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[golden_dream]

IC INFORMATION
Character Name: Rosa Ushiromiya
Canon: Umineko no Naku koro ni.
Character Background: It's 1986. The super-wealthy Ushiromiya family is about to face a crisis. The head of the family is over 80-years old and he is expected to die soon. It's up to his four adult-children to divide up his inheritance and back-stab each other trying to get a little more of the pot. One of these children is Rosa Ushiromiya, the youngest of the four, by far. Since she's the youngest, she has the least amount of influence of the four siblings, and has spent most of her life being overshadowed, intimidated, conned, and bullied by all of the other siblings.

Rosa entered adulthood as a desperately lonely woman who had no friends because of who her family was, and no friends within the family because she was the youngest and had the least amount of power. It was then she fell in love with an older man who gave all the love and affection she desired. She became pregnant, and her lover promised they'd be married soon. However, he also wanted to pursue his dream of starting a successful business in a foreign country. Rosa supported him as he had supported her, and even co-signed on a substantial loan so he could start his business. He then left right before she was to give birth, promising he'd come back and marry her when he had become successful.

Rosa didn't start to suspect something was wrong until the letters she wrote her lover started to come back saying "return to sender, no such address".

It took years, but Rosa eventually realized she had been betrayed. Her lover had no intention of marrying her, and had used the money to build a new life in a foreign country where she couldn't reach him. During this time, she had given birth to her daughter, who she named Maria.

Suddenly Rosa found herself in a very difficult situation. She's a single mother with a child born out of wedlock and she has a massive debt that she's responsible for paying. This requires her to take a job as president of a fashion design company, a job that she hates and isn't well suited for, just to pay the bills. Furthermore, her responsibility to her daughter leaves her with no time for herself.

It's too much for her. She soon finds herself working long hours to support herself and Maria. She teaches Maria, at a very young age (5-8), how to go to convenience store to get her meals every night, and to spend her days alone in their apartment so that the police don't realize she's leaving Maria home alone without any adult supervision. She also lies to her daughter repeatedly about why she doesn't come home and freely breaks promises she makes to spend time with her. The canon does not at all hide how wrong this is and how devastating it is for Maria.

Rosa may have started this abandonment because she had no other choice, but at some point she also uses it to leave Maria at home while she goes off on overnight 'business trips' with her boyfriends, as she still craves love and affection and needed the stress relief. However, as a single parent, she can't maintain any of these relationships; either Maria's existence drives the men away from commitment or Rosa's own paranoia that they will abandon her destroys the relationship. Furthermore, as a consequence of being left alone to her own devices, Maria doesn't learn how to make friends, and is ostracized in her class and often teased and bullied. Since Rosa is not around her much, she doesn't have the skills necessary to parent Maria, and she frequently loses her temper with her.

Rosa and Maria's relationship becomes a strange mixture of abusive and co-dependent. Maria acts up because she wants attention from her mother, Rosa is unable to calm her down and resorts to physically slapping her and beating her in an attempt to get her to stop disobeying her. This only makes Maria's behavior worse until Rosa realizes what she's done, and then tries to "make up" for the episode by spoiling Maria with sweets, or toys. This finally calms Maria down, until the cycle inevitably repeats again later.

On the one hand, Rosa hates her daughter. She's a living reminder of the man who abandoned her, and as Maria gets older, it only hammers home how her lover definitely isn't coming back. Moreover, Maria intentionally pushes her buttons to manipulate her even on the occasions she does try to handle her softly until she explodes in rage and the cycle of abuse repeats again. Moreover, she really was too immature to handle a child when she became pregnant and part of her is resentful that Maria "ties her down" and doesn't let her pursue her own interests or a new love. She's also jealous of Maria because Maria feels free to cry when Rosa mistreats her and child welfare tried to intervene, but when Rosa herself was mistreated as a child, she wasn't allowed to cry, and no one tried to help her.

On the other hand, Rosa loves her daughter and would do anything for her. She's fiercely protective of her, does not allow anyone to put her down, and in her lucid moments, is grossly ashamed their relationship is what it is and that she is a bad mother. She would not trade her or abandon her for anything.

With her father likely dying soon, the family is meeting to discuss his health and how his assets will be distributed. She's hoping her share of the inheritance money will allow her to settle her debts, relax her obligations, and possibly allow her to improve her relationship with Maria. ...Assuming her siblings don't somehow swindle her out of her share.

Then, after arriving on her father's island mansion and being isolated by a typhoon, people started getting murdered.

It all went very badly from there.


Character personality: Rosa has been made painfully aware her entire life that she's worth the least consideration of everyone in the family and this treatment has left her a deeply scarred individual. She internalized a lot of this abuse with no outlet for her negative emotions and therefore became a person who doesn't control her emotions very well.

Despite this, she's not stupid. She's smarter than anyone gives her credit for, and since her siblings squabble among themselves, she's often able to play 'kingmaker' by choosing what side she wants to support and gains a little consideration for herself that way. Indeed, part of the reason she's able to do this is because she's given up any hope of having any real clout in the family and so she is quicker to grasp smaller victories that are 'attainable', such as teaming up with the other siblings for a small part of the inheritance. Even outside of the siblings in-fighting, she shows a good grasp of logic and shrewd thinking in a crisis. In one version of her canon, she successfully stays alive until the very end of the mysterious murders while also protecting her daughter from harm. No other adult in Umineko manages this. (Ushiromiya Eva comes close, but lost her husband and son.)

However this also means she can be very petty, and often she's worried more about appearances than the real underlying problems. In one instance in canon, Maria accidentally loses the key to their apartment while Rosa is on vacation. The police pick her up and child services is given a call, confronting Rosa. At this meeting, Rosa is more upset that Maria did something to get child services involved and not at all ready to admit they actually have a cause to intervene. She explodes in anger and throws them out of the house rather than accept any help. (Albeit, their 'help' was taking Maria away from her.)

She also doesn't deal well with criticism about her at all, especially as it relates to her life choices or her daughter.

Unfortunately, Rosa doesn't get much time to "be herself." She's constantly harassed with the demands of working and being a mother, and she doesn't handle either role particularly well. On the rare occasions she gets away from those obligations, she's known for being kind, having a good personality and a lot of common sense. As a person who suffered bullying and abuse, she doesn't inflict that experience on others. But as a disciplinarian who is responsible for her daughter, she fully lets her anger and feelings of resentment explode on Maria when her buttons get pushed. The difference in her behavior between when she's kind and when she's abusive is so great Maria takes to saying "Mama's being possessed by the dark witch," when she loses her composure.

As someone who's suffered abuse, she also has a vulnerable side. A harsh comment from her siblings that's too much like the abuse she used to suffer can easily shut her down or turn her into a scared wreck.

Deep down, she is a good person, but her situation prevents her from expressing it. She's a woman full of contradictions, the most obvious of which involve her daughter. She's Maria's fiercest protector and her worst abuser. She feels tied down by Maria, but without Maria, she wouldn't be able to get through the day.


Effects of memory loss: Free from the demands of her situation and her memories of an unhappy childhood, Rosa will be a lot more easy-going. She'll definitely smile a lot more than she normally would, and her common sense will make her a reliable, competent person. She definitely won't be subject to the extremes of emotions she holds in her canon. As she starts to regain memories, she'll have to deal with the pain of her terrible childhood and the guilt that she passed that pain on to her daughter instead of breaking the cycle of abuse. She may be able to find the strength to resolve these issues... or full on break down into the same emotional wreck she was before and sink into denial.
Personal area/item: 10kg bar of 99.99% pure gold with a one-winged eagle crest imprinted on it, wrapped in a red-black plaid blanket. (Connected to her canon)
Sample:

Introduce yourself: Rosa Ushiromiya. How do you do? Would you like some tea?
What is one of your favorite things to do?: I do have a taste for the finer things. I've a collection of the finest teas in existence. I like to sample them and unwind... something to just relax and let the stress of the day pass, you know?

--Of course, I also love spending time with my cute little daughter.
What is the most important thing that has happened to you in your life?: ... The day I brought Maria, my daughter, into the world. ...I think all mothers can agree on that. Besides that, also when I started my fashion design company.
If you were the only person that could save your world, would you do it?: ...Would it take long? Hahaha... When you phrase it like that, it's hard to resist without looking like some sort of ogre.
What aspects of yourself do you consider the most important?: My commitment. I work very hard. I manage my employees every day and I juggle many responsibilities. It's not easy to keep so many plates spinning, you know.
Do you have a favorite skill?: I have an excellent memory. I've trained myself to remember the little things. If I make a promise, I keep it. It doesn't matter to who, even the servants.
Would you do anything to help the people or things that are most important to you? --What are you implying with that question? I do absolutely everything I can for the people I love! I do everything I can for my daughter. I'd take a bullet for her. I'd die for her! Are you saying I wouldn't?
Do you work well with other people? Please explain why you do, or why you do not!: Of course I work well with other people! Why would you ask such interrogative questions? ...Someone must have told you something untrue. Someone has a grudge and must have lied and said I'm 'difficult' to work with. Who's been telling you such stories?! Who??
Finally, please say whatever you may be thinking at this moment in time!: ...Apologies for that outburst. I've dealt with slander before and I've found it's always best to cut it off at the source. Please feel free to open up to me about it at any time if it happens again.