menu. In the Tea Party, the first-order frame narrative unfolds, in a domain only labelled Purgatorio in the opening slide.[xiii] Kanon, Sayo, George, Jessica, Maria, and Battler converse about the events of the first Episode, fully aware that they are characters in a story. Most of them either believed in magic previously or now concede that magic must have been the murder weapon. Battler, however, resists this reading of events. Beatrice appears, superficially amused by Battler’s antics. Transporting them to the scene of Hideyoshi’s and Eva’s murder, she demonstrates supposedly magic mastery over so-called demonic stakes, with which she murders Hideyoshi and Eva again. Battler still does not concede, vowing to uncover what practical tricks Beatrice uses for her murders. The other children and young adults begin violently unravelling into piles of gore[xiv], as Beatrice magic keeping them alive supposedly fails as Battler is unable to believe in that magic. In her dying words, Jessica urges Battler to resist believing in magic.

Concluding the Tea Party, another chapter unlocks in the game’s menu. In this second-order frame narrative, in some ill-defined realm of witches, Beatrice hosts a witch named Bernkastel in her domain, inviting her to watch another game. While Beatrice is absent for a short while, Bernkastel turns her eyes and attention to the play-reader, giving, out of a self-reported pity for the play-reader, cryptic clues to playing/reading/observing Umineko. This concludes Ep1.

2. On apples falling from family trees, or: cyclical systems of violence

2.1 What the actual fuck, Battler: Rudolf, Rosa, parental violence, masculinity, and the patriarchy

The first thing that one can easily observe when reading Umineko Ep1 is that violence happens cyclically, on multiple levels. The violence Umineko examines is incredibly complex, with multiple threads interwoven into a singular system of power. A very fitting way to try to unravel these threads from one another (at least to some degree) is looking at the branches of the family tree placing allegorical emphasis on different aspects of that violence.

Much sooner than when the shutter is raised on the rose garden storehouse, Umineko Ep1 reaffirms that it is a horror game; more precisely, every third time[xv] Battler opens his mouth. For play-readers who get lulled into a false sense of security by the mundane family conversations at the airport, the harbour at Niijima reminds them of its horror when Battler makes jokes about sexually assaulting his cousin, Jessica. Later, he makes a joke about making Maria, his nine-year old cousin, promise that he can touch her breasts once he has grown up. This joke causes concern by George and Jessica. When Battler only shortly after sets out to touch Sayo’s breasts, Sayo does not resist, until she is directly ordered to do so. The characters around him barely acknowledge Battler’s insistence on semi-seriously performing symbolic acts of sexualized violence, only the joke with Maria leads to Jessica slapping Battler in the face, and the dynamic returns to friendly as quickly as it escalated. This absence of consequences for his violence stands for two things: How fundamental and normalized misogyny and the patriarchy are in the family, and that Battler is his father’s son. Indeed, that Battler mirrors in speech what his father enacts in material reality also stands as a pars pro toto for the fact that children in Umineko perpetuate the violence of their parents, with only minor variation per generation.

The extent of Rudolf’s patriarchal and sexualized violence is cloaked in hushes and whispers in Ep1, but the outline of his actions clings to his character. In his introduction at the airport, Kyrie and Battler joke about Kyrie being the only woman capable of holding Rudolf in his reigns; a metaphor of taming wild horses that seems to be close to common social narratives around particularly sexually violent men. Battler had left the family behind for about six years, angry at Rudolf for what Rudolf did to Battler’s mother, a mystery as of now. After the death of Battler’s mother, it took Rudolf not long to marry his former advisor-secretary Kyrie. Kinzo laments about his children and mentions Rudolf’s inability to control his lust. With a father like that, Battler’s sticking to mostly spoken jokes about misogynistic violence measures the distance the apple ultimately managed to fall from the tree.

That violence is an inheritance in the Ushiromiya family is very evident. This includes physical abuse. Rosa’s beating of Maria, for Maria speaking in a way perfectly normal for an autistic nine-year old, is one example of this. Indeed, this very overt act of parental violence also happens in the context of Maria searching for a singular, slightly wilting rose in the rose garden that she had taken a liking to. Engaging in improper speech patterns (read: making noises instead of using a sophisticated, class-appropriated lexicon) and showing compassion, things that all children engage in in some degree because (I cannot stress this enough) humans are born ultimately compassionate and playful, are met with extreme violence to be eradicated. The kind of adult growing up from such a childhood has to invest a lot of emotional energy in unravelling that violence and the trauma it causes. Those used to violence have a choice to either counter this violence by difficult means and heal, or perpetuate the same kind of violence. It is evident Rosa picked up her parenting methods from Kinzo, who is noted to have hit Krauss often and loudly as a child.

As violence is carried mostly undisturbed from generation to generation, misogyny becomes an integral aspect of the mechanism of violence. Battler notes that the Ushiromiya family places a special emphasis on blood relations, perhaps more than other families, but that focus on blood still includes the patriarchy to a large degree, just in an uncommon variation. Indeed, in parts of Ep1 focusing on Natsuhi, it becomes clear that especially women marrying into this family structure are seen as little more than means to produce heirs.

2.2 Class dismissed: Eva versus Natsuhi, the mansion, Gothic horror, and servants

Upon marrying into the Ushiromiya family, Natsuhi was expected to give birth to an heir to the head family as soon as possible. Indeed, she becomes reduced to her womb, in an incredibly dehumanizing fashion. Still, within the rigid social structure of the mansion, she is the host, the one every servant first turns to. When a servant is unable to perform their labour and present a perfect household, Natsuhi pays in social capital. As the connecting tissue between the servant class and the ultrarich family, as the outsider womb that failed for the longest time, as the silenced and excluded player in the parents’ game of inheritance splitting, Natsuhi takes a fringe position. She is a fulcrum of violence, both recipient and exacter of it. Nominally member of the uppermost class, and a woman, she should find herself on similar station to Eva.

And yet, in the incredibly weird and fully obscene tension between Eva and Natsuhi, Eva manages to mobilize class and blood relations to gain an advantage over Natsuhi. Eva managed to place Hideyoshi into the family registry, maintaining her family name despite that not being common, and upstages Natsuhi in fulfilling the role and purpose of a woman in this family structure, by birthing an heir faster than Natsuhi. Eva envies Krauss and wants to gain his level of power. George is Eva’s ambition grown into flesh, not a son but a pawn and argument, her project to produce a human more fit to the title of heir to the head family than Jessica. Indeed, Eva fully modelled George into that role, and most of the family agrees that he would make a better heir than Jessica. Natsuhi, maintaining a modicum of humanity and compassion despite the family around her, does not manage to exert the same level of violent force upon her daughter Jessica, leading to Jessica being labelled a failure, and Natsuhi in turn as well. Eva goes as far as calling Natsuhi a “lowly maidservant”. Natsuhi’s ambiguous state in the family comes also to be expressed in her not being allowed to bear the family crest, a one-winged eagle. While the servants and all (blood) family members are allowed to carry it on their clothes, Natsuhi is not afforded that status. Belittled over decades, torn from her old family and forced to cut all ties, reduced to a womb, called a failure time and time again, Natsuhi jumps at the opportunity when Kinzo tells her she is allowed to carry the one-winged eagle in her heart. Her desperation to become a full-fledged member of the family comes to a close when she, as the only surviving parent, calls herself heir to the family in her duel with Beatrice. This quest, to become full participant in the violent machinery of the family structure, fails, and she dies by the firearm so closely linked with the head of the family. And yet, the situation of the servants is markedly worse than Natsuhi’s.

While Natsuhi is dehumanized by being reduced to a walking womb, the servants are not even afforded a distant connection to flesh and blood, being reduced to furniture. It is a mantra beaten into them, one they repeat again and again to deny their own agency, to be “nothing but furniture”. The way the servants navigate this lack of agency varies. Genji consigns himself to collected and veiled pride; being most trusted by Kinzo, moreso than Kinzo even trusts his own children. Godha, not unlike Natsuhi, tries to integrate himself into this power structure, but unlike Natsuhi, he is not tied down by regret, pain, and a modicum of humanity. He steals what little social capital is afforded to the servants for himself, assigning them much less prestigious tasks. And yet, he ends up destroyed in the same machinery of power he tried to kiss up to, being one of the first to die. Kumasawa withdraws herself from difficult labour, and tells stories and lies and uses a semblance of a jester’s freedom to protect the young servants as best as she can. Sayo freezes in inaction and despair. And Kanon, the youngest, reacts ultimately in an outburst of righteous anger. One must note the degree of violence of class that is enacted upon mere children. In an act veiled in the narrative of philanthropy, Kinzo recruits little children from orphanages to work at the household. This is praised as a chance for them to make money, and to raise in social status. In reality, Kanon’s introduction, in which he fails at performing incredibly hard labour in the garden, shows that Kinzo employs child labour to upkeep his machinery of family as enshrined by the building of the mansion. Once again, violence is exerted upon children to force them into a new generation of this cycle.

The mansion itself is a symbol that can be read in multiple ways, two of which are yet to follow; but it is a very evident expression of power. The ability to buy the rights to an entire island and build a massive mansion complex on it, one large enough to fit a miniature version of itself – Kinzo’s study being called a mansion inside a mansion at some point – is of course an expression of class. Elaborate rooms in the upper floors assigned to be only walked by the high and mighty, and the utilities assigned down below to be only visited by the servants – the structure of the mansion uses its walls to create and reinforce borders and delineations between the classes. These borders only fall, servants walking main rooms and the rich seeing the utilities up close, when Rokkenjima’s violence becomes unable to be narrated away as actual blood and gore runs through its halls.

A potentially supernatural murder series inside a western style mansion could be read as a marker of genre, even – but Umineko Ep1 resists strict allegiance to a singular genre. It toys with the elements of Gothic horror – of which the mansion as a stage and ordering device is a central one – but also transcends it. The origins of Gothic horror in the late 19th century, from what little I know about literary history, do treat their servants as actually nothing more than furniture, barely mentioned if all, not counted as human. Umineko’s supposed furniture cries, curses, bleeds, resists, gives in, dreams of love, stands together and aside. Umineko’s servants navigate class and agency, and that navigation takes centre stage multiple times, their inability to throw their own humanity and compassion away underlining and inverting the parents’ demand to ignore notions of compassion and humanity. But the mansion, particularly its position on an island otherwise uninhabited by humans, takes on multiple roles at once.

2.3 Pecunia non olet: Krauss, resource extraction, ecology, and the storm

The mansion and its surrounding area are an exception to the typical structure of Rokkenjima. Rokkenjima is densely inhabited and brimming with life, but not of the human variety. It is marked by a dense forest, and its cliffs are home to the black-tailed gulls who mark the text’s title – they are the Umineko, a common seabird found across many Pacific coasts, particularly in East Asia. The absence of their distinctive cry upon the visitor’s arrival on the island is remarked upon in the text, and it is one of the many early indicators of the impending tempest that entraps the island for two days. As the gulls notice changes to the wind patterns, humidity, and air pressure, they instinctually withdraw to safer locations to sit out the storm. Once they cry again, the storm has passed.

The mundane black-tailed gulls are in several ways a counterpart and mirror to the seemingly majestic one-winged eagle. Whereas the gulls have (probably) existed on Rokkenjima since its distinct geo-ecological formation as an island, the one-winged eagle specifically as the symbol of the Ushiromiya family has rested on Rokkenjima only since Kinzo manoeuvred himself into de-facto legal possession of the island. As Battler remarks at some point:

“Buying an entire island is not something that you can ordinarily do today. However, Grandfather was clever. He contacted the GHQ and applied for the establishment of a marine resource base. He acquired this island as a business property, then tossed that project aside and claimed it as his own plot of land. [...] Later, Tokyo made difficulties by telling Kinzo to return the land, but the pushy GHQ intervened. Grandfather, with considerable skill and good luck, managed to weather the stormy seas of that period, obtaining a vast fortune and his own island. [...] A mansion was built on the island soon after. [...] Grandfather, with his love of the Western style, made this once uninhabited island a canvas upon which he could realize his dreams to his heart’s content. He now had the Western mansion of his dreams, overflowing with emotion and atmosphere, and a beautiful garden featuring all sorts of roses. And he had a private beach where nobody other than himself would ever be permitted to leave a footprint.”

There is a lot – a lot – going on this passage, and I will come back to it in section 2.4, but for now, there is one focus point: The island is described by Battler as having been previously uninhabited. This draws, at minimum, a line in which a distinct human presence is conflated with the state of being uninhabited. Rokkenjima, before Kinzo’s arrival, so the narrative spun by Battler, exists as a social and ecological terra nullius, this “empty canvas”, into which Kinzo inscribed his personal vision. This passage continually reaffirms the notion that land can be viewed through the lens of ownership – which far from a neutral idea.

By turning the land into something that can be “obtained”, “bought”, and “claimed” by a singular individual, its ecology is exposed to the logics of neoliberalism. And, indeed, Kinzo’s eldest, the designated heir to the financial empire, Krauss, doubles down on this process. The guest house is a symbol of Krauss trying to extract monetary value from the idea of land ownership: He plans on turning the island into a vacation resort for well-paying customers. As Rudolf comments on Krauss’ plan:

“You were brilliant when you saw that using this island only as a place to live was a waste. I think it was a pretty good plan to turn it into a resort that could use the prospect of marine sports, fishing, honeymoons and the like to attract customers. If I were the oldest son, I’m sure I’d have strained my brain looking for a way to make profit off this island.”

Later, Rudolf adds:

“I’ll bet you want to liquidate but can’t. After all, there’s no reason for anyone to buy such an extravagant hotel on an isolated, empty island without any established sightseeing routes.”

An island existing on its own, as an ecologically closed system by itself, is an impossibility under capitalism. Value must be extracted from everything, even the fact of land and ecology itself, else, it is, as Kinzo’s children seem to unanimously agree, a “waste”. Rokkenjima, so full with dense forestry and filled to the brink with life is “empty” because humans cannot make more money out of it. Establishing sightseeing routes, cutting through the ecology to maximize human access – and human profit – to and from it, is the only way not to “waste” it. The black-tailed gull is not granted any meaningful connection or presence on the island. And yet, on the morning of the 6th of October, the skies clear, and the black-tailed gulls cry again, alive and present on the island, whereas those who previously so proudly wore the one-winged eagle lie slaughtered into piles of blood and gore across the mansion and garden.

Kinzo’s fortune – not coincidentally – is maintained through having invested his money during the Fifties into the iron and steel industry, key actors in material resource extraction and environmental devastation, also given the connection of the steel and coal industries. The influence the economic system has on the ecology is marked by resource extraction. When it is a tropical thunderstorm that entraps the Ushiromiya family on this island it previously called its possession, forcing everyone to meet their violent demise, there is a certain comedic catharsis to it – thunderstorms, their increasing likelihood and extremeness, are a direct result of the economic mechanisms that marked the Ushiromiya ascension to power. For all their money, the Ushiromiyas cannot escape the storm. By exploiting nature they rise, by being unable to control such a large natural event they fall.

The theme of the Ushiromiyas’ fall repeats in the ecology, not only being found in the fauna but also in the flora. The rose garden is part of Krauss’ “development” of the land as well as Kinzo’s self-inscription onto the island. It is a model of making sense of nature – whereas the Ushiromiyas describe the forest of Rokkenjima as uninviting, dark, and imposing, the rose garden is a source of respite, admiration, and a stage upon which their control is played out. But the garden is far from a fitting presence on the island – it is noted multiple times that the yearly thunderstorms devastate the garden, leading to it requiring major repair and replanting every time. Rokkenjima is not a natural habitat for roses – and yet, as a mark of pride and possession of nature, it has to be repeatedly reinstated on it. And yet, after the storm passes, the trees of Rokkenjima still stand, whereas the roses of the Ushiromiyas have been scattered and largely destroyed. It is just as fitting to underline the Ushiromiyas’ relationship to the ecology around them that Maria’s concern for the well-being of a singular rose – an entirely positive process in which two organisms interact in a caring and gentle way – is seen as childish and absurd, whereas establishing a rose garden on Rokkenjima in the first place is seen as logical and meaningful.

Turning from the text to the real world, there is an actual and vast touristic network spanning the Izu islands. There is reason to assume that Krauss’ plans might have been fruitful if it were not for his face being separated from the rest of his body. Then again, the Izu islands also feature a long history of hotel ruins and closed tourist resorts – a very interesting example being the Hachijō-jima Royal Hotel, a project very similar to Krauss’, just some decades prior. Also featuring a sizable hotel complex in the Western style, it is now an abandoned ruin, having closed in 2006 (see Lowe, 2016). More importantly, the Japanese government used to advertise this hotel as the “Hawaii [sic!] of Japan”, a marketing pitch that, according to David Lowe, saw success at the time (2016). Let us put a pin on the mobilization of an image of Hawai’i by Japanese government actors, and turn from the branches of this rotten family tree to its roots and finally fire Chekhov's Winchester M1894.

2.4 How to get away with fascism: Kinzo, imperialism, occultism, cowboys, the nonexistent philosopher’s stone, and (hi)storytelling

This reading of the Ushiromiya family so far has purposefully taken individual members to underline larger system, but of course, this choosing-of-focus is an artificial fragmentation. Eva’s ambition overlaps with Krauss’ neoliberalism. Rudolf’s misogyny overlaps with Eva’s attempts to push Natsuhi down. Rosa’s explicit violence against Maria overlaps with Eva’s implicit violence against George. I cherry-picked aspects of their violence that seemed to stick out as an illustration, but they all orbit around the same centre of gravity, the source of it all: Kinzo.

Multiple times in Ep1, the Ushiromiya family history gets narrated, specifically, surrounding Kinzo’s financial decisions. Every time, the story starts at the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923[xvi], and ends around 1950, with the start of the Korean War. During the earthquake, the family is said to have lost their means of production, having been industrialists beforehand, and having lost several members, leading to Kinzo’s unlikely ascension to the head of the family. Kinzo is said to have acquired some starter capital in the form of a massive amount of gold before 1950, very early going all in on some form of Korean War bonds, being called Korean War Demands in the text. Kinzo is in these descriptions universally praised for his cunning, willingness to take risks, cooperation with the West, and seemingly inhuman foresight. Let’s reexamine this story again: A Japanese former industrialist rebuilds his family’s fortune between 1923 and roughly 1950, by acquiring gold of mysterious origins in between that timeframe. In the text, the adults speculate that Beatrice might have been a mysterious widowed financier willing to support Kinzo, whereas Maria insists that Beatrice used black magic – the philosopher’s stone, specifically – to create gold out of nothing. But this story of the family fortune is painfully familiar to me as a historian capable of speaking and reading German. Now, class, can anyone tell me what might have happened in these less than three decades that a sufficiently violent man could have used to make a small fortune out of nothing?

When I commented in the Discord chat that I use to ramble about Umineko on exactly that fact after the first time the financial history of the family was narrated, and called Kinzo a fascist, Ozaawa confirmed my conclusion. The Ushiromiya family gold – the source of it all, Kinzo’s great legacy – stems from fascist sources. The mysteriously lacking narration of the company history for the Thirties and Forties aside, there is another factor to consider to point towards this conclusion as early as the middle point of Ep1. When Krauss shows Natsuhi an actual bar of the family’s gold reserves, Natsuhi notices the absence of a note of the forge/bank that is customary for high-quality gold bars. All that the gold bars show is a one-winged eagle. Now, of course you can think of the philosopher’s stone all you want, and deliberate how gold bars created from magic might look – but unmarked gold acquired in the Thirties and Forties could be explained by much less magical origins. The eagle itself is a symbol mobilized by many fascists the world over – its role as a symbol for the Ushiromiya family hints further towards the origins of that fortune.

The supposed mystery of the gold’s origin only becomes less mysterious when considering what means of gaining wealth are fully accepted as legitimate parts of the family history. The Korean War Demands – some way of profiting of the Korean War – are seen as a masterful stroke by Kinzo. That the Korean War was an incredibly bloody proxy war between the US-American and Soviet Empires, one fought with a land and population as collateral that had been violently occupied by Imperial Japan for decades prior, makes no difference. Kinzo’s war profiteering in 1950 is a socially acceptable form of imperialism, whereas the source of the gold is not. That Kinzo simply changed which imperialists to support between 1940 and 1950 does not change that he is profiteering of it in some capacity or another. His supposed cunning as a businessman is nothing more than a keen understanding of which empire will win and lose in which conflict combined with a willingness to turn the blood spilled by imperialism into gold.

Speaking of spilling blood, the murders of Rokkenjima are, as elaborated in the introduction, called “the demon’s roulette” in the text on multiple occasions, referring to some obscure black magic ritual. Magic and the occult are, so it is said by several people at multiple times in the text, bound by the logic of miracles. Kinzo explains it as such to Kanon:

“In other words, magic is a game. It is not the case that the one who performs the best becomes the victor. The victor performs the best because he has been granted magic. [...] Of course. I made it difficult. ...But you must try to solve it as well. That will form the seed that summons the miracle of my magic. If every one attempts it and everyone fails, that will be that. However, if the miracles come together and give birth to magical power, it will happen! [...] That is why you must attempt it too. Everyone must attempt it. And in so doing, they will give strength to my magic!! Do you understand?!”

Kinzo’s magic trick requires unfaltering belief in the riddle of the epitaph. Everyone, no matter of which background, can solve the riddle of the epitaph, a riddle that promises those who solve it wealth in the form of gold, and everyone must attempt to do so. The neoliberal credo is that everyone must use their own cunning and skill to strive for wealth, and that everyone can ascend to wealth when they are cunning enough. The demon’s roulette, as a pars pro toto for black magic and the occult, operates noticeably in parallel to the logics of capitalism. The occult as explained by Kinzo, in this reading of Ep1, therefore becomes a mirror to imperialist capitalism – capable of withdrawing it from the narratives that cloak it and obscure its violence, the demon’s roulette embodies and demonstrates the violence necessary to operate imperialist capitalism. It is easy for the characters to think of the gold as a distant, clean commodity and bargaining chip. It is easy for me to describe that the text alludes to the origins of the gold in fascism and imperialism. But when Battler breaks down in tears at the sight of his parent’s disfigured and defaced corpses, when the blood and gore of everyone mixes so much that class distinctions break down just as much as the bodies, when the eldest and most powerful man and the youngest, abused servant both lie in death and dead in the same room, the demon’s roulette unveils what stands behind the Ushiromiya wealth: blood. Rudolf’s negotiation with Krauss features the only mention of roulette in the text that I noticed that is not the demon’s roulette:

“The iron rule of the money roulette is that you bet against the loser.”

The demon’s roulette is the money roulette. Capitalism and imperialism operate like the occult in the embedded narrative of Ep1 does, just with one being more socially accepted than the other. Just as the violence of the occult fails and falls apart when people’s belief in it shakes, so does capitalism.

In the end, the family tree planted by Kinzo bears the fruits he has ultimately sown. Is not Eva as manipulative and emotionally violent as him? Does his obsession with Beatrice not speak the same language as Rudolf’s misogyny? Is Krauss’ money-making not just as random and based on chance as his? Does Rosa not beat her own child like he beat his? When Kinzo laments how horrible his children are, is he clairvoyant enough for that to be self-hatred? The violence that marks the Ushiromiya family stems from imperialism and fascism and capitalism in all their entanglements, made manifest in the structure of the family and mansion.

A perfect illustration of this is the symbol of the Winchester M1894. It is a gun featured in western Westerns, a motive that keeps reappearing. Being the actual gun used in filming some Western[xvii], Kinzo had it bought and retrofitted to his liking. Kinzo, so is reaffirmed many, many times in the text, is obsessed with the West. His ability to schmooze up to the GHQ is just one example of this. Kinzo, the Japanese imperialist, being close to the West, is yet another pars pro toto; Japanese imperialism has historically grown in close proximity to Western imperialism. With the end of the Shogunate and the beginning of the Meiji restoration, the idea of industrialization and restructuring of society after the western model laid the ideological groundwork for building imperial Japan; particularly, the contact point of the Pacific brought Japan into connection with the United States, extending its Empire by the annexation of the Kingdom of Hawai’i. That Japanese government agents used the idea of the US tourist industry in Hawai’i – an inextricable part of imperial control and domination – to promote a hotel resort on an actual island close to where Rokkenjima would be in the real world, ties Krauss’ island development project back to Kinzo and Kinzo’s obsession with the West. He has a western-style mansion, a western-style rose garden, his children have western-style names, and he has a western-style Western rifle. The idea of the cowboy in the genre of the Western is one inherently tied to US myths of westward expansion and manifest destiny. If the rifle then symbolizes the cowboy, and one questions the context of the genre where the cowboy is the protagonist, it becomes a tool of violent colonial inscription. Rokkenjima becomes Kinzo’s colonial playground, one which he violently claims and violently maintains while wielding the cowboy’s gun, one modified to his liking. It is western imperialism with a small twist, retrofitted for the logics and specific situation at play in Rokkenjima. Natsuhi dies, claiming the rifle and the title of head of the family, shot by the instrument of imperialism she could, in the end, not wield properly.

When Battler wishes for the seagulls to cry, he envisions the police showing up at that point, solving the murders logically, restoring sense and meaning and order as it was before. But the murders unsettle the dynamics of the Ushiromiya family, in a way that cannot be undone. They reveal the deeper violence at play, embody that blood and gore which was previously obscured. One can doubt that the police can restore the status quo that Battler dreams of, as the state, of which the police are central actors and agents, is linked to the very imperialism that sits at the core of these murders. And indeed, as the epilogue of the embedded narrative reveals, the police do not do anything of meaning in reaction to the murders. Ep1, in this reading, becomes a story of the violence of imperialist capitalism crashing down on the family it once uplifted. All of this is a nice reading, but that is a story that does not necessitate magic being real. This reading is missing one integral piece: Beatrice, the sexy, sexy ominous demonic presence of the horror story that is Ep1, exists.

3. On Divine Comedies and Worldly Tragedies, or: how did I almost miss this

So far, I have not really said anything that is not obvious from even a superficial reading of Ep1. It does not take much attention to figure out that the Ushiromiya family is deeply fucked up. It does not take much attention to figure out that Kinzo is a disturbingly violent man. The entire second segment of this essay is simply a close reading of something that sits at the surface of Umineko Ep1. Sure, I did that little trick of understanding early on that there is imperialism and fascism at play here – but I can be far from the only one who picked up on that as soon as it was placed down in the text. This essay, for the longest time, was just that second segment, that close reading of the family violence – and I wondered if that even was enough to publish it. It was missing something grander, some reason to give me a seat at the table of those scholars who understand Umineko from early on. Missing that element, that link to make a more complex reading of Ep1 work, I simply gave up. I started Episode 2, broken-hearted, and followed it until it is implied early on that George will be sent into an arranged marriage. And all along I was making jokes about Umineko to the admin of the Discord server where I ramble about Umineko – she has not read the story, but enjoys my commentary on it. I made a joke about the frame narratives being nestled, like wooden dolls – and then I wanted to double down on that joke by referencing the well-known movie Shrek (2001) by saying something along the lines of “or like ogres and onions”. But I felt I needed some other joke, something a bit more weird than a simple and well-known Shrek meme, to mask my devastation at being unable to solve Ep1. And so I said: “Or like the layers of hell in the Divine Comedy. Didn't Beatrice call herself a guide through purgatory in the tea party? Is she the Virgil to my Dante?[xviii]”. The exact line I am referencing is spoken by Beatrice, when explaining the murders of Eva and Hideyoshi in the first-order frame narrative:

“Come, arise, children. I am the guide of Purgatory. Forgive the deadly sins and hold the Seven Stakes.”

A sentence I had glossed over when I first read the tea party, one seemingly inconspicuous. But it had lodged itself into my brain and become the basis of aforementioned joke. My joke, made simply because I was momentarily tired of Shrek memes, had been closer to the truth of it all than I could have ever imagined. It took me twenty-nine minutes to see it, to realize it. I came back to the Discord chat, typing in all caps. Beatrice exists. Boy, does Beatrice ever exist. Beatrice is (not only) the guide of Purgatory. Beatrice is the guide of Heaven. Beatrice is a literary figure that has existed for seven centuries.

3.1 14th century Italian poetry, in your Umineko? It’s more likely than you think

The Divine Comedy, originally the Commedia and then the Divina Commedia, is a long poetic text by exiled and grumpy Florentine author Durante Alighieri, better known as Dante Alighieri, written in the early 14th century. Its narrative is divided into three parts. In Inferno, the Dante of the narrative descends through the centre of the Earth. He receives help in navigating Hell, which is located in the centre of the Earth, by the Roman poet Virgil, who knows the rules and dangers of the nine circles and centre of Hell. Each circle of hell features a specific punishment for sinners. In Purgatorio, Virgil and Dante emerge on the other side of the Earth onto a sole, circular island in the pacific. This island, marked by a mountain, is also subdivided into nine rings and one centre. Souls who wish to enter heaven have to ascend through the rings up the mountain to find themselves in the Garden of Eden atop the mountain. Here, Dante meets a woman named Beatrice. In Paradiso, Beatrice guides Dante through the celestial heavens. The heavens are inhabited by the most virtuous of souls and divine beings. They are also subdivided into nine parts, plus God in their outermost layer. Upon Dante reaching God under Beatrice’s guidance, the story ends, as Dante is imbued with fundamental understanding of God.

Under the eurocentric lens of western academia, the Divine Comedy is considered to stand among the most important works of world literature. It is also considered one of the, if not the foremost entries into the Italian literary canon[xix]. It, that much is certain, played an important role in formalizing the Italian language, and had introduced a very detailed description of hell and demons, something unprecedented given that western church canon[xx] had avoided giving clear descriptions of hell. The tropes established in the Divine Comedy regarding the structure and functioning of hell have received an incredibly extensive reception over the centuries, being integral pieces of the collective imagining of hell and demons, and referenced in much contemporary media. I hold very little knowledge of contemporary Japanese media, but I know that the Devil May Cry franchise has been very successful and in some connection to the Divine Comedy since 2001.

The Divine Comedy features a very extensive range of appearing figures, symbols, metaphors, and narrative systems. From real life figures living and dead to themes spanning such questions as the implications of a round Earth (see Schlingen 2021, p. 386) and human bodiedness in connection to human emotions (see Howie 2021), there is a lot one can take out of the Divine Comedy. And indeed, one can read Umineko Ep1 alongside – or perhaps against – the Divine Comedy. The opening slide of the first-order frame narrative reveals that it is set in Umineko’s Purgatorio – whatever that may mean. This setting of the tea party, and the sentence in which Beatrice describes herself as the guide of Purgatory, are direct hints at a connection between the Divine Comedy and Umineko Ep1. And yet, the most meaningful connection between the Divine Comedy and Umineko Ep1 is much more simple. As Lady Bernkastel explains to the player-reader in the second-order frame narrative:

“First of all, about that girl. She does have the name Beatrice, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she is ‘one individual woman’.”

That begs the question: How many individual women is Beatrice, exactly?

3.2 Into the Beatriceverse

Beatrice Portinari is a Florentine woman that was married to a man named Simone de Bardi in 1287 (see Lewis 2001, p. 72). She died in the summer of 1290 (see Mazotta 2000, p. 18). Her father, a banker named Folco Portinari, died on the 31st of December 1289 (see Lewis 2001, p. 77). That much is something we can say with relative certainty. Church recordings in central Italy were thorough when it came to deaths, births, and marriages. Anything else we know about Beatrice Portinari – well, it is complicated. The most extensive account of Beatrice Portinari’s life was written by Dante Alighieri in the 1290s, the Vita Nuova. Dante Alighieri reports extensively on his lifelong obsession with Beatrice Portinari, a woman he spoke to merely a handful of times, at least to his own accord (regarding the number of direct interactions see Lewis 2001). If we trust Dante to tell the truth, they were about the same age, setting her birth at around 1265, and indicating that she was 25 at the time of her death. Dante’s infatuation with Beatrice Portinari lead him to engineer social situations in which he might be able to see her. The Vita Nuova holds little information on anything Beatrice Portinari ever did out her own accord. We know nothing reliable about her interests, likes and dislikes, or emotions. Most what we know about her life is delivered to us through the eyes and words of a man who held a deeply one-sided obsession with her. If the Vita Nuova was simply the ramblings of an obsessed, grieving poet, Beatrice Portinari might have been drifted out of our collective memory.

But the Vita Nuova is not the only time Dante wrote (about) Beatrice Portinari. Divine Comedy Beatrice is one of the central figures of that poetic work, likely a direct reference to the real-life Beatrice Portinari. Divine Comedy Beatrice is the one who starts the events of the story; Virgil appears before Dante in the name of Divine Comedy Beatrice, who wishes to see Divine Comedy Dante guided to the heavens. It is in constantly referencing Divine Comedy Beatrice that Divine Comedy Dante keeps a focus through hell and purgatory. Divine Comedy Beatrice takes on the role of an angelic being guiding Divine Comedy Dante to God (see Kirkpatrick 1990, p. 101), and performs “the priestly roles of confessor, teacher, interpreter of Scripture, and spiritual guide” (Waller 2021, p. 702). These two Beatrices – Beatrice Portinari and Divine Comedy Beatrice – stand in a complicated relationship. Feminist critiques of Dante taking possession of the memory of Beatrice Portinari and puppeteering it for his own purposes have existed for a long time. To cite a longer passage from Kirkpatrick 1990, p. 101:

“Beatrice has been cited more than once as evidence that the selflessness that the lover attributes to an ideal lady is not so much a manifestation of spiritual nobility as a covert sentence of death. [...] Whether as the selfless object of courtly love or as an angelic being, the lady dies insofar as the historical woman becomes a cipher on which the patriarchal will of the writer - be he courtly poet or God - can exert itself.”

We do not know what Beatrice Portinari thinks of the long poetic text written after her death by a man she barely knew in which he wields the image of her. What we know is that centuries after her death, Dante’s obsession with her is still idealized. His writings are regarded by many as the height of romantic poetry, and allusions to Divine Comedy Beatrice run throughout western literature[xxi]. I agree with the point Kirkpatrick is making, but would maybe extend it by the semantic question if we are faced with a “death sentence” of the historical woman or her unwilling entrapment in a “literary immortality” that robs her of all agency and personhood. In the end, though, both these terms describe the same act of violence.

These two Beatrices, as well as the relationship between the two, are certainly figures at play in Umineko Ep1. We can count the extratextual number of Beatrices as two, which leaves us with the question of how many Beatrices we are dealing with in Umineko Ep1. There is a woman named Beatrice which Kinzo met sometime in the Thirties or Forties, a woman that died at some point in the past, as Genji explains when the survivors barricade themselves in Kinzo’s study. I would like to title this Beatrice “Umineko’s Historical Beatrice” for the time being. We know little about Umineko’s Historical Beatrice, just as we know little about Beatrice Portinari. Kinzo’s entanglement in Japanese imperialism and with the axis powers would certainly leave him with a plethora of opportunities to exert totalizing power over quite a number of women. Then, there is “Kinzo’s Portraitized Beatrice”. Kinzo weaves a narrative around Umineko’s Historical Beatrice, just like Dante did around Beatrice Portinari. The resulting woman, Kinzo’s Portraitized Beatrice, is one he mobilizes as an excuse for his obsession with the occult. It is difficult to tell at this point if Kinzo made that mysterious contract with Umineko’s Historical Beatrice, or if the contract is part of the narrative of Kinzo’s Portraitized Beatrice. Then, there is Golden Witch Beatrice – a myth, whispered by the servants and Maria in awe, fear, and distant hope for liberation, a myth of a second master of Rokkenjima, one who assumes control when Kinzo sleeps, but also haunts the mansion in perhaps some level of agency. There is the Mystery Financier Beatrice, an explanation the adults and Battler come up with for the letters and for Kinzo’s gold and for the murders, a very human, if hypothetical woman – Mystery Financier Beatrice is closely related to Kinzo’s Portraitized Beatrice, perhaps by intention of Kinzo. Both Mystery Financier Beatrice and Kinzo’s Portraitized Beatrice are removed from any actual agency or self-hood, they are stories told and speculated upon. Then, there is Arisen Beatrice – a woman, in the flesh, who we only catch a glimpse of at the end of the embedded narrative, who greets the surviving children, primarily Maria. And lastly, there is Eternal Witch Beatrice, the witch who we see in the second-order frame narrative and, as I assume, the same Beatrice we encounter in the first-order frame narrative.

Now, take this list with a grain of salt. These Beatrices do overlap and may even sometimes be the same person. There is plenty reason to assume that Arisen Beatrice and Eternal Witch Beatrice are the same, as much as there is plenty reason to assume that there is a strong overlap between Golden Witch Beatrice and Eternal Witch Beatrice. Perhaps Arisen Beatrice and Umineko’s Historical Beatrice somehow are the same figure – Lady Bernkastel mentions that she was mortal once, implying that one can ascend to being a witch from a state of mortality. But, ultimately, I mark these Beatrices as distinct because just as much as Beatrice Portinari and Divine Comedy Beatrice, they have the capacity to stand in relationship to one another, and they have vastly different agencies, roles, and limitations when compared to each other. Every single one of these Beatrices is commanded by different forces, used and presented and (figuratively and literally) painted by different people, sometimes by her own, sometimes by individual others, sometimes by collective others. Close attention needs to be paid at how these eight-ish Beatrices, two extratextual and six-ish intratextual, are played out in very different ways. And, as I theorize is integral for understanding Umineko Ep1 – the very relationship between Beatrice Portinari and Divine Comedy Beatrice mirrors the relationship between Umineko’s Historical Beatrice and Kinzo’s Portraitized Beatrice intentionally. When the survivors retreat to the study, and Genji recounts the story of Kinzo’s Portraitized Beatrice, the first reaction that the listeners have is understanding and empathy for Kinzo. It is only when realizing that the murders happening around them are closely tied to Kinzo’s obsession with and hope for a resurrection of Kinzo’s Portraitized Beatrice that they realize that Kinzo had gone too far. In Kinzo, so my reading, Umineko Ep1 satirizes Dante Alighieri. Eternal Witch Beatrice lashing out can be read as a symbolic act of intertextual retribution for the textual violence and entrapment Beatrice Portinari has suffered, just as much as it could be a retribution for the suffering Umineko’s Historical Beatrice had endured. Umineko, so I further theorize, can be read as an inverse Divine Comedy – a Worldly Tragedy, if you will. Let me further illustrate this point by turning our attention to round islands in the Pacific.

3.3 Rokkenjima is other people: Reverse-engineering hell and the omnipresence of guides

Rokkenjima is an interesting stage for the violence of Ep1 to play out. As elaborated in sections 2.3 and 2.4, Rokkenjima can be read through an ecocritical and postcolonial lens, as an ecosystem upon which Krauss exerts capitalist logics and as a space which Kinzo uses as a miniature colony. But reading Umineko as a critical parody of the Divine Comedy, we also gain access to another understanding of Rokkenjima; as a twisted mixture of hell and purgatory. Hell and purgatory in the Divine Comedy have different, more specifically opposite, spatial structures. Divine Comedy Dante goes through hell by descending, going down each ring, narrower and lower than the one before. Reversely, he ascends purgatory by going up each ring, narrower and higher up than the one before, before reaching Eden – and Divine Comedy Beatrice – at the top. Such spatial trajectories also get mentioned in Umineko Ep1, but ultimately and immediately deconstructed. When the visitors arrive on the island, Battler comments upon the sloping path one has to take up from the landing pier to the mansion complex:

“A serpentine, twisting path led through a dim forest. It ran a bit uphill. I’d guess the path was made all twisty so the slope wouldn’t seem too steep, but personally, I’d have been happier if they’d had the guts to make some stairs in a straight line ......No doubt they made the path twist on purpose, to put on airs of distance and importance...”

One might read this path guests of Rokkenjima ascend through as part of the microcolonial architecture that is such an integral part of Kinzo’s and Krauss’ laying-claim to the island. One might also read Battler’s alternative as an expression of that same architectural hubris, as a disregard for the geological and structural reality of that stretch of Rokkenjima, because it remains to be questioned how intrusive a set of straight stairs[xxii] might have been in the context of the local landscape. But this spatiality may also be read in conjunction with the very first lines of Inferno:

“In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost.” (Alighieri/Turner 1320/1996, p. 27)

This entry of Divine Comedy Dante towards his journey into hell mirrors Battler’s monologue in a couple of ways. Whereas the difficulty of the paths in the Divine Comedy represent the theological difficulty of salvation, difficulties through which Divine Comedy Dante has to be lead by Divine Comedy Beatrice as the representation of perfected christian belief, Rokkenjima’s meandering paths, at least for now, represent both a nuisance to the characters and their unknowing physically ascent into a hell that will unfold around them soon. Whereas at the top of the winding path in Purgatorio, the Garden Eden awaits with Divine Comedy Beatrice ready to appear and take Divine Comedy Dante to the heavens, at top of the winding path in Umineko Ep1, the rose garden awaits with Golden Witch Beatrice ready to appear and murder everyone.

But this inversion and reconfiguration of spatiality is more than a singular instance of a mirror and parody of the Divine Comedy. Whereas Divine Comedy Dante has Virgil and then Divine Comedy Beatrice to explain to him all the minutiae and idiosyncrasies that govern the realms of the Divine Comedy, there is a distinct lack of a singular, final, authoritative voice explaining the idiosyncrasies of Umineko Ep1. This is not because guidance is absent in Umineko Ep1, rather the opposite: The omnipresence of contradicting, incomplete, and biased guides is what makes Umineko Ep1 so impassable on every narrative and metanarrative level. Battler seemingly guides the play-reader through most of the embedded narrative, but how much competence can one expect from a guide that uses the first moment of introspection the narrative provides to him to whine about how difficult it is to be a child born into unfathomable intergenerational wealth? What ability does Battler have to introduce us to the women of the embedded narrative when the first thing he does on multiple occasions is to joke about harassing them or come very close to actually doing it? When the Ushiromiya adults take over with the narration, how trustworthy are they? Can we believe the ultrarich capitalist to give us a proper account of how the servant’s social space functions? Can we trust the violent imperialist Kinzo to properly explain the functionings and logics of the occult to us? Umineko Ep1 is littered with instances of people speaking for other people, trying to explain what the true meaning of someone else’s words and actions and emotions is. The closest the player-reader comes to gaining a guide through Umineko Ep1 is only after having traversed the story, when Lady Bernkastel gently removes the fourth wall, turns it around, and fixes it in place again. But according to her own report, Lady Bernkastel uses the player-reader as a piece in a game to deal with her boredom; a move made out of pity and amusement. Is she the ultimate authoritative voice which may guide the player-reader through the narrative?

From the constant discussions of murder mystery novels in the embedded narrative, to the murder victims discussing the implications their deaths have on the genre in the first-order frame narrative, to the outright obliteration of the fourth wall in the second-order frame narrative: Umineko Ep1 brims with metanarrative commentary. By presenting us with a plethora of guides through this strange hell-purgatory of Rokkenjima and making each of them untrustworthy in the same moment, Umineko Ep1 engages in a permanent suspension of suspension of disbelief. The player-reader is supposed to engage with Umineko as a fictionalized narrative while remaining very aware that it functions as such. If my reading is to stand any ground, this is where the concept and figure of the witch begins to unravel.

3.4 Darkness, witches, angels, and the absence of a god: How to decipher Golden/Eternal Witch Beatrice as an anti-Beatrice

Reading Umineko as a parody and commentary on the Divine Comedy means that a lot of the motives and symbols of Umineko become very legible from the start, courtesy of the extensive symbolic lexicon employed by the Divine Comedy.Unfortunately, one of the most important symbolic figures of Umineko, the Witch, has no meaningful direct equivalent in the Divine Comedy. If we approach the witches in Umineko Ep1, we gain pitifully little information on what they are. The dramatis personae of the second-order frame narrative informs the player-reader when trying to set Eternal Witch Beatrice’s entry to dead that she can theoretically be destroyed, but not by means accessible to the player-reader. One of Lady Bernkastel’s lines implies that witches start off mortal but ascend to witchhood at some point and then are immortal. When Lady Bernkastel talks about what Eternal Witch Beatrice is, she says the following:

“Get what I mean? In other words, she’s not some Human. Her existence is a personification of the rules of this world. To beat her, you have to expose the rules of this world and unravel them.”

The key to witchhood, then, is closely linked with understanding the truth(s) of Umineko. Witches are also incapable of being harmed by material means (see Kanon’s and Natsuhi’s failed attempts to lash out at Golden Witch/Arisen Beatrice). They exist in a sort of immaterial, half-immortal state, in which they are closely linked to immaterial ideas and truth(s). You know which group of figures in the Divine Comedy exists in a sort of immaterial, half-immortal state, in which they are closely linked to immaterial ideas and truth? That’s right, you have read the title of this subsection: Angels. Alison Cornish explains the theological nature of angels, as interpreted by Dante and introduced into the Divine Comedy, as follows:

“Angels differ essentially from human beings in that they are separated substances—separated, that is, from matter [...] This separated state makes them purer and better receptors of intellectual substance. They are “intelligences” who feed on intellectual fare, namely, truth, and what Dante repeatedly calls the “bread of angels,” to which they have direct access but to which the philosophically inclined may also aspire” (p. 38)

I am not saying that witchhood in Umineko translates one-to-one into the notion of the angelic in the Divine Comedy. But there is no denying that the two direct allusions to Dante that Ryukishi07 placed in the first-order frame narrative are meant to create meaning, and the criticism of Dante’s obsession with Beatrice Portinari through Kinzo’s obsession with Umineko’s Historical Beatrice cannot be a coincidental reading. I also know from being slightly spoiled by Ozaawa that there will be a character named Virgilia later on, and I look forward to seeing what Ryukishi07 does with that character. My point in all of this is that those two texts clearly enter into a dialogue, and that dialogue allows me to use established readings of the Divine Comedy to unravel Umineko. Dante’s angels and Ryukishi07’s witches can be seen as entering a dialogue with one another.

Just as Dante places Divine Comedy Beatrice in close proximity to the angelic (see Cornish 2000, p. 37), Kinzo allows for Kinzo’s Portraitized Beatrice to be regarded as being in close proximity to witchcraft. Both Dante’s angels and Ryukishi07’s witches are complex allegorical figures that fulfill many roles and objectives at once. Whereas Divine Comedy Beatrice in her quasi-angelic state is identified with (reflecting) light as the central motive to stand for God (see Cornish 2000, p. 39), Golden Witch/Arisen Beatrice is associated with darkness. Both when she interacts with Kanon and Natsuhi, and when Sayo observes Golden Witch Beatrice way earlier in the story, the Beatrices stand cloaked in darkness to the point that the darkness becomes them, reciprocally personified. Golden Witch Beatrice is said to be the master of Rokkenjima at night, when the island is cloaked in darkness. Divine Comedy Dante can only ascend through purgatory during the day, when God’s light graces the island. If Divine Comedy Beatrice glows bright and is the light as she – like an angel – reflects God and God’s truth, Golden Witch Beatrice commands and laughs from the darkness in the absence of a God, and stands for a much more wordly truth, that of Kinzo’s violence.

Given that Lady Bernkastel tells us that Eternal Witch Beatrice is a personification of the rules of this world, and that this world of Umineko is deeply metanarrative, I propose a very theoretical early reading of what witches are in Umineko: Witches are allegorical representations of the fundamental forces and properties of a narrative. Eternal Witch Beatrice, so the second-order frame narrative, has the power to kill someone eternally, without fail, and yet fail does not exists in the realm of witches. I cannot explain every aspect of what is said in the second-order frame narrative through this reading, but: Let us reexamine the idea of narrative entrapment in immortality/death that has been explained in subsection 3.2 through the examination of the relationship between Beatrice Portinari and Divine Comedy. Is that constant denial of agency by assuming complete control over someone’s memory not a (metaphorical) way of killing someone over and over, given that death can be seen as the greatest possible loss of agency an individual can suffer through? Eternal Witch Beatrice's power, as explained in the second-order frame narrative, is one she has reappropriated from the abuser(s) of her namesake(s), namely, Dante and Kinzo, now wielding it as her own. In that sense, I find it fascinating how the epilogue of the embedded narrative stresses that the murders that have happened on Rokkenjima turn into an urban legend afterwards. The most important legacy the Ushiromiyas leave behind, the thing that they will always be associated with, is the mystery of their deaths that left them a puddle of gore on the grounds of Rokkenjima. Every time this urban legend is repeated again, the deaths repeat, and the Ushiromiyas are denied agency by becoming reduced to a singular aspect of their memory. If we read Eternal Witch Beatrice’s power as such, then the Rokkenjima murders become the ultimate act of retribution against Kinzo, one that forces him into the same fate as he forced upon Umineko’s Historical Beatrice.

We can further examine the figures of Beatrices in Umineko Ep1 through the lens of the Divine Comedy, as some miscellaneous symbols and points also connect. Kinzo wishes for nothing more than to see “Beatrice’s smile” again before he dies, a point he makes clear in the prologue/first scene and constantly repeats. Divine Comedy Dante is constantly reminded of his path to heaven and salvation when thinking about Divine Comedy Beatrice’s smile, and it is this smile she shows him when he arrives at the summit of purgatory (see the commentary in the translation by Turner 1990, p. 558). Divine Comedy Beatrice’s smile becomes a mark of salvation and the path to God. When Kinzo cries and shouts about “Beatrice’s smile”, it becomes a symbol of that absence of a divine presence, and, as he will not see “Beatrice’s smile” again, he does not find salvation, but death. Indeed, Umineko Ep1 seems to mock the christianized logics of punishment and salvation at multiple turns. The stakes that Eternal Witch Beatrice commands are ascribed to demons that stand for sins more or less appropriate for the people killed by the individual stakes.[xxiii] When finding the corpses of his deeply violent, mysogynistic father and the woman that enabled him at many turns, Battler wonders what they had ever done to deserve such a punishment. He repeats later that no one deserves such a fate. And, as Eternal Witch Beatrice makes clear in the first-order frame narrative, the stakes and the forces that wield them are supposed to forgive the sins – by killing the sinners. In this inherent violence, the Rokkenjima murders withdraw from the logics of christian salvation, just as much as Arisen Beatrice denies Kinzo her smile. There is no salvation, only death. Eternal Witch Beatrice does not seek out salvation for the Ushiromiyas (except Maria), she seeks revenge in the form of blood.

Another symbol to decipher is that of the butterflies. Golden Witch Beatrice is said to appear in the form of golden, glistening butterflies. Butterflies indeed appear in the Divine Comedy, namely, in a metaphorical role in the in Purgatorio.

“O proud Christians, woeful wretches, who sick in the mind's vision, place trust in backward steps, do you not see that we are worms born to form the angelic butterfly which flies to justice without shields? How is it that your spirit soars so high, when you are as imperfect insects, like the larva lacking its full formation?” (Alighieri 1320, as translated in Singleton 2019, p. 60-61)

Here, as explained in Turner’s commentary on his translation of Purgatorio, the butterfly is used in its capacity as an analogy for metamorphosis, a literary tradition reaching back to antiquity. More specifically, Turner further explains, it stands for “spiritual change as metamorphosis” (p. 171).[xxiv] It stands as a warning against pride (Singleton 2019, p. 61). In Dante’s usage, the butterfly stands for a yet-to-be-completed angelic spiritual transformation that is hindered by pride. In contrast, one could read the butterflies of Golden/Eternal Witch Beatrice as meaning that she has already undergone a transformation – not towards an angelic state, but towards witchhood, Umineko’s likely answer to Dante’s angels.[xxv] If Golden/Eternal Witch Beatrice is the swarm of butterflies, she has already metamorphosized; moved by a spiteful pride and wrath against the man who harmed Umineko’s Historical Beatrice, she has transformed by a logic completely opposite to that presented in the Divine Comedy. Once again, Umineko’s register of motives opposes its Divine Comedy counterparts in full force.

The last motive that I want to look towards in its interactions with (or rather against) the Divine Comedy is that of the “Golden Land”. In the Divine Comedy, the exact wording of “Golden Land” is never used, but it explicitly leans on the long-standing motive of the “Golden World” – one that is in Dante’s usage intrinsically tied to the idea of political order and stability acting as justice under the Roman Empire, as Robin Kirkpatrick explains (1990, p. 112-113). In other words, the logics of the Divine Comedy entangle ideas of political hierarchies, rule/ruling, spiritual ascension, justice, and Christianity under the concept of the “Golden World”.[xxvi] It is, also remarkably, situated partially on top of the mountain that is purgatory; the Garden Eden being a part and aspect of this concept (compare Kirkpatrick 1990, p. 112). The political order that houses and props up the mansion complex of Rokkenjima, Kinzo’s private and privatized Garden Eden, is completely unsettled and exposed as unjust by the forces that govern Eternal Witch Beatrice’s Golden Land. As Kirkpatrick once again elaborates:

“In canto XXVII of the Purgatorio, Virgil performs a verbal coronation in which Dante is declared to be at last free, upright, and whole, and thus fit to enter the Golden World.” (1990, p. 113)

Character’s aptitude for entering the “Golden Land” in Umineko Ep1 is indeed a topic brought up, but Dante’s equivalent – Kinzo – is made unfit to enter the “Golden Land” by death quite early on. Whereas Dante’s elaborated and detailed “Golden World” is a symbolic stabilization of spiritual and political practice at the time, Umineko Ep1’s is a vague threat and promise at the same time, one that symbolically destabilizes the ideological and political practice on Rokkenjima. In short, the ambiguous and so far not fully explained register of motives, symbols, and ideas surrounding Eternal Witch Beatrice stands as a rejection of Divine Comedy Beatrice and the literary trope Divine Comedy Beatrice became over the centuries.

3.5 Ave Maria: A short tangent on the role of motherhood and Christianity in Umineko Ep1

Not only the figure(s) of Beatrice(s) unravel through a closer reading of Umineko Ep1 alongside the Divine Comedy. If you are like me, you might have wondered early on what is going on not only with so many of the names being western, but also christian in origin, not even mentioning the crosses littering the outfits worn by several of the Ushiromiyas. One example that comes to mind, that unravels rather neatly, is Eva. Eva, the non-anglicized form of Eve, stands as a crude parody Christianity's human progenitor, first ever mother. Eva is the second human, if you so will, that Kinzo “created”, and is marked by a constant wrath for being locked out of first place. Through being the first to prolong the bloodline, she outperforms Natsuhi in the violently misogynistic structure of the family. Just as Eve makes Adam bite the apple, Hideyoshi merely follows Eva’s quest for the gold. In other words, Eva, a woman wielding misogyny against another woman, mirrors the foundational misogynistic trope of Christianity in name and in some of her relations to other characters.

But even more pronounced is the concentration on the concept of motherhood in Maria and her proximity to Beatrice – both in the Divine Comedy and Umineko Ep1. Mary is but the anglicized form of Maria, patron saint of motherhood, and one of the principal divine figures in catholicism. In the Divine Comedy, Divine Comedy Beatrice's closeness to Mary in the celestial rose, the symbolic seat of saints, underscores her exemplary nature as a pious woman and her allegorical role as divine wisdom and divine truth (for an explanation of this more analysis of Divine Comedy Beatrice and the celestial rose, see Singleton 2019, p. 61). In Umineko Ep1, it is Maria's closeness to Golden/Eternal Witch Beatrice that receives thematic meaning, when we read Beatrice as a marker of the worldly absence of the divine, as I have proposed, Maria's proximity to Beatrice means she is closest among all the characters to understanding the truth of the violence at hand. Whereas in catholicism, Mary is a symbol of divine grace in motherhood, Maria is the inverse, a symbol of the worldly pain in daughterhood. Mary nurtures Jesus, Maria is harmed by Rosa. Even the name Rosa reinforces Maria as an inversion of Mary. Roses have a long symbolic tradition in catholicism to refer to Mary, which is the reason a rosary is called a rosary, as the Latin word for rose garden. Which is the place in which the physical violence of Rosa against Maria takes place.

4. Recurrence, (in)justice, punishment, rage, catharsis, and torment through narrative (im)mortality: Trying to estimate the central themes of Umineko via Ep1

All this being said and analyzed, this leaves us with the question that started this essay, the question I directed at Umineko Ep1: What the fuck is going on here? In the introduction, I explained that I am interested in how much of Umineko you can solve within the information presented in Ep1, or as I named it, Umineko’s scholar’s mate. I also said that I am bad at murder mysteries and that I have no idea what is going on in the epitaph. Now, it has been a while since I started writing this essay, almost two months, and in the meantime, I have acquired the Answers Arc of Umineko on steam. And there, I was presented with a sentence that made things particularly interesting; it said something along the lines of “this will answer most of your questions, but you still have to solve the epitaph by yourself”. Now, I do not know if I read this sentence, this spoiler correctly; but to me, it implies that the canon text will never provide a singular, clear answer on what the epitaph riddle means.

The classical murder mystery systematically opens up several questions for the reader/viewer/player to answer, only to answer them all at the end, in an elegant fashion, perhaps to shine light on the clever detective character. Umineko Ep1 withdraws rather openly from the murder mystery genre. The logics by which a murder mystery novel operates are brought up even in the embedded narrative, where characters seem to be mostly oblivious to the fact that they exist within a story. Operating within these logics, something that Battler calls Game Theory in remembrance of a lesson Kyrie once gave him on chess, Battler tries to solve the story of Ep1 by rational means, and fails spectacularly[xxvii]. In the first-order frame narrative, i. e. the tea party, George concedes that magic must be real and at play, and that this story, which he then consciously recognizes as a story, can not be a classical murder mystery novel. Here is the thing: There is violence at play in Umineko Ep1, a lot of it, and they story tasks the player-reader with uncovering and understanding it; but, as I propose, the player-reader is not (entirely) supposed to solve the murders of the 4th and 5th of October 1986. The violence represented in the murder mystery genre is localized, individual; even in the most brutal crime novels, you have a couple dozen victims at best. When the seagulls cry (again), about 18-ish people lay dead in the embedded narrative. So far, this follows that general system of the murder mystery genre. But even with those 18-ish victims are difficult to fully keep apart; the murders happen in stages, people die in small numbers, one or only a handful at a time, and yet the player-reader has trouble following along. The fact that the number of victims alone is difficult to reconstruct points (intentionally, as I suppose in this reading) to the fact that the underlying violence of Umineko Ep1 cannot be represented in the murder mystery genre. Kinzo ascended to his position of head of the family, sole ruler of Rokkenjima, and multimillionaire by participating in imperialist-fascist projects. The estimated number of deaths associated with the Second Sino-Japanese war is around one order of magnitude larger than the number of words in the entirety of Umineko. In other words, listing but the name of every victim structurally connected with the historical violence in Ep1 would exceed the limits of the text itself. The logics of the traditional murder mystery genre (treating death and murder as localized and individual exceptions to a larger sense of peace and order) are fully incapable of adequately representing genocide, a mode of violence in which murder and death become collective, embedded, and structural.

Umineko Ep1 – and by my suggestion, all of Umineko – then becomes a tale of (meta)narrative violence, or how narratives can be mobilized in support and even creation of material, actualized violence. Multiple times, characters puppeteer the narrative of progress; Battler’s answer to the question how the murders might have happened if it were not for magic is to refer to technological progress. Multiple times, characters affirm the narrative that “modern times” are more logical, enlightened, progressed. All this they do while standing on a family fortune built on blood. It is the narrative of progress upon which the neoliberal ideology that builds up the family rests, an excuse, distraction, denial of the true origin of their status. Whereas Umineko’s Historical Beatrice, a woman harmed to no end by Kinzo, exists, the philosopher’s stone does not. The underlying implication of the epitaph is an alibi, a lie, a myth; Kinzo mobilizes the idea of the witch and magic to deny what he has truly done to acquire the gold. Maybe he has bought into his lies so much already that he has partially started to believe them himself.

The clues that the game lays out in the main menu might then be read as much more allegorical than to be taken at face value. The technical specifications of the Winchester M1894, like its fire rate and ammo capacity, might be less relevant to solving Umineko. It seems, at least to me so far, far more relevant to read the Winchester M1894 as a symbol for colonization and colonial inscription. In that, the detailed contents of the epitaph might become irrelevant to solving Umineko, and thus the epitaph has to be regarded as a clue in form of an analogy, an analogy for the lie of neoliberalism that anyone could gain fortune, an analogy for the nonsensical and empty narratives neoliberalism props up, an analogy for the Game Theory employed by capitalism. Perhaps the future episodes will reveal that trying to solve the epitaph at face value is a losing game. Indeed, maybe, its purpose is to create losers to its supposed game, because it might be this analogy for capitalism itself. As Jack Halberstam put it in 2011:

“Failure, of course, goes hand in hand with capitalism. A market economy must have winners and losers, gamblers and risk takers, con men and dupes; capitalism, as Scott Sandage argues in his book Born Losers: A History of Failure in America (2005), requires that everyone live in a system that equates success with profit and links failure to the inability to accumulate wealth even as profit for some means certain losses for others.” (p. 88)

In that sense, people losing to the epitaph is a necessary component to the money roulette as well as the demon’s roulette. I have no certain idea why Kinzo has put up the epitaph in the first place. Perhaps he genuinely believes he has cracked a dark magic code. Maybe he believes it. Maybe he does not. All I know for certain is that I will not solve the epitaph any time soon; perhaps that is the entire point of it, perhaps not.

Eternal Witch Beatrice claws her way out of (and then back into) several narratives, within the text and outside of it. She is vengeance personified, an answer for Beatrice Portinari and Umineko’s Historical Beatrice, women eternally entrapped in narratives created and maintained by men many times more powerful than them. Both Kinzo and Dante puppeteer their respective narratives of Beatrices to create and maintain their legacy. And in both instances, this violence repeats and echoes in recurrence. Violent systems of control are more likely to transform and stay nearly as violent than they are to dissolve. The Ushiromiya children repeat the sins of their parents, and their parents repeat the sins of their father. Like the musical format of the Rondo that one of the subtitles of Umineko mentions, this violence is going to be picked up again and again and again in future Episodes. Every time, it will be varied a little bit. Move back to the 3rd of October and change a couple of factors, and the violence that is the Ushiromiya family is likely to resurface again, just in a different iteration. No matter which iteration of chess moves one looks at, the players will likely aim to reduce the other’s material advantage and number of pieces; the Ushiromiyas are destined to destroy each other over and over and over again in the gamified violence of imperialist and colonial capitalism. This violence repeats synchronically and diachronically; who even needs a magical time loop when imperialism and the patriarchy and capitalism are so cyclical in nature?

Ultimately, though, I know that Umineko is a hopeful story. Ozaawa told me that the central sentence they see in Umineko is “without love, it cannot be seen”. I do not know the context in which this sentence appears, but there is a thematic equivalent in Ep1, namely, a challenge Kyrie places into the logics of Game Theory:

“Events in the world of humans are normally full of noise. Aren’t human emotions that way? Even if the exact same thing occurs more than once, there’s no guarantee that humans will always act in a predictable fashion.”

Whereas the world of witches – the realm of narratives and their powerful implications – operates on strange but fixed rules and semi-random but calculable probabilities, humans have the capacity to defy odds. Whereas it is likely that systems of violence permute throughout generations, there is always hope to be had that the human heart can ultimately defy these systems. The chance of breaking the cycle is always non-zero. That being explained, I love Eternal Witch Beatrice.[xxviii] Her struggle to defy all the narrative entanglements she was and is trapped in, her incredibly human feelings, her desire for autonomy and agency, are to me the core of the story, and what motivated me to write these thousands upon thousands of words.

5. On chess openings, or: What I still can’t explain

Here is the thing: All of this is a lot, many thousand words in fact, of speculation and half-baked theorizing. This is a reading, not the reading; I can’t even begin to fathom what this story is once the player-reader completes it. Even if I am to be right and the epitaph does not solve in a singular, meaningful, truthful way, there are still so many things I can not explain. Maybe I am completely wrong on many, if not all accounts. It would be awfully convenient for the lesbian that is bad at murder mysteries if solving Umineko under the classical logics of murder mysteries is intentionally impossible; perhaps I have misunderstood so much that I have deluded myself into thinking that such is a valid reading. I still hope this essay is an entertaining practice in trying to closely read Ep1 of Umineko without knowing all too much about the future episodes.

After finishing Ep1 for the first time, I formulated some questions I could not answer, but that I thought important to answer:

- What was the role of Rokkenjima between 1923 and 1945?

- What is the original contract made between Kinzo and Beatrice somewhere in this time? Does it even exist?

- What kind of interest can Beatrice collect on the gold when Kinzo got it from collaborating with imperialist fascism or even engaging in it?

I think they still hold value to ask, though some answers I have already partially established. And, I think this should be added:

- Why did Rudolf rightfully report in advance that he would die during the night?

- What is a witch?

And, this is still a burning question of mine: How did pochapal solve much of this story very early on? What the fuck is even going on?

6. Citations

Alighieri, D. (1996). Divine Comedy: Inferno (R. Turner, Trans.). Oxford UP. (Original work published around 1320).

Cornish, A. (2000). Angels. In R. Lansing (Ed.) Dante Encyclopedia (1st ed., pp. 37-45).

Halberstam, J. (2011). The Queer Art of Failure. Duke UP.

Howie, C. (2021). Bodies on Fire. In M. Gragnolati et al (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Dante (pp. 494–509). Oxford UP.

Kirkpatrick, R. (1990). Dante' s Beatrice and the Politics of Singularity. Texas Studies in Literature and Language 32(1), 101-119.

Lewis, R. W. B. (2001). Dante's Beatrice and the New Life of Poetry. New England Review 22(2), 69-80.

Lowe, D. (2016, April 17). The Rise and Unravelling of the Hachijo Royal Hotel. Ridgelineimages. https://ridgelineimages.com/haikyo/unravelling-of-the-hachijo-royal-hotel/.

Mazzotta, G. (2000). Alighieri, Dante. In R. Lansing (Ed.) Dante Encyclopedia (1st ed., pp. 15-20).

Schlingen, B. D. (2021). The East. In M. Gragnolati et al (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Dante (pp. 383–398). Oxford UP.

Singleton, C.S. (2019). Journey to Beatrice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP doi:10.1353/book.68489.

Waller, M. (2021). A Decolonial Feminist Dante: Imperial Historiography and Gender. In M. Gragnolati et al (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Dante (pp. 701–718). Oxford UP.

7. End notes

[i] Citation needed.

[ii] This overly detailed descriptions is not setting up a point I want to make way later, do not worry about it.

[iii] For anyone still confused, here is the dramatis personae broken down in non-linear order: Kinzo is the head of the family. Krauss is Kinzo’s eldest child, Krauss’ wife is Natsuhi, and their one child together is the teenager Jessica. Eva is Kinzo’s second child, she married Hideyoshi, and they had one son, George, a young adult, together. Rudolf is Kinzo’s third child, he had a son named Battler, 18 years old, and later married Kyrie, his former secretary. Kinzo’s youngest child is Rosa, her child with an unknown person is the nine-year old Maria. The servants are Genji, trusted head servant, Godha, renowned cook and newest member of the servants, Kumasawa, an old woman and long-time servant at the household, Kanon, barely a child, and Sayo, another very young servant. Doctor Nanjo hangs out on the island as well.

[iv] This overly detailed descriptions is not setting up a point I want to make way later, do not worry about it.

[v] This overly detailed descriptions is not setting up a point I want to make way later, do not worry about it.

[vi] Death count: 6.

[vii] Death count: 8.

[viii] Death count: 9.

[ix] Death count: 10.

[x] Death count: 13.

[xi] Death count: 14.

[xii] Death count: Everyone? 14-18?

[xiii] This overly detailed descriptions is not setting up a point I want to make way later, do not worry about it.

[xiv] Death count: Who knows.

[xv] Slight hyperbole.

[xvi] Which in Battler’s internal monologue narration gets placed as follows: “The Great Kanto Earthquake happened in Taisho 13 (1924) [...]”. Now, Taishō 13 is 1924, that much is correct, but the one major earthquake of the era I could identify is firmly located in September 1923, indeed being called the Great Kantō earthquake in many sources. This could mean several things; perhaps I am bad at research, perhaps the translation made a mistake somehow, perhaps it took Kinzo a year to assume the position of the head of the family after the earthquake, or maybe this is intentional by the author to make the reader question Battler’s authority in narrating the past.

[xvii] Frankly I forgot which one. Sorry :(

[xviii] The well-read observer might now think “Kassandra how the fuck did you instantly remember Virgil as a character of the Divine Comedy but not Beatrice”, to which I would like to respond with one of Patrick Star’s most famous aphorisms: The inner machinations of my mind are indeed an enigma.

[xix] “Literary canon”, not to be confused with “literary Kanon”.

[xx] “Western church canon”, not to be confused with “western church Kanon”.

[xxi] I personally remember reading Dan Brown‘s Inferno as a teenager, where in typical Dan Brown fashion, the woman becomes an object to be taken by the wisdom of the middle-aged academic white man; and I am pretty certain the idea of her being “a Beatrice” runs throughout the text as much as allusions to Dante and his work.

[xxii] “Straight stairs”, not be confused with “gay stares”, which is what I do whenever Eternal Witch Beatrice is onscreen.

[xxiii] Eva got killed by the stake of Asmodeous, who stands for lust. The last time Eva is seen alive is when she is very very horny towards Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi, a capitalist invested in the food distribution business, is killed by the stake of Beelzebub, the demon responsible for gluttony. Kinzo, the ultrarich capitalist, is killed by the stake of Mammon, the demon of greed. Kanon dies wrathful, lashing out at the darkness, and is killed by the stake of Satan, demon of wrath. Genji, proud of his servant role and the trust Kinzo places in him, is killed by the stake of Lucifer, demon of pride. Doctor Nanjo, a man who reacted to all the death and blood around him by freezing in place and barely reacting at all, is killed by the stake of Belphegor, who stands for sloth. Kumasawa dies by the stake of Leviathan, who stands for envy – I am unable to fully decipher that one. Maybe she felt excessive envy for the safety that those who were barricaded in the study found themselves in.

[xxiv] You might be wondering why I am using one translation while using another translation’s commentary to analyze the quote. The answer is simple; I liked the one translation more from its poetic execution.

[xxv] The butterfly as a symbol for Eternal Witch Beatrice also takes on another role; I cannot quote this enough, as stated by Ozaawa 2023: “Beato trans.”

[xxvi] This is so tangential I dare not even put it in the main text, but Dante’s fascination with the Roman empire might tie back into his political support of the Holy Roman empire and the figure of the Holy Roman emperor, a political entity that claimed to be a direct heir to the Roman empire. The imperial symbol of the Holy Roman empire and emperors is the two-headed, two-winged eagle. In my deliberations on the symbolic implications on the One-Winged (and one-headed) Eagle, I have yet to resolve a direct connection to any real world symbol, and the Holy Roman empire is the closest node of possible connection my brain can come up with. However, I assume that it is completely unrelated.

[xxvii] Failing spectacularly is kind of Battler’s entire modus operandi, if you think about it.

[xxviii] And not just because its t4t. But also because it is t4t.

[nn1895]

A Year of Moments Optimus/Elita Drabbles - July

Enemies to Lovers

“Fraggit – move your shoulder!”

“I am trying not to crush your legs.  Hold on –“

“I can’t hold on!  Your stupid plating in smoother than a zero-friction track!  Who the slag does your waxing?”

“Are–are you complaining that I am too well polished?”

“Yes!”

“You weren’t complaining a few minutes ago when it was all, ‘Yes, Optimus, yes!’ and complimenting my –“

“Shut-up-shut-up-shut-up!  I heard someone!  If anyone finds out I clanged Goody-Two-Pedes himself in a closet –“

���The Global Peace Initiative would not be happy to find out about this either.  Not after your speech on space-mounted missiles.”

 Vacation Together

Primes…couldn’t go to public beaches.  Or amusement parks.  Or even nice, slightly out of budget restaurants.  There wasn’t a great deal of time either.

He still wanted to.

“Do you – do you like it?” he asked as soon as Elita-1 walked in.  

It wasn’t much – he’d bartered for the beach soundtrack and bribed Mirage for the fancy fuel.  Jazz had hung the mini-holoprojectors to mimic twilight in the Crystal Gardens and Prowl had lent his tabletop garden.

“I thought, since it’s our anniversary and we –“

He offlined his optics as she stepped into the circle of his arms.

“Yes.”

 Power Swap

But Optimus wasn’t here.  She stared out at the wide, fearful optics – the civilian optics – and her engine stalled.

“I’m sure you are all –“ a sparkling wailed, a rough voice hushed it – “I mean, it’s been…”

Stir up a fervor in new soldiers?  Done.  This…

Lend me your magic words for a klik, Orion.  

A flash of memory rose up– a late cycle, a stubborn rust infection, bills racking up, Orion’s servos –

“I know you are tired and empty and scared.  Lean on each other - we can carry more weight together. I promise you – everyone’s going home tonight.”

 “Batman won’t like this”

“Batman won’t like this.”

“Stop calling Prowl Batman.”

 Stars

“Coming!”  Elita punched the button and put on her ‘greeting fans’ smile as the door slide open.

“What can I sign for –“ she started and realized she was talking to a chestplate.  

“Um, it’s to, ah, Optimus?” the chestplate rumbled hesitantly and she looked up into the stunningly blue optics of the Prime, his Holiness, the Sacred Conduit.

He was holding out a holo of her in one of her sparkling movies – The Little Merformer.

“Of course!”  She fumbled the holo.  “Sure…yes!”

“It’s,” his voice dropped and he glanced at the bodyguard to his right, “it’s my favorite movie.”

 Coffee Shop

This wasn’t the cozy energon café she’d been envisioning most of the war.  The only space she could afford was between a Real-estate Agent and a steel manufacturer. The cobalt paint she’d thought was so pretty looked like the inside of a dirty cube.  The delay of the sign meant the shop still claimed to sell novelty horns.

She had also burned every cube of energon she’d made.

Currently, the only customer was an addled librarian who came in like clockwork because it was “on his way in.”

What an idiot.  The Archive was in the opposite direction of –

Oh.

[safetycar-restart]

Hi how’s your holiday going, I hope you’re having fun

I’m in so much pain but it made me think, who would you say would be most open to eating you out or just doing stuff on your period (or I mean on theirs with boypussy!)

I feel like this is kinda a strange ask so if you don’t want to write anything, please don’t worry <33

~💌

Firstly, I hope you’re feeling better!! Periods really fucking suck and I hope you have plenty of pain meds and comfy clothes. And secondly, yeah I don’t mind writing this at all, I’m gonna write a little bit about a few different people but if there’s someone in particularly you want to hear thoughts about and I didn’t write for them, you can always send another ask, I also didn’t do boypussy for everyone so let me know if there’s someone specific you wanted that for :))

(And also I’m now obsessed with boypussy Charles on his period)

PIERRE:

Pierre is all about servicing you. And he does not care what time of the month it is, he wants to service you, end of story.

Honestly he’s actually VERY determined to eat you out on your period. Cause all he sees is that you’re unhappy and his mind immediately goes to kneeling with his head between your thighs. He doesn’t care at all that there will be blood involved. Zero care whatsoever.

You’re s little uncertain about it, which just makes him even more determined. And well…. You’re not exactly gonna pass up that opportunity.

CHARLES:

(Gonna do boypussy here)

Something tells me that that Charles gets SUPER sensitive on his period? Both mentally and physically? He’s clingy and emotional, but his pussy is also so sensitive and even his nipples are sore? That’s on top of cramps, so the poor thing really goes through it every month.

At first he’d just seek out cuddles, whining into your chest and holding you tight and softly asking for tummy and back rubs. Of course you’re always willing to do that, making sure to never say anything that might seem negative because it will make Charles dissolve into tears.

But then one day, he’s laying on top of you on the couch on his period, hiding his face in your neck and you’re running your hands over his back and massaging his lower back. He’s so comfy.

The problem is though… your touches are getting lower and lower and you’ve slipped your hand under his sweatshirt so he can feel your hand against his skin and you’re kissing his forehead and he’s always been a horny little thing but now his hormones are all over the place.

He starts so slowly rock his hips, unconsciously looking for friction. You ask him what’s wrong and he just blushes, but you recognise the look on his face.

It ends up with you fingering him, just playing with his clit and fucking him with one finger because he’s so sensitive and he cums so quickly!! Of course your hand also gets covered in blood but it’s worth it.

After that, he’s much hornier on his period, cause honestly letting you play with him helps his cramps so much (you just can’t tease him).

Ok I’m gonna stop here or else this will end up being thousands of words.

MICK:

Mick is a service sub. He wants to be of service to you. And your period is really just another opportunity for him to do that.

It’s not always sexual, in fact it rarely ever is.

He knows your favourite snacks, your preferred period products, your preferred pain medication. He knows it all. In fact he even has a period tracker up on his phone to track your cycle to make sure that he knows when it starts and can have everything ready.

CARLOS:

I know we don’t talk about Carlos all that much, but he would absolutely be down to fuck on your period. No questions asked.

[99pax1cotidie100]

📮💌 P.S. Sincerely, Supernovally. Once upon a time: A star was born 💫

🧑‍🚀There is approx 1 septillion (1 followed by 24 zeros) stars in the universe. Stars are giant balls of hot gas mostly hydrogen with helium & small amounts of other elements. Every star has its own life cycle ranging from a few million to trillions of years.

🤰⭐️Birth Stars form in large clouds of gas and dust called molecular clouds. Molecular clouds range from 1000 to 10 million times the mass of the Sun and can span as much as hundreds of light-years, they are cold which causes gas to clump creating high-density pockets. They can collide with each other or collect more matter, strengthening their gravitational force as their mass grows. Eventually, gravity causes some of these clumps to collapse. When this happens friction causes the material to heat up which eventually leads to the development of a protostar: a baby star.

⚛️⭐️Life At first most of the protostar’s energy comes from heat released by its initial collapse. After millions of years, immense pressures and temperatures in the star’s core squeeze the nuclei of hydrogen atoms together to form helium “Nuclear fusion”which releases energy & heats the star preventing it from collapsing under the force of gravity.

⛽️⭐️A star’s gas provides its fuel and its mass determines how rapidly it runs through its supply with lower-mass stars burning longer, dimmer & cooler than very massive stars.

🌔🌚Death At the beginning of the end of a star’s life, its core runs out of hydrogen to convert into helium. The energy produced by fusion creates pressure inside the star that balances gravity’s tendency to pull matter together so the core starts to collapse.

⭐️A low-mass star’s atmosphere will keep expanding until it becomes a subgiant or giant star while fusion converts helium into carbon in the core. This will be the fate of our Sun in several billion years. Eventually all the star’s outer layers blow away creating an expanding cloud of dust and gas called a planetary nebula.

⭐️All that’s left of the star is its core, called a white dwarf, an Earth-sized stellar cinder that gradually cools over billions of years.

⭐️A high-mass star goes further. Fusion converts carbon into heavier elements like oxygen, neon & magnesium which will become future fuel for the core. For the largest stars, this chain continues until silicon fuses into iron. These processes produce energy that keeps the core from collapsing but each new fuel buys it less and less time. The whole process takes a few million years. By the time silicon fuses into iron the star runs out of fuel in a matter of days.

⭐️The star’s iron core collapses until forces between the nuclei push the brakes then it rebounds. This change creates a shock wave that travels outward through the star. The result is a huge explosion called Supernova.

💌Dedicated to our fallen Supernova Stars who continue to shine in our hearts galaxy.

[minimac-mspl]

Functions of hydraulic oil and the reasons of its contamination

There are four basic functions of hydraulic oil:

To act as an energy transmission medium

To Lubricate internal moving parts of components

To act as a heat transfer medium

To seal clearances between moving parts

Proper hydraulic fluid maintenance helps to prevent or reduce breakdown maintenance. This is accomplished through continuous improvement program that minimizes and removes contaminants. Hydraulic fluid is expected to create a lubricating film to keep precision parts separated. Ideally, the film is thick enough to completely fill the clearance between moving parts. This condition results in low wear rates. When the wear rate is kept low enough, a component is likely to reach its intended life expectancy.

The actual thickness of a lubricating film depends on:

fluid viscosity

applied load

relative speed of the two surfaces

So, if after multiple cycles the oil loses its viscosity or is contaminated. It will lead to addition friction and wear and tear.

What harm will the contaminants make?

If not properly flushed, contaminants from manufacturing and assembly will be left in the system. These contaminants include dust, welding slag, rubber particles from hoses and seals, sand from castings, and metal debris from machined components. Also, when fluid is initially added to the system, contamination is introduced. During system operation, contamination enters through breather caps, worn seals, and other system openings. System operation also generates internal contamination. This occurs as component wear debris and chemical by-products react with component surfaces to generate more contamination.

What are the types & sources of Contamination?

There are basically 4 sources of contamination:

Built-in Contamination

Natural Contamination

Ingressed Contamination

Generated Contamination

While the first three types of contamination is self-explanatory, there is the further classification of generation contamination on the basis of how it is generated:

Abrasive Wear: Hard particles bridging two moving surfaces, scraping one or both.

Cavitation Wear: Restricted inlet flow to pump causes fluid voids that implode causing shocks that break away critical surface material.

Fatigue Wear: Particles bridging a clearance cause a surface stress riser that expands into a spall due to repeated stressing of the damaged area.

Erosive Wear: Fine particles in a high-speed stream of fluid eat away a metering edge or surface.

Adhesive Wear: Loss of oil film allows metal to metal contact between moving surfaces.

Corrosive Wear: Water or chemical contamination in the fluid causes rust or a chemical reaction that degrades a surface.

Are contaminants visible with naked eye?

Particle sizes are generally measured on the micrometer scale. One micrometer (or micron) is one-millionth of one meter, or 39 millionths of an inch. The limit of human visibility is approx.. 32μm micrometers. Keep in mind that most damage-causing particles in hydraulic or lubrication systems are smaller than 14μm micrometers. Therefore, they are microscopic and cannot be seen by the unaided eye. To put the sizes in perspective, below are the sizes of some known objects. Hence filtration of hydraulic oil is of prime importance. Minimac System provides an array of the solution in this regard. What we also do is filter check via our experts for any of your rig/equipment. At Minimac Systems we offer Flushing Services and Filter Check Services which ensure a clean system including oil tanks and lines. Book an appointment with our technical expert by clicking on https://www.linkedin.com/company/minimacsystemsprivatetlimited or call +91 8975150700

Like, Comment, Share this article to spread awareness and sensitize the reader for Zero Mechanical Breakdown.

[women-wellness]

Liwa Rash Free Organic Sanitary Pads

Explore Liwa Rash Free Organic Sanitary Pads for Periods

Welcome to a world where comfort and confidence reign during your menstrual cycle with Liwa Rash Free Organic Sanitary Pads. Liwa isn't just a product; it's a commitment to rash-free periods and unrivalled comfort.

Why Liwa Stands Out Among Best Rash Free Pads

Liwa prides itself on its dedication to providing the ultimate rash free experience during periods. Unlike standard pads, Liwa pads are meticulously crafted using cutting-edge technology and skin-friendly organic materials using Pure Cotton, ensuring maximum comfort and zero irritation.

Understanding Rash Free Pads by Liwa

Rash-free periods are now within reach. Liwa understands the importance of a comfortable period experience, eradicating discomfort and irritations commonly associated with traditional pads. It's advanced design and organic materials like Pure Cotton prioritize your comfort above all else.

Key Features of Liwa Rash Free Pads

Gentle Touch Surface: Soft on the skin to prevent potential irritation.

Breathable Design: Facilitates airflow for a fresh, dry feeling.

Absorbency & Leak Protection: High absorbency with leak-proof assurance.

Free from Harsh Chemicals: No chemicals that might trigger skin reactions.

Contoured Fit: Naturally conforms to your body shape, reducing friction.

Tips for Optimal Comfort with Liwa Rash Free Pads

Regular Change: Opt for regular Liwa pad changes for lasting freshness.

Know Your Needs: Choose the Liwa pad that matches your flow and preferences.

Hygiene Matters: Maintain excellent hygiene practices for added comfort and cleanliness.

Promote Air Circulation: Wear breathable clothing to enhance ventilation in your intimate area.

Experience Rash Free Periods with Liwa: Conclusion

Liwa Organic Sanitary Pads stand as your trusted companion for a hassle-free period experience. Bid farewell to discomfort and irritation during your menstrual cycle. Embrace the freedom to move, work, and live confidently with Liwa, your ultimate choice for rash free periods.

Make the switch to Liwa today and redefine your period experience with unparalleled comfort and protection. Feel the difference and embrace a new level of confidence during your periods!

[havellsindia001]

Effortless Laundry Days: Exploring the Lloyd Estello H 8.0 kg Fully Automatic Top Load Washing Machine

Laundry days just got a whole lot easier with the Lloyd Estello H 8.0 kg Fully Automatic Top Load Washing Machine. Imagine a washing machine that not only cleans your clothes with precision but also pampers them with care. This advanced washing machine is designed to make your laundry routine a breeze while delivering exceptional results. Let's dive into the features and benefits that set the Lloyd Estello H apart.

5-Star Rating: Environmentally Conscious Efficiency

Efficiency meets eco-friendliness with the 5-star rating of the Lloyd Estello H washing machine. This rating not only reflects its energy-saving capabilities but also contributes to a greener planet by conserving valuable resources. With each cycle, you're not just taking care of your laundry; you're taking care of the environment too.

In-Built Heater: Say Goodbye to Stubborn Stains

No more worrying about stubborn stains that refuse to budge. The in-built heater in the Lloyd Estello H washing machine brings hot water to the equation, helping to dissolve tough stains and sanitize your clothes effectively. From oily residues to germ-laden fabrics, this feature ensures your clothes come out fresh, clean, and hygienic.

Puro Drum: Gentle Care for Fabrics

Your favourite garments deserve the best treatment, and that's precisely what the Puro Drum in the Lloyd Estello H provides. Designed with a focus on fabric care, this drum's unique design minimizes wear and tear on clothes, reducing friction and ensuring they look newer for longer.

8 i-Sense Technology: Precision and Perfection

Experience a new level of automation and precision with the 8 i-Sense Technology. This innovative feature activates automated functions and inbuilt sensors, adapting the washing process to the specific load and fabric type. Say goodbye to guesswork – your washing machine knows exactly what your clothes need for the best possible outcome.

Soft Close Glass Lids: Gentle and Graceful

The Lloyd Estello H washing machine is not only efficient but also elegant in its design. The soft close glass lids add a touch of sophistication to the appliance while ensuring smooth and silent operation. No more accidental lid slams; this washing machine treats your laundry and your ears with equal consideration.

Zero (Low) Pressure Technology: Universal Accessibility

Don't let low water pressure affect your laundry routine. The Zero Pressure Technology in the Lloyd Estello H ensures that your washing machine operates flawlessly even with low water pressure, making it suitable for a wide range of environments and living conditions.

Swift 15: Quick Solutions

For those moments when you're in a hurry, the Swift 15 feature comes to the rescue. This rapid wash cycle gets your clothes clean and fresh in just 15 minutes, perfect for when you need a quick turnaround.

Child Lock: Peace of Mind

Safety is paramount, especially in households with children. The Child Lock feature on the Lloyd Estello H washing machine provides peace of mind by preventing accidental disruptions to the washing cycle. Now you can focus on your tasks knowing that the machine and your little explorers are both secure.

The Lloyd Estello H 8.0 kg Fully Automatic Top Load Washing Machine isn't just a household appliance; it's a partner that takes care of your laundry needs with efficiency, precision, and care. From energy efficiency to fabric protection, this washing machine offers a host of features that elevate your laundry experience.

Make your laundry days effortless and enjoyable with the Lloyd Estello H. Discover the future of laundry technology and bring home the convenience you deserve.

Explore the Lloyd Estello H 8.0 kg Fully Automatic Top Load Washing Machine and embark on a journey to smarter, more efficient laundry care.

[aublog1]

Variable Speed Controller: Facts You Need To Know

Variable frequency drives, or VFDs for short, are the workhorses of many industries. If you've ever been in a factory and seen huge industrial motors that are spinning at speeds not much faster than an average washing machine's spin cycle, there's a good chance those were being driven by a Variable Speed Controller.  The basic principles of VFDs are pretty simple: they're controllers that regulate power to an electric motor. But what makes them so useful is their ability to change the speed of an electric motor depending on how much power it needs to operate at any given moment. This means that when you're operating equipment at lower temperatures or working with lighter loads, your VFD will slow down your motor so it doesn't consume as much energy while still maintaining its maximum output capability (which can be raised or lowered).  However if you need more torque from your system because it needs additional support from something else or has suddenly increased load requirements due to external factors such as sudden changes in weather conditions then increasing the voltage supplied through its terminals will increase torque production significantly even if this increases friction losses slightly due higher current densities within windings as well.

Variable Speed Controller: Things You Need To Know

Variable speed drives are used for a wide variety of applications. They can control the speed of motors, allowing overspeeding and braking. Variable speed drives are also called variable frequency drives, VFDs or inverters. They are used in many industries including: Food processing Glass manufacturing Textile and garment production Mining

Basics About Variable Frequency Drives

A Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) is an electric motor speed controller that regulates the frequency and voltage of AC power to match the load requirements. A VFD can be used to control a single motor or multiple motors in series or parallel. These drives are widely used in industries like oil and gas, mining, food and beverage etc as they help reduce energy consumption by up to 40% while also improving reliability. The basic difference between VFDs is how they work - there are three types: Phase-to-phase drives: These use pulse width modulation (PWM) techniques Phase-to-neutral drives: They use sinusoidal PWM techniques for greater efficiency but require more hardware compared to phase-to-phase drives

Variable Frequency Drive Principles

Variable frequency drives are used to control the speed of a motor. The amount of power that the motor uses changes depending on how fast it needs to run and whether or not it is starting up from a complete stop. Variable Speed Controller can also be used for other applications, such as heating and cooling systems, compressors and pumps. Variable frequency drives use electronic circuitry in place of mechanical parts such as gears or pulleys. A variable frequency drive can control the speed of a motor from zero to 100% using an input signal from a controller based on factors like temperature or load.

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed the basic principles of variable frequency drives. From there, we can see that the benefits of a VFD are numerous: they reduce energy consumption and increase productivity by making it possible to run machines at their optimal speed.  In addition, they help keep machinery running smoothly because they use feedback mechanisms like torque sensing or current sensing to regulate motor speeds. Read the full article

[sunnydayjackass]

sunny day jack face riding hcs?

This came out as reader being afab if that's okay? If not, feel free to resubmit with specifics and I'll do a whole nother batch. NSFW under the cut

When I tell you this man's face is goddamn pleasure throne, I fucking mean it. Jack eats you out like a man starved but when you're perched on your face? You're in for a goddamn ride.

If you're at all hesitant, the worry of suffocating him? Nah baby, if he could die again-this would be the best way to go out-crushed between your thighs with the taste of your cum glossed over his lips and nectar on his tongue

You're in the midst of it, body ablaze under Jack's touch, needy and keening for pleasure and release. And Jack will give it to you-in time. He's not much one for quickies, preferring to take his time with you, prepping you, teasing you, edging you...he adores the symphony of sinful sounds he's able to pull from your lips

When Jack rolls over onto his back, you immediately shoot back up to chase him, begging him not to tease you like this. Large hands smooth over your waist, giving you a gentle nudge and guidance, "I...want to taste you...like this." Carefully the pair of you maneuver with your knees on either side of his head and your hands clutching the headboard before gingerly lowering your dripping cunt to Jack's eager mouth.

He meets you halfway with an enthusiasm that sends jolts through you and has you anchoring your hips down as his nose brushes against your clit for a shockwave of pleasure to your core. An almost embarrassing cry leaves your throat and it spurns him further.

Should you try to lift yourself, Jack's grip remains firm on your waist or hips to keep you in place on his face. Once you start gyrating on him, eager for more of that miraculous tongue of his, Jack's hands will instead go to grope at your ass to coax those movements and push you closer to the end.

Jack alternates deftly between laving lovingly at your clit, suckling the swollen bud and delicately scraping his teeth against it, only to switch to tongue fucking you, eager to collect your sweet honey and prod at that certain bundle of nerves that has your thighs clenching around his head. The way he sees it, he isn't doing a good enough job until you're teary and fisting his hair, bucking against his face to chase release with your inhibitions blown away

He LOVES this view of you, absolutely fucking debauched and lost in pleasure and this position is another that lets him feel, observe, and taste your desperation, again though- he takes his time. Everytime he can tell you're close, the way your walls spasm and twitch around his tongue, how your thighs lock up around him, the sharp arch of your back or hunching over to press your weight onto his mouth for more friction...Jack will stop in favor to press kisses along your slick sticky thighs

"Mmmmnh...You're sweet as honey, Sunshine." "Look at you, (Name)...hngg...dripping...it feels good right? This is how much I love you~." "I could do this for hours...hah~ you're sweeter than syrup." "What do you want, Sunspot? Tell me...use me...I'm all yours. Always." And it's always in that soft low timbre that's so sultry it sends a shudder down your spine. But you have to answer if you want to claim your assigned seat again.

A beg, a plea, confirmation, and answer of these questions naturally will give you the relief you so crave, Jack voraciously lapping at your sopping sex, perhaps even daring to prod at you with his fingers, crooking them just so that you're fucking his face with reckless abandon at being so deliciously stimulated. Or he might reach to stroke his own cock, rock hard at being able to bring you to euphoria with his mouth alone- he has zero qualms with cumming in his hand while you use him to completion.

The cycle repeats until, like I said, your hands are fisted in his hair, a babbly lust laden mess in complete debauched disarray. Jack wants you needy and desperate for him, he just adores being needed by you, having you flushed and keening praise and his name from your lips as your pussy throbs and drools lewdly under the tracings and thrusting of his tongue and the suction of his shapely lips.

Cumming isn't the end for you, even as your body slackens and your knees and thighs relax around his skull. Jack's grip on you doesn't cease until he's tasted every last drop of your sweet essence no matter your whimpers and mewls of stimulation, it's another sight Jack wants tattooed into the folds of his brain. The beautiful way in which you come undone- how your head falls and your lips parted, the way your lashes flutter as your eyes threaten to roll back into your skull as your pussy quivers with the cresendo of your orgasm.

Even after, while you're whimpering and mewling from overstimulation- you're done when Jack is sated and you've been thoroughly cleaned by his tongue. Your body feels boneless and like jelly as Jack helps you back down to lay in bed. His lips and cheeks glossed over by your slick that he shamelessly collects with his digits as not to waste so much of a drop and god, if that doesn't send heat back down to your core as he moans around his own fingers.

Leaning down to press a kiss to you, murmuring how good you did, how divine you taste- you can taste yourself on his lips and you dont want to let go of him. The pair of you are in this greedy little cycle, both wanting more of each other until exhausted and spent. "Oh, Sunshine...if you wanted more, all you had to do was say so." Jack purrs against you lovingly.

Tomorrow you'll have to get an uber for work. But worth it.

[bitacrytic]

Overheat [11]

Read Previous Chapter Here

---

“That’s not what I wanted,” Porsche said, his eyes glistening with tears.

The same tears he’d used to manipulate Kinn that first night. Because he knew that if he bowed and cried and acted vulnerable, Kinn would cave to his demands. Like he always did.

"You fucking disgust me," Kinn said, leaning right into Porsche's face.

---

---

CHAPTER ELEVEN

---

There were a lot of things about Awut that Kinn remembered with vivid clarity. His raspy voice, his morning stubble against Kinn's neck, his quiet, reverberating laugh when he'd heard the best joke, his smile when Kinn smiled at him... the list could have gone on for days. 

The one thing Kinn had developed a sort of addiction for was Awut's knot. Before him, Kinn had dated other boys his age - all of them, betas like him - with enough knowledge to offer satisfying hand jobs, and not much else. But not Awut. He'd been a college student at the time, worldly and attentive to every word that left Kinn's mouth. 

He was already an alpha when they'd started dating. He spent most of his time on suppressants so that he could control his cycle. As a student, he couldn't leave his fate in the hands of other students who might not be keeping track of their own cycles. Besides, Awut was a control freak. Being able to choose what the period for his two cycles a year was a thing of pride. 

Kinn loved that about him.

He also loved it when Awut got hot and desperate in his rut, calling Kinn to his side, unable to think because he wanted to fuck Kinn and knot him for hours. It was hard not to want it, when someone wanted you that way. It was hard not to crave the vibrating thrum of Awut’s knot when it pulsed in Kinn nudging his prostate, bringing them both to orgasm, over and over till they passed out, locked together by Awut’s knot. 

The bite was a whole other issue.

Whenever Awut lost his mind and bit Kinn, it was just a compromise, a sign of love, something Kinn could put up with in exchange for mind blowing sex. He got so used to it that by the fourth time they spent Awut’s rut together, Kinn was looking forward to the bite. It was a part of the whole package. It wasn’t permanent, because Kinn wasn’t an omega, but that didn’t stop Awut from wanting to bite him every time they had cycle sex.

The first time Kinn popped a knot, Awut was inside of him. It wasn't during Awut's cycle and Kinn didn't know what was happening. He just felt a heaviness at the tip of his dick that he'd never felt before as it began to expand, seeking friction. 

"Fuck," Awut had said, pausing his movements behind Kinn as the hand that had been stroking Kinn's dick encircled the bulb at the end of th dick. "You're an alpha," he'd laughed. "Fuck."

Kinn could barely hear him over the loud crashing against his ears as his world zeroed in on the dick in his ass and the hand holding his hips in place.

"Mo...move," he begged. "Please."

"Yeah," Awut said, fucking into Kinn so hard that he felt like he was on the verge of bursting.

Kinn didn't remember much from his first rut. According to Awut, he'd spent most of it with his dick in a rut buddy and a dildo in his ass because Awut had school to go to. But he'd come out of it with aching bones and an over sensitive dick. 

Going on suppressants, because Awut wouldn't have it any other way, Kinn remained in the relationship. Even when his brother told him not to. Tankhun hated that Kinn's cycle was at the mercy of Awut's command, but Awut was only trying to save time. If they were having sex, then they ought to sync up their cycles. They were in love, after all. They could make this work. 

Their first cycle together was nothing like Awut's previous cycles. Kinn couldn't kiss Awut because he had to wear a mouth guard to keep his teeth in. He couldn't knot Awut the same way Awut had knotted him, because Awut didn't like to bottom. And even though Kinn's ass seemed to resist the intrusion, staying tighter than Kinn had ever been, Awut had been too keyed up to wait that he'd forced his knot in. It hurt like mother fucker, but Awut was gentle with his words, offering up kisses on the back of Kinn's neck, telling him how good he was, promising him a good time. 

And really, it had been a good time. Being knotted as a beta was nothing compared to being knotted when Kinn's rut was in full effect. Kinn felt drunk, unable to offer a coherent statement, more docile than ever before, soaking up everything Awut had to give. It had the makings of the best weekend in Kinn's life.

Until Awut bit him.

Kinn was almost eighteen when this happened. Before then, he'd been shot in the shoulder, his knee had dislocated, he'd had a couple of jagged, weird-facing teeth pulled out of his mouth. And yet, all of that was nothing compared to the pain he'd felt when Awut broke skin, latching onto Kinn's neck as Kinn screamed. The pain was so bad that it cleared the haze of cycle sex from his head, pulling Kinn in till all he could feel, all he could remember was the pain.

And even after Awut's teeth retracted, the pain remained, digging deeper as if Awut had forgotten a tooth in Kinn's neck. 

"I'm sorry," he'd said. "I got carried away. I won't do it again."

Kinn didn't tell his older brother, but he'd told Tay, who'd told Vegas, who'd slashed Awut's tires. Kinn pretended that he didn't know. Best not to antagonize Vegas when he got protective. Who knew if Vegas would do worse? Besides, making it a thing would just ensure that Tankhun heard about it and Tankhun was an adult, with access to adult weapons and paid hitmen. No, really, Vegas slashing Awut’s tires was the better option.

Kinn didn't know when it started, but his fear of intimacy began to grow, with each touch from Awut. It wasn't even the heavy things, it was simple things like hugs and kisses and cuddles. Even sex that wasn't cycle sex. Kinn didn't want to be fucked on his hands and knees anymore. He'd lie on his back so that he could look Awut in the eye, remind himself of the man he was in love with, tell himself that the pain wasn't there. It had been an accident. Awut was used to biting Kinn when they fucked during his cycle. It was a one-time mistake. 

But there were other things to worry about. Other things that Kinn hadn't noticed before. Like how Awut would keep him in front when they watched movies. Or how he’d hold Kinn’s hand when they went places. All things, unnoticeable and without consequence. Until Kinn realized that he was kept in front so that Awut could dictate how much popcorn and soda Kinn consumed. And how he held his hand to make sure that he knew where Kinn was when they were outside. How he had a schedule for Kinn's reading time, or play time, or sexy times. Awut’s obsessive need for control that used to be so sexy began to grate on Kinn's nerves.

"I'm an alpha," Kinn had said, when they cuddled in Awut’s apartment, one night.

"I'm an alpha, too," Awut had replied. 

"Maybe," he'd said, uncertainly. "Maybe we could... take turns?"

"Take turns doing what?" Awut asked, gently stroking the right side of Kinn's neck. A harmless gesture, but Kinn knew that spot. It was where Awut loved to place his bites. By stroking it, he was messing with Kinn’s concentration.

"Why do we even need turns? We can do whatever we want, right? We're in this relationship together?"

"Exactly," Awut agreed. "We can just do what we want and I want things the way they are."

"But what about me?"

Awut frowned at Kinn.

"Have I mistreated you in any way?"

"No, but-"

"Do you like the way I make love to you?"

"Yes, but-"

"Why would you want to change a good thing?"

Kinn didn't really know what to say to that. It wasn't the worst thing to have someone to be with, especially since he was about to enter university. He'd need all the support he could get.

Six months after their first cycle together, Kinn had forgotten his need to lie on his back. He'd been so gone on fucking the rut buddy that he hadn't realized that Awut had positioned him on his knees, pressing into Kinn with aggression to the point that Kinn flinched, trying to stay upright. Which would have been okay, if Awut hadn't brushed Kinn's hair away from his neck and dug his teeth right in, causing Kinn to cry so loud that his throat was hoarse for days.

As soon as that knot receded, while both their ruts were still in effect, Kinn called Tankhun. He hadn't even been able to explain why he needed to leave, but Tankhun hadn't needed an explanation.

"Kinn," Awut called, wrapping himself in a coat as he struggled to get up while Arm and Pol packed Kinn's things from the apartment. "Please."

Tankhun stood between Awut and Kinn.

"I'm sorry," Awut had said. "I'll do better."

"No, you won't," Tankhun said.

"Let me just talk to him."

"If you come near my brother again, I will have your kneecaps taken from you."

With that, Kinn was escorted out of the apartment to a car where he cried the whole ride home. The following week, Kinn declared his status as an alpha, applied for an ID modification and stepped out into the public eye as the first Theerapanyakul alpha in his generation.

***

"You're an alpha," Kinn said, unable to comprehend the words leaving his own mouth.

He tried to reconcile all he knew about Porsche with this new bit of information because it didn't make sense. Porsche was nothing like a traditional alpha. Everything about him that was considered alpha was something he’d deliberately learned for the alpha roles he took. But on his own, Porsche was… anything but alpha. When he wasn't trying to put on a show, he was soft, demure, caring. The type of man who cried without shame or screamed when he hurt himself, in public. Sexually, there was absolutely nothing there. Kinn tried his best to compare his experience with Awut with everything Porsche was but he was coming up empty.

"Explain yourself," Kinn said, trying not to freak out.

"I'm an alpha," Porsche said, crossing his hands over his chest and sitting on the bed. "But I am still me."

"Are you?"

"I know what happened with Awut-"

"And still you did this?" Kinn shouted. "Did you...?" Kinn asked, feeling his chest close up. "Did you laugh at me? Did you look at me and know the right buttons to push?"

"No, Kinn," Porsche got up. When Kinn stepped back, Porsche's eyes lowered to Kinn's feet. Then he sat back down on the bed.

"Why didn't you declare your status?" he asked.

"Because I didn't want to."

"Because of me?"

When Porsche looked down again, Kinn got his answer.

"Let me understand this," Kinn paced the room, wall to wall. "You refused to declare yourself an alpha - something that would not only boost your career but put an end to the "Porsche is an omega" rumors - just because you hoped that some day, I might fuck you."

"When you put it like that-"

"Porsche, I’m going to need you to shut the fuck up for a second."

Kinn sat on the floor by the wardrobe, where Porsche had sat to take his injection.

As flattering as this could have been, Kinn couldn't shake the thought that Porsche was toying with him, leading him into a false sense of superiority. Porsche had kept something this big from Kinn till they'd fucked and gotten so entwined with each other that Kinn couldn't leave. 

Which was exactly what Awut had done. Because the pros always outweighed the cons. Fuck, if Porsche laughed and said it was all a joke, Kinn was ready to believe him and put this nightmare behind him. Because Porsche wasn't Awut. Porsche wouldn't use Kinn like that. He wouldn't.

But then again, Awut hadn't, either. Not until their cycles. And Kinn had never been with Porsche during a cycle. For all he knew, Porsche would be a totally different man. During a cycle, Porsche would resist Kinn, hold him at arm's length. Porsche didn't know it but Kinn barely had any walls up against him. It wouldn't take much for Porsche to push Kinn over, press him down and fuck him into oblivion, keeping him sated on a knot till the moment Porsche bit him in the neck.

"Let me give you a moment,” Porsche said as he got up from the bed.

He headed for the door, but Kinn got up too, moving quickly as he got to the door in time to shut it, keeping Porsche pinned against the wall.

"Wait," Kinn said. "I just need to know one thing, Porsche."

Porsche hesitated, leaning back on the wall as Kinn moved closer. He'd caught a whiff of Porsche's scent and he needed a bit more. He knew he should keep away, think clearly, avoid Porsche. But even in the moment, knowing what Porsche was, Kinn couldn’t resist.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

Porsche looked away, but Kinn couldn't let him keep hiding like that. So he held Porsche by the chin and turned him to look.

"I'm trying not to lose my shit right now."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to stop fucking lying to me."

"I didn't-"

Kinn slammed the wall beside Porsche's head as Porsche flinched.

"Were you ever going to come clean?"

"No," Porsche whispered. Like he was hoping Kinn wouldn’t hear him.

"Wow," Kinn said, placing a hand on the door. "You know, I never imagined that you'd put me in this position."

"I'm sorry."

“Really?”

“I didn’t mean it to go this far.”

“Right.” Kinn nodded. “You just wanted an alpha to fuck you. Damn what he wants.”

“That’s not what I wanted,” Porsche said, his eyes glistening with tears.

The same tears he’d used to manipulate Kinn that first night. Because he knew that if he bowed and cried and acted vulnerable, Kinn would cave to his demands. Like he always did.

"You fucking disgust me."

"Kinn-"

He opened the door and left, allowing it to slowly swing shut in his wake.

[asset35-maya]

REED900: FIRST TIME

[Nsfw content & full art below the cut]

//

So everyone seems to think Gavin and Nines are some kind of sex gods. Like they see each other and just go at it like a pair of rabbits. That’s fun… but allow me to present a different account… where it’s very much lust at first sight… but neither of them know what to do.

Because they’ve never had sex before. With anyone. Nines was literally born yesterday… so you can’t really blame him. And Gavin’s a toxic workaholic pretty much on his way to becoming a forty year old virgin. He’s had a few back alley rub and tugs but nothing like the real deal. Zero relationships, zero intimacy. He blames it on not having the time. Hah.

The two of them sort of fall into being a couple. It’s a miracle that it even happens. Watching them flirt is like watching two different species of frogs trying to communicate so they can get out of the well they’re stuck in.

Somehow… one night that Gavin gets stupidly drunk for courage… they make it into the bedroom. It’s all sloppy kisses and awkward touches, but they’re both crystal clear about what they want to do.

Gavin tries to push Nines onto the bed like in the movies, but it’s impossible to move the tall and sturdy android. Nines for his part is hopeless at interpreting non-verbal cues. He stands there blinking at his partner in confusion. Gavin turns bright red and flops down on the bed in embarrassment… but somehow that’s enough for Nines to climb over him on top of the mattress.

They pick up kissing again, and the momentum clearly builds. Even Gavin’s not dumb enough to miss the hardness prodding his thigh. He runs his hands up and down the android’s bare back and takes great pleasure in the way Nines melts at his touch. This goes on for a while and the two of them give into the desperate need for friction. They start rutting against each other, boxers still on.

It’s clear that one of them needs to get a move on or both of them will finish in their pants like teenagers, but they’re quietly terrified to escalate things. For all their outward bravado and brashness, both have their fair share of insecurities. Neither wants to be presumptive. Neither wants to take a step and inadvertently cross a line. They like each other far too much to bear being rebuffed.

Gavin doesn’t want to push Nines. He knows that he doesn’t have a good history with androids and it’s taken ages to build trust. He doesn’t want to say or do anything that could be construed as an order. Meanwhile Nines knows that he is Gavin’s first. For many humans, that means a lot. And for Gavin it must mean even more, because he is unusually older than most people when they lose their virginity.

Plus, above and beyond all of that, neither can fathom what is supposed to happen logistically. How far do they want to go… who does what… what happens if both want to do the same thing…? It should ideally not be a problem for two people whose job requires good communication skills… but then again this is Gavin and Nines we’re talking about.

Acting on his preconstruction software, Nines lift his hand and lets it hover over Gavin’s groin. His fingers graze the tented front of the human’s boxers… and then his hand clamps down on the warm bulge. Gavin’s hips buck upwards of their own accord. His cheeks flush red with embarrassment and he determinedly avoids Nines’ attempts to look him in the eye.

“May I…?”

“What.”

“May I touch you, Gavin?”

“Your hand’s already on my cock.”

The android’s LED cycles yellow.

“I meant…”

“Yeah, yeah. Do what you have to.”

The LED goes red and the hand withdraws.

“Nononono. Touchmetouchme.”

Gavin closes his eyes as his boxers are shimmied off and his hard cock springs free. Nines’ thumb lands on the flushed mushroom head… his fingers curl around the thick shaft… and there’s a pause. Nines knows what’s supposed to happen next. He’s jerked himself off before and imagined jerking his partner off countless times… but he has no idea how much pressure to use on a human.

Meanwhile Gavin’s wondering what’s the hold up. He rearranges himself on the pillows and feigns nonchalance, but he’s betrayed by his flagging erection as he starts to overthink. Nines notices immediately and begins quickly googling the power rating of vibrators and other sex toys which are commercially sold. Beginning with the slowest setting, he starts to pump Gavin’s cock and the human relaxes instantly.

“Phcking tease.”

Nines picks up the pace and settles on a median speed setting that gets Gavin’s breathing to hasten. It’s a beautiful sight underneath him. A broad expanse of scarred olive-toned skin… large biceps and even larger pecs adorned by a pair of stiff nipples. Gavin is aroused and coming undone bit by bit. Nines thinks this is enough. He’s happy just pleasuring his partner and watching the results… until a hand lands on his still-clothed crotch.

Nines’ artificial breath hitches in his throat and Gavin fishes around for a while and withdraws the android’s rather impressive appendage. Then by some stroke of bravery he decides to repay the favour… with interest. Gavin attempts to sit up and put his mouth on Nines’ cock, completely going against everything the RK900 preconstructed. Nines fails to make room and they bump foreheads.

“Owww!! What the phck, Tincan!?”

“Oh my goodness! Gavin, are you alright? What on earth were you trying to do!”

Gavin bypasses anger, annoyance, embarrassment and lands on amusement. Nines’ LED spins wildly as the human breaks into a fit of giggles while still rubbing his head.

“Phcking hell… Why are we like this?”

The android continues to look at him with confusion and Gavin is overcome by a rush of sentimentality. He pulls his lover in for a deep kiss and recovers some of their original mood. By the time they part for air, they’re still uncertain of what’s coming next, but they’re a whole lot more comfortable with the awkwardness.

Nines reaches once more between Gavin’s legs tentatively and Gavin settles for doing the same. They kiss some more while touching each other, hips jerking back and forth as their arousal peaks once more. Then Gavin parts his legs and Nines freezes, prediction software going into overdrive. A series of errors pop up in his system, unable to reconcile his earlier analysis of Gavin’s desires with whatever’s playing out in reality.

His fingers brush Gavin’s hole as they continue to work his cock. The invitation is clear, but Nines’ mind is still reeling. From the research he did online, bottoming was no mean feat. It took a fair amount of preparation, both mental and physical. Humans who received anal sex often watched what they ate some hours prior… cleansed themselves beforehand… took time to work themselves open during the act… and above all, were habituated to the intense stretch… the pain that came with the pleasure. It was something people worked towards. Not really something they did on day one.

And here was his ridiculously ambitious detective. Practically begging to get split open on his first try. Nines shakes his head and pats the soft round flesh of Gavin’s ass in a conciliatory manner. Gavin breaks away with an irritated whine.

“Don’t phcking tease. Get a move on.”

“Gavin, do you really want to do that today?”

“I’ve literally waited my whole life for this. Hurry up and phck me.”

“I mean do you really want me to… er…”

“Stick it in big guy, I can handle it.”

“I’m… not comfortable with that.”

Gavin moves his hands off Nines’ body immediately. His eyes dart around the room, looking anywhere but his partner. He clears his throat, runs a hand through his hair and basically runs a masterclass on closed body language.

“Yeah sure. Nooooo problem. No problem at all. Yeah, we can… uh… call it a night. I’ll get my things and uh…”

Nines is struck by the belated and painful realisation that his partner has interpreted his words as rejection. He quickly catches Gavin’s wrists and pulls him close before he can scoot off the bed.

“Not what I meant.”

“…no?”

“I want you. In every way. But I can’t handle you getting hurt because of my inexperience.”

“…oh.”

“Thankfully, androids don’t have to worry about their humans hurting them. So Gavin… if you’re okay with it… I want you to fuck me tonight.”

Gavin’s jaw drops and his eyes go comically wide.

“I thought you were a top.”

“I don’t really know what I am. It’s barely been a year since I was activated.”

“Huh. No preferences?”

“Not really.”

“You’re vers, then.”

“If you feel the need to pick a label.”

Nines leans in once more and Gavin meets his lips enthusiastically. Their movements quicken with the newfound clarity. Gavin boldly strips off Nines’ underwear and flips their positions on the bed. He spreads the android’s legs wide and shuffles in between. He glances down and meets Nines’ steel blue eyes to check if all is still well. The LED on his temple is flashing a myriad of colours, but he manages a shaky nod.

Gavin’s heart soars at the depth of emotion he sees in that handsome face and he dips down to hug his lover before doing anything else. Even if there’s no cause for concern about physical damage, it’s still a very significant milestone that Nines is about to cross… a very significant milestone that they’re about to cross… together.

Nines bumps his forehead against Gavin’s and nods once to indicate his readiness. The human pulls back a little… lines his dick up with the tight wet hole that’s already dripping lubricant… and pushes in slowly.

Gavin’s core bursts into flames when he starts to move. The sensation is luxurious. Indescribably so. Nothing he’s read or watched could possibly top this. There’s a reason people won’t shut up about sex. He thinks he’s going to lose his grip on sanity with just the knowledge of being inside someone he loves.

Nines’ eyes are tightly shut. His processors are in overdrive and his system is screaming a thousand alerts about the intrusion of a foreign body in his chassis. But over and above that, he feels good. He feels like he’s come home, even though that’s where he’s been all evening. He feels warm, and he feels loved. He’s having sex. Like a regular person. He’s proud of himself.

They hold onto each other and try to match movements. It’s not easy to find a common rhythm and Gavin’s cock does slip out of Nines a few times… but it’s really not bad at all for a first attempt. They don’t last very long. Gavin comes first… and promptly explodes into a thousand apologies. He tries to finger Nines thereafter but gives up when the android’s prostate proves difficult to find. He doesn’t dare try to suck him off. God knows what kind of piss-poor gag reflex he has… so he just jerks Nines off and catches the synthetic ejaculate loosely in his fingers.

None of it is very great. On the plus side they both finish, but neither can say they’ve really performed or actively tried to please the other. They were very much still figuring themselves out and navigating the new sensations. They both know they’ve got much to learn… and it’s a blessing to be able to do so together.

//

Unedited & BW versions:

[saltpepperbeard]

Ravenous ~An Everlark One-Shot~

A/N: Well hello hello again lol! A bit weird, huh? I don’t know why exactly I had a sudden surge of motivation, but quite honestly, I’m not mad at it. While the shot I wrote a few days back was a more original idea of sorts, this one was an “anonymous” suggestion. A rather EYEBROW RAISING SUGGESTION™ if you know what I’m saying ha! But for whatever reason, dialogue and ideas started flowing, and here we are! Just couldn’t help but explore Katniss desiring to Spice Things Up a bit. With that being said shjdkhskdls-

Disclaimer: This fic contains NC-17 related material, but y’all been knew. Y’ALL KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GETTING INTO LMAO.

And without further adoooooo...

Ravenous

It’s happening again. Our bedroom seems to rival that of the setting sun, the two dancing and paralleling. Just as the clouds and sky melt into orange, I too, find myself at its mercy. Just as the sun plunges beneath the horizon, so too, do our pelvises atop each other’s. Just as it sets fire to the grasses and trees as it plummets from sight, so too, do our roaming mouths and hands against each other’s bodies.

And just as the sunset is habitual, expected, so is the explosion within. It’s like clockwork. It’s like the mighty star’s journey across the sky. A soft, inviting, and consistent brightness is maintained throughout the day, before utterly exploding into color and passion as ebony surges forth.

The newness and its subsequent excitement must be why it’s so incredibly enticing, so normal in our schedule. To think, I used to be one with the dawn. The coldness, the solitude, and the call for survival...all were my essence. Now though, do I dance and take pleasure in the dusk, flooding with fiery color before all runs dark.

Not that I’m complaining in the slightest. No, I’m a medley of breathy giggles, mewled moans, and messy kisses. The usual, the expected, and the blissful.

So a subsequent shift in the cycle, in the ecstatic repetition, does indeed throw me when it presents.

Losing myself in Peeta each and every night allows my hunger to break free, spilling forth after being locked up for so long. It gnaws, it feasts, and it satisfies, before settling back to a hush, properly quenched. His initial touches, caresses, and kisses do marvels at igniting the starting flames. His following motions and salacious actions work wonders at surging the fire to a roar. And then his sweetness dampens the blaze into finality, into exhausted ashes.

But tonight...Tonight, it’s different. It feels...wrongfully intense.

I am not hungry- I am ravenous. It roars within me as if it’s never been satiated at all. It howls, screams, gnashing for a deeper satisfaction. The area between my legs aches almost painfully so, and the heat surging through my core snarls that it won’t be bested so easily.

Such a sensation almost feels instinctual, animalistic even. And with that notion crossing my mind, an odd picture presents itself within my subconscious. A symbolic representation? Or is it a solution, a suggestion that the deeper confines of my hankering body has pulled up? Either way, it’s bizarre, and subsequently earns a deep blush to my cheeks.

The image of a stag mounting a doe.

It’s something I’ve seen on rare occasion while hunting, a deeply intimate and almost sacred moment birthed from nature’s way. But translating such an intrusive image into our bedroom, into the current situation, and connecting the dots between the symbolism and the craving...

...Oh.

Oh.

My cheeks flush impossibly more so.

What an oddity. Peeta more than satisfies me. He gives me something no one else could possibly come close to offering. He takes me to realms unthinkable, and charts depths once-unexplored. And yet, does my body yearn.

What a foreign desire. I never could have pictured myself in such a position- or...intensely aching for one, rather. With carnal intimacy being so new to me, to the both of us, I never expected my body to erect anything of the sort. But I suppose, the deeper and deeper we traverse in one another, the more and more we’ll unlock. I guess there are still things to be discovered about each other, and complex layers of intimacy waiting to be unlocked...

“...Katniss?”

As if my cheeks couldn’t grow any more fiery.

I must have been quite disconnected, lost in thought and libidinous imagination. My grey eyes rapidly blink to break from the haze, but the desire still careens within. Venturing out from the fog reveals Peeta once more though, his beautiful, bare, handsome form hovering atop me. He too, is flushed, small beads of sweat glistening atop his scarred skin to compliment the fiery sheen within his darkened eyes.

But where there would be normally be a crooked smile, or an agape expression of pleasure, there instead exists confusion, concern.

When our eyes finally meet with clarity, he reaches to softly cup my cheek.

“Hey...” he murmurs, his voice still husky, breathy, “You alright?”

I cannot help but swallow hard. How the hell am I supposed to vocalize such a thing? Is it too taboo to ask for? The idea of...Peeta...taking me from behind?

I’m a mess, shutting my eyes and turning my face into his hand, as if to hide myself away.

“Hey...” His voice sounds more concerned, and a bit warmer. Some of the huskiness has disappeared too. And subsequently, a spark of desperation alights within me; perhaps because the hunger screeches at me to maintain heat.

“Sweetheart-”

Softening sentiments are cut off by a carnal kiss, my body piloting me to fight the dip. I lace my hands around the back of his head and pull his stunned form closer, breathily moaning through the connection. When I feel his lips begin to part though, when I practically taste the confused question forming on his tongue...

I know I have no choice. I know it’s now or never. And if I could stare the hunger dead on, if I could address its call and dive into vulnerabilities with Peeta before...

Surely I can do this too. Hopefully.

“Peeta?” I quickly interject.

I expect him to remain close, but just as ferocious desire pilots me, so too does compassionate concern steer him. He leans as far back as he can with my hands laced through his hair, staring with those inquisitive, stunning blues.

“...Katniss?”

“I...I...”

Just as the first time we delighted in one another, my throat threatens to lock up from anxiety, from fear of the unknown. Just as before, I find it horribly difficult to vocalize my wants. But in knowing that soft and concerned stare, in understanding the eyes that expectantly wait, and in feeling far fierier than previous times, I find the strength I need to produce a voice.

“...Can we...try something different?”

Nerves drive me to bite my swollen lip, as if Peeta’s going to react poorly or something equivalent. But as truly expected, he blinks the concern away before the tension visibly melts above me.

“Oh! Yeah, uh...sure,” he murmurs, beginning to smile despite lingering bits of confusion still present in his brows, “Is that why you...?”

“Yes...”

“Oh,” he breathes, chuckling softly before leaning back in for another kiss. He nestles close once more, our bare forms pressing and creating small hints of tantalizing friction. Be it the throbbing within, or the very present feeling of his erection between us, I break the kiss with quickened pants.

Unbothered now, and in a better understanding towards my desperation, he moves to kiss and bite at my neck. My hips and eyes both roll, the intense lust leaving me less bothered by the various noises sounding from my throat.

Peeta too, must be quickly getting tugged back; I feel him twitch before he softly grunts into the tender skin of my collar.

“What would you like?” he huskily whispers, topping off the question by tracing my bone with his tongue.

Between nerves and the sensations he’s dizzying me with, I briskly shake my head.

“Don’t make me say it...” I wheeze.

I feel his mouth turn upwards against my skin, and he chuckles before drawing forth artistry, painting his way up my neck and cheeks with brushing lips.

“Alright...” he says thickly, and I think I can feel him quivering slightly, “Show me then?”

I tense, but catching his stare grounds me. Beyond the drippings of ebony lust and fiery coals, I can see that beautiful understanding, that adoration with zero judgement. It’s what drove me to explore initially, and thus, does it fuel me once more.

My hands come to rest upon his muscular chest, quivering ever so slightly as I give a gesturing push. He follows my direction without hesitation, moving until we’re both sitting up on the bed. Another bout of hesitance grips me, but upon seeing the sight of him, heavily engorged and nearly flush against his stomach, I break through once again.

My stare manages to break to a necessity then, gazing upon his amputated leg with another bite of my lip.

“Your prosthetic...”

I can see his breath catch, watching his chest heave as I momentarily avoid his stare.

“...I need it?” he whispers.

I can only nod, and he thankfully doesn’t press, scurrying off to retrieve and reattach it. I’m piloted once more; my body seizes the opportunity to get into position while he’s not looking. Though my heart pounds something terrible, though trembles alight in my limbs, I roll onto my hands and knees, poised and ready for what I crave.

Peeta’s to my backside now, so I cannot see his reaction to what I’m offering. I can certainly hear it though, as well as almost feel it, the room seemingly spiking in temperature the moment he notices.

“O-oh...”

I tremble in both deep anticipation and tension, still unable to look at him. There’s a bit of pause though, and right when I think I’ve made a mistake, I feel the bed shift with the re-introduction of his weight. My thighs clench something terrible at his presence behind me, and I feel my entire lower half quivering.

Made even worse when Peeta groans my name.

“Katniss...”

The amount of lust is incredible. I could almost rocket myself backwards upon him. It’s wild, and hard to imagine how I wound up in such a position. But through the salaciousness, through the smoke clouding my brain, nerves still manage to peek.

“Is...this okay?” I shakily whisper.

“Yeah...” he breathes, and I nearly run woozy at the sensation of his hands ghosting my curves, “Is this...?”

I almost move beyond my own control, thrusting my hips backward and placing myself into his grasp. It’s his turn to tremble, and he groans yet again.

“God...Katniss...”

I’m his craft once more. His hands grasp me, knead me, squeezing my voluptuous backside as he would when he prepares dough. And just as the touch readies dough for heat, it too, sets me utterly ablaze.

Unbridled moans and mewls sound from my throat at his massage, my legs spreading wider and my back arching further. There’s barely a connection between anxiety and my ravenous core anymore, hunger almost entirely at the helm.

“God...” Peeta moans again, and such a noise pushes me into raw desperation.

“Peeta...” I whimper in a tone so unlike my own, “Peeta...”

We’re on the same plane. He understands immediately. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just as hungry as I am, made raw by the sight before him.

So he quickly rectifies the situation. I feel the bed shift, before he brings a shaky hand to grasp one of my hips. I’m barely breathing, barely able to process with such deep anticipation. His following words almost don’t reach me, what with the beautifully torturous feeling of his head just barely brushing betwixt my folds.

“Okay...I love you, Katniss...”

I somehow wheeze, somehow manage, those words landing when nothing else can.

“I love you too- AH!”

I’m no stranger to the feeling of Peeta sheathing himself deep within me, to holding him snuggly and tightly in a space reserved just for him. We’ve danced in it and dazzled in each other so much lately that it’s, in fact, almost become something of a second nature.

So it’s definitely strange that just a mere change can have electrifying, incredible effects.

The cry from his entrance was utterly unavoidable; he feels deeper and heavier than ever before. I’m stunned at how different it feels, at the intensity behind it. He’s within familiar grounds, and yet it feels entirely new.

I’m dazed, but my hunger is utterly elated. It sings at the feeling, rejoices, driving me to slide myself backwards against him, swallowing him impossibly deeper.

His groan intersects beautifully with mine, the both of us likely relishing in the sensations. When I dare to ease my hips forward again, I feel Peeta’s other hand reach to grasp. With his hold complete, he pulls me back as he thrusts deeply.

And I already find that I’m quickly losing control, everything working to utterly unravel me.

The strokes, so deep and reaching, quickly earn a stream of incoherence from my hanging mouth. I moan and whimper and grunt a plenty, weaving a tapestry of pleasured nothings.

“Mmm...Oh, God...Peeta...”

There’s also something about this that strangely seems to amplify, something that makes it the most different from our previous sessions: I cannot see him. I cannot see the beautiful, wrenched effort on his visage, nor can I steal the moans from his lips. I cannot latch myself to his tender neck, nor can I run my fingers through his ashy locks.

It’s just the sensation of him within me. Nothing more but his powerful drives and our precious connection.

No wonder it’s so raw, so animalistic indeed.

But perhaps, not mutual.

Where I would expect Peeta to take off, to drive with reckless abandon, he instead remains...oddly consistent with his glides. They’re heavenly, and reaching, but unamplified. In fact, instead of speeding up as expected, he seemingly slows within me.

Such a turn, a difference in the usual chain of events, is enough to whip my head around. It’s my turn to furrow with confusion and concern, squinting through the intense mindfog to finally lay eyes upon him.

Which ends up being a blessing and a curse; the sight of him in such a position is almost enough to send me reeling further. Seeing him kneeling, grasping my hips, panting with reddened cheeks, and disappearing deep within...

A shiver runs up the length of my spine, exiting through my mouth as my voice just barely manages to quiver his name.

“...P-Peeta?”

“I...Um...”

It’s like we’ve switched places, what with him being apprehensive and me existing in a realm of thirst and confusion. Just as before, a cock of the brow and a building question is what spurs the opposite party into explanation.

“I’m...It’s going to sound...cheesy, okay? But I uh...It’s...Different I guess, not being able to...look at your face. Or kiss you. Or...”

He shifts himself a bit as he reaches for my face with a hand, effectively sending himself inward at a deep, torturous angle. It drives me strangely mad, my eyes rolling and my throat resonating with a squeak. It feels so foreign, to be reduced to this. And in my state, in my heightened desperation, I find myself blurting without much control.

“-Keep going.”

He freezes then, inside and out, looking upon me with widened blues. Such an expression mildly grounds me, offering a pang of guilt and a subsequent apology to follow.

“Sorry...” I wheeze, “I...I didn’t mean...If...you’re not...”

I’m a mess with my attempts to breathily stammer. But just as further guilt begins to bud, just as I fear I’ve forced him into an uncomfortable place, he gives such an unexpected and strong jerk of his hips that I yelp into the tense space.

When the shock leaves my system, when the static clears my brain, I’m able to see him beginning to smile once more, a bit more lecherous than before.

“Hmm...You know, different...might not be so bad then...”

“But-”

Again, he tortuously cuts me off, giving another strong jerk and sending me careening.

“Peeta!” I exclaim, looking at him with widened eyes, trembling legs, and a stunned soul.

“Because...” he grunts, softly squeezing and kneading my hips, “You like this, don’t you?”

He shifts then, focusing on slowly feeding himself into my depths, effectively earning a low grunt from his throat. A noise that’s quickly overpowered by my own, an open-mouthed moan as I squirm against the mattress, against his lovely torment.

“Peeta...”

“Yeah? You like it? Hmm, love?” 

My eyes flash at his darkened vocals, followed by a bite of my lip to hush the rolling whimper. Something is most definitely in the air tonight. The sun surely exploded in its descent. We’ve never really been so...raw with each other, so driven and demanding.

But it seems neither of us have any qualms. Even my worry towards pressuring Peeta into an unfavorable session seems to back away, what with his ebony murmurs and expressions so evident. We seem to be re-aligning, re-joining each other on the same plane of passion.

Thus, do I desperately nod, at his complete disposal. I slide myself backwards then, easing until I’m practically touching his pelvis, panting and gritting at the extent of penetration.

“I’ve forever to kiss you..." he whispers.

Please...Please please.

I’m hardly with it enough to question the strangeness behind the newfound begging, simply squirming and existing entirely within the desperate space.

“...But not long enough to pleasure you so...”

Thus, miraculously, do any last bits of wall come tumbling down.

And I’m no longer in our bedroom. I’m within droves of ardent fire. I’m traversing the very surface of our sun. I’m in a place so foreign, a state so delightfully insane, where none have ever brought me before.

All from the sudden, strong, and intense reaches of him deep within.

Oh, how I fall apart. How I deliciously unravel. Being so pent up, so oddly starving, the hunger gorges and instantly sets me alight. Just as it screamed before, I too, find myself vocalizing with such strength.

It’s a medley, an absolutely chaotic medley of passion. Beyond my cries and his grunts, I can hear his pelvis slapping against my back side again and again. Beyond the flashes and shivers in my vision, I can see our bed hammering from the force he’s inflicting. Beyond the heat and pounding stream of blood, I can feel him hitting places so new and intense.

And it’s everything. I love him. I adore him. And I cherish the connection we have, the way we can send each other directly into the heavens. I never could have imagined. Even mere months ago, I never could have imagined.

“Gggh...Katniss!”

His deep grunt coupled with the groan of my name is enough to break me from my overwhelmed thoughts; the dig of his fingers into my hips is enough to ground me completely. I cannot escape the ungodly pleasure now. I am present, and at its full mercy.

And when a thrust hits just so, when a piece of my glass cracks and threatens to shatter, it’s no wonder that my arms fall instantly gelatinous. I cry and toss my head back, sending a rolling ebony wave before my front half descends. I desperately grip the blankets, knotting the fabric with begging grunts and whines.

But it only continues to build, and build, and build, impossibly faster and impossibly deeper. Our souls are tangled, so very tangled, dancing and intertwining and refusing to let go. Naturally, I start to ascend, faster than I ever have before. The fire licks its way up my belly, caressing my jiggling breasts and-

...No, that’s his hand, reaching beneath to knead and massage, emboldened and salacious. My eyes roll something terrible, my hips even more so, more and more of the glass chipping away. He’s snarling, almost yelling; I know he’s so close too. But somehow, just as he always has, Peeta dashes through the chaos and holds me above all.

His wandering hand suddenly juts backwards, racing down my body before fingers find their prized destination. There’s a subsequent bolt of electricity at my core, followed by a heave of tension as cracks spiderweb throughout. I’m on the cliff, on the edge, writhing and seeing it shatter before me...

“Peet-”

The final note of his name shifts into that of a divine keen, elongated and reaching as my wings outstretch. I feel like I’ve never flown so high before. It feels as if though I breach the very reaches of our atmosphere, everything whited out and flashing with a dazzling array of color.

Surely I’m screaming. Surely I’m crying out with such forceful contractions wracking my system. But I can barely breathe, barely process. There’s nothing but this. Nothing but him.

Him- somewhere below, I can hear his desperate groans. He too, yelps like he’s attempting to hold on to the Earth, to stop such a rapid ascent into space. But with a distant, cracking yell, and with another push that drives me even higher, I welcome him into my flying embrace.

I hold onto him so tightly. I fly and dance and marvel in the closeness, in the connection we share. I soar hand in hand, his softness rivaling that of the cloud we pass. Before eventually, inevitability, we must return to a realm more frequented.

I land hard. My form essentially evaporates upon impact. The moment Peeta breaks our connection, the moment he releases my hips, I fall into a heap atop the blankets. It’s no surprise that I’m shivering, nor that I’m weeping, overwhelmed to the warmest, highest degree. I remain on my stomach, limbs sprawled every which way, continuing to pant and ride through the occasional aftershocks.

When the sound of my pounding heart departs from my ears, when I become more aware of my surroundings, I can hear Peeta on the bed behind me, heavily panting all the while. Surely he’s sitting back, likely riding the same lingering effects as I. 

But I need him. After almost selfishly delighting in such pleasures, I miss him. So I turn my head against the blankets, attempting to look in his direction as I reach with a hand.

“P-Peeta?”

Unsurprisingly, he understands. In mere seconds, he heaves himself beside me, flopping down atop the mattress. Though I’m utterly exhausted, and akin to jelly, I hoist myself onto my side and into his arms, our bodies as close as possible without the added element of fire.

And there, I snuggle, I caress, I kiss. I make up for the missed touches. He of course, reciprocates, the both of us tiredly offering all the affection we can muster between our shaking breaths. Soon enough, falling back into our usual patterns, we begin to smile. Then breathlessly giggle. Then speak and whisper sweet nothings through our exhausted exchanges.

“Oh...my God...Oh God...” I wheeze into one of our many kisses.

Peeta snickers a bit then, his hands beginning to softly rub circles against my bare back.

“I don’t...I don’t know what happened...what came over me...” I whisper, shying away to nestle my cheek against his.

He laughs more then, somehow managing to tug me even closer.

“Hooo, well...Whatever it was...I’m glad...I’m glad it did...”

I feel myself blushing, somewhat...shocked by the intensity of my actions. And in considering my behavior, in considering how ferocious the hunger was, it unsurprisingly reminds me of the likely sacrifice Peeta had to make in order to appease. I flush even harder, moving to hide my face against his perspiring shoulder.

“I’m sorry...” I murmur against his sweet skin.

“Hun?”

“I didn’t mean to- I mean, I didn’t...”

I of course, struggle through my words, through my explanation. I’ve never been good at saying something. But my love patiently waits, expectantly waits, continuing to softly rub me through the silence. As usual, his understanding anchors me, and I whimper the truth rather sheepishly.

“It just felt so good, Peeta...”

To my relief, he gives a hard, handsome laugh, rattling our tangled forms.

“That’s all I could ever hope for, sweetheart...” he replies with lingering chuckles, pressing his gentle lips to my dampened hair.

I sigh at the tender contact, but continue to push myself.

“Really though...I’m sorry...I didn’t...want to make you uncomfortable...”

“You didn’t.”

When I huff against his shoulder, he softly tugs me backwards, allowing our stares to connect once more.

“You didn’t, love. Clearly.” He chuckles a bit more, before falling back into his earnest tone. “Like I said, it was just...different, that’s all. I marvel in your beauty, you know.” 

When I scowl at him, at the compliment, he grins even wider.

“And yes, I’m used to seeing your face in this. But thankfully, every inch of you happens to be stunning.”

“Peeta...” I groan, feeling my cheeks flush something terrible beneath his onslaught of tender eloquence. Once more, he laughs, before leaning in to give me a quick kiss.

“I just got to address the less...frequented places,” he continues with a smirk, “Which after tonight, won’t stay that way for long, I’m sure.”

I huff, which again, earns another snicker coupled with a kiss. When we break away however, I find myself staring into those sparkling, warm blues. His expression shifts into something more gentle, more awed, surely catching the earnestness behind my stare. My hands reach up to cup his face, stroking my thumbs against his scarred yet softened skin.

“I did miss this, you know...” I whisper, topping my words off with a kiss to his nose.

“Well, I did say we have forever,” he replies with a growing, crooked grin.

“That’s not long enough for this either...”

I pull him into perhaps the softest, tenderest kiss of the night, one more fitting for the day than the dusk. It’s one I pour all my adoration into, of course having to verbally proclaim it all the same.

“I love you so much...” I murmur against his lips.

Once more, the connection breaks from the strength of his smile, delightfully warming body and soul before the sentiments are returned.

“And I love you...”

There we remain for numerous comfortable beats, continuing to lazily kiss and caress until the last of the sunlight disappears from the night sky. I find myself contemplating what lead to such an explosion, what lead to my desire firing off to such an extreme degree. Of course Peeta would be on the same wavelength, though the grinning question that breaks the silence gets me laughing and shoving his chest.

“You don’t...happen to have further tricks up your sleeve, do you?”

[mari-casts]

Tarot:

Fool: naive,spontaneous (out of nowhere), gay dude.

FoolR: not being naive, serious/direct approach.

Magician: comunication,creator,manipulator,"letter/

photos/physical proof".

MagicianR: liar,misdirection,distraction

High: trust,healing.

HighR: impure intention,lack of trust.

Empress: favorite,mom,talented,older.

EmpressR: younger,mother issues,lost of control,untalented,girl not good enough.

Emperor: one in charge,dad,controling.

EmperorR: problem w budget.

Hie: commitment,follow through,friends/family,group u participate,religion/marriage.

HieR: breaking of commitment, Divorce

Lovers: trust,offer.

LoversR: i dont trust u.

Char: progress,car,running away.

CharR: progress holded,deny.

Stre: things that been happening forever,stubborness, lesbian, forceful things

StreR: vulnerability, lesbian

Hermit: personal reasons,introspection,isolation,find yourself out,

HermitR: piss off,stockholm syndrome, uncomfortable situations

Wheel: oportunity,good luck.

WheelR: bad luck,oportunity taken away.

Justice: justice system, legally , a lesbian

JusticeR: lack of justice,get away.

Hanged: sacrifice.

HangedR: not wanting to let go,"i dont wanna do this" (being forced)

Death: change,rebirth,some knowledge of the situation.

DeathR: zero knowledge of the situation.

Temperance: balance,bi-curious

TemperanceR: imbalanced,frustation,addiction.

Devil: manipulation,negativity,evil actions, damnation, no boundaries

DevilR: being manipulated, paranoid, evil that is hidden.

Tower: big drama.

TowerR: something went wrong,avoiding drama,rebuilding.

Star: fame,number one. Hope.

StarR:small popularity,strange reputation.

Moon: lie,secret,deception.

MoonR: exposed.

Sun: yes,happiness & relationships,"in plain sight", obvious things not well hidden.

SunR: unhappy,depression.

Judgement: public support,good intentions,the public, more than one

JudgmentR: public embarrassment.

World: unfinished business.

WorldR: end of cycle,find a solution to a problem.

Acups: bonds,jealousy,obssession,love,past.

AcupsR: non attach.

Aswords: opportunity,challenges.

AswordsR: regret,sabbotage,past decision.

Awands: something new,new dick,pregnancy,old patterns coming back,ex.

AwandsR: old thing.

Apent: goals achieved,money,status,exchange.

ApentR: goals NOT BEING MET, money NOT being met, status NOT being met, weird exchange, stole item.

2wands: agression,"wanting just some sex"., friction (sometimes meaning sex)

2wandsR: sexually inappropriate ,misguided agression.

2swords: separation,bissexual.

2swordsR: i cant go back from the decision I've made.

2cups: bond,strong bond,love,connections

2cupsR: dislike.

2pent: equal exchange,business,issues w career.

2pentR: not equal, someone wants YOUR money,being used,business,not getting what u putting

3swords: heartbreak,traição,amante.

3swordsR: not a surprise.

3cups: gossip,could be cheating,distrust,comparison to others.

3cupsR: not trusting, a dislike, differences

3wands: other people, liberated(wanting sex),i dont understand why im the center of attention,stuck in the middle of things, push things aside and dont care

3wandsR: not wanting it anymore,separation,bad to one health,time out,out of control, bamboozled(cheating?)

3pent: job,good at something,admiration.

3pentR: bad treatment,being understimated,job,

4cups: apathy,detachement.

4cupsR: wanting to detach.

4swords: rejection, rejection of healing wounds

4swordsR: just wanna fight.

4pent: selfish,greedness

4pentR: selfless,exaggeration

4wands: comfortability,home.

4wandsR: problems with home.

5swords: worry about details,receipts,pettyness,sabotage.

5swordsR: issues w details.

5cups: problem w timing,disapointment.

5cupsR: trying to prevent disapointments,cant handle it, (?don’t wanna give something up)

5wands: fight,confrontation.

5wandsR: avoid fighting.

5pent: power dinamics,work related,aprentice,something new.

5pentR: abuse of power, not having power over others

6swords: internet,travel,distance,escape.

6swordsR:problemsw/distance,Internet,not escaping

6wands: ego,prideful, showcasing

6wandsR: embarassment,ego being hurt,problems w ego,

6cups: past,tradition,children,propose,nostalgia

6cupsR: break of tradition? problems w proposes?

6pent: contract,acountability,"nice one"

6pentR: not being trustful

7wands: proving herself,underdog.

7wandsR: low energy,not innocent,my fault/choice.

7cups: fantasy,illusion,more options,versatile,

7cupsR: realistic,waking up,revelations

7swords: trickery,i wanna be victorious

7swordsR: failure, getting caught

7pent: comfort zone,lazyness.

7pentR: ton of effort,pulling someone out of confort zone.

8wands: rapid change.

8wandsR: slow.

8pent: efforts,hard work.

8pentR: wasted efforts,waste of time.

8swords: victim of circunstances,feeling trapped.

8swordsR:

8cups: walking away.

8cupsR: not surprised, turn a blind eye on purpose

9swords: stress,closeted gay,stressing for nothing.

9swordsR: over thinking,paranoia.

9wands: chaos, chasing small drama, “I’ve done the wrong thing”,"I will take it cause I deserve", things getting worse before they get better, tiresome labour

9wandsR: walking on eggshells.

9pent: single,lone-wolf,relationships.

9pentR: other people,problems about relationships

9cups: bad reputation,nightlife,manifestation, wishes granted, spoiled.

9cupsR: unpleased,not getting what u want, not being spoiled.

10cups: fandom,community,family,public opinion, “happy end”

10cupsR:?problems with family/fandom.

10wands: big burden.

10wandsR: dont want this burden, releasing a burden.

10pent: long term success,big money,money related

10pentR: long term issue.

10swords: sabotage.

10swordsR: self sabotage.

Pwands: telling its own truth,comming out card,creative endevors,art ability.

PwandsR: sly character,saying one thing doin other,egoism,creativity,silence.

Pswords: I will find a opportunity to do the best,i will fight with rage,hit or miss situations, guarded.

PswordsR: swing and miss,not proving urself as enough,i dont wanna fight,not being able to step on the plate,opportunity not worth seizing

Pcups: obsession,sensitivity,attachment,loyalty.

PcupsR: lack of sensitivity,no loyalty.

Ppent: very high expectations,money.

PpentR: expectations not being met.

Kpent: consistency,"multiple times",single energy,money.

KpentR: inconsistency.

Kswords: pure intentions,knight in shining armour,man that can really charm one,"saving" one energy

KswordsR: impurity,he showcase as good samaritan.

Kwands: passion,agression,impulsive.

KwandsR: ineffective,misguided action, misguided agression,burnt out.

Kcups: maturing,growth.

KcupsR: immaturity,peter pan syndrome,coward.

Qwands: turned on lady,bold,pretty, someone.

QwandsR: indecive,not reacting,not pretty enough,rebelious, not good enough for someone, someone.

Qswords: direct, selfish,verbal diarrea,ambitious,independent women who needs no man, someone.

QswordsR: isolated, feeling left out, very mean,someone.

Qpent: stability,wants money, someone, sometimes could be a golddigger

QpentR: lack of stability, someone.

Qcups: emotional,sensitive,mom,someone.

QcupsR: not a stable mind,addiction,irresponsible, someone.

Kingpent: consistency,territorial, someone.

KingpentR: inconsistency,lazy,someone

Kingswords: fuckboy, don’t care,someone.

KingswordsR: misguided agression,bitchy, overestimating your abilities, someone

Kingcups: emotionaly invested, comfortable position, someone

KingcupR: detached, emotionaly cold, Numbness, I want you upset , someone

Kingwands: pleased,turned on guy, angry energy, someone

KingwandsR: not pleased,someone

[minimac-mspl]

Functions of hydraulic oil and the reasons of its contamination

There are four basic functions of hydraulic oil:

To act as an energy transmission medium

To Lubricate internal moving parts of components

To act as a heat transfer medium

To seal clearances between moving parts

Proper hydraulic fluid maintenance helps to prevent or reduce breakdown maintenance. This is accomplished through continuous improvement program that minimizes and removes contaminants.

Hydraulic fluid is expected to create a lubricating film to keep precision parts separated. Ideally, the film is thick enough to completely fill the clearance between moving parts. This condition results in low wear rates. When the wear rate is kept low enough, a component is likely to reach its intended life expectancy.

The actual thickness of a lubricating film depends on:

1. fluid viscosity

2. applied load

3. relative speed of the two surfaces

So, if after multiple cycles the oil loses its viscosity or is contaminated. It will lead to addition friction and wear and tear.

What harm will the contaminants make?

If not properly flushed, contaminants from manufacturing and assembly will be left in the system. These contaminants include dust, welding slag, rubber particles from hoses and seals, sand from castings, and metal debris from machined components. Also, when fluid is initially added to the system, contamination is introduced. During system operation, contamination enters through breather caps, worn seals, and other system openings. System operation also generates internal contamination. This occurs as component wear debris and chemical by-products react with component surfaces to generate more contamination.

What are the types & sources of Contamination?

There are basically 4 sources of contamination:

1. Built-in Contamination

2. Natural Contamination

3. Ingressed Contamination

4. Generated Contamination

While the first three types of contamination is self-explanatory, there is the further classification of generation contamination on the basis of how it is generated:

1. Abrasive Wear: Hard particles bridging two moving surfaces, scraping one or both.

2. Cavitation Wear: Restricted inlet flow to pump causes fluid voids that implode causing shocks that break away critical surface material.

3. Fatigue Wear: Particles bridging a clearance cause a surface stress riser that expands into a spall due to repeated stressing of the damaged area.

4. Erosive Wear: Fine particles in a high-speed stream of fluid eat away a metering edge or surface.

5. Adhesive Wear: Loss of oil film allows metal to metal contact between moving surfaces.

6. Corrosive Wear: Water or chemical contamination in the fluid causes rust or a chemical reaction that degrades a surface.

Are contaminants visible with naked eye?

Particle sizes are generally measured on the micrometer scale. One micrometer (or micron) is one-millionth of one meter, or 39 millionths of an inch. The limit of human visibility is approx.. 32μm micrometers. Keep in mind that most damage-causing particles in hydraulic or lubrication systems are smaller than 14μm micrometers. Therefore, they are microscopic and cannot be seen by the unaided eye. To put the sizes in perspective, below are the sizes of some known objects.

Hence filtration of hydraulic oil is of prime importance. Minimac System provides an array of the solution in this regard. What we also do is filter check via our experts for any of your rig/equipment.

At Minimac Systems we offer Flushing Services and Filter Check Services which ensure a clean system including oil tanks and lines. Book an appointment with our technical expert by clicking on https://www.linkedin.com/company/minimacsystemsprivatetlimited or call +91 8975150700

Like, Comment, Share this article to spread awareness and sensitize the reader for Zero Mechanical Breakdown.

[women-wellness]

Explore Liwa Rash Free Organic Sanitary Pads for Periods

Welcome to a world where comfort and confidence reign during your menstrual cycle with Liwa Rash Free Organic Sanitary Pads. Liwa isn't just a product; it's a commitment to rash-free periods and unrivalled comfort.

Why Liwa Stands Out Among Best Rash Free Pads

Liwa prides itself on its dedication to providing the ultimate rash free experience during periods. Unlike standard pads, Liwa pads are meticulously crafted using cutting-edge technology and skin-friendly organic materials using Pure Cotton, ensuring maximum comfort and zero irritation.

Understanding Rash Free Pads by Liwa

Rash-free periods are now within reach. Liwa understands the importance of a comfortable period experience, eradicating discomfort and irritations commonly associated with traditional pads. It's advanced design and organic materials like Pure Cotton prioritize your comfort above all else.

Key Features of Liwa Rash Free Pads

Gentle Touch Surface: Soft on the skin to prevent potential irritation.

Breathable Design: Facilitates airflow for a fresh, dry feeling.

Absorbency & Leak Protection: High absorbency with leak-proof assurance.

Free from Harsh Chemicals: No chemicals that might trigger skin reactions.

Contoured Fit: Naturally conforms to your body shape, reducing friction.

Tips for Optimal Comfort with Liwa Rash Free Pads

Regular Change: Opt for regular Liwa pad changes for lasting freshness.

Know Your Needs: Choose the Liwa pad that matches your flow and preferences.

Hygiene Matters: Maintain excellent hygiene practices for added comfort and cleanliness.

Promote Air Circulation: Wear breathable clothing to enhance ventilation in your intimate area.

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Pierrot, the Clown warframe

I hate you all for making me do this but I’m going to do the best I can anyways.  Maybe he’ll be a smash hit like crab himbo.

Health: 75 (225 at rank 30) Shield: 75 (225 at rank 30) Armor: 75 Energy: 200 (300 at rank 30) Sprint Speed: 1.15

Passive: When Pierrot’s shields are reduced to zero he releases 200 blast damage with 100% status chance in a 12.5 meter radius and blinds enemies for 1 seconds, leaving them vulnerable to melee finisher attacks for the next 7.5 seconds.  Pierrot’s shields must recharge to a minimum of 66 points before this effect can occur again.  Pierrot’s shield gate invulnerability time is double that of a normal warframe.

Ability 1: Banana Peel, 25 energy.  Although it is called a ‘Banana Peel’ it is actually a small mass of incredibly slippery trans-dimensional material that Pierrot summons and places in front of himself within 6 meters, lasting up to 40 seconds.  Up to 12 individual Banana Peels can be active at once, and each one contains 8 charges.  If an enemy steps on a Banana Peel 1 charge is consumed, the enemy is ragdolled and vulnerable to melee ground finisher attacks for 3 seconds, and receives 100+X impact damage (where X is equal to 10% of the enemy’s max health).  The same enemy cannot be affected by Banana Peel more than once every 5 seconds.  If an ally steps on a Banana Peel they will gain +30% sprint speed and -30% friction for ten seconds.  This consumes 4 charges and cannot be refreshed until the effect expires.

Ability 2: Balloon Animal, 50 energy.  The targeted enemy within 15 meters of Pierrot is subjected to terrifying energies from the void, causing them to horribly inflate (in a manner similar to that caused by the Nukor or Peculiar Growth) and float like a balloon while invulnerable for 15 seconds.  Other enemies within 20 meters of the Ballooned victim are compelled to attack it.  All incoming damage to the Ballooned  victim is converted into a pool of gas damage with 100% status chance which is divided between and inflicted upon all enemies within 20 meters upon the ability’s expiration.  Pierrot and his allies can also attack the Ballooned victim to add to its damage pool.

Ability 3: Dangerous Trick, 50 energy.  Tap to activate the currently selected Dangerous Trick or hold to cycle between three trick options. A) Knife Thrower - Brandish and then recklessly throw a set of 3 throwing knives to strike enemies standing within a 6 meter radius around him, or home in on enemies within 60 meters and a 90 degree angle of the aiming reticle.  Each Knife inflicts 500 slash damage with 100% status chance. B) Fire Breather - Expel an alarming gout of flame from Pierrot’s ‘mouth’ which inflicts 750 heat damage with 100% status chance on all enemies in a 90 degree angle in front of Pierrot with a reach of 12.5 meters.  Survivors will enter a state of panic for 10 seconds.  While panicked, enemies will not attack and will haphazardly flee. C) Escape Artist - Pierrot releases a cloud of dazzling smoke and glitter, blinding enemies within 6 meters for 1.5 seconds and leaving them vulnerable to melee finishers while also becoming invisible for 10 seconds.

Ability 4: Circus Beast, 100 energy.  Summons a trained circus creature to assist Pierrot in battle.  The creature summoned is determined by Pierrot’s last used ability.  The summoned Circus Beast lasts for 20 seconds and each boasts unique abilities and effects.  The currently summoned Circus Beast must expire before a new one can be summoned. Banana Peel = Bolarola. The Circus Bolarola rolls into a ball and crashes through groups of enemies, dealing 750+X impact damage (where X is equal to 20% of the enemy’s max health) ragdolling them and leaving them vulnerable to melee ground finisher attacks.  The Bolarola also grants all allies within 16 meters a 10% reduction to incoming damage. Balloon Animal = Kubrodon. The Circus Kubrodon attacks enemies with brutal and savage attacks, pinning enemies down and mauling them with a finisher attack that deals 1,000+X true damage (where X is equal to 20% of the enemy’s max health) .  Enemies within 6 meters of the Kubrodon will enter a state of panic, not attacking and fleeing for 6 seconds. Dangerous Trick = Feral Kavat. The Circus Feral kavat is quick and is able to attack whole groups of enemies with its razor sharp claws, dealing 500 slash damage with 100% status chance to all enemies it strikes.  The Kavat also grants all allies within 16 meters +30% crit and status chance on all equipped weapons. Beast Tamer = Condroc Flock. The Circus flock of Condrocs harass enemies when summoned, stealing the weapons of enemies within 20 meters and assaulting them with their sharp beaks, causing enemies to be repeatedly subjected to impact and puncture status procs.  The condrocs will also drop ammo pickups and health & energy orbs for allies every 6 seconds.

Subsumed Ability: Balloon Animal

Signature Weapons Arlecchino: For reasons that defy explanation, this bizarre beam-emitting device is considered a shotgun.  Its most exceptional property is its ability to extend multiple tendril-like beams of glowing, warbling energy to attack multiple enemies within range.  When the trigger is pulled, this shotgun fires a single energy beam that locks onto the nearest enemy.  After one second of continuous fire a second beam emerges, after two seconds of continuous fire a third beam, and so on up to five total beams.  Individual beams will only attach to the same target if there are fewer enemies within the weapon’s range than there are actively firing beams.  Maximum beam count can be influenced by multishot.  In Pierrot’s hands the maximum number of beams is increased by two.  This weapon deals mostly electric damage with lesser values of impact, puncture, and slash, and boasts very high status chance at the cost of very low crit. Colombina: Known as an instrument of pain and pleasure, and a symbol of authority under the big top, a whip is the natural choice for Pierrot’s signature weapon.  With a narrow, flechette-like head, the Colombina whip strikes fast and inflicts severe wounds.  While in Pierrot’s hands, this weapon gains bonus status chance on slide attacks.  Very fast attack speed at the cost of low per-hit damage, very high crit at the cost of low status.  Deals mostly slash, moderate impact, and low puncture.

Closing notes: You fuckers had better appreciate this.