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Player nickname: Jelle
Player LJ: ofmarionette
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Email: queeningsquare[at]gmail[dot]com
AIM: Lunixhime
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Are you at least 15?: Y.
Current Characters: -
Character: Ange Ushiromiya
Fandom: Umineko no Naku Koro ni
Character Notes:
History: There are two stories one could tell about Ushiromiya Ange. But they all start out the same, both of them are part of the 'bad ending' future Ange is part of.
Ange was born in 1980 and lived together with her father (Ushiromiya Rudolf) and her mother (Ushiromiya Kyrie). She also has an older half-brother, Ushiromiya Battler. But he left the house to go live with his grandparents on his mother's side after his mother (Ushiromiya Asumu) died since he was enraged at his father for taking Kyrie as his new wife so quickly after Asumu died. Because of that Ange didn't see her older brother a lot, but she still looked up to him and liked him a lot. She states herself that the times when both her parents and brother were with her was the most fun.
But all of this soon changed. On October 4, 1986 her parents and older brother left for the annual family conference, which Ange unfortunately could not attend that year since she was sick. But exactly that year nobody returned from the island, from Rokkenjima. Nobody but Ange's aunt Eva. The mass media start pinning these mass murders on Eva and later on even on the island's rumoured witch legend, but nobody is able to proof anything about what really happened that day. Ange was left in care of her now only living family member, Ushiromiya Eva. But Eva had slowly become embittered by the loss of her man and her son, the fact that all the blame was pinned on her and that everyone was after her because she had inherited the Ushiromiya family's fortune as the only survivor. She took this out on the little Ange, who hardly knew love because of that. Eventually Eva sent her away to an all-girls boarding school, St. Lucia's.
Because of her wealth and the rumors about her guardian Ange didn't make any friends there and was in fact even bullied. The bullying only increased when the girls started to notice that Ange snuck out often during lunch time to find a quiet spot where she could talk to the ghost of her cousin Maria who died in 1986 on Rokkenjima, which she summoned through Maria's diary she had managed to get hold of. In order for Ange to become happy she became Maria's apprentice as a witch. Maria taught her how to summon the seven sisters of Purgatory, magical 'furniture' (servants) who originally belonged to the witch Beatrice but ended up becoming Ange's friends along with Maria instead. But since Ange was the only one who could see them her classmates started thinking she had imaginary friends.
This all escalated until one day Ange hadn't been able to study because of the sisters' prescence and got a low mark on her test. All her classmates bullied her ferociously into writing up an apology letter for her bad mark which lowered the class average. Ange angrily ordered the sisters to kill all of the bullies, but they replied they couldn't causing Ange to rage even more. On that basis that they couldn't even help her when she needed it she started to deny the sisters one by one, causing them to disappear and even Maria to leave her. In the end she convinced herself that it had been imaginary friends and that she had actually been alone all along.
Eventually in 1998, when Ange was 18, Eva died and on her dying bed she pushed some last curses on Ange; firstly she refused to tell what really had happened on Rokkenjima and secondly she made Ange inherit all of her money - which had been Eva's curse, it was what had caused everyone to speak badly of her and be after her life - the title of family head of the Ushiromiya family and the title of the Endless Witch, Beatrice. Ange's dispair at not being with her parents and brother nearly drove her to suicide right after that, but right as she tried to jump off the rooftop her story goes two ways.
The first way says she jumped off the building and managed to miraculously survive the fall. After that she went on to investigate what happened on Rokkenjima to the best of her abilities, visiting relatives of the servants who had been on Rokkenjima that day and researching various other things. She was chased by her aunt from her mother's side who wanted to make Ange 'drink tea with her' (hint: it's not actually drinking tea) in order to gain the Ushiromiya family's fortune. But Ange managed to escape the Sumadera family's agents who were after her again and again, partly because of her personal bodyguard Amakusa.
At the end of her research she managed to convince a captain to bring her to Rokkenjima, where she wanted to lay down flowers as a last tribute to her family. Since on her journey she had realised the true worth of magic - white magic which makes people (like herself and her cousin Maria) happy was good and shouldn't be denied - she ordered Amakusa to stay behind at the port so she would be able to summon the sisters to be with her without humans' anti-magic toxic being present. But her aunt had followed her even to the island and cornered Ange when she was alone. She was knocked to the ground by her aunt's bodyguards and even humiliated when her aunt got hold of Maria's diary she had been carrying with her and started mocking it and tearing out pages. Eventually Ange was able to summon the sisters and they quickly took care of all the bodyguards and even Ange's aunt, killing them. There was only one left; the personification of the one who had caused Ange so much pain, the witch form of her aunt Eva. The witch form changed into her aunt Eva's younger form with a gun, but in the struggle Ange was able to get the gun instead and shot her 'aunt' (although it couldn't really have been Eva since she had died before), symbolizing Ange finally breaking through the circle of hate in the Ushiromiya family and being able to finally see Eva's side of the story as well.
But Ange never returned from Rokkenjima after that. It is hinted in the games that Amakusa was actually a double agent and killed Ange after all that.
But there's another side to Ange's story. One could also say that on that rooftop Ange met the witch of miracles Bernkastel, who promised that if Ange would fight together with her brother against the witch Beatrice who 'imprisoned' her family in a game she and Battler were having over whether magic exists or not, her family would be returned to her. The only condition was that she couldn't tell anyone who she actually was so she went under the alias of 'Gretel'. And so Ange went into the past with Bernkastel, back to 1986. She supported Battler in his battle against Beatrice, eventually realising that her family would never be returned to her since she already was from a future where it had been decided that her family never came home from Rokkenjima. But she still continued for her brother's sake and when he lost his identity and will to fight she told him who she really was, making him regain that will. But her price was high, since she had broken the rule of not telling him who she was she was teared apart piece by piece by hot-glowing irons.
Since the game board and meta world are sometimes combined in strange ways, this Ange will remember both sides of the story. The last thing she remembers from her world is getting ready to shoot the symbolic representation of her aunt Eva on Rokkenjima.
Personality: The easiest way to describe Ange would be to say she's someone who closed up her heart. When we're shown a glimpse of a younger Ange through certain scenes or even just through people talking about her she seems like a typical young child - happy, bright, full of curiosity for the world and nice, if not a little bratty. But all of this is a huge contrast with the present day Ange. It all changed due to the loss of her family, who died in an incident twelve years ago for this Ange. She was only saved due to not being able to attend the family conference at which the incident happened because she was sick that day. This is something that Ange still frequently curses herself for, even though she obviously couldn't help the fact that she just got sick. The fact that she didn't get along well at all with the only survivor of the incident who then became her guardian (her aunt Eva) and the fact that she was constantly bullied in the boarding school she was sent off to heavily contributed to that happy girl changing into the older more cynical and decidely less happy Ange.
It's possible to say that not only her happiness died off because of these events, but even her very ability to just be happy died off as well. Ange (even if it's not always a conscious choice) doesn't let herself be happy, even when she has all chances or all rights to be. When she has the chance to become happy with her magical friends, she eventually dismisses them as illusions and denies them until they all disappear. When she has the chance to believe in the happy version of 1986's family conference where everyone just got along and nothing bad happened, she gets mad and demands that Battler tells her the truth instead of a sugar coated story like that. As Maria states during EP4, Ange doesn't look for happiness itself but instead only constantly makes sure that there's nothing around that can make her unhappy. Of course nothing like that being around is pretty much impossible, so she keeps being hurt (or rather, hurting herself with that) and never truly gets happy.
Ange is a very cynical person. She's pretty much the kind of person who has to see something with their own eyes first before they're willing to believe in it; hence her difficult relationship with magic, which she constantly accepts, then denies, then accepts again etc. When Maria talks about the happy truth of her having a very fun pajama party with her magical friends, Ange with all her cynicism can only see Maria throwing a tantrum by herself until very late at night because her mother didn't come home even though she promised to. If there is a worst kind scenario, it's usually the first one that Ange sees or the first one that enters her mind. It goes hand in hand with her loss of her ability to let herself be happy - even if there is a chance at happiness right in front of her she'd most likely deny it and think of the worst case scenario instead. (For example when Okonogi tells her that he arranged a way for her to flee when her aunt's bodyguards are chasing her and he says there's a car waiting for her in the parking garage, Ange instead runs the other way on purpose. She doesn't grab the chance to escape because with her cynical sort of gaze assumes Okonogi's intentions to be malicious and assumes the only thing waiting for her in the parking garage will be her aunt's bodyguards. But Okonogi was actually telling her the truth, and so Ange would have escaped easily if only she hadn't assumesd the worst case scenario.)
This last case also shows that Ange doesn't trust people easily, partially because of her cynicism. Exactly because she has met so many people with bad intentions towards her she tends to assume that people's intentions are usually bad. It takes her quite some time to open up to people and only the people closest to her or the ones who have proven to be trustworthy before will be trusted by her.
Ange isn't a particularly polite person. At times she heavily lays on the sarcasm and she's never afraid to just bluntly state things the way they are instead of sugar coating them. She might, however, show respect to certain people, but they will definitely have to earn it from her first and that isn't always an easy accomplishment. But Ange in return doesn't particularly care what people's opinions on her are - eventually she takes her classmates' bullying in indifference, even when they continue to throw insults at her one after another.
She isn't a social person at all either. Ange doesn't show many attempts at actually being friendly to people or attempting to be friends, most likely due to nobody in her life doing that sort of thing to her either. Until one finally gets her to open up she in fact seems very cold and detached. Ange is a pretty reserved and introverted person, not bothering much with other people and not telling much about herself even when engaged in conversations. But when she does open up she can be friendly - as shown, for example, in her interactions with her cousin Maria in EP4 where she even smiles - and can care deeply about the people close to her. She doesn't mind doing anything for the people important to her, even if it means throwing away her own happiness or life, like she did for her older brother Battler at the end of the fourth game. At first she fights to get her family back and get a chance at becoming happy again, but when she realises that even if her family would return home, they wouldn't return to her, she still fights for her family's sake.
Ange generally comes across as a very serious person. She doesn't really seem interested in having fun (unless she's around the people she's close to) and doesn't particularly appreciate jokes either. This is probably most clearly demonstrated by her even telling Battler at one point to "keep the jokes to your haircut". Ange is a bit more willing to loosen up and just have fun around friends - particularly the Seven Sisters of Purgatory come in mind here - but can even at those times be slightly awkward because she isn't the most socially gifted person around.
Since many things don't interest her, Ange can seem very indifferent and detached to whatever is going on. She doesn't even seem to care about the outcome of many things. There's a dialogue between her and her bodyguard Amakusa at the end of EP6, where they discuss if they'll be able to make it to Rokkenjima without being caught by Kasumi's bodyguards. At that Ange mentions that they should just leave it up to luck whether they get caught or not. Once she does have something she cares about to fight for, for example fighting for her family or to find out the truth, Ange turns very determined and throws all of that indifference out of the window. She's even able to sacrifice herself or jump off a skyscraper with relatively little second thoughts once she does get determined over something.
At first she fiercely denied magic, particularly due to a bad experience she had in school when her magical friends couldn't save her from the girls who were bullying her; that failure disappointed her so deeply that she denied them all instantly in a fit of rage and decided that all she ever had were imaginary friends, that all the magic had only been a daydream, an illusion. Now she has accepted magic once again she's a little bit more willing to accepting things in general though. Ange has also realised due to her journey that there's no such thing as the one truth she was searching for, but rather a whole slew of different subjective truths that only combined can lead to the truth. 'Without love, it cannot be seen', is a catch phrase that Ange is told a lot throughout her journey and eventually she's able to understand its meaning. It means that for example, if you really dislike a person you will believe only negative things about them, no matter how many positive things they show you. It's since you don't 'have love' for them. Even though Ange hated her aunt Eva the intense hate has now turned more to a passive dislike or even indifference since she was able to understand what Eva's side of the story would be as well without looking at it with her negative way of viewing Eva.
Ange also copied some tendencies from her older brother, for example his habit of saying 'useless, it's all useless' and his gratious use of Engrish in extremely inappropriate situations. ("See you again." "Good night, have a nice dream.") This is partially due to the fact that she used to (and still somewhat does) really look up to her 'cool older brother' and therefore tried to imitate him by doing those sort of things. Even now she really cares about her older brother and would do anything for his sake, even it would mean sacrificing herself a second time.
Other: Best served with fries.
Additional Links: I also play her at other games, so feel free to look through my endofdaydream, isolatedpiece and repudiationist accounts to see more samples of how I play her!
First Person (entry type): Regret is a pretty weird thing, isn't it?
Sometimes you can't help but regret things you couldn't even help in the first place. Because you were too young, or you weren't close enough to what happened to do anything about it, or you just lacked the abilities needed to helped. And yet you can't help but regret it a little, and you start thinking about how you could maybe have changed things if you would just have been closer in distance to what happened, even though you were young and helpless. But in the end, you always just realise it was all useless.
Or there are other things you can regret, things you regret even though doing them at their time seemed like a perfectly normal and reasonable kind of action. Even though you felt you had to do that back then, that it was only normal, that anyone would have done the same.. you start to regret it later on, and you almost wish you could somehow contact the you from back then and tell them to cut the crap out already, since they're just being a selfish idiot by throwing away what's most important to them at a time they needed it the most.
Yeah, regret sure is a stupid thing. A pretty useless thing too, since everyone knows there's no use in lingering on the past, since it's exactly the past that we can't change. But I guess.. for some people, there just isn't anything to do but regret since the past is all they have in their life.
[ Just like her. ]
... Ah, it's useless, it's all useless. All this sentimental talk isn't anything that suits me, is it? Let's just move on and get to doing something more productive than just talking our heads off for no reason.
Third Person: It was slightly colder on the rooftop than she had imagined and slowly Ange felt a chill going down her spine. The cold wind was making a mess of her hair but the girl didn't particularly seem to care. One hand held on rather nonchalantly to the fence behind her, as if that wasn't the only thing that was keeping her from falling down the sky scraper and plummet to the ground but rather a trivial matter. The lights of the big city spread out below her, blotting out any trace of the stars in the sky. The world suddenly seemed so incredibly vast and it made her feel small, lonely and insignificant; all alone on the top of the skyscraper.
Her old classmates' faces popped up in her head, giggling as usual. 'Why are you still alive? Yeah, yeah, if I were you, I would just go and die!' It was as if they were still right behind her and sneering at her all the way, looking down on her, cursing her. "Yeah, I'll die. So be glad, okay? I'll finally.. die," she spoke to nobody in particular.
It had taken enough effort to shake off those obnoxious clingy bodyguards either way. She knew that Eva oba-san realised just how much having those guys hang around her all the time annoyed Ange, but of course Eva hadn't cared. Of course. Because Ange hadn't been that perfect son she had raised, George, ready to become the next head. No, instead Ange had snatched that dream away from her. Only because she had been sick that faithful day. (Being sick that day, the one thing she cursed to herself over and over again.) And she hadn't been perfect, she had made mistakes and even when she didn't, Eva would find something to complain about. All that just because she hadn't died along with her family twelve years ago.
Ange couldn't help but wryly think that she would have rather gone along with her family to die on Rokkenjima, given the choice. Why should she remain in this world anyway? This cold world, this lonely world, this world without the family she adored. Without her cousin who would always play with her and talk about magic, without that cool older brother she had loved so much, without her father and mother that were always kind and fun. Why was she the only one who survived and had to face this world all on her own? Why couldn't she have died with her family twelve years ago?
... Yes. This kind of world was no use at all. Useless.
Ange leaned a bit forward, one foot nearly hanging over the edge. Below in the street, deep down, cars rushed by. They didn't look much bigger than ants scurrying around. It was a long way down. No chance to survive.
Ah, it's useless. It's all useless.
If this world was no use, she might as well join her family. Especially now even that annoying old hag had died. Nobody would be left to complain about her death. Nobody would care.
Wait for me, mom, dad. Battler onii-chan. Everyone.
She firmly grasped the fence one last time and without any hint in her expression of remorse or sadness or even hesitation, yes, even without batting an eyelid she pushed herself away from the fence, forward into the empty space where gravity would get a hold of her.
That had been Ange's plan. But before she had any time to fall down, time froze and she found herself stairing in a pair of ancient eyes.
"Your assistance is needed."