I AM GOING TO SHAKE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what i love about the puzzle segment is that bernkastel's puzzle (aka rika's puzzle) is literally just this question but expanded into a mini fragment with 15 people instead. it's a hint. i'm shaking her like a maraca

anyway

there is something painful about the way everyone just. dances around the problem in front of ange, as she begs them for a clear answer and they continue to give her very gentle lies. she doesn't want the truth, she wants vindication for the abuse she suffered, and she wants to be told that it's always been eva

rip eva..................

but wildly as fucked up as it is, it's kind of an example of "careful what you wish for" with bernkastel and to a lesser extent erika since they are... actually giving her what she asked for.

erika's entrance was also amazing i missed my beloved rat girl sm

eats this all up. episode 8 is my beloved. the experience of reading it for the first time is so disconcerting for all the reasons you outlined

and it's like also.... the messages about believing in the best versions of her family is so baked in with love but it reminds me of what erika said to dlanor as a way of refuting the story's core theme of "without love it cannot be seen." eva kept the truth from ange for twelve years, and i think even toward the end it was to some extent out of love

for the idea of ange if not for ange herself, because by the end their relationship was genuinely a nightmare.

everything about eva and ange in episode 8 is. ugh. it's just so painful.

i love them

this art by becomeafish on twitter is really really good

it is really cute how hard battler and beato are pushing to be bernkastel's friend

sobs

get his ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!

battler and beatrice are absolutely right but their problem is rooted in the way they keep treating ange like a child rather than just... talking to her instead of trying to gaslight her into putting all her faith in the illusion of a big happy family.

comrade ange.............

she's just like me fr

god eva and ange are making me upset

FUCKING GOHDA MESSES EVERYTHING UP

i think the real reason for lambdadelta fully siding with ange and battler is that she just can't bring herself to turn her back on someone who fucking hates st lucia as much as she does

oh that's such a good take

i finished it. will put my whole thoughts down after i have stopped crying

that's umineko for ya

i can't get over the way that tohya and ange only reunited after ange had already been diagnosed with cancer and then after the fukuin house halloween party, they decided they wouldn't ever meet again.........

ange.................. ange........................

final tierlist

lambdadelta is more entertaining to me but i think i find the way bernkastel interacts with the themes of umineko more interesting

truly the biggest thematic representation of the cycle of abuse and her abuse didn't even happen in this story. the former saddest girl in all the world looking at the two new saddest girls in all the world (beatrice and ange) and deciding to destroy their lives for enrichment. cat behavior.

i did not expect ange to completely steal first place tbh. ep8 also really recontextualized erika for me in a way that i didn't realize at the time she was introduced. she's basically ange's narrative shadow self

ep8 makes you love ange. AND gives you so much insight on so many characters, esp erika.

even has erika's haircut as a kid

i already loved ange and i already loved erika but god

also EVA Beatrice was sort of annoying to me outside of episode 3 prior to this? her voice just got on my nerves. then in this episode she was incredible.

Me and my boys gonna mess you upthis but it's lambdadelta ange and battler

Ep8 ALSO changes everything abt EVA Beatrice. I was in tears when I realized what her real goals are

i totally agree re: erika and ange in ep8

the parallels between them are SO juicy in that, especially once you hit trick end

the glowup evabeato (& eva adjacent to her) gets is insane

eva was always my favorite out of the mdms (morally dubious milfs) though i think prior to the kyrie reveal she's easily the worst person out of all of them, which is why she appealed to me ofc. but yeah she really shined in this one.

her being ange's lady in waiting during the game was really cute

she just wants to make it up to ange. she knows she can't but she just wants to do right by her even for a night. 🥺

queeningsquare: trick end is so depressing but also in context it's so funny. she went through all of that and just fucked it up right at the end to say that beatrice's magic tricks are lame as hell and for babies, she's going to go kill two people now, one of which is almost certainly innocent

ange w the fumble of all time

it's incredible. foreverfail.

at least she and erika ran off into the sunset together. this is a happier ending for erika (not bernkastel and lambdadelta's "third" aka "chewtoy") even though it absolutely isn't for ange.

situationship ended with mammon, now erika is her new totally real girlfriend that goes to another school

HER TOTALLY REAL GIRLFRIEND

they're DETECTIVE PIRATES together

and yes they smoke weed!!!

she's literally real and a girl

i am full of feelings