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reality-was-stolen · 3 years ago

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Hello hello! Could i get a soft fic with Diluc or Venti? Hurt comfort preferably, with y/n getting hurt and they worriedly rush to help them? thanks in advance!

Notes: Hello this is my first time writing something of this degree. Also I have not officially viewed the story line other than the basics, so I'm sorry if the cannon is strayed. The map will not properly carry over so I must apologize. This is a technical gift for a friend so the y/n will have their characteristics, if you do not like said characteristics then I prompt you to scroll on, also on the topic of this being a gift I also feel the need to state ad this isn't my best work as I can be more lenient with my writing as I know this person personally and therefore joke around with it more.(The person who sent me the ask is the gift receiving the gift if you didn't already guess.) Also for the people who follow me I might start setting up a platform for writing after this goes up. Sorry for the essay, enjoy the story. Thank you.

Venti helps you! In his own way.

With a sky as clear as the lakes, and grass softer than the softest teddy bear. You find yourself under a tree. The wind softly blowing your hair as you gaze out into a pond not far from your resting place. The water waves and ripples in response to the wind. Birds fly above causing cascading shadows over the perfect field.

Pushing your hair back behind your ear, you soon grow confused. As you hear a gentle tune carried by the wind. You glance in the direction of said noise, to see a earth green young figure laying in tree.

Leaves gently float down letting the wind take it off. You gaze at young boy taking in his appearance. He lays relaxed strumming his lyre.

His hair that had a mysterious fade from black to a light blue. He wore a semi formal white top, interrupted by a chocolate brown corset. White tights leading down to loafers with a green pedant that adorned them.

Enchanted by his tune and marveling at his green cape which blown through the wind. You stand up and slowly walk over to this bard to only slip, fall and slam your head into a rock.

A sharp flash if pain rips through you as you are met with a complete blackout leaving you unconscious.

You awaken in what appears to be the second floor of the Angle's Share. On one of the hard ass tables next to a drunken bard, drinking in a fashion that could only be described as a mix between choking and chugging.

He notices you once he sets down his glass with a soft clink. A grin is splayed on his face as he greets you. "Hello!" He practically shouts. "You hit your head on a rock pretty badly so I brought you here and patched you up." He grinned at you broadly as if astonished for his own capability.

You were too stunned to speak not in an amazed way but more of a 'bruh' way. Finding your voice you speak up only to state "So your telling me you saw me unconscious and bleeding and yet you took me into a tavern instead of the church. Am I right?"

This green bard stood there dumbfounded to only say "I got you some whiskey if you were in pain." He limply hands it to you for you only to push it back towards him. He looks at you a bit confused.

"No-no thank you" you shook your head. He lowered the alcoholic drink and set it on the table. You swiftly slide off of the table. The bard suddenly finds his voice once again, "I'm Venti. What's your name?.

"(Y/N)" you respond simply. "(Y/N)? What a lovely name." He coos. You hide your blush and turn sharply and take down the stairs quickly. Venti follows after you to only see you catch your foot on the very most bottom stair and face plant. Causing your wound to reopen.

The whole tavern hushes for a second while you lay there debating on accepting fate and perishing. Venti rushes down ready to help as you stand up. "Let me go get the first aid supplies." He turns to run off for only Dulic to grab him by his cape.

You walk towards the door to try to go the actual church to get help but Venti is at your side once again. "At least let me escort you!" He grins. You simply nod a bit over his shenanigans. You swing open the door to see the down pour.

A umbrella gets thrusted in to your hands. You glance over at Venti, for him to remark, "What it's the least I can do! Plush it's not like you have an umbrella!" You are not in the right mood for this sunshine boy's shenanigans.

You open up the gifted umbrella, despite feeling dizzy and bleeding you walked on the stone pavement to the church. Venti rambled on about something to your left, you promptly ignored him since he was basically talking to himself at this point. After climbing up what seemed to be a million stairs you arrived at the church.

You pushed open the massive fucking doors, and practically stumbled over to the nearest nun. She gasped at your appearance and made you lay on a bench while she went to go get the head nun. The head nun moved you to a room with proper bedding. She fixed up your head wound and told you to rest. She then left you alone to rest. Which would usually be pretty easy if Venti wasn't talking.

You sighed and sat up swiftly, "Venti, I have to rest could you maybe be a bit quieter?" You asked him as nicely as possible. He nodded in response. You flopped back down grateful to be able to get rest as your back was hurt earlier from sleeping on a hard ass table. Your ears were soon met with a soft lullaby. You smothered a smile as you swiftly drifted off to sleep.

You awoke in the middle of the night. Your eyes slowly adjust to the dark lighting. Your eyes drift around the room to see a small figure slumped in a chair next to your bed. Somehow they didn't throw Venti out already.

You lay silently thinking about the events that lead you here. You slowly realize just how dumb the day has been. First you fell face first on a rock after being enchanted by a starling beautiful young man. Then said man carried you to a tavern where you got fixed up for the most part. You proceeded to fall face first on a flight if stairs. Then went to the church to get proper medical attention. It dawned on you that Venti had been the most well adjusted, despite being drunk half of the day. A smile crept on your face.

You fall back asleep to only be briskly awoken at dawn by Venti falling out of his chair. He hits the floor with a thud. You jolt up to see him starting to sit up. "Owwww..." He groans rubbing his head. You chuckled under your breath. His whole face lit up once he noticed your awakening. He giggled softly and raised himself to be sat back down. He smiles softly at you, and you can't help but smiling back.

A nun rushes in, "I heard a thud what happened?" She asked calmly. Venti giggles as you respond, "Venti simply fell out of his chair." You smile. "Ah" she replies and swiftly turns around and leaves the room.

"Well looks like you're feeling better." He smirked. "Yes" you nodded. His smile grew as he said "You know you were kinda cute when you were asleep." You quickly turned away hiding your blush. "Awww" Venti cooed. "So, (Y/N) where do you live, in Monstat?" He asked innocently. You glance back at him "I traveled here, I'm just visiting. I come from Liyue." You answered. "Oh" he gasped quietly.

"Well I must be on my way." You stood up. "What?" Venti practically whined. You glanced back toward Venti, "I was supposed to leave today. I'm moving on towards the next major city." You replied making your way to the door. "Aww" he said a bit disappointed. He snapped up and practically ran to the door right as you were about to open it. "Can I come with you!?" He almost shouted. "What?" You asked startled. "Can I come with you?" He repeated himself more calmly. "I'll think about it." You reply stiffly. You continue on your adventure Venti obviously taking 'maybe' ad a hard yes.

You two traveled together that day and for more days to com. But little did you know that soon you would share your first kiss with that strange man. Totally finding out that he was really old and was an Archon several days latter but that's a story for another day.

I struggled so much when writing this lol. Hope it's good. Merry Christmas!

#genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #venti x y/n #genshin impact x y/n #genshin impact x you #genshin x you #genshin x y/n #Venti x you #Venti x reader #Genshin impact fanfic #fanfic #genshin fanfic #genshin impact fanfic #fan fiction #genshin impact #Venti #x reader #so many tags

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m0srael · 3 years ago

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Torch Your Inhibitions

2k | E | Read on Ao3

Third installment for @magpiefngrl's 2021 Summer Writing Challenge. Prompts: Bonfire + Sex Pollen + Unreliable Narrator. I joked about making this just a whole lotta nature-based group sex and...well... Thanks @nv-md and @devilrising for making this even better!

“Malfoy, are you sure the invitation says no pants allowed?” Harry says to the mirror as he grimaces and tightens the rope holding his robe closed around his hips.

“Yes, Luna has been very clear about the order of this evening’s events, and frankly it just seems... neater to me. You disagree?”

Harry forgets to reply for a moment, distracted by the broad swath of pale chest Draco’s own robe has left exposed, one hard, pink nipple on full display. Draco doesn’t notice that Harry’s jaw has gone slack as he’s too busy readjusting himself under the thick, burgundy fabric that makes his hair seem more golden than usual.

“Well, I mean, she’s not going to check, is she?” Harry manages to say, despite the marked blood deficit in his brain. “Bloody hell, what am I saying, it’s Luna of course she’d check.”

“Right. So…” Draco murmurs , matter-of-factly, as he moves to stand close behind Harry, making eye contact in the mirror, “knickers off, Potter.”

Harry tells himself he doesn’t know what Draco is about to do, but the moment he feels the fabric shift against his arse he freezes, hoping beyond hope that he has guessed correctly.

“Alright?” Draco whispers on a smirk into his bare shoulder as an unsupressable shudder shakes through Harry.

Harry can’t speak, so he just nods.

Draco slowly gathers up the bottom of Harry’s robe in his fingers until he can slip his hands underneath it, letting it cascade down his wrists. He hooks his thumbs in the elastic band where it wraps around Harry’s hips.

Harry’s eyes fall closed as Draco’s fingers drag against his skin, down and down Harry’s thighs, until his pants fall to the ground.

Draco makes a soft sound. When Harry’s eyes fly open he realizes that Draco’s gaze is fixed to the tent in his loose robe, all the more obvious now that his cock is free.

“Steady, Potter. We haven’t even made it to the party yet,” Draco growls, before turning quickly and stalking out of the bedroom.

Harry groans and covers his flaming face, letting his head thunk against the wardrobe door. He doesn’t understand what it all means.

He and Draco have been living together for a year and a half. For the first six months they avoided one another almost entirely. The eight or so months after that had been punctuated by short, fiery conversations as they felt each other out, slowly arriving at some mutual understanding and even cautious friendship.

The last few months, including the very moment Harry finds himself in presently, have been an unending nightmare. He never realized how tactile Draco is with friends, but he touches Harry all the time.

When Draco needs a glass from the cupboard over Harry’s head, he plants one hot palm firmly on Harry’s lower back to steady himself. When they sit on the couch watching films, Draco always slides his cold feet under Harry’s thigh for warmth. It only takes half a pint at the pub before Draco’s leaning into Harry’s side, and another half before Draco drops his head onto Harry’s shoulder and presses his nose into Harry’s throat.

Draco also apparently has some aversion to closed doors. Harry is sure it has something to do with growing up in the Manor, being shut in for so long with such terrible people. It doesn’t really bother Harry, who also hates feeling trapped.

Though...he did accidentally walk in on Draco in the shower, mid-wank, last week.

Harry had stood, mesmerized in the doorway, watching for longer than he would ever admit (even to himself). He only averted his eyes when Draco noticed him, and said, “Are you going to stand there gaping, or are you going to help, Potter?” He laughed mockingly as Harry hurried down the hallway shouting apologies.

A tiny part of Harry’s brain recognizes Draco’s behavior as flirtatious. The other part--the louder part--knows that never in a million years would Draco Malfoy share Harry’s secret desires. This is just how Draco is with everyone. Harry only started to notice it once they lived in the same house.

“Harry...I know you told me to stop asking, but...you’re sure you’re okay with this? You want to go? The details of the ritual were pretty clear, and Luna did say that no one was obligated to--”

Gods, did Draco think he was that naive and squeamish? No, he would see this through, if only to prove a point.

“Yeah, yep...yes. I’m okay. I mean, I want to go. I’m...curious. NO! I mean, well...I want to...support Luna, so…” Harry trails off as he joins Draco on the front steps.

“Uh huh. Convincing,” Draco smirks, “if you want to leave, you can. Okay?” he finishes in that soft, pedantic way of his before taking Harry’s hand and apparating them to the coordinates from Luna’s invitation.

Luna had insisted everyone arrive rested and well-hydrated, and Harry was glad he’d taken her advice.

Before the sunlight faded completely, they set up the May Day altar together, followed Luna in a series of prayers for fertility and abundance, and danced around the maypole. Neville had even brought everyone a seedling to plant somewhere in the forest or take home to plant in their garden.

Harry would be feeling a little silly about all the neo-pagan pageantry, if his stomach weren’t tying itself into knots the further the sun falls below the horizon.

Before he knows it, Seamus is tossing a lit torch onto a giant pile of logs in the center of the forest clearing.

“Happy May Day, everyone!” Luna sing-songs as they all assemble around the bonfire.

She reaches into a fold in her robe and pulls out a small pouch.

“It’s time for the most important rite of the evening. I hope you all took the time to read the pamphlet I included with your invitation. If you’d like to forgo participation, I suggest you step away from the fire before we begin. If anyone is still unsure about what this part of the evening entails, please let me know now! There are no silly questions!”

Harry watches as a few people say their goodbyes and apparate away. He lifts one foot slightly as if to move away from the fire before catching Draco’s eyes across the circle. His brow is furrowed—he looks upset. His eyes are glowing in the firelight and he flicks his tongue out along his bottom lip. Harry plants his feet, nodding slightly as if to say yeah, I’m okay, I’m staying.

“Alright, everyone! Take the hands of the people beside you!”

Harry’s hand closes around Neville’s on one side and Pansy’s on the other. He makes eye contact with Neville and can’t stop the manic, high-pitched laugh that ekes its way out of his throat. Neville just smiles warmly and squeezes his hand. Harry’s stomach flutters.

“Have you all got the kits we sent with your invitations?” The group murmurs affirmatively. “Good! Just in case, there are extras in the basket over there! Can’t be too careful!” says Luna as she opens the pouch and dumps sparkling powder onto the fire.

The flames turn a brilliant deep purple color and leap up six or seven feet, giving off thick plumes of lavender smoke. Neville inhales and sighs deeply.

Harry closes his eyes and lets the fragrant smoke overwhelm his senses. He feels a soft breeze caress his hot skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. He gasps as his robe rustles around his thighs.

Every ounce of nervousness melts out of him and into the earth. He’s distantly aware that there are people moving around him but he can’t be bothered to open his eyes and look at them; he feels better than he’s ever felt in his life.

Gentle fingers slide into his hair, making his mouth fall open to receive an eager tongue.

“Harry…” Neville whispers into his mouth before kissing him soundly. They stand for a while, lips sliding over each other’s mouths and palms moving over each other’s bodies.

“Mm, s’good…” Harry slurs as someone unties the rope around his hips and slides his robe off. He shivers at the sudden kiss of cool air and curling smoke.

When he finally pries his eyes open his view is full of the top of Neville’s head, now on his knees in front of Harry. Harry rolls Neville's head in his palms until their glassy eyes meet. Harry hadn’t realized he was so hard--he groans as Neville takes him in hand and begins to stroke him lazily.

A hand slides around his chest from behind and a soft, warm body presses flush against his back.

“I always thought you were fit...” Pansy mouths against the back of his neck. Her small fingers tease his nipples as she rolls her naked body against his.

Harry shivers again when the thick smoke parts and his eyes land on Draco across the fire. He’s kissing Seamus deeply, one hand wrapped around the back of his head, as he strokes them both with one hand. He gasps when Draco opens his eyes and turns his head slightly to look right at him.

Making sure he didn’t chicken out, probably.

Harry’s head falls back onto the top of Pansy’s as Neville takes him into his mouth, inch by inch, humming around him. Harry’s first orgasm rolls through him almost without his knowledge, every cell in his body pulsing as Neville moans and licks him through it. He watches as Neville pulls off and strokes himself to completion, one hand gripping Harry’s thigh tightly.

He’s on his knees in front of Pansy, who he’s backed into a tree at the edge of the clearing, his face wet and hot, when he hears that voice.

“My loves,” Draco purrs. The clearing is filled with the sounds of heavy panting and urgent moans.

As Draco leans over Harry’s shoulder to kiss Pansy, his cock rests hot and heavy on Harry’s shoulder. Harry slides his tongue out of Pansy, replacing it with two fingers, to press his mouth to Draco’s throbbing flesh. Draco curls his fingers in Harry’s hair, pulling hard.

“Harry...need you…now...” Draco pants, pulling his head further back so they can make eye contact. Pansy moans loudly and Harry can feel her tighten around him, hips rocking forward onto his fingers.

Draco pulls Harry away from the clearing, the light and sounds from the bonfire growing distant and muffled. He urges Harry onto his back on the forest floor before straddling his hips.

“So...beautiful,” breathes Harry as he runs appreciative hands over Draco’s scarred chest, “want you so much…”

“Want you too, for so long, Harry,” Draco replies as he pops open the cap of the little bottle of lube Luna had sent them. The handmade label reads ‘A Happy May Day is a Lubricated One!’ complete with little drawings of butterflies.

“What?” replies Harry, hands stilling in confusion.

Harry can’t temper the sound that tears out of him as Draco wraps his wet hand around them both and begins to roll his hips. Harry thinks he’ll come again from that alone, but before he can Draco’s hand is gone.

“Aren’t you glad, now, that you listened to the no-pants rule--ah--Potter?” Draco quips as he lowers himself slowly onto Harry.

“Mmmm, yes, yes you were right,” hisses Harry as waves of heat and sensation roll up his spine.

“There, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?” Draco teases on a breathy laugh that quickly becomes a low moan.

Harry’s hips press up to meet Draco’s every slow, languorous thrust. Harry drifts, pulled under by Draco’s fingers and his lips at Harry’s ear whispering all kinds of incredible things.

You’re all I want, Harry. Need you, all the time, not just tonight. Please, I’m yours, I’m yours, Harry.

When Harry comes, he cradles Draco’s face in his hands, open mouth pressed against the corner of Draco’s mouth. Draco immediately follows, breathing out Harry’s name again, and again.

Harry can’t stop the laugh that forces its way out of his chest, and he’s delighted when Draco laughs along with him, folding forward to rest his forehead against Harry’s.

When Harry wakes up the next morning his memory of the night before is complete in his mind, but it feels wrapped in a purple-tinted haze. It takes him a moment to realize that he’s not alone in his bed--Draco is tucked up against his side, breathing gently.

Harry turns to watch him sleep in silence for a moment, finally admitting to himself that Draco really had been flirting with him the whole time. He wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but he doesn’t want to wake Draco.

It takes him a moment to notice that Draco’s eyes have blinked open sleepily.

“Mine?” whispers Harry.

“Yours, Harry.”

#2021 summer writin #drarry fic rec #drarry fanfic #drarry #Luna doesn't f*ck around when it comes to bonfires #Except that she does if you know what I mean #mosewrites

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 7 years ago

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The Turnabout Prosecutor

It was suggested to me that in my "everybody lives/defense team shenanigans" AU, Gregory should adopt Franziska after von Karma goes to jail for attempted murder. I liked this idea and so I have written 5.9k words of it.

"Do you know what the von Karma family motto is?" Franziska asks and Miles does not ask her why she thinks he knows or wants to know anything about the man who tried to kill their father. He does not ask her why she concerns herself with that legacy more than that of the man who has raised her for most of her life. "It is 'to be perfect in every way'." "And what does that mean to you?" he asks.

Franziska is seven when she tells Miles that she wants to be a prosecutor. He is fourteen, lying on the floor reading his textbooks, and she is sitting on the couch with her latest weapon of choice in hand, a flimsy length of plastic with a trigger at one end and a chomping dinosaur head two feet down from it. Without getting up, she can reach him to prod him and make the scientifically-inaccurate featherless tyrannosaurus rex chew on his hair. It is an almost absentminded habit of hers, annoying but not as annoying as the year and a half starting when she was five when she was never found without a flyswatter which she used exclusively, constantly, to slap Miles in the face. She gets annoyed if Miles tries to acknowledge it every time she starts poking him, so he waits until he hears his name before pushing the dinosaur away from his head. "Miles. Miles."

"Yes, Franziska?" he asks, not taking his eyes from his reading.

"I want to be a prosecutor."

He looks up at her. "Why?"

She removes the dinosaur from his face and sets it carefully next to her. "Because," she says, "you want to be a defense attorney, and I..." She pauses for dramatic emphasis. "...want to beat you." She lunges from the couch, landing sprawled across Miles' back. He yelps, trying to roll over to shove her away, and she manages to reposition and remain sitting on his chest. "I am victorious!"

"You win," he gasps out over the sound of her laughter, "you win! The defense acknowledges the prosecution's victory!"

He was nine when Franziska entered his life, at a time when his world had already been upended. He remembers, clearly, he will always remember, lying curled up next to his father on his hospital bed, as his father, recovering from being shot by Prosecutor von Karma, worried about what would happen to von Karma's young daughter.

Franziska shouted at anyone who came near her and Miles already had enough trouble interacting with anyone smaller than him even if they weren’t an authoritative German toddler. Suddenly he was no longer the only attention of his father, his father who looked different with bandages around his head and when he took them off there was a huge ugly scar across his forehead that made Miles cry the first time he saw it. Suddenly there was this little girl who didn’t speak the same language commanding his father to spend time with her. Suddenly the house that had felt warm and comfortable with two of them had a third and suddenly it wasn’t. Franziska communicated with Miles by smacking his arm in different rhythms and then barking words he didn’t understand. They found common ground in pointing at objects and each saying their word for it. By the time he went back to school, near the end of February, his sentences were jumbled together in two languages and Phoenix and Larry looked at him funny when he tried to talk to them. Everyone looked at him funny all the time, especially when in May they took a class trip to a museum and he started crying when they got on the elevator.

The teacher let him take the stairs when they went back down and Phoenix went with him.

He is sixteen, and he is sitting at his kitchen table pouring over college websites and applications, Phoenix next to him grumbling at the edits that Miles has made to one of his application essays. "You know what?" Phoenix says finally, the first thing he has said at a regular volume in half an hour; the rest has been curses under his breath at rules of grammar.

"What?" Miles asks.

"I am done with this, all of this. I am going to become..." He waits for Miles to look at him before he finishes his sentence. "...a bridge troll."

"No," Miles says.

"Yes. I am going to drop out of high school -"

"We're so close to finishing it. Please at least graduate."

"- and then I'm going to... abandon my fashion sense -"

"Implying that you have any to begin with."

"- and then I'm going to, uh... make my living by..." He pauses, his eyes searching Miles' face like he's trying to figure out what will get the best reaction. "Illegal gambling," he says firmly. "I'm going to drop out of school and become a gambler."

"Please don't."

"Well, it'd be better than this!" he says, throwing his hands in the air and flinging two pencils and a few stray university pamphlets aside. "I don't even know what I want to do!"

The tea kettle on the stove is whistling behind him and Miles turns only to see that Franziska has swept in. She is barely ten and her handling hot water and hot cookware makes him anxious but she has an angry independent streak of pride that was not born anywhere in the Edgeworth household, and she will yell at him if he tries to help. She has before.

"You should be a defense attorney," she says to Phoenix.

He turns around, sits with his arms draped over the back of his chair. "Hey, Fran!" he says cheerily, and then his face drops. "I'm dying. Don't grow up. It's a trap."

She laughs. Phoenix is good at making people laugh - sometimes at him, but mostly with him. Miles has never been personable like his father or Raymond, or like Phoenix or Larry. He envies the ease with which Phoenix converses with people. "Why do you think I should be a defense attorney?" Phoenix asks Franziska.

"Because I am going to be a prosecutor and I want to beat you!"

Phoenix laughs and Franziska's face falls, hurt flashing across her face before she replaces it with her usual kind of anger. "Why are you laughing, Phoenix Wright?" she demands. Miles hears the real question beneath that: are you laughing at me?

"Me, a defense attorney," Phoenix says. "Can you imagine? Fran, you'd kick my butt in court."

"Exactly!" she crows, triumphant, bright again now that Phoenix has assured her that he's laughing at himself. "That is why you should! So that I can beat you as well as him!" She jabs a finger at Miles.

"You know it's not just about winning," Miles says, and then he cringes at himself. Why can't he just roll with the joke like Phoenix does instead of getting so pedantic? Is it the scar on his father's forehead that makes him as scared of a von Karma talking of winning as he is of earthquakes? "It's about -"

"- finding the truth," Franziska finishes. "Yes, I know. But I will find it better, and faster, than you, and that way, I will win." She hands him his tea cup and then prods him in the forehead with her finger. "But you have to study and be the best defense attorney, because I will be the best and I refuse anyone but the best for my rival."

"So then what would I be?" Phoenix asks. "Your punching bag?"

"Yes," Franziska answers, and then she smacks Miles, not Phoenix, on the shoulder.

Miles attends his father's alma matter with three semester's worth of course credits already completed from doubling his work load in high school. Phoenix goes to the general university thinking he'll either major in theater or comics art, and maybe he'll study to be a defense attorney on the side. Larry decides he wants money first and dives into whatever odd jobs he can find. For the first time in nearly a decade, they are split apart.

Miles takes the stairs to his classrooms alone.

He is twenty when one day he drops by his father's office intending to peruse his books there instead of the ones in the courthouse library. His father is out, but Franziska is there, sitting on the floor surrounded by books and old case files, studying with more careful concentration than Miles has seen in many of his classmates. Gregory has kept Miles updated on her, with more than a bit of worry; she is thirteen and has already tried to throw herself full-time into studying law. She is enrolled now in extra classes on evenings and weekends, she is applying to Themis for high school, her teachers call her "a prodigy", and Gregory wonders to his son why she is putting this pressure on herself, why she is pursuing her goals with more fury than enthusiasm.

"What are you reading?" Miles asks. Franziska flinches like she didn't hear him come in, too absorbed in the pages. He carefully navigating the minefield of open books and binders to where she is. "What kind of cases are -"

In an almost guilty motion she pushes together all of the papers in the open file in front of her and shoves it around to her side, away from Miles' eyes. "What?" he asks.

"Nothing," she says, her voice clipped, and Miles steps close and leans over her head.

"What are you trying to hide -?"

He sees, scrawled in pen across the manila folder, a label that she does not manage to place her hand over quick enough: DL-6.

His mouth is dry. "Franziska?"

She looks up at him, raising her head defiantly. "I wanted to know," she says.

"Know what?" he asks, trying to pull his father's chair out from the desk and sit down, but he ends up sliding to the floor instead. "What happened? You know what happened."

"I know the basic summary and the verdict," she says. "I wanted the testimonies." She has the thick file back in her hands, folding and unfolding one of the corners. "I wanted to know what my father said."

And Miles almost starts to say, our father didn't testify because he was unconscious in the hospital at the time, and then he realizes. She means her father. Some bitter bile rises in his throat, something born of exhaustion from climbing too many extra flights of stairs today, and he snaps, "Our father, who's raised you for a decade, or your father who tried to kill him?"

She carries the surname von Karma because Gregory didn't feel it right that he should deprive her of a connection to her country of origin. He took night classes to learn German and Miles learned it online; they speak it at home so that Franziska remembers her native language. Two summers ago they spent five weeks in Germany. Franziska barely remembers any time lived anywhere but in the Edgeworth household. Gregory takes his daughter to visit in jail the man who wanted him dead.

Miles read the DL-6 testimony last year. Von Karma broke down into some kind of hysterics that was half laughter and half screams when he finally confessed on the witness stand, and the last thing he said before he was arrested and taken from the courtroom was, "I should have shot him through the heart. The chest is a larger target; I wouldn't have missed."

"I can tell you anything you want to know about what your father said," he snarls. "You don't need court documents to tell you what he was." Ask the scar on our father's forehead, ask me why you have never seen me in an elevator, ask why every time there's an earthquake you come into my room to find me crying.

Her fingers digging into the carpet curl into fists. "Then tell me about my father," she snaps. "Tell me what he was, Miles Edgeworth," and the way she says his name looks like she is biting down on it, the way she spits his surname which she does not share sounds like it is poison in her mouth. "Tell me what he was and what I am!"

The cold knot in his chest shatters and the air rips from his lungs. He can't breathe; there's no air left around him. Franziska glares at him out of gray eyes that somehow look like his. Strangers comment on their resemblance as siblings. Miles blinks water out of his eyes and he sees it spilling down her cheeks.

"Franziska..." he says weakly. She has gathered the DL-6 files in her arms and stood, about to storm off. "Franziska, wait." He tries to stand but he feels shaky, his head spinning, like he is still suffocating, and he falls back to the floor. She turns back to him, still crying silently, and her expression is stuck halfway in between anger and pity, the former turning into the latter. Damn her father, damn the man for the scars he left Miles with. He tried to shame himself out of these fears, these weaknesses, and when that didn't work - of course it didn't work, and you have nothing to be ashamed of, his father said - he gathered up all of the hatred he had for himself and turned it toward von Karma, let it fester into a powerful bitter rage against a man whom he would never speak to. "I'm - I'm sorry," he says, and no apology has ever sprung from his throat so quickly or so easily. "I'm sorry. You aren't - you aren't your father."

"And what am I not?" she asks. The vitriol is gone. "What is he?"

His father is the one who was shot, the one who was the target, but Gregory has never appeared to harbor this hate that boils within Miles anyway. He is ashamed of it but it breaks loose. "He is a monster, corrupt and a cheat and liar and murderer, and he deserves to rot -"

Franziska is crying harder now, her face screwed up trying to hold back audible sobs. "I have to be better," she whispers. Her voice cracks. "I have to be better than him, I have to be the perfect Prosecutor von Karma because he was not. I have to be perfect and make up for what he did."

"You don't have to be anything because of him," Miles says. He makes it onto his feet, steps toward her. "Franziska, you aren't responsible for -"

She drops the DL-6 files on the floor and the papers fly everywhere, coating the floor, and she stoops to pick up one of the big law textbooks she was studying and in one fluid movement she swings and slams it into Miles' shoulder. She is strong for her age and size and proud of it and has a hilariously evil smirk which she turns on Miles whenever he asks for her help opening a jar; she hits and smacks him all the time but lightly. She always pulls her punches.

She doesn't this time.

Miles yelps, stumbles back and swears - in German, he and Franziska agree that the language is much more satisfying - and Franziska raises the book again, freezing with it high in the air. "Children," Gregory says, from the doorway. Miles' stomach plummets. Franziska drops the book. It lands on Miles' foot. It hurts less than the disappointed gaze that their father has turned on him.

Their father steps into the room and stands aside, leaving the door open for either of them to exit if they wish. Miles does; he can't stand to see his father looking at him that way anymore, he can't stand to see Franziska looking so hurt when he is the cause. He limps from the office, rubbing his shoulder.

Out on the street, he wants to sink into the ground and disappear; he wants passers-by to stop looking at him, questioning glances at the tears welling in his eyes. He sits in his car and is about to start driving, show up unannounced on the doorstep like they always do to each other, and as he is about to turn the ignition he realizes that girl might be there. There are four numbers set to speed dial in his phone and he calls the fourth. Phoenix picks up on the second ring but Miles hears him saying something to someone nearby, laughing at a joke Miles isn't privy too, before he actually says hello.

"Hey Miles! What's up?"

"Nothing much," Miles says, unsure of what stops him then. "Just... just thought it's been a while since we've seen each other. Are you busy now? Or later?"

"I'm - sorry, yeah, I'm sorry, Dollie and I were just headed out soon." Miles' stomach twists itself into a nauseous knot. "I'm sorry!" Phoenix does sound genuinely apologetic but it doesn't loosen the constricted feeling in Miles' chest. "Are you doing anything tomorrow - the weekend? Do you still take weekends off?"

"Not really," Miles says. "All the tests, and studying - I just had some open time today come up, so I thought maybe..."

"Free time just 'came up'?" Phoenix repeats. "Don't you schedule your days down to the minute like, weeks in advance?" He waits for Miles to answer but when several seconds of silence pass he goes on. "Is everything all right? Is something wrong? Did something happen?"

He could answer honestly: I got into a fight with Franziska. I said some things I shouldn't have. She's hurt and I'm disgusted with myself but I don't think she understands how much her father, von Karma, scarred me, and that hurts me. However infatuated Phoenix is with that girl Dahlia - Miles doesn't like her at all but tries to hide it for Phoenix's sake - he has never not dropped everything to help Miles when he needs it. Miles could answer honestly; Phoenix would probably cancel the date night and tell Miles to come over.

But that probably is not certainly and his heart feels tight in his throat thinking about the possibility of Phoenix choosing her over him. Maybe he wouldn't, but maybe he would, and it's better not to know, for Miles to keep thinking that maybe there's the chance. They are Schrodinger's cat and Miles could open the box right now but he would rather keep his untouchable quantum-state cat than risk finding out that it's dead.

"I'm fine. I just messed up my schedule and only just realized I'd left an empty block when I got to it."

"Okay," Phoenix says. He doesn't sound quite convinced. "All right. I'm sorry. We'll - call me sometime and we'll figure out a time to hang out, okay?"

"Sure," he says. "Sure."

His hands are shaking when he hangs up the phone. In all his memory he cannot think of a time he has ever lied to Phoenix.

He is twenty-one when he has his dislike of Dahlia validated in a worse way than he ever thought possible. It is a day when his father and Raymond are out investigating a crime scene in an area with no cell service - Gregory warned Franziska and Miles that morning - that he receives a phone call in the middle of class. He ignores it, but there is a second, and the third time he slips from his front-row seat and into the hallway. It's one of the defense lawyers that his father used to work with, a man named Marvin Grossberg, asking if Miles knows the whereabouts of his father because there's a case just come up that they think he should take on.

"I don't think he'll be back in time," Miles says after he explains. "But why are you calling me about it? Surely your office has someone who will take the case, or..."

"We do, we do - one of my junior partners was very interested once she heard the full details of what is involved - but the defendant is, well..."

Miles' head spins. He nearly drops his phone, his hands trembling as he repeats, aghast, "Phoenix?"

He darts in and out of the classroom to grab his bag and then he is sprinting down the hallway.

By the time he reaches the detention center, Phoenix has signed away his fate into the hands of a young defense attorney named Mia Fey and it's all Miles can do to keep from screaming. "Sorry I couldn't keep from being arrested until after you passed the bar," Phoenix says. Miles is torn between wanting to tell him to take this seriously and being grateful that Phoenix is trying to distract him from the anxiety threatening to consume him, between wanting to hug him and kill him.

He feels the same way by the end of the trial, when Dahlia is convicted and Phoenix is acquitted, through absolutely no help of Phoenix's own testimony and actions. Miles finds him in the defendants' lobby when court is adjourned, talking to Ms Fey. He doesn't yet look the worse for wear from his ordeal but Miles has known him long enough to expect a crash to come in the next few hours. Whatever Ms Fey is saying, it's enough to keep Phoenix chatting amiably, giving the impression of someone who still has life left in him. His eyes light up when over her shoulder, he sees Miles.

Ms Fey scrutinizes him closely. They spoke - argued, more like - when Miles met her at the detention center yesterday. He doesn't remember what he said but he's pretty sure it wasn't pleasant or nice, and he forces himself to look her in the eyes and thank her, though he chokes on an attempted apology.

"I think I want to strangle you," he says to Phoenix, who laughs weakly and slumps his head against Miles' shoulder when he hugs him.

Franziska is waiting outside of the courthouse for them. She calls shotgun for the ride back to the Edgeworth residence and Phoenix lets her have it, sprawling in the back seat like he is made of rubber and refusing to sit up. "Thanks for coming," he says on the walk into the living room, "both of you," but he is only looking at Miles, and then he collapses into the couch. Miles goes into the kitchen to make him some tea and glances out into the living room just in time to see Franziska throw a bottle of cold medicine at his head.

"He is a fool," Franziska mutters under her breath, in German, though really only one or the other would be necessary for secrecy - Phoenix’s German has lapsed some since he left high school. She is fourteen and sullen and their relationship still stands on rocky ground. "A foolish evidence-destroying fool. It is a wonder he was not convicted, after eating the most decisive piece." She snaps her fingers in Miles' face. "Teach your fool some of your courtroom wisdom."

"My fool?" he repeats.

"Yes. And I was a fool to ever believe or suggest that he could ever be a competent defense attorney."

"I think I want to become a defense attorney," Phoenix says when Edgeworth brings him tea in a suitably non-breakable container.

In the doorway Franziska throws her hands in the air. "Verdammt!" she snarls, loud enough for Phoenix to hear.

"Go verdammt yourself right back," he calls. She storms off and he looks at Miles and says, "I know that's not how you use that word."

"You know, I was just going to let that one slide," Miles says. He sits down on the floor, back against the couch, near Phoenix's head. "Why are you thinking of making that change?"

"I was talking to Mia - Ms Fey - after the trial, and I just got to thinking... it's about helping people who have no one else to help them, right? What she does, what your dad does, what you do - and I could. I could do that too, I could do something instead of just -" He gestures vaguely, helplessly, into the air. "I could - I could save someone, like you did for me, like she did for me. That's got to be worth it, right? All the work it'll take, but to be able to help people when they're in trouble, that's what it's about. And I want to do that."

There are stars in his eyes when he mentions Mia. Miles looks away. "Do you think I should?" Phoenix asks. "Do you think I could?"

"Yes," Miles says. "And yes."

He is twenty-four, ready to move from beneath his father's wings to find an office of his own, but he is waiting for Phoenix to pass the bar. They are at his kitchen table like years ago, applying for colleges, Miles certain, Phoenix lost, but now they both have a path - and the same one, again.

Franziska bounds into the room. "Ta-da!" she announces and Phoenix looks up from Miles' old notes to nearly smack his head into her hand, which holds a gleaming gold-and-white badge right in front of his nose. She is seventeen, not just a prodigy but the prodigy. The name von Karma causes whispers to follow in her wake.

"Am I going cross-eyed or do you have two prosecutors' badges because you're just that extra?"

"Ha!" Franziska sits back in her chair, across the table from Miles and Phoenix. Phoenix's eyes are still crossed. "Of course. Since I earned my badge before you" - she points at Phoenix - "earned yours, I am entitled to two."

"Do you get a third when you beat me?" he asks.

Phoenix passes the bar before Franziska is given her first case; she looks profoundly disappointed when she sees that he will not be her first opponent.

On the first trial that Franziska prosecutes, the verdict is a "not guilty". Miles is there to watch on the first day; when Franziska introduced herself as “Prosecutor von Karma”, the judge's eyes grew wide and he did not speak for a solid minute. The defense team immediately began whispering, giving Franziska fearful glances. Miles picks up words all around him, echoing through the courtroom: falsified, corrupt, attempted murder. Franziska stands through it all, waits for the courtroom to quiet, with her head held high, standing like a statue with her hands clasped behind her back, only her fingers twitching.

The trial drags on for a full three days and her thorough, comprehensive analysis of everything that could vaguely resemble a clue at the crime scene leaves the judge, the gallery, and the police all without a shred of doubt that they have finally apprehended the correct suspect. Watching her is something strange: the way she objects to the defense's statements, her gestures when she corrects them with a confident smirk. She points with the accusatory finger that she has used to prod Miles in the face all their lives, but he isn't used to the way that when she finishes laying out her facts, she spreads her hands wide, palms up, inviting the court to consider her words; or the little flourished bows that she makes, or the way she taps the side of her head as thought to say think about it before she issues a correction to the defense's theories. Miles has his own trial at the same time on the second day, but on the third he is back in the gallery, Phoenix with him. He nudges Miles with his elbow, nodding at Franziska as, palms open, she gestures as though to the words she has just finished speaking, and whispers, "She looks like someone we know, now doesn't she?" Miles blinks and can't quite figure out why Phoenix is looking at him like that.

After the trial is over, the babble that spills from the courtroom into the lobby is infuriating; Miles doesn't realize that he's curled his hands into fists, readied to start a confrontation, until Phoenix's hand on his shoulder grounds him. The perpetrators keep walking, their words still ringing in his ears: "must not really be a von Karma if she lost like that, huh?"

The utterances of her name suddenly, confusedly, quiet, when in the main lobby, Prosecutor von Karma receives a huge embrace from Defense Attorney Gregory Edgeworth. Miles is too far away to hear what is father is saying, but there is obviously pride, and then something apologetic as he is forced to rush off elsewhere, not leaving without a second hug and kissing Franziska on her forehead. She stands there alone after he leaves, looking tiny and lost and alone, but she brightens instantly when Phoenix yells over the crowd "Hey, Fran!" and waves.

"What are you doing here, Phoenix Wright?" she asks, darting over to them.

"I came to see the debut of the prosecutor who's going to kick my ass, of course."

She laughs and looks at Miles, something like doubt creeping into her face. "You did well," he says, studying her reaction; does he sound insincere? Should he give more praise? Will she think more is insincere? The gap in conversation draws longer. He struggles to think of something. "How did you think to examine the last witness' apartment with Luminol? He would have gotten away if you hadn't but how even did you figure to..."

Tension disappears from her shoulders and the anxiety in her face smooths away. Talk about evidence, about methodology, not feelings; they are both better in the realm of the concrete. "On our second day of investigation, I thought I saw blood in the carpet. A small spot." She circles her thumb and forefinger together to form a circle less than a centimeter in diameter. "When Detective Scruffy and I returned yesterday with some more questions, there was none such spot to be seen. I found that odd, given how unnaturally clean the witness' apartment was the first day we spoke with him. If he had already cleaned recently, why clean again, if not to cover something up?"

"Wasn't the carpet that you're talking about maroon, though?" Phoenix asks. "How did you ever see a little bloodstain on a maroon carpet? And who has a maroon carpet?"

"As it turns out, people who are liable to commit murder," Miles says.

"It is my job to carefully investigate any scene that may be of importance to a case," Franziska says. "It is my job, with close observation and decisive evidence, to find the truth, and often the truth hides in the smallest details, so then I must examine the smallest details."

"I'm imagining you crawling around on the floor squinting at the carpet while the detective tries to interview the witness," Phoenix says.

Franziska slowly tilts her head to the side to look at him, her face perfectly expressionless, her eyes unflinchingly fixed to his face, and says dryly, "Perhaps it is so."

Phoenix waves to flag down someone else, and over the heads of everyone else in the lobby, Miles spots Diego, presumably with Mia somewhere nearby. "There you are!" Diego says, clapping a hand on Phoenix's shoulder. "Trial's going to another day; we've got to go investigate the scene again and we need all hands on deck. Get ready to get moving - who's this?" Franziska looks comically small in front of him, and frowning, she sizes him up in return, her eyes lingering on his mask.

"This is," Phoenix says, with a dramatic pause, and Franziska groans as has long been her only response to his theatrics, "the prodigy Prosecutor Franziska von Karma, our new greatest rival, dutifully sworn for the past eight years to kick my ass in court."

"Eight years, really?" Mia asks.

"She's my sister," Miles explains. "Franziska, this is Mia Fey, chief of Fey and Co Law Offices, and her partner, Diego Armando. They work with Phoenix and me - or we work with them, if you prefer to be pedantic about it."

"I do, actually," Diego says.

"Nice to meet you, Franziska." Mia extends a hand. "I look forward to seeing you in the courtroom in action."

"Thank you, Ms Fey," Franziska says, shaking her hand. "I do, as well."

"We've got to be heading out soon," Mia says to Miles. "Another few minutes."

The message is implicit: wrap it up. Miles nods. Phoenix is already asking Diego about the details of their trial and Mia joins them, leaving Miles and Franziska alone on their side of the lobby. He looks at his sister, and then away, and then back again before he finally manages to say, "I'm proud of you, Franziska."

She narrows her eyes. These are words he has never said before. She assesses them carefully for tone, hidden meaning, wary perhaps of something patronizing or pitying, a sorry about your loss that Miles does not mean now and never intends to mean. "Honestly. I am. The whole court didn't know what to make of you." A prosecutor who kept pressing even when the judge was about to hand down a "guilty" verdict, who was sure that the truth was still buried somewhere and would not stop until she dug it up for all to see, who had no concern for a win record.

"Do you know what the von Karma family motto is?" Franziska asks quietly. Even if Miles did know, she does not leave enough time to answer, instead continuing, "It is 'to be perfect in every way'." He thinks she is about to go on, but she doesn't.

"And what does that mean to you?" he asks.

She raises her head to look him in the eyes. "To be a perfect trial, the one single truth must be uncovered. There is no room for stones left unturned, lies left unexposed, or testimony left unspoken. To do anything less is to fail in our role as prosecutors - and perfection leaves no room for failure. What I am is the opposite of my father, and I will be perfect - this, I promise you."

Their relationship has never been one built on obvious affection, but he thinks this - this deserves a hug. "And you" - when they pull apart she prods him several times in the chest - "must be perfect, because I will accept a rival no less."

In her parlance, truth is perfection, and perfection, the truth. "I think I can do that," he says.

"And since you have your fool, you may have him crawl about on the floors, and escape that fate yourself."

"My fool?"

"Yes, yours; and I believe your crime scene awaits. Remember what I have told you, Miles Edgeworth."

- It is a week and a half after the trial when Miles drops by his father's office to retrieve a case file that Mia thinks may be helpful to reference as a precedent. Franziska is there, sitting on a desk, a plastic ruler in her hand which she is rapping against the edge of the desk with increasing frequency. "Is something wrong?"

"No," she says.

"So you're just about to vibrate into orbit for the fun of it?"

"Yes."

He stops noticing the tapping sound but then, flipping through binders to refresh his memory on which should contain this file he is searching for, he notices when it stops. "I am going to visit my father," Franziska says, without prompting, when Miles looks up.

"Oh." He isn't sure what to say to that. She has never told him about those meetings before; he has not asked.

"And I will tell him what I told you - what is perfection, and that I have attained perfection more than he ever did. I will tell him proudly of my loss."

The final indignity, the final revenge, for what Manfred von Karma tried to do, would be for him to hear these words from his daughter's lips. She smacks the ruler against the desk one last time so that with a sound like the crack of a whip, it snaps in half. "I will tell him what I am."

#i cannot decide if i want this to go in the actual main ace attorney tag or not lmao fuckin.............#ace attorney #fuck tagging things in a main tag is anxiety inducing i never do it all stuff only on my own blog follow me or never see my shit #rodimiss writes #ace attorney bullshit tag #is gonna be my personal shitpost tag for all the dumbass posts i make that aren't liveblog but should not be shared with the wide public #(a la the defense bullshit au linked above and that one thread about kristoph you know that one)#also wolf i took your suggestion on titling. thanks.#bullshit defense au #bullshit defense fic #roddy fanfics

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junkobears · 7 years ago

Text

Here Lies Dreaded V3 Discourse

So I have seemed to cause a huge kerfuffle in the hardcore Ouma conspiracy theorists standom, and a banal (if condescending, but seeing the response to it honestly justifies it more than anything now. “Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it”, you better believe I can take it and will now PROPERLY dish it out right back at you) comment about one of Tsumugi’s anime references has led to someone launching a hilariously personal attack at me for Daring To Disagree With A Theory That Was Posted On A Public Website. Someone who I wasn’t even initially responding too, at that. And has now blocked me before even allowing me to respond and clarify my original comments. Don’t want to deal with the consequences of being a repugnant, rude person I guess? Shock and surprise for Tumblr.

The link to the post is here, but I’ve taken the liberty to screenshot it just in case it gets deleted later, in hope that maybe there’ll be some reflection on this person’s part that this really is not an acceptable way to respond to people who have a dissenting opinion? Anyways, I will be responding to the personal attack post and that will be the last time I interact with this group, because clearly it’s not worth it to actually have a discussion about our respective ending theories. I ain’t got time beyond this for tedious insecure fucks these days.

Anyways, my response is under the cut to save my poor followers’ dashes. Sorry to drag drama onto my blog but I can’t really let this slide. I’m also tagging @jacks-plays-drv3 just because I assume the twin comes with the other with these two, and I want my response to have been seen.

Screenshot In This Link - This post is long enough without the image taking up more space, haha.

Let’s start with this mess, shall we? And I will go into painstaking detail.

Paragraph 1: So this already starts off with a whole lot of needless aggression and projection. So I’m not even going to attempt to be nice back. But: maybe I haven’t proven anything because I literally had not typed up a response to clarify my original comments @ Jacks yet before the rabid attack dog was unleashed? Like, there was literally no attempt from you to have a discussion that was a genuine offer from me, I was not out to get you actually. I also honestly just laughed at being called shallow, JUST LIKE THAT HORRIBLE CHARACTER TSUMUGI SHIROGANE right off the bat as well. That’s a compliment really, honey. Weirdly I don’t share the same opinions as you do. Tsumugi is my fave and unlike you I actually think about and HAVE analyzed/discussed her character in detail previously, which I would’ve been happy to share had you not immediately went into Blind Raging Idiot Mode. Guess we can’t have it all, huh?

As for needing proof that she makes the Flashback Lights... nevermind the CG that literally shows her making them during Chapter 6, but do you have proof that Monokuma is the person who makes the Lights instead of just placing them for the students? I doubt it, somehow. Cuz a lot of your theories don’t actually have any concrete proof. Quelle surprise. Probably why anyone not immediately on board with your headcanon gets you so goddamn angry, huh? Cuz it’s completely baseless and you know it at heart.

As for the Ouma comments, actually I have read the assorted creator comments regarding his character even if you like to believe I’m a slobbering moron who turned my brain off as soon as I finished V3, so yes I already know that his name was chosen to sound mastermind-like. Maybe this was to emphasize and make his fake mastermind reveal appear more legit on first read? JUST A THOUGHT, SWEETIE. You know the entire fucking point of Chapter 5? You’re so slavishly devoted to your theory that you actually are incapable of reading the basic fucking text from the actual game, but again. Not a surprise. Considering what I’ve read from your blog (really, who are you again? I only knew Jacks’ blog from before all this, so you taking such a personal offense at my comments is honestly hilarious but baffling at the same time. It ain’t all about you, babe.)

As for the lab door, here’s an simpler explanation (Occam’s Razor, look it up): The star sign constellation pattern was there as a hint for the player to connect Ouma’s messages from his dorm room to the vault in Amami’s lab once its opened and you can see the star signs in there. Or perhaps it was designed like that by TDR to make the students make that connection as well in the original script and think that Ouma was the mastermind cuz of the connection to Amami’s lab? Literally, there are a lot of possibilities, cuz it’s a NOTHING DETAIL THAT DOESN’T ACTUALLY MATTER IN THE BIG PICTURE. Considering Kodaka’s track record with writing these games I don’t actually believe it’s anything major, personally. He doesn’t really strike me as the type to hide this completely separate story underneath the actual story we got, and with such vague nothing “”””””””””””clues””””””””””””. You and Jacks do yourselves (well you already do cuz you love to jack yourselves off with how CLEVER AND BETTER you are than the rest of us plebs), sure, in believing otherwise (You have way too much faith in him as a writer. Or you’re desperately trying to pretend V3 wasn’t poorly written cuz you don’t like the Ch. 6 twist) but also realize that its nothing more than extrapolation on your part that it actually means anything beyond the.... SHALLOW (horror scream) connection given in-game.

And really, who the fuck cares if it doesn’t match the title of ‘Supreme Leader’? It’s already a ridiculous talent as it stands already. The entire point of his character is that everything about him, his motives and his talent is contradictory and weird. That’s why I like him, actually. He isn’t an abused martyr who never lies like you goons believe and he also isn’t the evil monstrous chessmaster some of the fandom thinks. It’s Complex Motives™ .

Anyways moving on. Pointing out an anime reference =/= DISREGARDING PEOPLE’S ANALYSIS. Pointing out that most of the plot leads up to and supports the fiction twist =/= uncritically agreeing with everything Tsumugi says. Actually, after examining the game’s story for myself I came to the conclusion that all the clues in it really only support her version of the story, really. There are a few things I think she lied about, but it is not CONCLUSIVELY proven she lied in my opinion and so I don’t really give a fucking toss until new canon comes out and reveals more of the V3 story. Oumatwin don’t real, gurl. If there was actually anything in-game beyond one obvious joke line in the NON-CANON!!!!!!! bonus mode supporting that he existed, maybe I’d respect your theory more. Even though you don’t deserve respect after your little tantrum.

Paragraph 2: Jesus I already am investing way too much time into this response at people who don’t actually deserve it, oh well. But laughing hard at the attempt to try and act as if you weren’t being a snobby asshole with your comments. Again, HUGE AMOUNTS OF PROJECTION at me about things I literally have never done and said. I have never interacted with you or Jacks prior to my initial comment. No fucking clue why you brought up the SaiOuma shit, cuz I don’t even LIKE Saihara as a character and don’t like that fujobait ship in the slightest? But I guess it’s easier to assume that all your critics are the exact same fucking person with the same opinions, so you can feel more persecuted, huh? You literally did not even wait for me to respond or check my blog that would’ve easily disproven these dumb-as-fuck assumptions. And get off the fucking high horse (pun completely intended), you lot are not the only people in this fandom who are capable of critical thought. How completely self-obsessed can you be?

For someone who claims to have a lot of critical thinking skills compared to this nasty fandom, you really are terrible at parsing other people’s words. You fucking know when I said “group of anime fans” that I was referring to Team Danganronpa, the organization literally mentioned in game as running the game. The group Tsumugi is part of. She literally has a company badge FFS. THEY ARE ANIME FANS. THEY ALL STARTED KILLING GAMES CUZ THEY ALL LOVE THIS SHITTY SERIES. I can’t believe this had to be explained. And the rest of this paragraph word salad is the most pedantic argument. It’s really not hard to believe an organization in this series would have access to all this tech. And yes, it’s a popular TV show in-universe, of course it’ll have funding. And the whole damn point of the ending is that the V3 world is consuming fiction the wrong way by having real-life killing games, missing the entire point of the DR series and fiction in general? What’s your actual point?

Paragraph 3: Again more assumptions, I wasn’t ‘crying’ about being called gullible. I was just pointing it out as part of your extremely unnecessary smug dismissal of my post. That you really haven’t disproved at all, btw. Honestly the childish response you both had to me just makes me laugh out of pity more than anything. And if I was really upset I wouldn’t have offered to have a discussion with you or even continued to reply after Jacks initial (vague) post about what I said. So don’t put words in my mouth. And yes my analysis was not completed in my initial comments. It’s Tumblr fucking replies, I can’t fit the entire fucking dissertation of Tsumugi opinions in there for you to jeer at in there. Again, I offered to share my opinions and got this as a response, so lol. You are your own worst enemy when it comes to trying to get people to take you and your theories seriously.

Paragraph 4: Especially since you immediately jump to PULLING THINGS OUT OF YOUR ASS (seriously, fucking snorted at this part. I want this whole diatribe on my fucking gravestone. It’s by far the most hilariously petty thing ever said about me on this site.) instead of letting me explain my position. If you just want to be in the creepy cult Oumatwin echo chamber you should’ve just said and blocked me ASAP instead of word salading vague bullshit justifications for why actually people who disagree with you are just stupid crybabies who can never hope to understand your genius. Again, my initial comments didn’t whine about not being taken seriously at all, I was pointing out the hypocrisy/rudeness is all. And again, get off the high horse about critical thinking. I have thought about Tsumugi’s character and how she relates to the over-arching plot and how truthful it is, and the overall ‘mystery’ of V3 (spoiler: there is none. it was all solved by chapter 6). I have thought about this game. In fact I dedicate too much time to critical analysis of this series that doesn’t actually deserve it cuz lately I find Kodaka to be a hack writer. Your assumptions are flat-out wrong, dear. And AGAIN. I WOULD’VE. SHARED AND DISCUSSED IN MORE DETAIL HAD I BEEN GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY. But rude fucks gonna vomit shit out of their mouth cuz they have literally no self-control and have meltdowns at the slightest difference of opinion, I guess.

Your extreme hatred for Tsumugi as a character truly shines through. Clearly no thought has been put into her from your end, even though you and Jacks rage about people not taking Ouma seriously as a character. Double standards as always with fujos. Nothing I’m not used too, she is incredibly unpopular in this fandom. And everyone is entitled to their own opinions. So I’m not even mad at that. I have never said otherwise. Even you and Jacks are valid in having your own theories and thoughts. The ending of V3 is designed entirely so everyone can analyze the game for themselves and draw their own conclusions about the story and themes. That’s the whole point. Even though I personally dislike that as a writing decision on Kodaka’s part because I would prefer the story to be conclusively ended and the epilogue is a giant turd that misses the entire point of Chapter 6 and enables shit (anal pun intended, dumbass) like this to start spreading as “Analysis”. But hey, to each their own.

However I will not be interacting with either of you again after this post though, even though I was willing to discuss beforehand, because you both have shown yourselves to be incredibly vile with the way you approach other people in this fandom, and especially those who don’t share your conspiracy theory. Despite the absolutely ironic comments I’ve seen from Oumanous in their later, also terrible posts about how you need to understand your opponent before engaging, which they literally failed entirely to do before engaging the firing squad at me and other commentators who responded. So much for the sanctity of discussion, huh? Enjoy your circlejerk. Everyone else who follows me in this fandom though? Please consider blocking these two if you are also a sane human being who is capable of polite discussion/disagreements. They are not worth your time otherwise. They were really not worth my time writing this post, but I felt I had to say something.

In conclusion: Out with the both of you.

#fandom drama #V3 spoilers #long post #i cant believe i have ended up in dr fandom discourse #i have sunk so low lmfao #allowed to reblog this post also I dont mind #unless you are the two chucklefucks this post is about #out. with you.#but I will not be afraid to stand up for myself when I get shit like this #anyways its done bridge burned

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ratherhavetheblues · 5 years ago

Text

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE’ “Something peculiar is happening…”

By the year of 1973, Ingmar Bergman had crafted a remarkable wave of trenchant and thrilling films, not to mention an auxiliary career in theatre. He had no conspicuous need to produce a television series; but he did. Figuring out what possessed him to do that, becomes our job today.

The singularity (at that point), namely, Scenes from a Marriage, became a hit. But we must add that a television hit is not a Bergman film hit. He promptly pared that melodramatic jag into a feature film, of the same title; and something very strange and demanding came to pass. The two protagonists, Marianne and Johan, remain the patrician piece of work who ramped up those ratings. But, with Marianne’s caseload, as a divorce lawyer reduced to only one client to be seen, the Bergman we’ve come to know trains his concern about how a pair like Marianne and Johan (the latter being a professor of psychology) and their somehow lofty ilk manage to rule, not only modern life but all of world history.

The only adult on the screen being that client of Marianne’s—readily forgotten by the young and the restless in thrall to the seeming endless riot— a middle-aged woman who presents a need which Family Law (shored up by clinical psychology) does not touch, becomes a hit and run casualty, bound to self-remedy. (Later on, Johan makes an unintentional joke when declaring—bold as brass—“I don’t know anything about reality…”) The certified expert in the room (a room with Marianne’s beige apparel on beige décor) sits down with the client wearing black with a small yellow scarf. “In the first meeting we usually establish the issues and look at how to solve them,” Marianne explains. “I want a divorce,” the composed customer already concludes. The solver, with a process which may not avail itself to pat solutions, takes a statistical slant. “How long have you been married?” (The answer being, over 20 years.) “Do you have a profession?”/ “No, I’m a housewife.”/ “Why do you want a divorce?”/ (After a long pause, Marianne looks up from her notepad and sees the stranger twisting an envelope.

Eventually, within a transaction she was perhaps not prepared to give reasons, she states, “There is no love in our marriage.” Cut to the lawyer, wide-eyed. “Is that the reason?” the far younger fixer asks. “Yes,” the somewhat nonplussed lady replies. Smiling professionally, our protagonist asks, “You’ve been married for a long time. Was this always the case?”/ “Yes, always.”/ “And now that your children have left the nest, you want to leave as well.” She nods, not looking directly at Marianne. “My husband is a responsible man. He’s kind and conscientious. I have nothing to complain about. He’s been an excellent father. We’ve never quarreled. We have a nice apartment and a lovely summer cottage we inherited from my mother-in-law. We’re both fond of music. We belong to a chamber music society and play together…”/ “It all seems idyllic.”/ “But there’s no love between us. There never has been.”/ Marianne in close-up and her notes, as she asks, not looking at the puzzling client, “Forgive me for asking, but have you met someone?”/ Cut to the lady in close-up, her candid eyes directed at the lawyer, measuring up Marianne. She smiles, more relaxed. “No, I haven’t.”/ With the lady onscreen, there is the questioner asking, “What about your husband?”/ “As far as I know, he has never been unfaithful.”/ Marianne in close-up, looking tired, says, “Won’t you be lonely?”/ “I guess… But it’s even lonelier in a loveless marriage.”/ Marianne, with pursed lips, and eyes down to her notes. “Have you told your husband you want a divorce?”/ The lady becoming quietly annoyed by the tenor of this interaction. “Of course.” Her eyes direct, and slightly ironic. She adopts a resolved smile. “Fifteen years ago I told him I didn’t want to live with him anymore, since there was no love in our marriage. He was very understanding.” (The lady’s eyes drift into a void.) “He merely asked me to wait until the children had grown up. Now all three have grown up and left home. Now I can have my divorce.”/ Marianne speaks while we still see the petitioner. “So what does he say?”/ “He keeps asking me what’s wrong with our marriage. And I tell him I can’t go on with a relationship that lacks love. Then he asks me what love is supposed to involve. But I tell him I don’t know. How can I describe something that’s not there?”/ Cut to a rather blasé, smug lawyer, lipped-pursed and pedantic. “Have you been on good terms with your children? Emotionally…”/ The lady now back onscreen. Her gaze at Marianne suggests that she knows she won’t be more than an item of cash-flow here. “I’ve never loved my children [her face being stricken by more than that].

I know that now [her mouth tight]. I used to think I did… You always do… But now I know that I never loved them. Still, I’ve been a good mother… I’ve done all I could, even though I never felt anything for them.” As she looks downward, the paradox of her discourse begins to bite. That standoff can’t continue. Her divorce and its solitude comprises a crucial daring, far from readily resolved. (She’s neither as severe nor as discerning as she likes to think.) She’s ready for the inevitable critique from a fat cat (late for the appointment due to a lunch with Johan being a bit prolonged due to her mooting an exotic trip, for the sake of doing something about her malaise, having been broached on the car ride into town; then dropped, as if nothing). The lady addresses the girl, “I know just what you’re thinking” (brief cut to Marianne, with a strained smile). The girl with the profession says, “Really?”/ “A spoiled woman with no sense of humor… She has everything she could possibly want—but still she goes on about love. What about friendship, loyalty, security?”/ Cut to a smiling Marianne. “Something like that, yes…”/ This elicits a hard look across the universe. “Let me tell you something. I have a mental picture of myself that doesn’t correspond to reality.”/ Being reminded that she recently made a short cut through that path [in the sprawling TV version—not to be too caught up in its soap opera; but not to be entirely ignored], Marianne wakes up a bit. “Pardon me if I ask you a personal question… Isn’t true love…” [She rubs her brow, looks down]/ “What were you going to ask?”/ “I’m not sure. Forgive me” [lips pursed]./ From the lady’s punishing depths to a precinct of control, there is the notice, “I tell myself I have a capacity to love [hands closed]… but it’s been [open hands] bottled up…”/ (Cut to a bemused Marianne)/ The errant lady oracle, invading a corporate sanctuary, recounts, “The life I’ve led has stifled my potential…”/ Clearly unimpressed now, Marianne wants this to end. The stranger—like those of the string of other oracles of past films by an artist so adept in weaving discursive presentation into scintillating film—knows intuitively that nothing avails with the Marianne’s of the world. But, for the sense of a semblance of intelligence, the payer continues, “The time has come to change all that. The first step is divorce. My husband and I cancel each other out.”/ “That sounds frightening,” the solver declares./ “It is frightening. Something peculiar is happening. My senses—sight, hearing, touch, are starting to fail me. This table, for instance… I can see it and touch it. But the sensation is deadened and dry…”/ (A very quick slide pan catches Marianne with a visage of fright.”/ “Do you understand?” the bidder for change asks./ “I think I do…” [at least while emoting, “I’m not certain I know who I am,” in the simplistic version]./ The real thinker leaves us with, “It’s the same with everything, music, scents, faces, voices. Everything seems puny, grey and undignified.”

Marianne had been heard, in the loose-lips, television version, to aver, “Sometimes I wish that I could go with the flow… I’m not certain I know who I am [smoothing over the darkness with a finger kiss to assure Johan he had nothing to worry about]. It’s as if I no longer perceived myself as being real… We’re pitiful, self-indulgent cowards that can’t connect with reality…” We soon discover, from that shaky baseline, that she (and he) evince no serious critical fibre, and, on the cusp of middle-age allow themselves to toe a line prescribed by their affluent, pedantic, scared-frozen parents—his father a physician and hers a lawyer. (“It was decided early on that I would become one too.”) Seeing them both, being interviewed for a glossy magazine which specializes on emphasizing that life can be a bowl of cherries, Johan, particularly, does a victory lap in nailing for the readership the trick of domesticity. “I’m bright, youthful, successful and sexy… My mind has a global scope. I’m educated and I’m a great mixer… I’m a good friend, even to those less fortunate than myself. I’m sporty, and I’m a good father and good son… I respect our government… I love our royal family… I’m a fantastic lover…” The shoot ends with, “Don’t move! Hold that pose!…” He adds, “I’m entitled to simply look for number one…” Marianne, with her modest input and priority of “compassion,” here, might (erroneously) imagine that cut-throat advantage does not stain her actions.

Not particularly surprising, then, the sporty one decides that his wife is less than stellar and opts for a more blue-chip constellation. It is, however, the overview of this trouble in heaven which provides the food for thought. The same day our lawyer mangles the case of the lady, Marianne and Johan are seen coming home from a theatre presenting a probing Ibsen play which they found to be too dark and demanding after a hectic day attending to their excellent careers. Needing a snack, and needing quite a lot of brandy, they touch upon the switch that puts them somewhat on a stage of decisive pain. “We thought the future was bright,” she runs with. “It’s nice to have faith in things,” is Johan’s backhanded put-down. (Earlier that day we caught a glimpse of his experimental campaign—a system of lenses by which a subject would [hopefully] see something of moment. An old friend and colleague was, on that occasion, far more concerned about his past than his present. She reminded him, “In our old crowd, many of us believed you were destined for greatness. You were way ahead of us…” Included in this nostalgia was his manuscript of poetry, hanging there like a reminiscent of an asteroid. Also impinging on their self-esteem was her attempt to break the long habit of having Sunday dinner with one or other of the relatives. She phones to cancel, but can’t prevail. He, seemingly more comfortable about the sway of coercion, mocks her attempt, “The revolution was smothered at birth.”) Leaning upon their land’s reputation for being the sexpots of the planet, it would be that drift of power which the two—lying back on matching sofas, eating vintage cheese—would launch their bid for dignity. She blurts out, “What if we started cheating on one another? What would you do?”/ “I’d kill you, of course… Sometimes I wish… Nothing…” An almost surreal fissure. He lays a trap for her. “But married couples aren’t as hot for each other after a while.” Quick to jazz up a perceived embarrassment, Marianne argues, “When evening rolls along, we’re exhausted.” He, needing, it seems, bad news, fires up some purple prose, “Our life is full of little evasions and restrictions…” To that, Marianne grabs some zoology: “I can’t help the fact I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to… Sex isn’t everything, after all…” Johan, advancing like a hostile army, posits, “Making love is pretty basic… You suffer from devastatingly high standards…” She, perhaps resonating in tune to the evening’s play’s tenor of high critical standards, emphasizes kindness as a panacea in cynical times. “You don’t give me enough affection.” / “Affection takes time,” is his push-back against her and Ibsen. Sheer venom on the move, she tells him, “You have moments of greatness, interspersed with sheer mediocrity.”

As if shifting to another theatrical attraction—this one perhaps a Strindberg volcano—(one of the periodic titles now signaling, “Paula”)—there is Johan, returning from a business trip, driving up to their summer home (the major features there being an ancient, grey-stone fence and a series of ancient wood planks shoring up the interior walls), and announcing he’s leaving her for a woman called Paula. (Such stones feature in the property of an effete and cynical architect, in Bergman’s film, The Passion of Anna [1969]. The hulking, no longer functional windmill on the ground here, recalls the comedic verve of a couple in the Bergman film, Smiles of a Summer Night [1955]. Our film today retracing malignancy and slap-dash stupidity.) Prefacing the melodrama, as she does, Marianne, on seeing him a day early, emotes, “It can’t be!” (What it can very definitely be here is lives inured to cheap gestures.) She tells him, “There was nothing on TV, so we [and their two young girls] turned in early.” (“Nothing on TV,” being a dipsy-doodle within the heart of this breathtakingly rich saga.) Finding him distracted by the pile of mail, she tries, “I was nasty on the phone last night… If you don’t want to wear a tuxedo, that’s your business… It’s hardly essential for our marriage…”/ “I’ve gone and fallen in love,” is his gambit.

“It can’t be!” no longer defines their marriage; but, unlike so many such absolute changes in marriage—as in the scene right after the socialite interview where a couple of dinner guests of theirs exchange marriage-killing insults and physical attacks—they have priorities contemporaneously overriding their formal bonds. (This may not be the patented loyalties which the world at large feels to be necessary; but it remains for them to show us an even more venerable [and malignant] force.) “I feel great, but also damn guilty for you and the children.” Though being shocked and saddened, Marianne, can, as if only in a play, speak calmly, “I don’t know what to say… Funny, I didn’t notice anything…” That that famous “guilt” has a high ceiling may indicate in his retort, “But you’ve never been particularly observant.” Her, “Where do we go from here?” shows a consummate gamer. “We’re leaving for Paris, tomorrow. I want to get away. At least for a while,” indicates that optic bite here must never be slow to use. (Paula’s being enrolled in the City of Light for six months polishing her Slavic languages, comes to us as a sign that she’s far from dedicated with major communication. The lady wanting a divorce—while Marianne also misplaces a Gallic, sophisticated power implicated in her name—could be described as learning an important [body] language.) Though Johan could be riding high in the current of advantage—she tidying up their impromptu dinner like a servant; and offering to pick up his grey suit from the cleaners—Marianne, instead of seeing a lost cause, clings to retain a life-long (often surreptitious) battle of wits in the course of having things ultimately their way. The rhetoric of finality does have a life—“I want to have a clean break… I’ve wanted to get rid of you for four years… I don’t give a damn… You can name your price. I’m not taking a thing… I’ll vanish… I’ll denaturalize…My needs are minimal…”—but when he goes on to argue that the family ties are what forced his hand, you know he’s panning for a cogency he can’t reach, but feels that only with her and her intimate perversity and insupportableness can he feel any sense of becoming significantly different from the horror he has always been. After his rant, he says, “All the words I’m spouting are just empty talk…” Hoping to get beyond empty talk, and rudely deflecting her tears, he delivers the apologia, “I don’t possess much self-knowledge, and I know little about reality, in spite of all the books I’ve read. But I believe this catastrophe is the chance of a lifetime.” (Her shot back is, “Has Paula filled your head with garbage like that?”) That oration overshoots his usual, pragmatic reasoning. Both of them will occasionally make that leap—Marianne that very night insisting to see a photo of Paula, leading her to admires her breasts—while striving to make themselves better than ludicrous. But both of them, we shall see, lack what it takes (and what the lady at Marianne’s office could proceed with some seriousness). Both of them, after a fuss, manage to sleep.

The chapter, “The Vale of Tears,” sets forth with Johan inviting himself to the chic townhouse in Stockholm where they lived together, and where Marianne has branched out quite a lot. Paula has turned out to be far less than heavenly, and he’s used her week in London to look for rehab. “Are you such a coward that you can’t stand up to her?” is the register she presents, having moved quickly to disregard his gambit, “You look nice in your pretty dress.” She still prefers beige, but now she can say things like, “I’m afraid it’s too girlish for me…” Though the tone is careful, she doesn’t hesitate to tell him, “You look funny in that haircut. And you’ve put on some weight…” Something else she’d find funny is his fumbling lurch, “You really turn me on…” Seeing that was a mistake, he had big news about his scientific heights, couched in near-doggerel: “I don’t mind telling you, things are going pretty well for me. I’ve been offered a chair at Cleveland University for two years.” (That being the era when the town’s waterway would often catch fire.) “There’s nothing to keep me here. I’m fed up with this academic backwater. With this annoying offensive she fires back, “We should perhaps discuss our divorce… We might as well get the ball rolling…” That rolling would have a very indistinct purchase upon buoyancy.

The magnetism of this pair might appear to be strange and unusual. That it isn’t, can be discerned along a pathway of power in contrast to Peter and Katrina, the seething technocrats. Doing dishes in the aftermath, Marianne remarks, rather smugly, “Peter and Katrina don’t speak the same language… We speak the same language…” We have hitherto brought to light a small corner of the homogeneous habits and methods derived through many generations. The seeming eccentricity of our protagonists allows of how many of us cobble alliances with enemies found to be useful. During the numerous feasts and other occasions, much is in play as to entitlement on the basis of proficiency in intellection. Now we must make the inference that, though much can be accomplished along that track, it is what cannot be accomplished along that track which is paramount. Not paramount, however, to Johan and Marianne, being products of high-powered academic training, pedantry. But paramount to the lady whom Marianne regarded as a dangerous nutcase. The lawyer and the professor—addicted as they are to crunching data—set up a rather bizarre think-tank, stretching beyond the facts of their defunct marriage. They came to hate each other as spouses, but continue to depend upon each other for combined discovery—discovery which, though gratifying in displaying advantage, was going nowhere toward incisive territory. Though the details of that conclave might be rare, the phenomena of forceful, conceptual impingement amongst antagonists are everywhere, sustaining a barrier against primordial concerns.

With Marianne eager to formally see him gone, she still can maintain, “You should know I think of you all the time… I wonder what I did to cause the break between us.” In conveying a landslide of abortive initiatives, from (her) recent psychiatric encounters, to childhood ingratiation yielding rewards, she returns to the semi-phony refrain, heard with the lady, “I seemed to detect something that had eluded up to then…To my surprise, I must admit that I don’t know who I am…I’ve never considered what I want…It’s not unselfishness, as I used to believe. It’s sheer cowardice… Even worse [even, in fact, a copout in facing cowardice, slithering away from her responsibility], it stems from my being ignorant of who I am… Our mistake was that we never broke free from our families to create something worthwhile on our own terms” (which would be more of the same—heedless advantage). Johan had slept through all of that, just as the ringmaster in Bergman’s Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) had slept through an account of “something worthwhile.” They sleep together, after reading a note from Paula to Marianne: “He has no self-confidence at all…”

Two episodes at the end of this trail corroborate all we have experienced in the previous scenes. With a title, “The Illiterates,” Marianne and Johan do get their signatures on the divorce document. But the only illumination they muster is their chronic superficiality. They’re in Johan’s Brain-Station/ office, at night; and she immediately takes over in what is her province. Spoiling her triumph, however, is her frivolous resort to a magnifying glass with the papers on the table. Once again they commence consuming a lot of alcohol, as if their sober communications need something else. Soon she demands him to lie on top of her as she lies on the carpet. Other nonsense in that tone of hers suddenly finds her putting her hands over her face. She goes to the bathroom, and on returning she proposes “a tribute to a long and happy marriage.” But, by then, Johan’s taste for conflict has returned, and he insists that his interests be served. She sneers, “You and Paula can pore over the wording to make sure I haven’t screwed you over…” (The camera angle shows her eclipsing him.) From there she pushes for him to finance a school trip to France, for one of their daughters. Along with telling her he won’t be paying, he characterizes the girl as “spoiled,” which the debater/lawyer recasts as “a difficult age”—grossly misunderstanding that every age is difficult far beyond her wildest dreams. She rounds out her side of the skirmish with, “I could care less about petty details like manners.” He goes on to say, “We’re emotional illiterates. We’ve been taught about technical details, scientific discoveries and math formulas by heart. But we haven’t been taught a thing about our souls. We’re tremendously ignorant about what makes people tick.” Though she hasn’t fallen asleep, she yawns and silently expresses her boredom with that matter (of “manners”). “I don’t agree with you, but no matter…”

Now shifting to the subject of his losing out on the hotbed of Cleveland (“Someone spat on me and I’m drowning in the spittle…”), he’s in a mood to declare, “Viewed objectively, I’m dead weight.” A few glasses more and their patience entirely disappears. She tells him, “I think I’m breaking free at last… It’s callous of me, but I don’t care…” She screams and spits toward him, “Your idiotic sarcasm!”/ He faults her regarding the way she moves and how she squats at the bidet after coitus. “I should have beaten you… I wanted to smash that hard-white resistance that emanated from you! Your behavior’s deeply seated… There is such a thing as simple affection… sensuousness… physical desire… [which he will build on this in the final episode]… In your case that’s all blocked.” She taunts him, from out of the reservoir of fake news, that he is a “parasite.” He states, from his reservoir of low-key truth, “I’m tired of being alone… Paula is worse than being all alone…” At loggerheads in various perspectives (including his preventing Marianne to reach the cab she phoned), there is the avatar of “simple affection” grabbing her throat and then punching her several times and continuing to do so while she lies on the carpet. He then sits down, exhausted; and his adversary—an avatar of violent measures previously withheld—now takes the key to clean up her bleeding face. Thus follows promptly, signatures on the divorce stationary.

Bergman then wields, marvelously, his mastery of rich drama, in cutting to the finale, called, “In the Middle of the Night in a Dark House,” which begins with the grateful gone (each long married to another spouse) getting together—the spouses both travelling out of the country—and happily headed to the old summer cottage for a tryst, not the first and not the last. There could be no change from their mutually hated positions. But the itch to scratch toward a miraculous transparency brings them, again and again, to delude themselves that they’re effectively in the action. What happens here can be very briefly shown. She had parked her deluxe vehicle in downtown Stockholm and become a beaming passenger in his unkempt, cheap car. The jet of a powerful fountain where the trip begins mocks their hopeful roulette habit. Finding the property in decline and the idea of bringing their baggage to a less than joyous spot being a mistake, Johan phones a friend still owning a beach house along that shore, and they decamp to the second dwelling. The latter is on the scale of Johan’s car; but the additional irony is its adolescent features. What they are and will always be. (A big paper clown face hangs from the ceiling.) Marianne stares into the mess, while he whistles happily in getting the fireplace to light. She begins to cry. “My dear, beloved Johan. You’ve grown so small… You’re better this way. [And the TV audience will say, “Yes! Yes!”] Are people mean to you?” He replies, “I don’t know. I’ve stopped being defensive. Someone said I’d gone slack and gave in too easily… But I’ve accepted my true dimensions, with a certain sense of humility. It makes me kind… and a bit mournful.” She says, “You had such expectations.”/ “No, you’re wrong,” he argues. “Those were my family’s expectation.” Changing the subject, he makes the mistake of asking how her husband is. He learns, as if he hadn’t already been given some inkling, that, “Henrick truly enjoys sex. And he made me realize that I felt the same way.” Her much in need here subsequent long paean to orgasms annoys him. (They lack the wit to have appreciated that that initial clash of theirs has undergone a complete switch.) “I know you didn’t want to hear the truth,” she declares, missing the huge irony. She adds that she has a taste for the marvelous things life has to offer. “Think of the awareness we’ve gained!… I persevere… I enjoy myself… I rely on common sense [that register of truth apparently impossible to surpass]… I like people… I enjoy negotiation…” That night she has a nightmare. He tries to comfort her. She comes up with, “Sometimes it grieves me that I’ve never loved anyone. I don’t think I’ve ever been loved…” He tries to bring about buoyancy by saying, “We loved each other in an earthly and imperfect way…” She becomes fine again, all things considered, by is caress and his quiet. They’re swallowing it all, for a while.

But before that there was Johan (linked to a Johan in Bergman’s film, The Passion of Anna [1969], who had much more of what it takes), musing about nightmares. He posits, “… something in your well-ordered world you can’t get at…” (Her fright had to do with, “… my hands were missing… stumps… sliding around in soft soil… Are we living in utter confusion? you and me? Do you think we’re secretly afraid of slipping downhill and don’t know what to do?”/ “Yes, I think so, “ the slack psychologist tells the forceful lawyer. She asks, “Is it too late?” He—but what would a psychologist know?—says “Yes.”/ “Have I missed something important?” she asks./ “All of us,” the lost-Clevelander rushes to maintain. She pulls up, “… having to efface myself…” Where would creatures like them begin?

#ingmar bergman

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