ooc; ange app for haven.

[devilism]

Name: Jelle
Contact Info: queeningsquare | queeningsquare[at]gmail[dot]com | aim: Lunixhime
Other Characters Played: N/A.
Preferred Apartment: #2.004

Character Name: Ange Ushiromiya
Canon: Umineko no Naku Koro ni
Canon Point: After her death in EP4 ( + development from asgardeventide )
Background/History:

→ the series in general
→ Ange
→ Ange (umineko wiki)

Previous Game History: Ange has definitely grown in the city of Asgard.

She's, after all, a very antisocial person by nature. After having been practically abused by her aunt after her family died, then bullied by her classmates in school and finally hunted by her other aunt (so it was family, of all people) for all the money she has that said aunt would instead inherit if Ange died. Even though it's always Ange who makes her circumstances worse (by assuming the worst and instead of looking for happiness making sure there's nothing around that could make her unhappy, which is practically impossible) her circumstances are pretty bad to begin with, and it can be said she's almost never been shown true kindness ever since she was six years old. This caused her to grow up the way she is now - from a happy and energetic kid into a bitter, cynical and deadpan young woman.

But Asgard slowly started to change all of that. In that place she no longer had to endure only hostility from other people, but people were actually open to her and in some cases even kind. This was.. a strange experience to Ange (to say the least), and half of the time she didn't even know how to truly deal with people being nice to her. For example when people came over to her room to cheer her up after Amakusa wasn't with her anymore, despite her saying she didn't need the help. Things like being pat on the head (for example by Shu and Senji) or being brought snacks to cheer her up by Ririchiyo or being offered help again and again by various guys - especially Soushi is a main culprit for this one - Ange didn't know how to deal with any of it. She's only ever learned how to respond to people being horrible to her, hence her usual deadpan attitude she developed back home as if to show she doesn't care about people being horrible to her, even though she does deep inside. But in Asgard she once again had to learn how to develop an attitude that allows her to deal with the circumstances, even if said circumstances are completely different from back home: people being nice instead of awfully mean.

And she was slowly starting to do so. There were already signs of her opening up a little more. Amakusa (back when he was still around) even warned her after the stabbings happened (a lot of people in the city got stabbed by illusions of the people they cared about most, in Ange's case that was Battler - after that she was brought to the hospital by Senji, which made the two of them grow closer in turn) that she shouldn't trust people so easily, and that was exactly when Ange realised that she was somehow slowly starting to trust certain people here, even though she hardly trusted even one person back home. She was getting a little more open and casual with people, even sharing backstories with Senji at one point. People being nice to her also meant being nice in return, and this was something she's slowly starting to learn as well; for example demonstrated by the fact that she stopped Senji from beating Shu up fully when he got mad at the boy during an outing with the three of them and even going as far as half-carrying Shu to the hospital so his wounds could be taken care of right after. She takes a little more effort in trying to understand people, even if it so far mostly only works with people who are just as horrible on a social level as her for the most part (like Shu and Senji, whose behaviour she can practically predict by now, among some others). At one point she was told "you're not alone anymore" - and that was exactly the point, Ange's small changes were coming forth from the fact she wasn't that same lonely girl anymore, she was slowly being forced out of her antisocial shell by the weird group of people she knows. People she could even call friends.

Ange is still by all means not social though, nor a completely nice person. She still makes horrible deadpan and sometimes morbid remarks and can still come across as uncaring since she doesn't really know how to react to things over with deadpan (especially since she wants to come across as someone strong rather than weak), but she's slowly trying and learning. Although it's very likely that all this development will be smashed out from under her when she arrives in Haven, since it means losing all her friends - the very foundation she had built her changes on. But the fact remains that she will still have those happy memories of the people she met in Asgard and all the various outings and shenanigans she had there as if she was a normal girl for just a little while.

(As a note: this is more development than real history, since life in Asgard was.. well, aside from the stabbings described above and one monster invasion (which Ange took as casually as ever, honestly) pretty normal. Even if shenanigans did happen in the city, they were fairly normal ones - like an event where people felt the uncontrollable urge to hug each other, big parties, stuff like that. The war wasn't that big of a deal yet from the point I'm taking her, aside from one dragon attack very early on during which she just stuck with Amakusa, her bodyguard. So all I can honestly say is that she grew closer to people in general due to people being nice to her and that she had a group of people she could almost call friends and a few she could definitely call friends, mostly Shu, Senji and Ririchiyo. Although there were quite some others she was friendly with too, in the end it was just this really weird cluster of friends who all knew each other for the most part.)

The point she will be arriving at from Asgard will be day 100 (her day there will have been an exact 100 days then, since she's been there from the start) - a few days before she learned the truth there about what happened with her brother during EP5 and EP6, so she will still be ignorant of this now.

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.

Abilities/Powers: Ange is really athletic, an ability she was able to gain quickly due to constantly having to run away from her aunt Kasumi's bodyguards. She's even shown jumping off buildings multiple times in canon and surviving (not to mention fighting off several of the goat butlers), proving her athletic skill (although most of the surviving was actually due to a lot of luck as well) even though it lies more with speed than power. Her survival instincts are pretty good because of the constant chases as well. Ange also seems to have above average deducing talent.

Ange is also a witch, since she was Maria's apprentice and inherited the title of Beatrice, the Endless Witch, from her aunt Eva. Therefore her witch name is ANGE-Beatrice. She isn't shown as being able to use the power (endlessly killing and reviving) that comes with that title though, most likely because she is still an apprentice with little magic skill, even though she shows great promise according to Maria. Ange is training to become the Witch of Resurrection and be able to revive her family, but she's still quite a way off from that. She is, however, capable of summoning 'furniture' - the seven sisters of Purgatory. They take on human shapes but can also take on stake forms, which fly at a speed that's impossible to follow with human eyes and gouge (and kill) people quickly and effiently. She's also seen 'reviving' Sakutaro, Maria's stuffed animal, in the fourth arc. This means she is at least able to perform a slight form of resurrection magic, if not just for 'furniture' (a witch's underlings, practically).

In-game she was also shown to be able to use the 'red truth' as a witch.("That's right, I'm Ange!! The Ushiromiya Ange of a world where no one comes home...!!") The 'red truth' is just a means of stating the 'absolute' truth without providing evidence, although it's actually subjective truth that tends to use wordplay. She's able to use the 'blue truth' that's used to provide theories to deny magic or witches by the human side as well. These coloured texts are just the way the logic battles are dunked out in Umineko (apparently nice colors on the screen entertain the audience).

Sample Entry: here and here are posts she made in the game!

Sample Entry Two: 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."