#but there are some mean SOBs in the way | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat · 8 months

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in the dream i don’t tell anyone, you put your head in my lap ; shoko ieiri

synopsis; ever since the battle in shinjuku came to its conclusion, nothing’s been the same as it used to. but you don’t think anyone is doing quite as badly as shoko.

word count; 4.5k

contents; shoko ieiri/reader, gn!reader, canon-typical mentions of death (iykyk), angst, hurt/comfort (but not very heavy on the comfort), jjk spoilers (up to chapter 236!!), mild gore (mentions of blood, autopsies and general gore-ish imagery? nothing too bad tho), shoko ieiri deserves better, includes gojo slander (stay safe gojo nation)

a/n; first of all i just wanna apologize to the shoko girlies for writing angst when we’re already so starved of content, i have like 50 fluff drabbles planned for her but chapter 236 threw me into a mental angst pit so </3 yeah. i love my wife!!

shoko hasn’t been herself for a while.

the thought sneaks its way into your subconscious, as your feet carry you to her morgue — a rotten thought you just can’t seem to rinse away.

it’s not very hard to notice. she doesn’t talk as much, for one. not that shoko was ever much of a talker, but now the silence around her is deafening. thick and heavy like the spine of a knife. and she smiles even less.

you can’t remember the last time you heard her laugh.

the crescents beneath her eyes are darker than ever, darker than you thought possible. a murky purple that you’d find soothing in any other context, but like this it’s just revolting. her eyes are deep and dark, the same as ever, but now they’re glazed over with something you can’t quite put your finger on.

apathy, maybe.

or bloodlust.

the scent of cigarette smoke that follows her is suffocating. indistinguishable from her natural scent. you don’t know if she’ll ever be able to scrub the tobacco stench off her skin.

(you’ve given up on counting the exact number of cigarettes she smokes each day. you’re not sure you want to know the answer.)

she doesn’t even look alive, anymore. like some part of her already reached its expiration date. a spectre, wandering the hallways, filling the air with the slow, ominous clacking of her heels.

shoko hasn’t been herself for a while — and it’s so obvious. her grief is so heavy, her sleep-deprivation so severe. you’d have to be blind not to notice it.

so why hasn’t anyone said anything?

you gnaw at your bottom lip, trying to suffocate the bitterness swimming inside your veins. it’s a dumb question, really, because you already know. you don’t want to acknowledge it, because it’s so unfair, but you know. of course you do.

no one has the time to. it’s as simple as that.

no one’s doing well, anymore. not since shinjuku.

not since gojo died.

shoko’s grief is a fickle thing. always with her, tucked away within those eyebags, in the pockets of her coat. in that smell of tobacco, never-fading, always lingering. it follows her like a ghost, like something she’ll never quite be rid of.

(like something she doesn’t want to be rid of.)

shoko’s grief is a fickle thing, and it always has been. but recently, it’s been downright overwhelming. it used to be subtle, the kind of thing you notice if you look close enough. if you squint. if you even care enough to try.

but now, it’s more like a haunting than a simple ghost.

(geto. nanami. yaga. and now gojo, too.

how many people does she have to lose before whatever’s watching is satisfied?)

shoko hasn’t been herself for a while, and it’s obvious, and it’s sickening. she still does her duty to a tee, but she isn’t quite there anymore. gaze always forlorn, as if she’s trying to convince herself of something.

and yet no one says a thing.

everything is one big mess, right now. you don’t want to blame anyone. everyone’s exhausted, completely and utterly spent, but they’re still planning it all out. even in the midst of their mourning. because they don’t have any other choice.

this is not the kind of situation where you should be pointing fingers. a part of you is angry, livid even — but you know the others are doing just as badly. it’s not like you aren’t, either.

still, though. isn’t this just too unfair?

”i brought you coffee!”

making sure your voice doesn’t waver is tougher than you initially assumed. just the sight of her sends a tremor running through your ribs; sunken down in her chair, papers in hand, eyes scanning the pages methodically. papers of what, you’d like to ask — but you already know.

(she’s reading through the post-mortem examination report, again. searching for something you don’t understand. you’re not sure she does, either.)

and she looks exhausted.

try as you might, your voice ends up sounding a little stale, as it flows from your lips and reaches her ears. but the attempt is there — the attempt to sound cheerful, calm. normal. to give her something to hold on to.

shoko looks up at you, and her lips curl in a way you think is supposed to form a smile. it doesn’t. her eyes look into yours but it’s like she’s not seeing you at all.

when you go to give her the cup of espresso, your fingertips touch. only for a second, before she curls her fingers around the ceramic handle. she receives the coffee with a small murmur of thanks, but you don’t notice because you’re too busy thinking of how cold her skin feels.

(cold like a ghost. cold like death.)

shaking away the shivers down your spine, you allow your gaze to trail over the morgue. it looks the same as always. cold, empty. foreboding. today, you think it feels just a little chillier than usual. matching the temperature of the outside world, where everything lies buried in heaps of snow and frost.

hesitantly, you plop down in the seat right next to hers. with such a narrow distance, you can smell the tobacco sticking to her clothing. it makes you want to throw up.

(you try not to look over at the couch in the corner of the room, where a certain someone used to slack off. his awkwardly long limbs would dangle off the edges, and shoko would pretend that she didn’t enjoy his company. you were more than content with silently admiring the smile she was trying to hide.)

shoko doesn’t look at you, professional in the way her eyes run across the files. cause of death: damage to central intestines, subsequent loss of blood. from a cut to the stomach, right below the liver and spleen.

you look away before your eyes can read another line.

leaning back in your chair, you exhale a tiny sigh. desperate to fill the silence with something, anything at all. you scramble for topics, racking your brain.

(what could you possibly tell her that she doesn’t already know?)

”the others are still planning everything out,” you speak, playing with your fingers idly to distract yourself. ”i think it’s going well.”

shoko hums, unaffected. ”that’s good.”

she’s speaking to you, but that feeling of unease still won’t go away. her voice sounds still, flat. empty of emotion. but you can tell she’s trying to be polite.

that’s no surprise. shoko isn’t the type to ever show how she’s truly feeling. she’s not the type to ask for help, either. people come to her for help, not the other way around. that’s all she’s ever known.

(in that sense, the two of them were alike.)

but that just makes it all the more important for you to be there. even if you’re a little awkward, and even if you can’t do much. even if it’s only for a moment or two, you want to see her smile. you want to feel for yourself that she’s really there.

looking over at shoko, you wring your hands together, the cold air of the morgue nipping at your sweaty palms. she’s drinking from the cup, one finger around the handle as her other hand flips through the papers.

”does it taste okay?” you ask, softly. if only you could ask her that under better circumstances, with cups of espresso made with better coffee machines than those at jujutsu high. ”i made it myself, so…”

”it’s fine.” shoko takes a sip. dragging her syllables out, as if mustering the will to speak. ”don’t worry.”

short sentences. almost cold, but you know better than that. she just doesn’t have it in her to pretend that everything is normal, anymore.

and it makes you uncomfortable. this silence.

a couple months ago, it would have felt comforting; a quiet, peaceful kind of solitude shared between the two of you. nostalgic, like the smell of morning dew. or the way moonlight feels on your skin when the world falls asleep.

the silence you had with shoko always felt so tender. a single moment of peace, before the other shoe dropped. just that one moment was enough to give you the hope you needed to make it through another day.

you loved being silent with shoko. you loved her silence, the way she could soothe your very soul without saying a thing.

but now it only stings your skin. you fear that you might drown in it.

there is nothing to say. you want to ask her how she’s doing, but you already know. you want to ask her why she’s still reading the files from gojo’s autopsy, but you already know.

you want to ask her if she can still keep going, like this. but you already know.

she doesn’t have a choice.

(something crumbles, deep inside your chest, like ashes cast into the sea.)

”hey. shoko?”

she hums, again. weak. quiet. absentminded, acknowledging your words but not really hearing them.

you take a deep breath.

”i think i’m going to quit being a sorcerer.”

silence.

for a moment, nothing happens. nothing moves, or speaks. the air is cold and crisp and carries no meaning, no words, nothing at all.

like time is frozen. frozen like all the bodies shoko’s had to dig inside these past few months. frozen like gojo was when she found him in the snow.

frozen like your youth, a glass marble kept in your pocket for moments when you feel as if the ground beneath your feet is about to slip away. then you’d take it out, and look deep inside it. watch the swirling of greens and blues and purples. that streak of indigo right in the middle of the glass. memories of the past, to give you comfort.

to remind yourself of why you’re doing this. to give you a reason to keep moving forward.

(south or north, it doesn’t matter. stay as you are or move forward, look to the past or to the future — none of it matters if you aren’t alive. that’s the conclusion you came to.)

shoko’s expression, too, is frozen. it doesn’t change, even as you let those loaded words fall from your tongue. you watch her carefully, out of the corner of your eye. she doesn’t even look at you, gaze still glued to the tiny letters detailing exactly what gojo’s pulse was at when he got cut.

but something flickers, in the depths of her irises, so fast you barely catch it. something you can’t identify, but it’s still something. it’s movement. it’s alive.

”not right now, obviously,” you elaborate. suddenly a little nervous, now that the words have been made manifest. ”but… you know. once all this is over.”

not sure what else to say, you trail off, fidgeting with your fingers again. voice wavering pitifully towards the end of the sentence, because deep down you know it’s not a question of once, but a question of if.

(if this ever ends. if i don’t die tomorrow, or the day after that.)

you swallow the lump in your throat, and look at her. trying to find her eyes. trying to keep her alive for as long as you can, this sequence of motion, this moment frozen in time.

trying to reach her.

”you won’t ever have to worry about me dying,” you throw in, like the words are light and not heavy as bricks. but you know she needs to hear them. ”i’ll leave, and then — and then…”

staring down at your lap, you link your hands together. exhaling, a little breathless. sheepish, in a way. ”… well. i don’t know. i haven’t thought that far ahead, yet.”

you never had the chance to. you didn’t even really think of it as a possibility, as something you could do. and you know it’s not a possibility for shoko. the choice to be a sorcerer was never hers, from the very beginning.

a user of the reverse cursed technique. capable of healing almost any wound, more power and capability than a child should ever have. invaluable. she’s saved so many lives you’re sure she’ll be reborn as a god.

but the choice was never hers.

a soothing kind of ache blooms in both your palms, as your nails dig into the soft skin. hard enough to form crescents, like the ones under shoko’s eyes, that she’ll never be rid of no matter how much she sleeps. the choice was never hers.

isn’t that just too cruel?

they don’t deserve her. none of them do. the elders didn’t, the jujutsu world doesn’t — not even the students. no one deserves it; everything she does for everyone, day and night, just slaving away in the morgue or her office. cutting up curses and old friends. every second of the day, always that same buzzing of her name being called.

shoko, someone needs healing, come quick!

shoko, i know it’s 2 am and you have work tomorrow, but there’s a curse that i need you to dissect.

shoko, i think i got a paper cut, would you mind taking a look?

none of them deserve her.

you think of gojo. a flash of white hair, a grin brighter than the sun. a bloodstained smile — one shoko had to wipe away.

something ugly claws its way up your throat.

none of them deserve her. especially not him.

what were you thinking, leaving her all alone like this? so much for being the strongest. you couldn’t even stay alive.

why would you die with a smile on your face? do you have any idea how cruel that is to her?

you idiot. don’t you know how much she missed you?

— yeah. none of them deserve her. gojo doesn’t, the world doesn’t, and neither do you. no one does.

what shoko deserves is to live a normal life.

and she never will.

it’s foolish. it’s naive, a juvenile daydream. but you wish for it so, so badly. so much that even just the thought alone feels like too much to bear.

you wish you could bring her with you.

you wish you could take her hand in yours, and run away. leave it all behind, every single thing, without caring about the consequences. you’d hold her hand and never let it go, and then you’d run and run until you were both high on adrenaline and breathless laughter.

maybe you could go somewhere, together. somewhere better. outside of japan, where there are less curses. money wouldn’t be an issue, you both have more than you know what to do with — one of the perks of having a job that’s bound to kill you. you could settle down in some smaller town, peaceful, maybe a little secluded. just to make sure no one finds you.

maybe you could open up a little shop, together. or spend all your days tangled up beneath the blankets, catching up on lost sleep. talking and whispering, like you’d do back at the sleepovers you used to have. you’d make her coffee every morning, and tea every evening. you’d spend the rest of your life trying to make her laugh as loud as possible.

there’s nothing you want more. absolutely nothing. there never will be.

— but you can’t ask her.

you can’t ask her to come with you, no matter how much you want to. that’d be the cruelest thing you could possibly do to her.

she would never agree. you’d only be hurting her more. so selfish, all of these wishes. it was so much simpler back when you were just kids. when you didn’t have to care about duties or responsibilities. when your cognitive empathic abilities were just a little more lacking.

a sigh flows from your lips. resigned, but somewhat hopeful, all the same. tainted with the murmurs of a memory that’ll never happen.

”maybe i’ll open up a bakery, or something.” you tap your fingers against the desk, smiling a little to yourself at the thought. or trying to. ”then you could come visit.”

shoko looks into her cup of coffee. watching the swirling of the vortex, the abyss that gazes back at her. she doesn’t look at you but you can tell she’s listening. then she puts the cup down, and you glance at her now-empty hand.

shoko’s hands have always been pretty. even when they’re covered in grime, or stained with blood. thin, a little bony, smooth skin obscuring clear blue veins. moles litter her hands like stars in the sky; one right beneath her pinkie, another by her wrist. the more you look, the more you find.

tentatively, you broach the distance between you. curling your fingers around her slender ones, where they rest on her lap. linking hands. it’s a slow movement, drawn out and careful, accompanied by the heavy beating of your heart.

(her skin is cold to the touch. your skin buzzes with unease, but you don’t let go.)

then you smile. a small thing, not really optimistic, but the attempt is there. something for her to hold on to. looking deep into her eyes, admiring the hazel glow that never quite left them.

”i’ll give you free pastries.”

a moment passes. shoko’s fingers squeeze around yours — weakly, but it’s there. movement, motion, life. a way of reaching out. a way to hold on.

her eyes continue to trail over the page, but you know she’s not reading any of the contents. you’ve caught her attention. a small victory, but you’ll take what you can get.

”i don’t like sweets,” she reminds you, leaning back a little in her chair. allowing her eyes to flutter shut, at last — and it’s not much but it’s something. a moment of relief for those tired, tired eyes. more tired than any 29 year old’s should be.

”i’ll change your mind,” you promise, mustering up enough will to sound smug. ”my pastries will be out of this world. you’ll get a sweet tooth in no time, sho.”

she exhales a breath, vaguely amused. your smile widens, hopelessly. her happiness was always the root of yours, wasn’t it?

then she looks at you, one eyebrow raised in lazy scepticism. ”can you even bake?”

”nope,” you deadpan. ”but i’ll learn. you’ll see.”

this time, shoko almost chuckles — and it’s more than you’ve gotten out of her in recent memory. god, you missed that sound. a little raspy, from all the cigarettes, but still so honeyed and smooth. hearing it makes you feel as if everything will turn out fine, in the end.

(what a powerful thing, for a voice to do. one so lovely it anchors you to the earth.)

a faux pout curls its way to your lips, and you squeeze her hand lightly. ”don’t laugh, i’m being serious!” your pout shifts into a soft grin, a little teasing. ”i’ll get you addicted to sugar instead of nicotine.”

”haha…”

shoko laughs. shoko laughs and it’s beautiful.

shoko laughs, a genuine laugh, and it’s so beautiful that you almost don’t notice the tears in her eyes. almost.

and then you realize your mistake.

a memory comes to you, then. you recall a hushed conversation, beneath a cloudy summer sky. the air was heavy with the scent of lilacs and cigarette smoke. two people were beside you, and all you cared about was listening to the tilt of their voices. that, and nothing more. a time before everything and everyone went south.

(”you know, shoko. you really should drop those death sticks of yours.”

”i don’t want to hear that from the guy who needs 40 grams of pure sugar every day just to function.”

”rude! and as far as addictions go, sugar is a cut above nicotine, don’t ya think?”

”whatever. just worry about yourself, gojo.”)

by the time you realize, it’s already far too late. the tears have already begun to fall. little droplets of grief, sticking to her skin.

they trickle down the contours of shoko’s face, and fall onto the paper in her hand, smudging the letters. she clutches it tightly, crinkling it, just to make the damage worse. her other hand is still holding yours, chipped nails digging into your skin gently.

but she keeps laughing. low, hazy laughter — pained. she sounds like she’s in pain, and that’s because she is. even if no one ever cares to mention it.

(how cruel, for her to be born with the reverse cursed technique. capable of healing any physical wound; leaving her with too many mental ones to count. never to be healed or acknowledged, in this life or the next.)

you can only stare. helpless to her sadness. her eyes are a little red, and she’s biting down on her lip hard enough to draw blood — a drop of scarlet falls onto the paper, and you think of gojo again.

you think of shoko finding him. running to his side. doing all she could to heal him, to patch him up — getting blood all over her hands and clothes. red everywhere, staining the pure white of the snowfall. like something out of a painting.

she did all that she could. pressing down on his chest, positive cursed energy pouring out from her fingertips in tandem with the snow. pressing two shaky fingers to his pulse point, just in case. just to find any sign of life, absolutely anything. hoping so tenderly that she’d feel the flutter of his pulse. that he’d get up, and laugh obnoxiously, and ask her if she really thought he’d leave her behind so easily.

you’d never seen her look so scared. so desperate, a primal kind of fear you’ve learned to associate with self-driven survival. the way some animals can claw their way out of a predator’s stomach if they’re swallowed whole. but she did that to save him. trying to claw him out, herself. from the belly of the beast.

she did all that she could.

but gojo didn’t do anything. he just laid there, split in two. frozen in time, eternally young. watching the sky. smiling.

(what a wonderful way to die. what an awful thing for an old friend to find.)

before your mind can catch up, your body acts. muscle memory, in the way your arms curl around her midriff to bring her close. tucking her into your side while she sniffles and cries. still laughing, like she’s still trying to convince you that she’s fine. like she’s isn’t falling apart at the seams.

the dam breaks. the ice shatters. everything comes crashing down — and you’re there to pick up the pieces. despite everything.

it’s not enough, it never will be. but at least it’s something.

it’s heart-wrenching, the way she clings to you. like you’re the only thing she has. the dry laughter that spills from her throat devolves into sobbing, her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath, nails clinging to the fabric of your clothing like she’s trying to anchor herself. broken sniffles fill the space between you as she hides away, in the crook of your neck.

(the sound makes you feel like someone drove a knife from your sternum down to your stomach.)

all you can do is hold her. quietly, delicately. as if she could break if you squeeze her too hard. as if she’d shatter like a sheet of glass if you were to say the wrong thing again.

you hold shoko like she’s fragile. because she is, regardless of what anyone else says. because she’s a human being, and she’s grieving, and she needs this.

eventually, she musters up the will to speak — and it’s awful, raspy, broken syllables she has to force out of her throat.

she chokes on the words like they’re poisonous. like she’s been carrying them around for decades, bubbling beneath the surface, waiting to be let out.

“don’t — don’t end up here,” shoko pleads, voice wavering through the syllables. full of fear. “please.”

you know what she means. she doesn’t have to say it, because you know.

don’t end up in my morgue. don’t end up on my autopsy table.

shoko sounds meek. she sounds close to falling apart. you’ve never seen her like this before, clutching onto your sleeves as if begging you to stay.

“you’re — you’re the only one i…”

she doesn’t finish, cut off by a broken sniffle. but she doesn’t need to.

you’re the only one i have left. i can’t lose you, too.

please don’t die. please don’t leave me behind.

a shaky inhale. your arms tighten around her waist, tugging her closer. praying that she’ll feel the steady beating of your heart, the undeniable proof that you’re alive. that you haven’t left her yet.

you blink away the tears in your eyes, grasping for control over your wavering voice.

“i won’t.”

and maybe it’s cruel, maybe it’s the cruelest thing you could do to her — making a promise you know you might not be able to keep. but you do so anyway. helpless to her sadness. at the complete mercy of her grief. you’d do anything to stop the tears from falling, to soothe the turmoil in her chest.

“i won’t let you be alone, shoko,” you murmur into her hair, with all the comfort you can possibly muster. ”not now, or ever.”

three words yearn to be spoken, resting on the tip of your tongue. three little syllables, desperate to be heard after living in the back of your throat for so many years.

and for a second, you think you might say it.

you think you might say it, breathe life into the statement. you can almost taste it, can almost hear it. can almost see what her expression would look like.

but shoko sniffles, and hugs you tighter. protective, like you’ll leave if she doesn’t. so tightly that it hurts a little.

and you swallow the words, once more.

right now, this is enough. it’s enough that you’re alive, that you’re here. that’s what shoko needs, right now.

she doesn’t need your love. she just needs you to stay alive.

so you will. you decide that you will, no matter what. you’ll leave, and you’ll open up a shitty bakery that won’t get any customers — and you’ll give her free pastries for the rest of your life. you’ll get her so addicted to sweets that she’ll have no choice but to come back for more.

shoko cries like a child. filling the silence of the morgue with her shaky breaths and quiet sniffles, little hiccups and whimpers. the tears never seem to stop, and you wonder how long it’s been since she last let them fall.

you hold her in your arms, smoothing a palm down her back, counting the bumps of vertebra — and don’t say anything. there’s no need to.

for now, the soft patter of your heartbeat is enough.

ijichi stands just outside the morgue, unmoving. not saying a thing.

it’s muffled, hushed and quiet, but still audible. the sound of childlike crying. the kind all sorcerers do their best to keep to themselves.

in his arms lie a bundle of papers. the final pages of gojo’s autopsy report. it’s important that shoko sees them — vital, according to her. something about the six eyes, the possibilities they hold. the hope that maybe, just maybe…

— he clutches them tightly, and then walks away.

#the wlw urge to leave everything behind and start a bakery together……#idk how to feel abt this i just!! needed to get some shoko thoughts out!!! she’s my fave jjk girl and i love the way her grief is portrayed #i just hope gege does her justice but i have a good feeling that he will!! if not its on sight #she’s so special to me. the airport scene hurts sm because she really is all alone now :(( its so fucked up i SOBBED into my pillow #well i mean. she still has ijichi. and i love him dont get me wrong but like. STILL #im delusional tho so i think next chapter shoko will use her rct to heal gojo #and then we’ll get a scene of him leaving the airport with shoko. trust me gege and i are like this🤞#sorry for basing all my titles on siken poems. anyway go read ’i had a dream about you’ its so shoko #shoko ieiri #shoko ieiri x reader #shoko ieiri x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #jjk #jjk spoilers #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #jjk 236 #jujutsu kaisen 236 #…. i think. thats all the tags…….

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nyxofdemons · 3 months

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“one day im going to have to make like a three hour long video essay that's just called In Defense of Helluva Boss” Please do. I see more anti videos than I do with defense ones. Like the ones that say season 2 is terrible even though it’s barely completed and the ones that say Stolitz is a bad despite them barely having a relationship.

no literally i am sick of seeing more anti content than actual appreciation videos but the anti talking point i see most that drives me up the fucking walls is that it's "bAd RePrEsEnTaTiOn," as if that is all that queer people are allowed to have; just the vague nebulous concept of "Rep(TM)." the fact that if a straight character is a bad person then it's just that This Character is a bad person, but if a queer character is a bad person then This Is Bad Representation Of The Community And Is Homophobic. can we not just HAVE characters?? vehicles to tell a story??? tools to craft a compelling narrative??? this is part of why Helluva/Hazbin being adult shows is such a THING because i see this get shut down a lot under the guise of "uhh well just because it's an adult show doesn't mean that it can handle whatever topic it wants however it wants" and like. yeah buddy! that's true! and that's not what this is fucking about!! when people say "it's an adult show" what they mean is that it's made to be engaged with under the assumption that you would know better than to take information to shape your worldview and perception of other real life people from a fucking cartoon! the show doesn't NEED to tell you that Um Hey Guys Just So You Know This Isn't Actually Meant To Reflect How All Real Life Gay Relationships Are because you are an adult who should already be able to discern this.

"bad rep" doesn't mean "characters that are nuanced, morally gray, or just bad people." "bad rep" would be if helluva boss was a show that said "the REASON these characters are in toxic relationships / are bad people is BECAUSE they are queer, or at least directly correlated to that fact." which is. you know. very fucking different than "these characters are in toxic relationships / are bad people because they 1) live in a classist society that actively encourages them to be their worst selves and 2) are extremely traumatized."

#btw when i say toxic i DO mean stolitz but not in like. a 'this is romanticizing abuse !!!!1!!!!1!1!!' kind of way #which is. the second stupidest criticism of this show #like babe did you really watch blitz break down sobbing on his couch and see stolas drowning in his depression cereal and absinthe #and some how come to the conclusion that the lesson you are meant to take away from this is that This Is A Good Thing To Aspire To ??????#their dynamic IS toxic rn!! neither of them are communicating properly and neither of them are getting what they TRULY want #and the whole point of watching this situation (this shituation; if you will) play out #is to be entertained first of all BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY #because you are supposed to go Man This Relationship Status Sucks For Them Right Now I Sure Hope They Can Make It Better #you are supposed to recognize that it is Bad for them right now. because you are a fucking adult who should have a CRUMB of media literacy #god. sorry this is so long #video essay is gonna be four hours at this rate istfg #mine #ask #helluva boss #stolitz #analysis #long post #fandom

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arklay · 7 months

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RESIDENT EVIL → THE WESKER FAMILY

To the public, little is known of the families behind some of the world’s most renowned bioterrorists, but the question remains: did they play a role in causing their children to walk down the path that they did? Or are these individuals simply ambitious criminals with delusions of grandeur?

For Diana Wesker (née Afanasyeva), her introduction into the bioweapons black market trade was upon discovering her employers were using her research into limb regeneration with salamanders to further their experiments in creating enhanced soldiers, instead of developing human therapies with which she was recruited for. Although the prospect of using biological weapons in the military did not appeal to her, the concept remained fascinating for her own selfish endeavours. Born on the 27th of October, 1963 in Sydney, Australia to Russian immigrant parents, Diana had harsh expectations placed upon her at a young age, ones that no matter how hard she tried she could never live up to. Her mother, Tatyana, was an unfeeling woman, absent for long stretches of time with little regard to how it affected her daughters, much more concerned with her craft as an accomplished opera singer. Viktor was no better. A strict man whose role as father and ballet master blurred, he pushed his girls to one day follow in his footsteps. Whilst Sofia enjoyed ballet, and went on to become a professional ballet dancer, Diana’s heart was set on going into the field of biology. She wished to make a name for herself, separate from her family – to which she succeeded.

Diana was married to former U.S. Marine, Dave Monroe, for only a year until he was declared dead in 1992 after succumbing to injuries sustained in a horrific car accident. Foul play was ruled out while Diana played the role of the grief-stricken widow, but in reality, she had snapped after years of mistreatment at her husband’s hands, and opted for something she could pass off as an accident to be free of him. For years she believed he was dead – and he was, legally – but that proved to not be the case when he found his way back into her life again in 1999. Unbeknownst to her, she had been lied to by the police and coroner, who were paid off by her employers when they took Dave’s body for themselves and used him as one of their first test subjects in developing supersoldiers. Before he could ever hurt her again, Diana’s second husband, Albert Wesker, tracked the man down, captured him and tortured him, before allowing Diana to get her violent and bloody revenge.

The origins of Albert Wesker’s involvement in bioterrorism, alongside his twin sister, Alex, are much different than that of Diana’s. The two hail from London, Canada, but unfortunately, they hold no memories of their lives there, nor what happened to their biological parents when they were eight years old. Agents of Oswell E. Spencer, an aristocratic billionaire and eugenicist, took the twins from their home and executed their parents as per Spencer’s orders. Albert and Alex were then placed in a home funded by the Spencer Foundation where they were given new names and a privileged upbringing. They had access to the best education possible, free to pursue whichever field they decided, but it was by no accident they both went into virology and bioengineering; at home, their adoptive parents – agents whom they believed to be their real parents – instilled them with the beliefs of Oswell E. Spencer, harbouring disdain for war and pestilence, and believing humans to be an evolutionary dead-end in need of a rebirth. They were only two of the hundreds of children “adopted” as part of what is known as Project W, a plan intended to develop an advanced race of human beings. The most promising candidates were headhunted by Umbrella Pharmaceuticals, the twins amongst them, where they went on to create bioweapons for the company founded by none other than the man who had handpicked them for his plan. The final stage of this was to infect the thirteen Spencer saw fit, however, only two survived; Albert received the intended effects, now possessing superhuman abilities, however, Alex was only offered more time to live due to her terminal degenerative illness.

In the summer of 1995, Diana was working undercover within Umbrella to gather development data on their projects for her company. Here, she had a chance encounter with Albert, an intelligence officer at the time, which permanently altered the course of her life. The two were never seen far from one another’s side, marrying in 1998, and they went on to become notorious in the bioweapons industry. The development of the Uroboros virus was where things took a turn for the worst. Although Diana’s infection was successful and she bore abilities that rivalled her husband’s, the plan itself did not succeed as they had hoped, and almost cost Albert his life at the hands of his former subordinates.

Now, they work within the shadows, with Diana declared missing and Albert believed to be dead. Their legacy, however, lives on with the mark they left on the world. As visionaries in their field, they influenced bioterror attacks carried out by countless individuals and organisations. In turn, they also inspired others to fight against such atrocities. One such person happens to be Albert’s son from a former relationship, Jake Müller, whose existence he was unaware of.

#mine.#oc: diana #pair: ewskers #click for better quality cause it's large & tumblr ate it ♡#hii so happy birthday diana !! queen is 60 today :]#um. there's no template cause i made this from scratch...i couldn't find any i was vibing with so i was like you know what lmaoo #i'm sorry for the essay...it was meant to be just a short rundown of the family but well...that happened. typical leah fashion...#oh and guys. did you know that there's a limit to the amount you can put in one blockquote? that's why the rest is just left like that caus #i didn't like how it looked with a blockquote each paragraph...cause the spaces between were unever. you understand 😔#with the tree i was also going to include weskids adoptive parents but i couldn't figure out how to arrange it all & make it look nice !!#cause i also wanted to have spencer in there as well cause he's a big reason why the weskids are the way they are...was maybe gonna include #sherry as well. like connected to jake (hehe) and then do her parents too but that would've made things so wide & it's already big enough #yes. i hc that albert & alex are biological twins. just for clarification there :] i don't think i added anything else that isn't canon or #implied with canon. cause the weskids were put in homes (or at least whatever ''controlled environments'' means) where they were monitored #by umbrella but were unaware of it. so yeah. i don't think i really changed much there !!#honestly i could've kept rambling cause there's alex's whole situation. there's my lore with jake's mum. there's way more with the ewskers #but it's already so long & i can't be concise so there's that lmaoo oh also diana's grandma. so much stuff #also meant to say the weskids birthday in that ramble. it's january 15 1960 :] they are capricorn sun leo moons but alex was born earlier s #their rising signs are albert is a scorpio rising & alex is a libra rising !!#had to redo the image cause typo on diana's birth year for some reason lmao so if that messed up the formatting i will sob

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icewindandboringhorror · 8 months

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There's always a slight yearning in the back of my mind wishing I had been born in the right place, time, family situation, income level, etc. to have just lived in one single house for my entire life. Imagine being born in a place that still suits you, even through all of your personal evolutions and etc. The idea of deep familiarity with an area because you've lived and explored it for 40+ years, being encased in a web of memories and connections. Being able to clean out your old childhood bedroom and find personal artifacts, to dig in the yard and remember. I know those lives can still be plenty imperfect, but there's just something so seemingly solid and stable and Grounding about it that I sometimes wish I could have.. (At least from my outside perspective as someone who's moved around a bit geographically and even within the same area, never lives in the same house/ apartment /etc. for more than a few years usually.) Like... having a place that is printed upon, fully your own, rather than chronically a visitor, every thought of a space always tempered with the notion that one day soon you'll have to pack it all up again, etc. There's something peaceful about the permanence.

#I think also because I'm a very nostalgic person - THOUGH not in the way that somep poeple mean when they say nostalgia because I've realiz #ed that to some people apparently it means like.. more of a sad emotional thing? Or when I talk about being nostalgic they say 'me too' and #then describe how they're always depressed dwelling on the past wishing they could revisit it and replaying it and feeling sad and etc.#Whereas for me - it's not in a deep or emotional way at all. It's very detached - kind of like someone who is doing like a scientific #cataloguing of something? I don't feel any remorse or sadness or longing or sitting there sobbing for hours over people/pets I've lost or #etc. It's more like a fun contemplative excercise and extension of self analysis plus just documentation. Like I know your memory fades as #you get older OR even as stuff is actively ongoing humans have terrible recall - even the ones who are less emotional/more focused on #accuracy our minds still twist things or etc. SO I looove to have documentations of everything possible so that in the future I will have #as full and complete of a view of myself as I possibly can. sure the image will undoubtedly be a little distorted but having real evidence #of how something was at a time is very valuable. You look through old messages or letters or something and you always find other alternate #versions of yourself. Not in a worse way like inherently inferior Previous Models Of You who haven't yet been perfected but even just in a #neutral way like 'what they're saying is not a BAd thing but also is not how I would say that today.' etc. ANYWAY I find it really interest #ing to document and remember things and love revisiting the past - not in a sad way - but just like. curiosity. reminiscing and recalling #and filling in gaps. or trying to have the same feeling I felt at a previous time so I can remember what it was. Collecting information for #documentation purposes. Like for example - I would love to go back and tour all of my old childhood houses/apartments. Not to like #sit in the middleof them and cry and go 'ohhh my childhood waughhh' - but literally because I want to take detailed photographs so I #can remeber exatly what they looked like and recreate them in sims or some other digital way. Why? idk. just to gather the information. If #I ever live to like 80 years old and I'm still reflecting on my life curious about the dteails of it. I want to be able to fire up my #ancient windows 10 laptop I've kept all these years and open up the sims 4 and tour my old home with accuracy etc. ??#Not sure why really. Maybe an extension of how I generally care a lot about having an 'accurate' view of things? Like I would rather be #accurate than be happy. I don't understand 'ignorance is bliss' because I would always rather know. I always always in any situation am mor #focused on 'what is the well researched practical truth' than about 'how does this make me feel' or etc. Truth above ALL else even if it #were to make me miserable. Aka why I'm a 'boring' 'annoying' 'UM actually..' type of killjoy lol because it's very hard for me to understan #that some people can enjoy something or have a good time even not knowing the full facts of a situation or etc. BUT anyway. since that is #some core driver of my personality for whatever reason (just the plague of ennegram type 5 perhaps lol) maybe that also drives me to my #kind of minor obsession with like 'I must have a complete view and calatoguing of my life that is as accurate as possible within the means #i have' . Is it REALLY important for me to know the exact layout of on of my first childhood bedrooms? no. materially it does nothing for m #in life. BUT hey. it would make a great addition to the Accurate Life Story Catalogue lol. ANYWAY.. But I think a lot of wanting to live in #one place forever is not just the ease of documentation. but the sense of having a constant. Much of what i crave most in life is stability #& familiarity &routine bc of how my brain works. And it just would feel so good to be Settled. Never uproot again. One little place FOREVER

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freakbullet · 4 months

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when deltarune first came out I bought the OST. I didn't absorb the titles that much because I was basically just listening to the whole thing on repeat. so I'd completely forgotten the name of a certain track, and when I was reminded of it the other day, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I've never really had a home that truly felt like home, for all sorts of bad reasons. but I find comfort in fantasy, especially undertale and deltarune.

2015 was one of the worst years of my life. when it started, despite struggles with PTSD and depression and more of that ilk, I was physically healthy. when the year ended, I'd nearly died - I'd been in and out of hospitals for months while doctors tried to figure out exactly what the hell was wrong with me.

the hopelessness of learning I had an illness I'd have to live with for the rest of my life, on top of the despair I already wrestled with - it was too much. I decided the only way out was to end it all.

but then I played undertale. there's nothing I can say that would ever do that experience justice, but if you know, you know. the point is, I'm still here. despite everything, it's still me. and that's not a coincidence.

so when I saw that this one beautiful, nostalgic track that wraps me up like a warm blanket every time I hear it, that reminds me of the friends, the family, I first made in these games all those years ago, is called, "You Can Always Come Home"… man, I lost it.

Toby once said about Toriel: "Your mom loves you." maybe it's silly, but I never had a mom who loved me, until her. so thanks, Toby. it means so much more to me than you could ever know, that I can always come home to my friends and family, and my mom. who loves me.

#just getting out some feelings #i dont mean for this to sound like a sob story either. im okay dont worry #i just never talk about this and wanted to get it off my chest #ive said in the past that undertale saved my life and i wasnt being hyperbolic lol #also dw this doesnt mean i replay undertale often. i try to leave them with their happy ending #there are other ways i can go home and see them. through music or fanart or videos. or deltarune :p yknow #suicide mention #illness mention #freak speak #if i forgot to tag something triggering please let me know #also /waves at people whose asks i havent answered yet. i havent forgotten you im just low on spoons <3 #wow i had to edit this big time.#why god do i get so CRINGEY any time i try to write something serious. man i am not quitting my day job any time soon

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worstloki · 7 months

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Isekai where Darcy/Jane hit Thor with their van and Thor wakes up as a precious princess character of some fairytale world. Things progress as they tend to in isekai with some poor romantic interest villain character inadvertently ending up around him. Thor wants to get out of this world so bad and is subtly trying to drop hints for the villain guy to spill info on how to dimension hop. It soon becomes evident that Loki was also isekai’d and is stuck as the story’s villain.

#Thor: WHAT DO YOU MEAN I AM A NOBLE’S DAUGHTER THIS IS A DOWNGRADE I AM A MIGHTY WARRIOR—ooo I have a personal serving maid >.>#Thor goes for a walk in a forest or something gets lost trips on some thorns and is bleeding and lost bumps into the typical isekai villain #Thor hearing the guy’s name after some maids were earlier talking about how this guy keeps trying to ‘snatch her away’ or something #Thor like OH NO. NO. NU UH. and misreading every single attempt of the guy to help him #the guy is actually Loki and has no knowledge of this history #Thor keeps thinking this is the plot of some twisted dimension trying to give him a love interest #Thor eventually saying something that gives him away and Loki just stares at him like ‘......THOR??’#thor sobbing like how come you get to keep your magic and be a guy and Loki is like I am the BAD GUY. everyone here HATES ME.#Thor: at least you have your dignity T-T #Loki: I tried going to the local market to ask around for info and random people threw rotten vegetables at me -_-#also this is Thor1core so Thor has to get less arrogant through this and Loki has to spill how he feels about the adopted lied to things #they have to make up before figuring out a way to go home #Thor like so you still have magic right so we can go home???? and Loki is like. no. this isn’t my magic. and I don’t know how this happened

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skillzissue · 4 months

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God damnit I hate it here- the ONE time I try to fall asleep ON PURPOSE to get at least SIX HOURS of sleep and do EVERYTHING RIGHT RO SCHOOL TMR, I turn on my sleepy playlist and around two hours of light ‘napping’ I hear a huge THUD and suddenly my phone is just. Gone.

Where is it, you might ask? Behind the bed, ofc-BUT get this. It’s not behind the bed where I call just reach down and grab it from the side where I’m at. After listening to the sound I discover that it is behind the head board.

The fucking head board. How did it fail there??? I DONT KNOW. 😭😭🙏

But since my sleepy time playlist is still playing and I’m rlly tired, I end up just falling asleep for a couple hours but then suddenly, for no reason at all, I JOLT awake in a PANIC.

Like my eyes fly open and I’m suddenly just. WIDE awake. As if I never fell asleep in the first place. Cue me trying to get my phone out from it being WEDGED between the head board and wall for a fucking hour 💀

I ended up having to grab one of my drum sticks, taping a piece of card stock paper to the end of it and putting a bunch of tape on the end of that.

Yes I walked around my house like a bird looking for things for its nests.

No bc seriously it was a long, long hour of trial and error using the most random household objects you can imagine 💀AND I had to try to be quiet bc guess what??

MY SISTER SHARES MY ROOM. so not only was I trying to do this quickly as possible, but as QUIET as possible and it literally was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced 💀🙏

Now it’s 5 am, I’m not tired despite at ALL (but I know I will be bc it’s not the insomnia type of awake but the adrenaline type) I have school in less than 3 hours, and I’m debating wether I should go back to bed or do my homework or AAAAHDHDJ THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE ANYTHING NICE 😭🙏

#WHYYYY #PLEASE ISTG IM GONNA BE SO TIRED IN THE MORNING #😭😭🙏#ITS NOT EVEN MY DAULT THIS TIMEE #I MEAN AT LEAST I HAVE MY OHONE NOW IG #TBH IF I DIDNT GET IT AFTER WAKING UP LIKE THAT THEN I WOULD HAVE BEEN HELLA LATE TO SCHOOL #BC MY ALARM WAS ALR SET #I WOULDVE WOKEN UP WITH NO WAY TO SHUT IT OFF 💀💀#THIS WAS DOOMED FROM THE BEGINNING ISTG #AAAAAAAAAAAAJFHDHDUDHSJSJSJAW #CRYING SOBBING IM GONNA TRY TO GET SOME MORE SLEEP I THUNK #GOODNIGHT SORRY FOR THE RANDOM RAMBLE BUT TBH ITS PRETTY ON BRAND OF ME AT THIS POINT #GOOD NIGHT GOODNIGHT GOODNIGHT! 🫶#skillzwontshutupmoment #txt post #blah blah ramblings

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characteroulette · 9 months

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A study on Prosecutors --

(On AO3) (next)

So the Ace Attorney series has a vast cast of colourful characters. From their protagonist to their one-off witnesses for a trial, there's bound to be one or two who catch your eye. A main draw for many are the prosecutors in particular and a lot of thought goes into making them appealing to us. They're our villains, but they have to be likable enough for us to want to spend time with them. So, from start to beginning, here's a personal analysis on how each games uses every narrative trick available to it to make us like their villains.

First, Edgeworth.

He's introduced to us in a very specific way; someone who's all ready tied quite personally to our protagonist. There's an air of mystery to him even as you enter the first day of the trial; Phoenix knows him somehow and there's dark rumours surrounding him. The first day of the trial does its best to "prove" those rumours true! Everyone knows about the famous "updated autopsy report" scene and what follows. Another important factor in this is the cross-examination with the bell boy. Edgeworth does use underhanded methods to win his cases, so it seems to us. He's really willing to bend the rules in order to get the culprit declared guilty. (He's right, of course, for wanting that update for the autopsy report. We saw it in the intro ourselves; Mia didn't die instantly when Redd White hit her. But it's a sting to us and it goes to prove his methods aren't the cleanest and so all we can think of is how despicable this move is, how brilliant it is for him to throw us off completely.)

And then, the second day of the trial. He confronts Phoenix before the trial specifically to almost warn him that there's no mercy. He comes to show off to the player that there's a deep seated darkness in him, just not in the way we might have thought from that first game. And Phoenix's manner towards him is crucial to our own feelings towards him; Phoenix doesn't get upset or even react much differently than he had when talking with Gumshoe about it. He merely says, "You've changed." And then Edgeworth walks away and the trial can begin.

Edgeworth fighting against Redd White starts the important trend of Edgeworth not being quite as in control as he likes to think he is. He can't control any of his witnesses and it's a crack in his affect. It's the first sign towards him being less than the demon he presents himself as, the first moment we get to see there's something endearing buried beneath his coldness. It also brings his ruthlessness and quick thinking back into sharp focus; the very moment Redd White is about to confess, he tells White to do so. To confess, in fact, to a different crime; to placing the wiretap. It's a brilliant move that sets everyone off-balance, it handily explains White's involvement without him having to be the murderer, and it gives White the second wind he needs to drive Phoenix (and us) into a corner, to deserve our deus-ex-machina that follows. As a personal note, this is the moment where I started really liking his character. It's such a brilliant bastard move that I couldn't help but like him immediately for it. Oh, this man is actually a bastard, I thought to myself. I'm going to enjoy grinding him down completely as this game goes on. (Exactly what the story wanted from me, I'm sure.)

But with Mia's help, we win the trial and save both ourselves and Maya. The mystery is left hanging in the air: who is Edgeworth to Phoenix and what happened to make him fall so far to darkness?

This isn't a question that will be answered in case 3, but this is where the writing goes into overdrive to endear us fully to our prosecuting rival.

The first day of the trial is a comedy of errors. We get to witness firsthand how much careful control Edgeworth places in his methods, in his scripts, and how lost he is without all that. He's floundering so hard with Wendy Oldbag, who makes strange assumptions in her testimony that he has to run with and omits important things due to forgetting or just not being allowed to say. It becomes a bit of a game for him as well; he's figuring out what exactly happened just the same as Phoenix is. He starts working with Phoenix right at the end, just for a moment, after his own witness lied about the full scope of things.

This is important, this glimpse of working together with Edgeworth. It's a hint, a taste of what's to come, and it's masterful in how quietly it's slipped under our focus. We're reeling, too, after all, from Oldbag's sudden truths.

But we need to investigate some more. And so we head on into the second day.

I don't think I can overstate enough how well each Gumshoe anecdote goes towards endearing us to Edgeworth. Having a character with 100% faith in someone as darkly presented to us as Edgeworth is goes such a long way in demonstrating their humanity. Edgeworth may appear ruthless and dubious, but he's so goofy. He crushes a cup full of hot coffee and burns himself!! He stands at a window and mumbles Wright's name to himself over and over!! He's just as much of a trainwreck as everyone else in this universe and it goes so far towards endearing us to him, to building up our own trust of him when it's needed most.

Trial day two is one step forward, two steps back for Edgeworth. He's managed to find stability in Sal Manella's testimony, he knows this proves that only Will Powers could be the criminal here, and yet everything falls apart once again when Cody takes the stand. Once again, Edgeworth finds himself floundering and scrambling for ways to discredit Phoenix's methods of questioning Cody. He tries to make his belief in Powers' guilt work, but Phoenix throws it all into his face. By the end of this day, there's practically no way Powers can be found guilty of this murder. And so Edgeworth is left in shambles, no longer able to cling to his belief that everyone is guilty, that if he just gets a guilty verdict for everyone then he can make up for his own failings.

(We get a glimpse of it, but the real reveal is yet to come.)

(This investigation day, I feel, is where Gumshoe is cemented as our lovable oaf of our friend. He saves us from Dee Vasquez's yakuza/mafia men. He gets his big damn hero moment and gets to be a little in awe of it himself. This is the moment, right here, where we can really just fall in love with Gumshoe. It's another small point towards our endearment to Edgeworth, albeit one that's a detour into a different character study.)

And thus, we come to the third trial day. Our strongest, most definitive look into Edgeworth as something more than just our villain/rival of the game.

It's stated right out the gate that Powers cannot still be considered as the guilty party. That Edgeworth's approach to this particular testimony has to be different, focused on proving her lack of involvement but unsure of where to go from here. He lets Phoenix and Vasquez run most of the show, watches as Phoenix engages in a battle of wits with her, and flounders all the while in what he's supposed to do here. He shouldn't be needed, after all. There's no way Powers can be guilty, so what is he even doing here?

Seeing Phoenix falter, however, brings him the answer. In a sudden move, he throws out an objection. He stalls the trial because the truth, the full truth, has yet to be pulled from this witness. The full truth is within their grasp and after seeing Phoenix claw at it so desperately, he has to see it to the end. He can't let it hang in uncertainty; he has to figure this out or it will eat at him like so many other things in his life. (His father's death. His own guilt. His first two trial experiences. SL-9's darkness. So many unanswered questions hang over his head that we've yet to become aware of, and still they inform his turn here in this moment. They fit together to form this picture of a man who has been shown the light of truth which can dispell his own doubts and he latches onto it in a desperation, in a moment of casting aside his own helplessness in the face of all the darkness he's accrued inside him. He wants to find the truth! He's cast it aside for so long in his efforts to punish himself for a crime he believes he committed and yet still, yet still, he can't help but stumble forward into that light at the first moment he's allowed. He wants to believe in Phoenix, he wants to believe in something besides his own demons, and it shows in his stumbling, in his floundering, right in this moment.)

Because of his efforts, Dee Vasquez slips up and allows us to dig into her lie. Because of his moment of accepting the light of the truth, Phoenix is able to prove Powers' innocence.

Another iconic scene, Edgeworth comes to us after the trial and tells us in no uncertain terms to get out of his courtroom. He's not lying when he says he's been saddled with uncertainty and unease; after all, if Phoenix was able to show him this truth, then it brings up a doubt he never wanted to acknowledge.

*How many innocent people has he convicted in the past four years?*

*How can he say what he's doing is right when the truth he's been fighting for has never been the full truth?*

We've inadvertently cracked him wide open. We've inadvertently shown him a reflection of his own darkness and he could no longer stomach what he saw.

Which leads perfectly into our next case where we get to put all of this building endearment and trust into practice by defending Edgeworth from that looming darkness.

First off, everything about the scene between him and Phoenix in the detention centre is perfect. If you assumed he would give in so easily and allow us to defend him, then you haven't been paying attention to him. He's so stubborn he didn't give in to assisting us prove Vasquez's guilt until it was literally the last moments of the trial. He's been actively avoiding any revelation in his life for years. Of course he'd reject us outright. Even when Phoenix makes a heartfelt plea, is his usual irreverent self with his misplaced humour, Edgeworth won't even tell us a single detail.

But we, and Phoenix, know better than to give up. We know that, to get him to admit to anything, we have to dig deep. (A wolf who pursues the truth like it's an illness; Phoenix is a great character, too, because we're the ones who drive him to this in our own endeavours to Know.) So we investigate and learn and when we return, he has no choice but to admit that we're the only ones whom he can place his trust into.

We're the only ones willing to take his side. A favour in return for another; he doesn't remember, but it's important enough to Phoenix that we also begin to understand what exactly drives these two to be so Normal(tm) about one another. We begin to see that Edgeworth is less detached than he likes to believe himself.

It all comes very much into sharp focus the moment we meet Manfred von Karma. (Here's another thing the Ace Attorney series does really well: a contrast in mentors. We see how Mia teaches and nudges Phoenix and us along, how she can be stern and gentle in the same breath. She's clearly fond of Phoenix and treats him accordingly. A huge contrast in everything about Manfred and Edgeworth's dynamic. Edgeworth respects him deeply, but he doesn't seem to have any regard for Edgeworth at all. He talks about Edgeworth in a detached and unfeeling way so much that you could find yourself wondering if he knew Edgeworth at all if not for how many cues Edgeworth clearly takes from him. The difference in mentorship of Grossberg to Mia and Diego to Mia, of Kristoph to Apollo and Phoenix to Apollo, are also fascinating but I'll dive into those some other time agh.)

First of all, it's in their similar poses, it's in the way Edgeworth introduces us to the idea of Manfred. Second, it's Manfred's actions which reflect sharply right back onto Edgeworth. Suddenly, the way Edgeworth conducted his witnesses in the second case makes so much more sense when watching how Manfred controls Lotta and Gumshoe with his iron fist. It becomes apparent that Phoenix is outmatched when we can't find anything to gain a foothold and we're nearly at the end of our rope. We've come too far to back down here! We've grown too endeared to Edgeworth to let him down in this moment! There's darkness in him and we have to shine our light onto it, to reveal to him that he's not the demon he portrays himself as!

(I really feel Phoenix's desperation when he says, "I'm the only one who sees the real Edgeworth. I'm the only one who can help him!" Because he's right. We're the only ones who can help, who are willing to help, whether it be by playing the game and continuing the story or by seeing that same light in Edgeworth that Phoenix believes in so fervently.)

But despite everything leading up to this truth of Edgeworth's innocence, despite all our belief, Edgeworth himself can't believe it. It drives us, drives Phoenix to dig in further, to claw out the whole truth no matter how messy and ugly.

I cannot overstate enough what a masterclass of buildup and payoff 1-4 is to Edgeworth as a character. It's a culmination of how surprising it is to suddenly regard your main antagonist, your main rival whom you've fought against for the past two cases, as your ally. It takes some kicking and screaming to get Edgeworth to even be forthcoming to us about everything, it takes hard proof and full bluffing of a whole theory before Edgeworth tells us the whole truth. But we know he will. We trust him to trust us in turn because this is where the whole thing has been leading to.

And the catharsis to proving Edgeworth's innocence even against his own despair cannot be overstated either.

It really is no wonder that Edgeworth is a fan favourite. The leadup to his being fully instated as a mainstay ally is just absolutely beautiful in its execution. At least, it is to me.

(Edgeworth's continual growth as a character in his consecutive appearances are great, too, but by that point we've been endeared to him so of course we're happy to see his returns. Or annoyed, idk this is about my experiences lol.)

Anyway yeah, Edgeworth is great and the buildup of him becoming our friend is really good.

#Momo writes stuff #Ace Attorney #Miles Edgeworth #Some spoilers #Essay time for Momo #HOLY SHIT #I DIDN'T MEAN FOR THIS TO GO SO LONG #sobbing pls read my labour of love....#Hey I uhh like Edgeworth lol #Had way more to say on him than I expected #Now this is a proper fucking essay #Character analysis be like #Literary analysis be like #Literary analysis brain goes brrrrrr

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