Lily of the Valley

Photo

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:17:52 -0400

"Our crazy, unceasing urge to ask people who can’t know to speculate about what the future..."

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:41:19 -0400

“Our crazy, unceasing urge to ask people who can’t know to speculate about what the future holds arises from what psychologists call our ”illusion of control” - our tendency to overestimate our ability to control events.”

- Ross Gittins (Economist)

oh hey there is a difference between arguement and debate

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:09:53 -0400

idran:

20dollarwitchery:

For example:

Arguement: you’re opinion sucks and you’re a stupidhead, mine is right

Debate: I can see that point of view but if you take this into consideration it pokes holes in your logic.

Also:

Argument: I wish to change your point of view, through shouting and rage if necessary

Debate: We are simply having some good fun, maybe you won’t change your mind, but even if you don’t it was still a worthwhile endeavor for the enjoyment of it all.

bbthegreat: Determinism.

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 06:32:44 -0400

bbthegreat:

Determinism.

End of the Witch

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 06:00:15 -0400

I’m sure you have noticed from my utter lack of articles/reblogs that I’ve pretty much lost motivation to write anything Umineko related. I have some ideas churning in my head but they refuse to come out on paper, when this happens I take it as a sign to move on.

So I’m turning this blog into a personal blog, it’ll occasionally still have Umineko related stuff, I’ll probably feel like writing again once EP8 is translated, and I wanted to do some links between Higanbana and Umineko, for when that is translated. From this post on this blog will be full of stuff regarding my university subjects, golden-age mysteries, fiction in general, and the occasional animanga fandom stuff.

I’d like to thank all my followers, critics, rebloggers, and the Umineko fandom, you have made my time here fun and enjoyable. I hope that when future inspiration strikes me, I’d be able to churn out more crack for you guys. Until then, take care everyone :)

goldennocturne: THAT’S OK YASU. YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE AS...

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 03:16:38 -0400

goldennocturne:

THAT’S OK YASU.

YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE AS KANON.

Ep 4 Part 1 Dossier

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 03:15:31 -0400

idran:

With the end of Episode 3, we had the entrant of a new competitor - Ange, Battler’s sister visiting from the year 1998, having returned to solve the mystery of what happened on the island back then to leave Eva alone the inheritor of the Ushiromiya riches. Though Beatrice almost had Battler this time around with an amazing ploy of trust and faux-friendship, he stood firm, carrying us into the beginning of Episode 4: Alliance of the Golden Witch.

Read More

Poor guy, someone should have warned him that resurrecting...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:10:06 -0400

Poor guy, someone should have warned him that resurrecting witches never ends well.

This is the sort of thing that makes me love Umineko.

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 05:10:36 -0400

Virgillia: "I hear that in Japanese magic, there is a ceremony to pray for rain. Do you know of it?"
Battler: "Rain ceremony? That thing where you throw stuff into the fire and offer a dance? ......That's not magic. They say that the fire causes an updraft, and as a result, rain clouds gather. That's supposed to be an accepted scientific phenomenon."
Virgillia: "Oh? ...I had believed that it was a form of eastern magic, but it isn't magic? I had believed that people offered sacred fire to the heavens, as well as a dance of respect, so that your entreaty for rain would reach the hearts of the gods."
Battler: "Maybe people did that long ago. But most occult things like that have a scientific explanation."
Virgillia: "Why do things burn? Isn't that because phlogiston is contained in the material?"
Battler: "......No, things burn because of a chemical reaction. Lavoisier abolished the phlogiston theory."
Virgillia: "Why does heat transfer through objects? Isn't that because caloric is contained in the material?"
Battler: "...I'm pretty sure that was abolished by Joule. Heat is energy, not a substance."
Virgillia: "You have studied well. Your knowledge is correct."
Battler: "...It's just some random facts."
Virgillia: "Phlogiston, caloric, and eventually ether and god's love. ......All are powerless before a scientific explanation. In the past, I was told that an apple falling from a tree was thanks to god's love, so that humans would be given food."
Battler: "The love of god instead of gravity? ...Well, that's probably the remnants from the period when religion rather than science was used to explain everything."
Virgillia: "That is correct. In the past, humans called the limits of their knowledge, ......no, ignorance itself, magic. ...Just like the rain ceremony we were just talking about."

Photo

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 18:27:23 -0400

How do you extract the script? Can you get EP7 and 8?

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 01:48:48 -0400

Well… getting the script isn’t too bad. Just download nscdec from onscripter tools, and run cmd, then follow the read me to extract it. The time consuming thing is editing the script so it’s readable.

I just tried to get EP8, here’s the raw script for the 50% translation. Evan that much text is about 2 mb, because it also includes original japanese text, as well as portrait/music/screen change commands.

EP7 is more difficult because the script jumps everywhere. The EP7 tea party come after EP8’s script, for example. And the EP7 ??? is on the last section of the script. You need some scripting bot or something to clean it up, unfortunately I don’t have that sort of computing skills.

averagenightsathome: Ahhh awesome. Is there one for EP7 around or will I just need to keep reading...

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:41:51 -0400

averagenightsathome:

Ahhh awesome.

Is there one for EP7 around or will I just need to keep reading from my VN?

Nothing for EP7, but you can always extract the script from the game files.

intellectual-rapist: i lost my bookmarks for the umineko scripts can someone link me Go here for...

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:25:18 -0400

intellectual-rapist:

i lost my bookmarks for the umineko scripts

can someone link me

Go here for EP1’s script. Just change the number to go to different episodes, but only 1-6 is available.

http://jbcs.info/Umineko/ep1.html

Hm, interesting. That's a good point. Sorry if I'm debating about something that's already been debated to death. Your blog is pretty much the only Umineko thing I follow, so I don't know what has or hasn't been discussed in the larger community. Who else should I follow or where could I look to get more in the loop?

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:34:42 -0400

idran, averagenightsathome and goldennocturne have some really good points and reblogs. You’ll just have to dig through their posts. But there are a lot of interesting stuff anyway, idran discusses anything from quantum physics to medical science to sci fi.
You can also search the umineko tag, but most would be picture blogs.

Saw someone else make Lily sing oh desiyah, so I gave it a try,...

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:30:34 -0400

Saw someone else make Lily sing oh desiyah, so I gave it a try, first Gakupo, then Luka.

The result was horrendous, but I don’t have the time to key them properly. I might try and make one of them sing the entire song seriously someday.

Yeah it's pretty outdated and dead due to a bunch of issues, but at the time (last year) he had a lot of people convinced about it. Not that /x/ is hard to fool but yeah. The videos provide a lot of symbolism, but the big document you will come across (thetruth.rtf) is where the real theorycrafting comes down. Our group slaved on it for quite a while, so I'll be interested to see what you pull out of it should you take a go at it.

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:49:30 -0400

I’ve just read thetruth.rtf document, it’s quite a different cup of tea to the murder mysteries I’m used to. I don’t think I know enough about the gaming/coding world to make a proper theory, but I have some speculations. I tried to think of it in a way that does not involve murder mysteries. I failed.

Everything that Judasable has ever posted has been tempered with in some way, this includes thetruth.rtf. The old man who sold the cartridge to him is my main suspect, Ben was possibly his first victim. I’m not sure how much, if any of the accounts of the old man can be taken at face value. If Ben did not actually live at that particular house the old man lived in, it’s strange for him to have the cartridge. So perhaps Ben visited the house frequently to play, the next door neighbour must have seen him often enough to recognize his name. I’m getting a pedophile vibe from the old man. Or maybe the neighbour is in on it as well, his answers were really unsatisfactory, although we can all chalk it up to the text files being modified while published.

The roomate would have to be the hacker as well, since Judasable is mentioned to be living by himself. A logical solution would be that the old man is a hacker, who sold a messed up cartridge to him. Then hacked his computer via the Internet, and continues to torment him until Judasable disappears. The story spreads his virus. Judasable can disappear in several ways, he committed suicide, he died an accidental death (too busy looking over his shoulder while crossing the road), the old man kills him, or maybe he changed his user name.

Submitted by sensei-hanzo, “Yasu’s assumed age is 12 here, an adult’s first conclusion when...

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:00:35 -0400

Submitted by sensei-hanzo,

“Yasu’s assumed age is 12 here, an adult’s first conclusion when asked for contact details would be friendship not romance.”

I’m not sure about that. Yasu would almost certainly be unable to hide her embarrassment about the matter as she asked, and don’t you think that a girl timidly asking for the contact information of a (assumedly) older boy would give someone the idea that she had some sort of a crush on him? Kyrie is pretty perceptive. I would find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t get some sort of idea of what was going on from an exchange like that, just because of what we know about Yasu’s social skills. She wouldn’t be able to hide her true intentions.

Comment from Lily:

I’m going to be brief on this, since through discussions its been brought up that Yasu’s goal is to get Battler to contact her without doing anything herself.

Kyrie is very perceptive, most definitely. Yasu however, is also a brilliant actor if you don’t believe she has DID. It would be pretty impossible for her to have DID considering the way her personalities are able to interact with one another. Therefore she should be able to pull off a casual question. Kyrie and the group also joke about Battler being popular with the girls, so it’s hard to see Kyrie taking offense to one more girl crushing on him.

Character study of a chopstick detective

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:39:00 -0400

She is someone you either love or hate, or perhaps you just love to hate her. Whichever way your opinion lie, please give a big round of applause for our own chopsticks loving, intellectually raping, swimsuit wearing, window climbing, duct taping detective.

Now that’s over and done with, let’s find out who she really is.

*Contains EP5-8 spoilers*

The Great Detective Erika Furudo

We are introduced to Erika Furudo in EP5. She appears as Bern’s newest piece on the gameboard. Her role to replace Battler as the new detective, as Battler didn’t wish to be involved at that point. However, unlike Battler, whose goal was to free the Ushiromiya family from the grasp of the witch, Erika had a different goal. It was to deconstruct all fantasy and mystery elements on the gameboard, according to the way that best suited Erika, with plenty of misery and pain for all those involved.

She appears to be helping Battler at first, but her sadistic side quickly reveals itself. Just take a look at her motivations for solving the epitaph:

Prove her own intellectual superiority over everyone else in the family.
Satisfy her own curiosity and need to solve all riddles.
Watch the family fight over the gold, for her own enjoyment.
Torment Jessica, who yelled at her earlier.

Her record doesn’t improve after this, she is known for using underhanded tactics and delights in humiliating and tormenting those who oppose her.

She uses the Knox commandments, which are a guideline to help the author of fictions, as a tool to eliminate possibilities in mysteries without even investigating.
She destroys Natsuhi’s illusions to laugh and torment her.
She falsely creates the story of Kinzo sleeping with Natsuhi purely for the purpose of humiliating her.
Despite knowing that Natsuhi is not the culprit, she is determined to solve the mystery that way because there is no opposing evidence.
She is perfectly happy in destroying the dreams of children like Maria.
In EP6, instead of trying to solve Battler’s gameboard, she decided to directly attack him by forcing him into a logic error.
Even when things are over she carries it a step further and tries to kill all fantasy characters, make Battler her slave for eternity, while creating horrible gameboards for Beato.

Despite such nastiness, she is always ranked highly on the character polls, and there are thousands of fanart of her floating around. Why?

Because she is a troll. She is 4chan. She is anonymous. She is the witch-hunters. She is us.

She is the Mary Sue detective in us all who thinks we are brilliant and can solve all mysteries. She is the side of us readers who read stories of mass murders for entertainment. She represents the side of us who wants to know the truth to satisfy our intellectual curiosity.

Most importantly, she symbolises the reader’s wish for our own truth to be the right truth, and the only truth. In other words, you can’t disprove my opinion, therefore I’m right.

Of course that mentality is very flawed, and it’s reflected in the way that Erika always fails when it really matters, and was never able to correctly solve a gameboard. She is a sucky and terrible detective, but no one can dispute that in a witches game, she is an awesome player.

The real Erika Furudo

So if the great detective Erika Furudo is us, then who is the real Erika Furudo? We don’t have much information on Rokkenjima Prime, and much of it cannot be relied on. However assuming that the gameboards contains fragments of the real Rokkenjima, we can come to a conclusion that:

Someone name Erika Furudo existed in Rokkenjim Prime.
She was on a luxury cruise ship near Rokkenjima on the 4th of October, 1986.
She dissapeared that day, presumed to have fallen overboard, and is never seen again.
Years after the Rokkenjima incident, forgery writers discovered her disappearance and incorporated her into the occult stories.

From EP6, in her game and discussion with Dlanor, we can infer:

Erika had great detective and reasoning abilities even as a human, and was good at finding evidence.
Erika was once in a relationship with a man who she suspected of cheating on her.
Although she couldn’t prove beyond a doubt that he was cheating on her, she dumped him because he also couldn’t prove beyond a doubt that he wasn’t cheating on her.
Because of her intelligence and mindset, she cannot accept the uncertainty of love and feels that her life as a human has no meaning.
She accepts Bern’s offer of letting her investigate the mystery of the century and jumps off the cruise ship.

Umineko is full of tragic characters, and even an antagonist like Erika is no exception. The real Erika was a pitiful girl who committed suicide. Then she was used as an avatar for the forgery writers to twist the Rokkenjima stories.

The Witch of Truth Erika Furudo

This version of Erika is an enlightened version of her detective self. She has realised that multiple truth can exist at the same time, and that the world does not consist of a single truth. She demonstrates this in her EP8 entrance when saving Ange from the goats. Despite Battler’s family being the culprits in Bern’s puzzle, she was able to bend the rules using word play, allowing George’s family to be culprits.

As you would expect, this version of Erika is also much scarier than her detective self. She is able to storm Rokkenjima, and later the Golden Land with goats by not using a single truth, like in previous games, but with a multiple of truths. She succeeds in making Ange lift the lid on the cat box. Afterall, the easiest way to defeat a large number of scandalous truths is with the one truth, right? I guess she didn’t account for Ange willingly closing that lid again.

Much like how Eva-Beatrice came to symbolise all the negative feelings of pain and resentment. Erika symbolises a ruthless, heartless pursuit of the truth that takes no hostages, and is seen as a dangerous influence on Ange.

At the end of EP8, Erika has risen to the level of Bern and Lambda and is seen travelling off with them. This signifies her becoming a voyager witch, capable of crossing into many different fragments and gameboards. I think there is an incredibly high chance that we will see her again when something else cries.

Personal thoughts on Erika

One of my favourite characters, she provides a healthy counter balance to Beatrice’s fantasy world. Both of them together shows the dangers of slipping into one frame of mind entirely. Too much fantasy, and you will be living in a world of delusions and empty happiness that is bound to come crushing down sooner or later. Too much suspicion and emphasis on the truth, and you will live a miserable lonely life where you can trust no one and believe in no one. As they say, moderation is the best.

Disclaimer:

My blogs are upfront and frank, which have caused unhappiness in others before, so if you disagree with something, talk to me.

I plan on doing more character studies, feel free to request characters.

I need a title: Rudolf post is go, look, he’s more fleshed out than people apparently...

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:55:41 -0400

I need a title: Rudolf post is go, look, he’s more fleshed out than people apparently...:

turtleen:

Rudolf post is go, look, he’s more fleshed out than people apparently think!

Rudolf often ignores his conscience to turn a profit or simply enjoy himself. However, he does feel a great deal of guilt. Sometimes he even tries to do the right thing, but whenever he tries to right the situation,…

This is an interesting character study. Most think that Rudolf’s main sin is lust, but I believe it’s sloth. It also makes sense in the way Belphegor is correlated with him. He lets the other influences in his life carry him around, and when he tries to do anything, it’s always too little, too late. Nonetheless he’s a likable character despite all the flaws.

Submission by sensei-hanzo, I don’t know how to do fancy Tumblr stuff so I’ll just drop...

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 06:37:17 -0400

Submission by sensei-hanzo,

I don’t know how to do fancy Tumblr stuff so I’ll just drop this here.

“Yasu had opportunities to contact him through Kyrie.”

I’m not sure Yasu would have been able to contact Battler through Kyrie as easily as you say.

First of all, does Kyrie even know that Battler and Yasu were close? Sure, parents tend to know what’s going on with their kids, but I don’t think it’s ever alluded that she knew what was going on between them. Plus, she wasn’t even his mother during the major years of that relationship and if Battler forgot about Yasu I doubt he dropped hints about her. Where I’m going with this is that (even if it’s not true) Yasu may have anticipated an Eva-style reaction from asking Kyrie for Battler’s contact information. True, Kyrie is not part of the main family and I don’t think that she would have cared that much, but even still letting the parents of the man you love know about your relationship for the first time in this fashion would have to be a nerve-wracking idea. And even if Yasu wasn’t worried about Kyrie exploding, there’s a chance that news that Battler and Yasu were dating could have gotten out to the main family and caused an uproar that in the worst case could have ended in Yasu being let go. Again, I think it’s safe to say that this wouldn’t happen considering that it was pretty well-known that George and Shannon were seeing each other and no one really did anything besides some harsh comments from Eva, but you can psyche yourself out pretty badly about stuff like this. I do agree that she had a number of options still available to her, though. Like asking Genji or, you know, using the vast quantities of gold at her disposal.

“I raise the possibility of Kyrie having hid the letter, with logic along the lines of: Asumu stole a man away from me, and now Asumu’s son is trying to steal a girl (Yasu) away from someone else (George), so I’ll hide the letter.”

There are several problems I have with this. Like I said before, I don’t think Kyrie knew about Battler and Yasu. Even if she did, Battler isn’t really “stealing” Yasu away from George since he got to her first. If anything, George is stealing Yasu from Battler. Besides, at that point had George made any moves on Yasu yet? It’s been a little while since I read ep7 but I thought George and Yasu got together later.

Comment from Lily:

Feel free to drop discussion topic or any issue here :D

I’m sure that Kyrie doesn’t know about Yasu and Battler’s relationship other than as acquaintances or friends. Unless Battler did write Yasu a letter and Kyrie read that letter, which would be a long stretch since there’s no evidence whatsoever supporting it. However whether Kyrie knew or not is irrelevant to Yasu reaching out through Kyrie (if she wishes to).

Kyrie shows the world her nice side, while you can see Eva’s nastiness from her teasing. So there shouldn’t be any fear in regards to Kyrie from Yasu. There is also absolutely no reason for Yasu to tell Kyrie that she liked Battler in a romantic fashion. You can ask for contact details as a friend, if not a phone number, then a mailing address. Remember that this letter incident is two years into the waiting period, Yasu’s assumed age is 12 here, an adult’s first conclusion when asked for contact details would be friendship not romance.

I raise the possibility of Kyrie having hidden the letter purely in a speculative sense. There is zero evidence suggesting this happened, but nonetheless it is a possibility. I originally raised this because the popular opinion is either Battler wrote no letter or that George had hidden the letter. I produce the third option mainly as a reminder for everyone to keep their minds open to other possibilities.

Kyrie is prejudiced against Battler due to Asumu. She would probably not care if he was first or not. If she had hidden the letter, then she has most likely read the letter, and knew all about Battler’s feelings. It’s true that George has made no overt moves on Shannon at this point, but Kyrie is an extremely sharp person. She is the best at reading other people’s intentions. I have no doubt that she can tell that George liked Shannon.