think I'll just make this Umineko reread thread so all my thoughts can be in one place :) it'll be starting from EP2 on so it won't be *complete* but whatever.

"looked as excited as a grade schooler seeing an aquarium for the first time"

come to think of it when would yasu have been able to go anyway, she never takes breaks of her own volition, so last time she went, if she's ever been, to an aquarium *would* be grade school...

shannon about the finite seeming infinite bc of perspective... and the well... I love this girl but also yasu, please... you only "said it with a smile" because if you don't smile and live in an illusion you'll be in agony

yasu being observant about George: "I know you usually eat more, please go ahead"

George trying to be Nice: "gotta keep up with your workload as a servant, you should eat more"

...I know he's trying, but framing it in the context of her job when they're on a date... George plz

tbh it's no wonder Shannon just goes blank and "..." on him, yasu's internal world at that moment is probs Kanon+Beato bitching about how rude George is or reminding her of her furniture complex

AKA, yasu internally going "wtf George" but going along with it to be a Good Girl

then George goes back to being actually nice and "oh yeah btw I do know that you usually eat more I DO pay attention" and yasu goes back to happy Shannon... she was trying so hard to see the understanding parts in him but... tell him that's what you like...

EP2 is always pain

"a boy who was always so gentlemanly and considerate..."

she's referring to George but these are also the traits she loves in Battler, in a way... he was less "gentleman" but more "prince" but in general it's them being considerate and kind that draws yasu to the cousins...

"I held her shoulder and drew her in close. When I forcefully pulled her delicate body towards me, she dove into my chest like a doll."

...so yeah, that tweet from last night about Yasu being touch-starved? probably legit, even Shannon does it with George...

yasu: "I can't complain about the status quo I'm actively keeping going bc I can't make any decision in my life ever"

also yasu: *vents to her witchsona about her problems to cope with her shit life*

author yasu: look? look? shannon gave beato her heart, see? see? connection?

I just love how she has this connection btwn Shannon-Beato in EP1 from Shannon telling the ghost story about her on the beach that she uses as foreshadowing for this connection here btwn them where she makes it clear how important beato is to shannon

she's such a good author

yasu: love is the single element of the universe

also yasu: love is so painful why is my body like this, why can I fall in love when I can't be with them

also yasu: I wish I didn't have a heart (even if it's what Battler found important, I wish I wasn't part of this world)

without romantic love, which furniture can never truly have, then I can never truly find happiness.

love is what resulted in the sins that led to my birth.

love is what resulted in Kinzo's 'miracles' and 'magic'.

with love, someone might understand me.

if Shannon can find 'love', she can become 'human'. Beatrice acknowledges her with 'all the authority of my name' - Beato's power lies in the catbox, so...

If Shannon pursues George and then seals up the catbox... she can become 'human' using the witch's power...

it's all here.

beato here: "yeah I can't tear apart two people in love"
beato later: *insert entire second twilight*

kind of gives away that Beato's power is limited to Rokkenjima, now doesn't it? Yasu's really trying to give readers contradictions to think over to find the truth with.

every time yasu + physical touches come up I swear... Jessica, please hug Shannon, she honestly needs a million hugs...

all the happy shannon-beato scenes are just yasu being happy and having fun with magic Just Like She Used To but with veiled refs to the catbox and her actual origins thrown in for the readers

she's just reminiscing I think it's so sweet...

tohya: "ok gotta pick a thing to use for my catbox metaphor thing with Virgilia"
*rereads yasu's forgeries*
tohya: "oh ok let's use THIS"

ngl I love tohya trying to ref back to yasu even with small details

YASU-JESSICA PARALLELS

sorry this is just the yasu-jessica parallels scene in every way I love this scene so much...

bc yasu also grew up the same way except with bronze bars instead of gold on her cage

and yasu also made personas to be free of it...

yasujessica is too good

thinking about how tohya draws inspo from yasu again - yasu's beato has the mini-arc/outline of what tohya's does in EP3 tbh

EP1 we see the sadistic witch Beato behind the killings.
then Yasu softens Beato w/ Shannon in EP2.
then she makes her sadistic again so we'll *think*

I feel like Maria endorsing how Christian customs mixed with Celtic to create the Halloween she loves is a very faint reference for how Beatrice is also a mix of Western and Eastern cherry-picked and manufactured by Yasu.

Faint, but there.

maria: "hey kanon hurry up and let beato possess you, I wanna play with her again"

Even though Maria's so much younger she really does have a strong will that she asserts in her relationship with Beato

...so yeah metaphor fun stuff for Yasu wanting to die for a long period of time but not actively seeking out suicide

then, catbox idea, so she gets to be with Jooji for a little while before finally getting to die, hooray /s

Love Yasu calling Genji+Kumasawa out for lying to her all her life but also...

so often she's like "I wish I'd never found out" but this is her going "I was always going to find out so why did you lie to me and let me pretend I could be happy"

Battler's wrong on the "revenge" front but the "lived in isolation" part? good work, gold medal, shiny star sticker for you Battler

Again, wrong on the revenge part, but Jessica too gets a shiny gold medal for being dead-on for the rest

Honestly once you let go of it being revenge but still assume it's an emotion-based crime they're just talking about yasu while saying "oh nah SURELY nothing will happen"

bitter sad yasu being conflicted about the catbox, as always

hey shannon your depressed catbox-conflicted yasu is showing

the whole george-shannon scene is
A. yasu waxing poetic about love + how it transcends death
B. shannon deciding to seal the catbox to preserve george's 'future' with her forever bc it's impossible in reality

so, yasu's religion and yasu's catbox conflict suffering like usual

this is about the first twilight but also

is this not legit what yasu thinks of herself? pretty on the outside and then once you see the truth mostly just horrible and disgusting

love how kanon not being furniture is defined solely by this fantasy sequence...

the other side of the board for this is probably Jessica just telling Kanon he has a will of his own and therefore isn't furniture, if they had a similar convo at all while yasu killed her...

yasu: oh yeah the cousins would super cry over my deaths
also yasu: I'm worthless furniture and no one will be sad when I die :)

probably why she didn't think he'd stop her in the boat scene tbh if this was her philosophy, that she *wanted* them to be sad but they'd be fine

beato: "ok don't trust *me* but at least trust me as *your opponent*"
battler: "ok I guess"

even though he's denying her they have so much fun here... this is where their chemistry really starts, I think, they bond over mystery even if Battler's solution is wrong

but even though it's wrong, he's still thinking and comes up with a valid possibility... how the 'one truth' here is irrelevant points to how whydunnit >>>>> howdunnit for yasu

she's following what he told her - that finding the heart is more important than the facts

beato: oh ok now that he's actually thinking I want him to call me by my nickname I love this man

that this is where she lets him first use "Beato" for her shows how VIP him finally thinking is, this is before they really get into it too.

she wants him to get close to her heart

Battler, your "Yasu really really wants you to love her" is showing

...Battler crying over Kanon last game + this just really shows how even if Yasu can't write Battler caring much about Shannon she can do it for Kanon, she can justify it as 'friendship' and feel okay with it

I like to think of this as a test for Battler... he can accept that Kanon's the culprit, without a motive, and give up on the heart, or he can give up on thinking, and thus surrender

it's a double-pronged check of Beato's that he easily gets through, bc he has heart and will.

more of Beato testing if Battler will throw away the heart for the sake of denying her.... she's so scared to believe in him that it's painful, haha.

Him not singling out someone to blame is good, its that he refuses to think about the true culprit at all later on that...

Rosa's *right* about the servants being wolves, she's one of them, and she even emphasizes Shannon as a wolf

but because of Battler and Shannon's screentime we refuse to believe her. We 'love' the chars.

But true 'love' is looking deeper into Shannon to see her ugly heart...

Battler really helped define 'love' for Yasu, I think, with his BS about the heart as a child - it's not about mere affection.

Add that to her body, and she removes physical affection as well from it, as much as she desires it, and reduces love to understanding btwn hearts

this love through mutual understanding is the one kind of love she desires and believes is possible but also doubts, which is why she doesn't just confess to George or Jessica.

with BeaBato we see that though this is the core of love for her, she also wants those other parts...

anyway back to yasu's parental issues instead of her love issues

she writes Rosa as keeping promises in EP1 and being thoughtful by giving Natsuhi a gift, here she writes this too

Rosa's Maria's mom, and I think Yasu was able to see Rosa's heart thru Maria and put it in here...

kind of like this childish "hey, Maria, why does *your* mom love you even when she also hates you a little"

vs. Natsuhi who totally rejected yasu and couldn't find any love for her at all, who she writes as being willing to sacrifice Battler+George for in favor of her own child

with the kanon scene it's interesting, bc genji was the actual killer

but then, what does Kanon coming back like this mean? That even though Yasu killed 'Kanon' that that part of herself was still 'alive'? That 'his' regrets still clung to her heart as she continued?

I guess whatever remnants of Kanon/her dreams as Kanon were left after Jessica died went into Beato/catbox desire, since he pops up as Beato's servant both here and also later on to kill Shannon.

It's fun to use the fantasy as metaphor for Yasu's brain mechanisms.

even if the true howdunnit was genji, more yasu hints

kanon's BODY but *not* kanon... I really like how for this board yasu gave us such an important fantasy scene even for a later twilight, and how Shannon and Kanon are almost always in focus

It's interesting how in these letters she's "Beatrice the Golden" not "Beatrice the Golden Witch". I think this is her distinguishing herself from the OG legend and her mother in a way, while also implying her humanity, when she has letters regarding the game/rules.

"Drown in a sea of tears"

hey yasu your "ryukishi already had worked prime out from the beginning" is showing...

I think Beato here is referring to making Battler furniture like the Stakes - furniture that's an illusion/fiction that exists to serve+comfort her, rather than ShKanon furniture.

but also, "joy of surrendering to one with power"... yasu really felt helpless as a servant, huh?

more of Yasu being bitter as hell about her life as a servant and how she was treated by the family, though it's framed here as just Rosa treating Shannon as a potential culprit...

Yasu really didn't mince words at all once you know how to translate.

her telling him to look in a MIRROR especially... when looking in a mirror was how Yasu was always reminded of how she was furniture...

she's just taking her usual self-vitriol and throwing it at him here instead.

this is about Gohda seeing Genji commit murder right in front of him + obeying Yasu's orders, I guess... but it does give me more of those fun "Yasu believed that anyone that learned the full truth about them would reject them" feelings.

the moment George came up w/ this plan Genji probably knew how Yasu was going to end it...

so he's saying that he'll watch over it and ensure it goes smoothly in the worst case, I think.

plus more "repaying debt" AKA "why did my adopted dad love Kinzo and not me"... bitter yasu

Yasu using Maria as a mouthpiece about magic, miracles, and risks... it explains itself, mostly.

it also applies to how much of a risk she took EP3 end, continuing the game hoping for her miracle...

ultimately she ended that gamble with her 'death' instead of the 'safe' choice

couldn't really fit all my thoughts in the first tweet, so. more on that is...

if she'd gone with the risk-free option of just stopping there, beyond being built on an illusion, there's no 'risk', so there's no 'magic', so there's no 'miracle' and it's not 'beautiful'

Yasu using Rosa as a way to explain herself and hint about what lies beneath Beato's taunting... she already did use Rosa in the first game to show thoughtfulness and the importance of promises, as well.

also in general, the chain of hatred is here! tohya just made it explicit.

the closer we get to the end the more yasu you can see, really. love how she's directly-not-directly calling out Battler, here, and subtly poking, even though she's sure he's totally forgotten.

also how she goes back to quiet, noble Beato for this bit. Promises are IMPORTANT.

more of Yasu calling out Kumasawa and Genji...

also Kumasawa directly taught her how to use fiction to hide from reality, too.

Kumasawa never surviving to the end is probably born from that, how it was Kumasawa that helped create the 'witch' and thus she has to bear that sin...

Yasu does and she doesn't have regrets - she's tried VERY hard to convince herself that no, she doesn't, and that sealing the catbox like this is 1000% fine, though.

Beato tormenting her with the future that she can't have bc of her body...

also "your regret is dripping down" -

-"from your mouth" is literally telling us that Shannon told George some extent of The Truth because of her regrets in sealing up the catbox.

then Beato is her mocking herself for naively believing in George's words when he reacts terribly

Kanon is present as well, here, because Kanon was already fulfilled by dying with Jessica - that's what helps to fuel Yasu to commit to killing George and then herself.

also watching Shannon in this scene, she's terrifying. Shannon is so fully committed to the catbox even as Beato points out how George wouldn't be able to love her with her body.

But also Yasu feeling like she can't have love w/o *** is painful. She needs a hug. All the hugs.

whenever Beato speaks like this I think it's Yasu's internal monologue/intrusive thoughts, and here it's probably a good portion of her mind when she commits suicide.

She can't believe in love, esp. when George rejects her. So die here with him, make it eternal.

Rosa's whole "do you really see Rudolf and Kyrie as your parents" and "are you REALLY Battler" thing ties into Yasu condemning Battler for ditching his family+her and not wanting to believe that the boy she knew in 1980 could really do that...

Beatrice as the guide of Purgatory and as the scapegoat so that the Ushiromiya family can be 'pure' is in full swing, here.

Yasu has Battler asking for forgiveness, as well, for the sin - even if its not the promise, here - of doubting his family.

how Yasu writes Kinzo in this scene is telling... she writes him as easily falling back into his old possessive self, but also genuinely remorseful and wanting to apologize

"You are beloved, yearned for" - I think Yasu, for all her conflict over how he treated Bice+her mom -

- also wanted to receive Kinzo's parental love once she realized the truth, and was told about how Kinzo had set up the epitaph as a miracle to find Lion...

it's how Kumasawa+Genji hid it from her and the furniture reveal that makes her reject Lion, not entirely Kinzo's incest

Yasu calling Kinzo out for suspecting that Kanon was Lion, but not directly asking him - maybe thinking that if Kinzo had found out earlier he wouldn't have died and she would've been able to properly talk with him to sort out her feelings.

instead of having Lion thrust on her.

Battler the depressed drinker and Genji comparing them is... no wonder Yasu makes Battler-Kinzo parallels all the time, they're both people that failed her but could have saved her

plus both of them betray the family, Battler by leaving, Kinzo by never loving his kids

When Genji says "hear it directly" I think he means that maybe Shannon *did* write down a 'will' of sorts while they were using that as an excuse, that or he means docs proving Lion, I guess.

how he just tells Battler its HIS choice to accept the truth or not is great, too

Tohya talks about it later a LOT in EP4, but Yasu does bring up here how people can deny the facts/truth if if doesn't fit their worldview/narrative.

Tohya tried really hard to expand on every little thing Yasu gave him, it's sweet.

"I've been waiting for a while" - more subtle digs on the promise, Beato?

Also, Yasu about no useless things in this world _ no useless questions = confirming that you need to use lots of perespectives + importance of small details in her forgery. She gave us a guide, here.

Beato five mins ago: "no useless things in the world"
Yasu-as-Kinzo: "useless Shannon"
(contradiction made to point out the truth, usual Yasu)

I think this also echoes her own self-loathing and how Kinzo never gave any love to Shannon, only to her as Kanon...

more furniture hints plus Beato treating Battler like how *she* was always treated as a servant.... valued less than the family's appearance, mocked, taunted....