#rozen lcb

Egaeus doodles.

Yōzō + Lenore as Rozen and Lenore.

Hex Nail Lenore.

Telepole Yōzō.

Casetti Yōzō.

Garden of Thorns Adam.

DDLC Tobias, Adam, Lenore and Yōzō as Monika, Sayori, Yuri and Natsuki.

But the bulk of my thinking was about Yoru as a character, stuck between two worlds (like Sinclair 👀). The two featured characters in her story are Akira and Rozen. As said before, Akira is a refugee who just wanted shelter from being persecuted so Yoru covered for her. But she’s a relatively new influence to Yoru’s life, unlike Rozen who’s been with her ever since they were born.

Rozen was born as Miren 未練 (lingering regrets). They were both shrine maidens under the same “owner” (their relationship with this person is very clear, it is not one of mother to daughter but owner to property). Miren had always been curious and rebellious, and she often gets into trouble if Yoru wasn’t there to hold her back.

Yoru was born as Seiya 静夜 (quiet night). But eventually she dropped the 静 part because it was just something used to control her. Yk, always a good girl, silent and obedient.

So the thing about their relationship is that Miren often gets beaten up severely by the people higher above them, and also gets loaned out by their owner because they looked cuter than Yoru. So of course she’d kicked up a fuss about this, but Yoru couldn’t do anything but wait for her return. They’re like siblings but one of them is deliberately targeted for abuse while the other one is deliberately left out to teach them a lesson to never speak up or fight back.

I imagined that when Miren found out about Akira alongside Yoru, she wanted to escape to the sanctuary too, and leave behind the shrine that never ever treated her well. Miren had planned to kill everyone who had power over her at their shrine, but Yoru begged for her to stop before she actually commits to the plan and dies in their retaliation. The next day, the owner found out. ☹️

And they made Yoru the one who beats down Miren this time. In the completion of her conditioning, she was made to sever Miren’s tendons so she wouldn’t attempt to run away anymore. And she did just that, believing it was more merciful than death, even though what she was killing all of Miren’s trust and affection for her.

I haven’t wrung out the details after this part yet, but skipping ahead when they meet again, Rozen had to prostheticise those parts that Yoru severed from her. So she’d have puppetlike arms and legs. And a massive chainsaw because I’ve always imagined her with that. She was the one causing the destruction in their hometown when Yoru came back, and when it drew out the source of her heartbreak, she immediately switched to targeting Yoru and the tram. They can’t fight her head on because they’re unmatched by the speed of her prosthetics, so they ran to the burning shrine.

I had plans for them to find some kind of device there that would weaken Rozen’s prosthetic eh. Like it was something the owner already thought to prevent… but it would only made Rozen angrier that Yoru chose to hurt her again and align with their owner. That’s why Yoru still gets beaten senseless until Akira came to help.

Anyway, some thoughts behind the scene. I wrote it like this because the source book, Silence 沈黙 revolves around the hiding Christians and the Japanese militia they’re at odds with. Akira is the Christian here, while Yoru and Rozen are converts. They wanted out of their own religion but they can’t escape the way they were brought up. That’s why they keep hurting each other within the grasp of the bigger power. And worse yet :( Yoru keeps thinking she’s doing this out of love for Rozen, even though it’s only hurting her. That’s true to life for me.

Egaeus Yoru and Lenore Rozen.