ooc. application.
Mun
Name: Jelle
Livejournal Username: ofmarionette (reserved / claimed under my old account nagareboshihe)
E-mail: queeningsquare@gmail.com
AIM/MSN: Lunixhime (AIM)
Current Characters at Luceti: N/A.
Character
Name: Ange Ushiromiya
Fandom: Umineko no Naku Koro ni
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Time Period: Post EP6 (Dawn of the Golden Witch).
Wing Color: Pink. (The same color as her hair decorations.)
History:
→ the series in general
→ Ange
→ Ange (umineko wiki)
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.
Strengths: By now Ange isn't someone who's easily impressed. She has had to deal with so many horrific, harsh or dangerous things in her life that by now she seems completely indifferent (outwardly more so than inwardly) or at the very least pretty calm about even things like being chased by a group of men trying to capture her. She also jumps down multiple stories from a building without second thoughts. In this aspect you could probably say she's a daredevil and seems to be scared of very few things; she somehow manages to keep her head cool in dangerous situations most of the time. Due to having been stuck in all these dangerous and scary situations before her survival instincts are pretty finely tuned by now and running from things to save her life isn't something she's unused to either.
She's fairly intelligent and seems to have pretty good logic and deductive abilities, as shown when she's participating in the fourth game or when she's discussing the story with Hachijo Toya / Featherine. This is quite possibly partly her mom's influence, who was pretty good at and interested in that sort of thing too. Ange will, however, only use her intelligence for causes she's interested in. Canonically she's shown to spend little effort in working or studying for school since she's not interested in it at all, but once she's fighting to get her family back she throws all her thinking capabilities into the battle.
When it comes down to the people she cares about and especially when she opens up Ange is actually a very good person. Once she does start caring about someone she cares deeply and is even very protective and selfless - she doesn't have any qualms in sacrificing her own life (not to mention it was a rather painful death: being torn apart to pieces while still alive) so her brother can continue fighting. Ange was able to put the idea of her own happiness behind her so her number one priority could be saving her family, even when she discovered it wouldn't be her, the Ange of 1998, they would be returning to. She's someone who fights for the people she cares about, even if it means dying in the process.
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).
Weaknesses: Ange is someone who doesn't let herself be happy even when she has all the chances or reasons to; even if it's not necessarily a conscious choice. Even though during EP8 Battler shows her a happy version of what happened on the family conference of 1986 where Ange was able to go along and be happy, she rejects his version of the story and demands that he shows her the truth. She's so focused on things (at first on getting her family back, later on she's focused on her search for the truth of 1986) that she disregards any other possibilities for happiness that appear to her along the way. Linked to this is the fact that she has a highly negative sort of thinking - she tends to view things in the worst way possible. An example of this is when Maria tells her about having a fun pajama party with her magical friends to make up for her mother not coming home that night, Ange claims that all she can see is Maria throwing a tantrum until late at night over being left home all alone. Maria even states that the difference in their way of thinking is exactly the reason why she's happy but Ange isn't.
For all her athletic skills Ange is still a regular teenage girl and not particularly strong; it isn't really hard to beat her in a fight if magic isn't involved. She's also said to have been pretty frail ever since she was a child and prone to getting ill very often. Her fighting strength mostly comes from magic and being pretty athletic, not physical strength.
You could also say that another weakness of hers is that Ange isn't social at all - her general indifferent and lineface attitude don't attract people towards her easily and Ange never quite seems intent on making friends either. Not to mention that she never particularly had a chance to make friends with anyone during her life either, considering her isolation and the fact that she was bullied by her classmates at school. Her only friends were her actually already dead nine year old cousin and a bunch of magical stakes; the fact that these are nearly imaginary friends should say enough about her socializing skills.
Finally her older brother Battler - or perhaps you could even say family in general - is also a weakness for Ange. After missing them for twelve years and then turning her only mission into finding a way to get them back family is the thing Ange cares the most about. She would do anything for her direct family and her cousin Maria. After all, she sacrificed herself for Battler during the fourth game and already gave up her normal life and became a witch's piece only to have a slight chance at saving them somehow. Ange's family means the world to her and her biggest fear is seeing them hurt or killed yet again, along with the possibility of always having to be alone without them.
Samples (ALL samples must be set in Luceti-verse.)
First Person: It's just the same story as usual, isn't it? Even if this time rather than witches these Malnosso are in charge it doesn't change anything. If they thought they were being original by kidnapping me and bringing me here, they've completely gotten the wrong impression. What is this, the third or fourth time already? At this rate I'll have to arrange some queue for those interested.
It's not like I asked to be this popular though. ... No, thinking about it, it's rather bothersome instead. Surely they could have found someone else to annoy by now. I guess it isn't as annoying though as long as we don't have to face these Malnosso. That Featherine witch and her whole 'child of man' spiel was getting rather old by now. And as for Bernkastel.. Don't even get me started on her. Although I have to say the Malnosso have pretty bad taste as well. They could have at least done something about those tacky wings, right? I doubt I should expect some hospitality from our hosts though, or so I've learned from previous experiences.
And what is it anyway that they expect us to do while we're stuck in this place? Just inconsiderately dumping us here and then not even giving us anything to do only reeks of bad planning. There are still things left that I have to do back home before it's time for me to give up.
... Ah, it's useless, it's all useless. If I have to, I'll just smash a way out of this place by myself. At that time, I'll be sure to at least tell all of you < have a good day, see you again >, so look forward to it.
Third Person:
The girl groaned as she slowly regained consciousness. At first when she opened her eyes she could only see a vague green mass, but after a moment her eyes adjusted to the sight of the trees looming over her. It wasn't until she tried to sit up that she noticed the pounding headache she was currently having. Ange wasn't sure where that came from, or where the forest came from, for that matter. The last thing she remembered was sitting in the car next to Amakusa, who was blabbing on and on about unnecessary things and cracking lame jokes as usual. And not a forest anywhere in sight.
Slowly but surely she stood up. Ange only had a moment to scrub some green off her skirt before she had to hold up a hand to her head due to the headache setting in again. A situation like this would be enough to make a person panic, but Ange actually still seemed pretty calm. Having to figure out the situation was something she had gotten used to by now, after all. And she had learned from that that staying calm was definitely the way to go in that sort of position.
Of course there were two options. Magic or reality - or as some other people might prefer to call it, fantasy or mystery. Either Amakusa had turned on her and had done god knows what to her before dumping her here like this.. or this was the work of yet another witch.
That point in her reasoning was where Ange stopped for a moment since she noticed something else, a new sort of pressure on her back. When she turned her head as far as she could to look the girl noticed what it was. Wings. Real wings.
Once again this should have been enough to surprise a person, but for Ange it was just the answer to her question. The wings indicated that this was definitely magic, another witch's work. It seemed like another witch had found her interesting enough to take her piece out of their toy box once again to play with as they pleased. So annoying.
Ange turned her gaze to the sky and started speaking, almost as if she was talking to the sky, to something that wasn't there. "So, is one of you going to come out yet? It's at least common decency to tell me what's going on, right?" A slight shake of the head followed. "... Tch, almost forgot it's witches I'm dealing with. Sorry for making a lame mistake like that."
When she remained silent for a few moments but didn't get a response, Ange just spoke up again. By now it was almost as if she was monologuing to herself, but she didn't particularly seem to care about how much of an embarassing display it must have been. "Which one of you is it this time either way? Some new witch I haven't heard of yet? ... Oh, if this is that Featherine witch again and you're trying to make some lame pun with the wings, I guess you should keep the jokes to that dress. Featherine, feather, wings, I get it. Ha ha."
There once again wasn't any response, so the girl just shrugged and headed off into a random direction. If nobody was going to give her any clues, it clearly meant she just had to go and discover things for herself. And that was exactly what she was going to do, rather than sit around here talking to herself all day.