I feel like most of my conversations at my beginning of adulthood were failed interactions. I have a lot of memories were people try to joke with me, and I had no idea how to answer. I try to sneak in the discussion in heavy-handed way, it was embarrassing. Sometimes I would only listen to people with an apathetic look, out of the discussion.
Talking with people is more about reflex than reflection. It's about reacting to what somewhat said, bringing out new ideas, etc. The thing is: my reflexes were bad. I could only rely on my reflection, but thinking is slow, too slow for an discussion.
I felt like there was a distance between me and others. When you fail at interacting, you become emotionally distant from everyone around. You feel lost and neglected. I don't want to go back to that fucking time.
love when an absolute nightmare of a character is introduced and all you can think is "jesus christ buddy what the hell is your problem" and the narrative gives you a hot minute to stew before explaining Exactly what is Their Problem. and you just sorta sit back in your metaphorical rocking chair and think "huh. yeah okay fair. that would do this to a person, yes."
Enough « who has the best/worst parenting style in the Ushiromiya parents » I want to know what type of toxic management style they have at work and which one you’d rather go through.
Eva and Hideyoshi : i feel like it’s the type where everyone is very chill to your face then you learned you’re fired or get complaints for no reasons you can identify and everyone gives you the silent treatment when you try to ask. However it’s a big chain, if you overwork yourself enough you might be invisible and get away with it.
Rosa : small business « it’s a passion project you have to give it your all », the boss have drinks with you but she also yells at you and guilt trip you to work more hours.
Kyrie and Rudolf : they know every single rule in the book and how to avoid getting in illegal territory while exploiting and morally harassing you as much as they can get away with. Rudolf sends Kyrie because of her ✨Female Touch✨ to be the bearer of bad news, everyone is cordial and nice but it’s extremely cutthroat and you WILL be fucked over if you’re not a shark. (EDIT : if you are a woman you better be careful because if Kyrie is under the impression you might be after Rudolf or if Rudolf is after you… life ruined.)
Natsuhi and Krauss (I mean technically it’s just Natsuhi but we don’t have that much info of what being under Krauss would be like he just gambles all day) : Child Labor 🫶 but who cares about that. Well paid but you’re living there and your boss is detail oriented, depressed and prone to anger. You’re the only outlet and thing she has power over. Also it’s hard labor.
It's been theorized based on the manga presentation that Kyrie might have been the first to witness Asumu's corpse even if she walked away but that Battler would have likely been the first other person to find Asumu dead if it happened on a school day.
So enjoy this AU ideas of Kyrie walking onto the corpse in Asumu and Rudolf's room being like 'well Asumu died the day I finally found the resolve to kill her. All those preparations and she just dies all by herself. I want a refund for all that stress and insomnia.'
THEN she hears the sound of Battler, who isn't at school because of sudden sickness, so Kyrie has to hide in Asumu's closet for an unknown duration because she's still carrying that huge knife on her person all while the kid who lived instead of her son is crying his heart out on the other side and SHE CAN'T LEAVE WITHOUT BEING SEEN!
Should she take the gamble of waiting for him to walk out and leave through the window?
If he finds her, does she lie or take the occasion to kill two birds with one stone?
(Kyrie tries to not think about the reminders of her rival, her clothes, her perfume, her shoes, eating her up in this cramped closet in which the cries of her son echo so loudly)
Im rereading Umineko with my gf reading it for the first time, and we are in episode 3 when Ronove first appeared. And she was surprised that a devil would serve a witch, when is usually the opposite. And I told her it depends on the lore I guess. And she said "But even if the devil is serving you, usually they are the ones in power. You never win in a deal with the devil" and then I was thinking what Ronove represents, and was like. Fuck. Yeah this guy serves you but he is the adult with more years than you, deciding what's best for you. Put on this dress for a moment. You never win in a deal with a devil.
Kyrie and the 12 year gap between her first child and Ange
As much as Kyrie claims she views children as an anchor to cement a marriage and relationship, the twelve year gap between her 'stillborn' first child and Ange is very intriguing in its possible implications:
Full series spoilers under the read more
A) She spent those 12 years trying to get pregnant again
Or we don't know for how long Rudolf and Kyrie paused the sexual aspect of their relationship after the childbirth or if they paused it at all. (Maybe they had Radioactive levels of toxic hate sex feat Kyrie considering the idea of killing Rudolf out of ressentment and possessiveness like making him hers in death if not life paired with Rudolf's guilt for the baby switch WHO KNOWS)
Anyway let's start with a look at how Kyrie handled the news of her first pregnancy
"Before long, they were both pregnant. Asumu-san told Dad about it right away, but Mom did the opposite." (Ange)
"...So, she was afraid that pregnancy would threaten her position as his business partner..." (Featherine)
"Apparently, Mom didn't eat much at the time, so her period was often irregular. Because of that, it took a really long time before she realized she was pregnant." (Ange) - Episode 6
While being a theory from Featherine rather than Ange, the way Kyrie spent several years building herself as Rudolf as his business partner pregnancy and then having a child would force her to threaten that position all while forcing her to take more and more breaks from work. Given the misoginy of the times, they might have grown to look down on her for putting work(and Rudolf) above her duties as a mother.
We don't know how much her salary compared to Rudolf or her colleagues but how being a single mother in 70s Japan while disowned doesn't sound exactly fun. Yet the VN and the manga mention that the Ushiromiya group and the Sumadera had a backroom deal which allowed Kyrie to only be disinherited instead of according to Kasumi being killed for the dishonor. So this likely came about only after Rudolf had decided to support both Asumu, Kyrie and their children. Because of this Kyrie would have reasons to assume he would at least financially provide for her if she had another child while he was still married to Asumu. (her desperation would be MUCH more obvious than it was with the near simultaenous pregnancy of 68 although)
As for the irregular eating habits, if Kyrie was conscious of that even back then wouldn't she have watched out even more closely if she had intended to become pregnant again soon after? But if we go with the interpretation that Kyrie tried and failed to have another child for TWELVE years, that would have been closer to an eating disorder.
In the case of fertility issues like Natsuhi, Kyrie would have been at the time likely estranged from any support system barring POSSIBLY her father if he had already shoved to the side by the Sumadera. She probably wouldn't be able to claim Rudolf's emotional support on that front either. How would you even talk to your lover about that: 'I have been purposefully trying to get pregnant and ruin your marriage AGAIN but I keep running into this problem so are you somehow sabotaging me back or is it just my body being a pain?'. Therefore that isolation, I think, would add an extra layer of loneliness and desperation fighting on her own.
EP6 says that on her first pregnancy she was intent on fighting as a second wife for her child to be recognized without going as far as murdering Asumu.
On her second Kyrie couldn't stomach the hell of having to share and coming home to an apartment with just a mouth to feed and no husband.
As calculative and logic oriented, Kyrie speaks of her murder plan like this: the manga refers 'the night I resolved to kill Asumu' while the VN says 'finally, on the 18th year, she had built up the determination to kill her with her own hands. And then, she actually… got herself a knife to do the deed with… That was when the miracle had occurred…'
The manga especially shows a large kitchen knife(contrary to EP7's small one for the guesthouse murders might I add) which reads as extremely RECKLESS on Kyrie's part unless she's trying to create the illusion of a deadly altercation with a robber. The huge wound would lead either to MASSIVE suspicion from Rudolf regardless of how good her alibi would be AND a murder investigation. A drug overdose or poison would be way more discreet as a death and could be passed as a suicide but I guess the huge knife means Kyrie could have wanted to do a statement or violence. Although you could call the entire EP6 info dump on Jessica absolute reckless so there's precedent?(and Kairi Ex I need to get back to write that fic where she did that on Battler irl).
B) She only tried to get pregnant around 1980
As much as Asumu getting married to Rudolf is something Kyrie hates, it also drastically reduces the windows for Rudolf to see other rivals outtside of the workplace which is Kyrie's domain. We don't have any confirmation on whether Rudolf only cheated on Asumu with Kyrie or saw other women during those days(EP8 manga said he resolved to take care of Kyrie out of guilt for the babyswitch). But if he didn't then the situation would have been VERY stable compared to the dozen she had to contend before.
In EP3 Kyrie mentions that she not only is reminded of Asumu when looking at Battler YEARS later but also her first child has me fairly convinced the childbirth did have an significant impact on her. After all EP6 shows that her curses diary featured at least one scenario of her first child having lived instead of Asumu's, we aren't told details of how she talked about that child in this scenario but it's very important that regardless of the level of love for either of her children she still worked to maintain the illusion of it. (There's also the possibility of the childbirth itself and her complicated feelings regarding Battler affect her perception of her emotions but I digress).
Coupled with how while claiming to be the victor Kyrie removed as many traces as Asumu from her household and actively avoided the subject to the point Battler felt he had to go behind her back to talk to Ange about it, it's possible the reminders of her failed pregnancy pushed her away from the idea of winning over Rudolf in that manner. So she might have focused on becoming more reliable as an emotional partner first before considering getting pregnant again.
(I mean we don't KNOW if Ange was planned on either parts but if she was a total accident and Kyrie noticed late like the first time it would have enhanced her stress levels massively)
Post scriptum: It's interesting that with how much she talks about wanting to kill Asumu in that section and cursing that Battler lived instead of her son, her 1980 plan doesn't involve removing Battler at all. Even when she says in EP8 VN in response to Rudolf saying his bug secret is about Battler not Asumu '...it comes to the same thing.' Even when she says in EP7 she will kill Battler if he doesn't cooperate with their murder plot and tells Rudolf to be ready to do the same.
It might be that she predicted Battler's anger over the cheating would be enough to push him away but that's still leaving Rudolf with REGRETS and a desire to reconnect with Battler she KNOWS will linger even insisting she will help mending in the first family conference she attends.
It could be that it was too big of a gamble to expect Rudolf to not reject her if he suspected Kyrie of both Asumu and Battler's death even with illusion of a robbery turned into a murder.
It could also be that because she sees her son in him she couldn't stomach the idea of killing Battler at that time with her murder plans.
Rudolf and his Devil's Roulette of Baby switch reveal
The implications of Rudolf deciding to tell Battler and Kyrie alone at the conference about the baby switch and highly expecting to die as a result(could be read as a sort of assisted suicide) haunt me in how Kinzo-esque it is: are you thinking of the consequences of your actions on the people around you or just seeking personal atonement?
The person who he expects the most to kill him would be Kyrie. I don't think he has seen Battler's anger lean towards retributional violence the way it does in canon episodes after the first twilights, given his son walked out in 1980 instead of personally attacking him or Kyrie physically so Kyrie would be the most likely.
AND YET setting up the situation that way in the worst case scenario forces Battler to either stop from or watch the person he just learnt is his biological mom murder his father. The father who in spite of his sins was the one he had finally started reconciling with.
(Or have Kyrie watch Battler - no Winnie, no Battler, no Winn- kill the man she obsessed over for more than 18 years and whom she weaved the illusion of a happy family around. Realize Rudolf chose to give her back her son after 18 years and make a murderer out of him)
Then there is a dead body on both of their hands and Battler has to pick between becoming his mom's accomplice or her possible next victim to hide her crime.
This doesn't even cover how Rudolf decided to have this conversation without any safeguard and to risk Ange losing both her brother, father and possibly mother(going on the run or getting arrested for murder) in one fell swoop.
(@queenoffishingandcookies in the context of Battler being found dead in the timeframe of Akinaka on Rokkenjima au Rudolf filled by grief and a desire for punishment for Battler's suicide trying to bait Kyrie into killing him by revealing the babyswitch to her)
Actually I need to take another shot at Rudolf from a watsonian pov concerning the baby switch reveal in EP8:
This man says that he won't complain of Kyrie kills him on the spot for the baby switch news when Ange is either IN THE SAME ROOM(Visual novel) or PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK TO FIND THEM(manga) so she would stumbled onto her father's dead body or the murder in real time(they don't know yet she's been listening all the while)???
I understand he is constrained by the limits of the gameboard both from a doylist and watsonian pov but like again man if you choose to allow for the possibility of both of your children having to face the idea of their mother killing their father on what is supposed to be a happy day, that's also a deeply questionable afterlife ChoiceTM.
(Once again the possibility of Battler being forced to hide that the murder even occurred or think up of an excuse why Ange's parents are acting all weird suddenly?)
Kyrie and her Anti-Asumu Bias regarding Rudolf's agency in the speedy marriage
The disparity between how Kyrie learns about Asumu's pregnancy between the EP6 VN and the manga is interesting:
In the VN(both official and og Witch hunt tl) it's referred to as Rudolf quickly moving Asumu into the Ushiromiya registry(og text uses 電撃入籍 with the latter two kanjis indeed relating to 'entry into the family register' without anymore precision)
And manga(Yen Press TL) says she didn't realized until they had arranged a shotgun wedding with an picture of a chapel beside the narration box.
(Note that chapel weddings happen in Japan while not necessarily being linked to an actual Christian church and may instead be linked to a hotel or wedding venue)
Maybe it's a cultural perspective that I lack and lowballing his blackmailing potential(he did do that for the baby switch) but could Rudolf really have 1)take the news of an unplanned child without having made up his mind yet, 2)hide that initial stress from Kyrie when he returned to work (after a holiday, a weekend, or maybe even just the next morning lol), 3) hide the flow of money from his business partner required to possibly bribe GOVERNMENT officials to speed up the process?
However if Asumu's child was planned by both her AND Rudolf, he would have had a much easier time hiding his plans and filing the paper work for marriage certificate and Koseki changes on top cultural/social ceremony booked at a venue.
(Kyrie finding out through the wedding card invitation would be hilarious whether or not she was invited. ESPECIALLY if other of Rudolf's colleagues were but not her. Not even talking about the monetary gift she would been expected to bring)
The matter of Rudolf's agency in Asumu's pregnancy and wedding
Kyrie's narration can be biased as hell especially towards Asumu from their love rivalry or Kyrie's projection such as the idea that the phobia of shaking transports is fake? If the child and quick marriage/entry into the registry is only Asumu's scheme then it means Rudolf hasn't made a real choice between the two of them yet.
And yet as readers we know that when it came to shove Rudolf decided he'd rather remain married to Asumu(even if he doesn't have the guts to fight Kinzo and Kyrie openly about it).
EP8 manga flashback of Rudolf portray as more pissed off by Kyrie while he is not depicted as resenting Asumu for an unwanted pregnancy in the entire flashback which is a ContrastTM.
There's also a certain bit in the VN "The stillbirth might even have given him a chance to break off his relationship with Kyrie." that clashes with manga Rudolf's words of deciding to take care of Kyrie because he felt guilty about the baby switch.
His lack of surprise towards Kyrie beating Asumu up likely means he knew of how violent she could get in removing rivals so would have reasons to hide Asumu's pregnancy until an abortion wasn't possible or they were married and her death would be way suspicious to Kyrie.
Therefore you could raise the theory that Rudolf PURPOSEFULLY proposed to Asumu the idea of them having a child and getting married to put an end to the love duel by making a choice.
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