dialetheism | ❧ impressions and permissions.

USHIROMIYA LION

SERIES ☆ Umineko no Naku Koro ni
CANON POINT ☆ Post-Episode 7, "Requiem of the Golden Witch"
AGE ☆ 19
BIRTHDATE ☆ 29th of November, 1967
PRONOUNS ☆ They/them (explanation)

♙ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ♙

VISUAL ☆ behold a saberface. Lion cuts a rather unremarkable figure at approximately five-foot-five inches tall, with a slim build and not much in the way of muscle; they're fit, but the kind of fit that comes with a leisurely sporting hobby, not, y'know. active combat. It's hard to tell what gender they are at a glance - they could pass for either an effeminate boy or a tomboyish girl without too much additional effort - but they are unfairly pretty regardless, with long, shiny blonde hair, and warm grey eyes.
FASHION ☆ tl;dr like money. Painfully neat, androgynous, and semi-formal - preferring to have everything tailored when they can, but as damn close as they can if not. They tend to favour collared shirts and slacks - or, uh, the occasional dumb sweatervest - in warm colours with the Ushiromiya family crest (a stylised one-winged eagle in gold thread) visible somewhere, sometimes in multiple places; their canon outfit is a burgundy suit with gold buttons, a pink cravat, and gray knee-high boots. Always present is a silver signet ring (again with the family crest) and an emerald brooch - one or both being missing should be cause for alarm.
DEMEANOR ☆ ~~Permanently has a stick up their ass.~~ The picture of a well-bred scion, really. They emote more with their hands then their face - it's rare to see them completely still, often gesturing, bowing, or dramatically holding a hand over their heart while they stare wistfully into the middle distance. Standard VN character stuff.
SOUND ☆ Soft spoken and polite to a fault though they have a tendency to over-enunciate certain words when stressed. Voice sample (mild EP7 spoilers)
SCENT ☆ Fresh and shiny, like clean laundry, but faintly of flowery teas, roses, and saltwater. (No matter how well their canon suit is cleaned, it will always carry traces of blood, gunpowder, and rain, in that order.)
MENTAL ☆ Easy to break into, easy to navigate. Lion's mind is defended only by their own stubborn willpower, and any intruder would find it well-organized and painfully boring. There's occasional sparks of curiosity, a persistently annoying sense of optimism, and endless to-do lists about anything and everything in their life. Digging deeper would reveal some vivid fault-lines of insecurity - the most notable of which being a complex about how others percieve them (and also Gender Stuff), and an all-consuming drive to be exactly what others want them to be. Deeper still is a giant catbox of memories that are definitely not theirs that are... in their head, somehow, despite being from a third-person viewpoint? Don't worry about it. It's fine. It's fine.
MEDICAL ☆ hahahah. ha. um. Lion is... healthy, certainly, and they've been careful to take excellent care of themself in all things - but they're still not quite as healthy as they should be, for a perfectly normal person of their age and lifestyle. But, y'know, spoilers.
MAGICAL ☆ hahahahah ahah ha um?? Lion is notable in Seacats in that they are a regular, unmagical human. There's a deep well of potential bubbling under the surface, if one knows what to look for, but only in the way that a book is potential kindling.
ABILITIES ☆ None to speak of, beyond potential for Something and the box of not-memories. Unless being rich counts as a superpower, in which case yes.

♙ IC PERMISSIONS ♙

PHYSICAL AFFECTION ☆ Go for it! Lion's a prude, so it'll be awkward, but warn me first and it's all gravy.
ROMANCE ☆ Check with me first + depends on canonpoint and canonmates. While Lion is the type to form crushes spectacularly easily, acting on them is something they actively try to avoid. For reasons. Many reasons. That said, in most cases, I'm open to winging it if it looks like our CR is heading that way, so talk to me!!
PHYSICAL VIOLENCE ☆ ain't a murder mystery without some attempted murder. go for it!
PSYCHOLOGICAL VIOLENCE ☆ Poke me so I don't accidentally make them unplayable, but I love fuckery so. Let's do it.
DEATH ☆ ain't a murder myst- etc. I'm down for it, but please check first so we can plot it out in a way that leaves everyone satisfied.

TELEPATHY & MENTAL CONTACT ☆ Out-of-the-blue telepathy will make them lowkey freak the fuck out, so check with me first, but if they've had time to adjust to the concept (and you've got positive CR) go ahead.
DEBATE ☆ Their entire canon is based off arguing with people about reality. Go for it.
OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS ☆ Lion is ridiculously easy to annoy, but there's only a few subjects that really set them off - mostly your standard things like active senseless cruelty to others, but for Canon Reasons dehumanization or gender-related fuckery will have tiny, shouty consequences. Also cats. Cats are banned.
ANYTHING ELSE? ☆ I mean, it's one banana. What could it cost? 10 dollars?

♙ OOC PERMISSIONS & INFO ♙

PLAYER ☆ skull!
PREFERRED PRONOUNS ☆ they/them
TIMEZONE ☆ gmt+11 / australian eastern time
CONTACT ☆ skulltaffy @ plurk, or pm. or discord if you have mine already.
AVAILABILITY ☆ throw a dart at the wall and hope for the best - i don't have a consistent schedule but i'm around most days for several hours at a time.
BACKTAGGING ☆ in an ideal world i'll backtag forever, but i've had to come to terms with having my own time limit - if a thread is two or three months old, i might ask if we can wrap it up. that said, if you need it boomeranged instead, we can work on it /o/

THREADJACKING ☆ always a treat! in log/in person threads i ask for some semblance of sanity but that's still not a no
FOURTH WALLING & CANON PUNCTURE ☆ i, the player, love it! but canon punctures are lethal in umineko, so i ask that you poke me first so we can ~*~*~plan it out~*~*~
ACTION VS. PROSE ☆ action, please! i can swap to prose on request but brackettags make the brainjuice work faster
OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS ☆ i'm... bad at defining what my personal offensive subjects are until they come up, so. uh. i'll let you know as respectfully as possible? but my only hard rp no is that i'm not comfortable with writing smut or torture porn with no eventual payoff.

♙ OPT-OUT ♙

SEACATS WHY ☆ So. Umineko deals heavily with themes of abuse, suicide, torture, grooming, neglect, gender dysphoria, dissociation/unreality/identity fragmentation, gun violence, extreme gore/vore, parent/child incest, rape & child sexual assault involving one or more main characters, and Lion's portion of events is, unfortunately for them, no different in the long run. As these are some incredibly wild topics to drop out of the blue, this is specifically an OPT IN rather then an OPT OUT. If you are comfortable with any of the above coming up in a backstory thread, please opt in here. If not, it will never come up, and I will actively nudge you OOCly if a thread is heading in that direction so we can veer things away amicably. (Of note: Lion isn't comfortable with any of the above, either. This is not a character warning, merely a backstory one)

COLOUR TEXT ☆ Umineko nearly rivals Homestuck for sheer annoying neon text shenanigans. While I doubt it will come up, as Lion doesn't have that ability personally, it's still important to warn for it. If you'd like me to avoid adding any colour (or Weird Text In General) formatting for whatever reason, drop me a line here.

SPOILER PARTY ☆ Lion is called a walking spoiler for a reason! Unfortunately I can't avoid all spoilers (I actually started reading Umineko myself after rping with someone who played the other Walking Spoiler, and knowing they exist is a big leg up) but I will happily tone it down on request. Alternatively, if you'd rather I not tag you at all, that's fine too!

Please fill out the form below!

code frankensteined from byob & shooped.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sssssooooo. That whole mess.

Lion's gender is a plot point. A rather crucial one to the overall mystery, thanks to a chapter added by the manga in EP8. The narrative in the VN itself treats Lion as respectfully as possible - the whole thing is framed as "the game master is deliberately obscuring [the gender] to make the mystery harder to solve, tee hee" and everyone avoids using gendered words or phrases to refer to Lion if at all possible. Their own sister is even (temporarily) rewritten to refer to Lion as "Successor-sama" instead of brother/sister. Lion doesn't seem to particularly have a preference, though, only growing irritated when people presume one way or the other due to gender inequality and stereotypes.

Naturally, there are parts of the fandom where this is a heated, messy debate for various reasons.

In the interests of keeping things fair and canon-accurate, I'll be following the visual novel's lead in using neutral they/them pronouns (3rd person prose making "no pronouns" a bit impossible, unfortunately) and keeping in line with the Intentionally Vague Language wherever possible. If this changes in future, I will amend this post.

(Of course, your character is still welcome - and encouraged! - to be ICly confused by this and pry into their business for answers, but Lion's answer will always be a mix of confusion, annoyance, and indifference. Asking is impolite!!)

Thank you for understanding, and I hope y'all have a wonderful day. ❤

[Edited to clarify some points, in hindsight]

Edited 2023-04-10 11:50 (UTC)

❧ impressions and permissions.

► schrodinger's gender