so erika is. she's a lot of things. she WAS a real person (in the context of the umineko universe) that drowned in the same typhoon that coincided with the rokkenjiima massacre (the main plot where supposedly the witch beatrice murdered an entire family of rich people)

umineko deals with a lot of VERY specific meta mechanics that are very hard to explain but the crux of her existence within the plot is that she's basically a representation of the theory (made by the general public) that she washed up to shore on the day of the murders

becomeafish (@becomeafish1) on X

absolutely love this art

BUT on a much more meaningful level, erika is just some girl that the witch bernkastel (rika furude) picked out and turned into her personal self insert so she could force beato's catbox into a resolution after beatrice's soul left her body when battler completely beefed it emotionally

there's a Lot of ambiguities about bernkastel's actual intentions but i think it's pretty clear that she and lambdadelta both intended for erika to fail at her mission, which was to take control of rokkenjiima's catbox - this is fucking incomprehensible

ANYWAY. erika is a parody of the sherlock holmes/poirot great detective archetype who just continually stumbles onto murders, solves them as a hobby, and then moves on with her life. so wherever she goes, people are murdered. teru mikami-ass backstory. she doesn't really perceive the people around her as "real" per se for this reasons, they're all just

actors in an elaborate production to her. a game for her to win, a puzzle for her to solve. BUT with the caveat that she's also just another gamepiece striving to be a proper player. she's an almost witch, with the promise of ascension into being more of a cosmic concept than a person being dangled in front of her like a carrot

i had so many umineko screenshots on my last computer that i took for notes on characterization and themes but i lost them all (agonies)

but anyway. basically erika's origins as a character are buckwild and impossible to decipher because she's someone's self insert.

mdv is a setting that's tailor made to piss her off.

because as "the witch of truth" the thing she's most proud of about herself is that she has the strength to look at the truth directly and face it without breaking. she despises magic because she sees it as a way to pretty up what are plain and simple horrors, so the whole idea of this cute idyllic farm that runs on murder and turns people into cute ducks

that barely remember who they are........................... made her SO mad. she was so mad. not really at makima though, because makima tripped so many of her bernkastel mommy complex weakspots that she just kind of had to respect the grind. which is why she went off on adela because she saw it as adela forcing her illusion onto others that didn't even ask

including her

erika doesn't have morals, but she does have her own little principles. if you try to force an illusion onto others and say that it's for their own good, she'll judge you. like how the ushiromiya family wanted to make ange remember them as their best qualities by gaslighting her into thinking they all loved eachother and loved her - with none of the awful

truths in the mix of things

that's what adela's whole "i'll cut away all the troublesome pains and memories so you can live a blissful life" thing triggered in her

Will I finally be pushed to start Umineko by this... time will tell

shay and cass have normal cr failure speedrun challenge, new world record

Watching Erika and Walter clash was honestly such a delight

The Umineko reread is moving up on the docket thanks to this the CR with Erika and Walter was a lot of fun for me

everyone should read umineko it's the best story of all time

although erika doesn't actually show up until episode 5 lmfao so that's like half a million words, but she's good. utterly terrible but good.

antiquating: seriously they had one clash over erika being a terrible person and then erika showed the slightest bit of depth and it was all over for them

erika's relationship with mio was sooo...... because she's simultaneously so hard to get close to on the grounds that it's really hard to get her to show a side that would make anyone ever actually want to be her friend but then she's also so desperately lonely that it's easy to make her fall super hard

like in canon she has a detective's assistant named dlanor who she HATED at first because she blamed her for every instance in which they failed, and then dlanor tried to stick up for her one time and they were like

Cute...