#ALSO NOT TO MENTION THAT KLAVIER IS TOLD OVER AND OVER AGAIN HE LOOKS LIKE KRISTOPH

[violexides]

so i finished turnabout succession, meaning i’ve watched all of the cases in aa4 excluding the first case - which i am considering watching at some point but likely in the distant future, seeing as trucy and klavier are not yet introduced in it and i already know the plot of the case. many thoughts on ace attorney 4 but i am just going to talk about klavier gavin real quick because. i need to.

[if you don’t want spoilers but are still reading these posts i’m REALLY going into spoilers so like. guys please]

i really wish Capcom had done more with klavier both in the sense of backstory but also in the sense of future games, since iirc he only appears once or twice in dual destinies and not at all in spirit of justice. what i CAN say though is that despite all this, they gave an amazingly written character to us - even if he, again, only predominantly exists in three cases.

i really cannot get over the tragedy of each one of them, though. turnabout corner, where he faces off and loses in a trial - his first trial returning to prosecuting - to the disciple/employee of his older brother. who aforementioned employee had imprisoned for murder. and he’s extremely kind compared to other prosecutors, willing to help out, and also among one of the most well-prepared ones. he’s fun and melodramatic and he doesn’t throw a fit at losing.

and then you IMMEDIATELY go to fucking turnabout serenade, where he has a concert in which basically everything goes wrong for him, including the performance not meeting his high standards and someone literally dying DURING HIS CONCERT. in which his guitar ALSO set on fire mid concert btw. and he’s very emotionally attached to them. and then you find out all this, on top of the fact that it was not only his second guitarist but his BEST FRIEND of at LEAST seven years who committed the murder. someone he deeply trusted, and he has to be the one to take him off the case and put him on the stand.

and then THREE MONTHS PASS, and he is put on the trial for the jurist system, a system created by phoenix wright. he knows from the start that despite his desires for a simple case, it’s going to be complex because of wright’s involvement. and then it turns out that the current murder provides insight into the events of seven years ago, a trial he had prosecuted on in which he got someone disbarred with information he shouldn’t have had and became CONSUMED WITH DARKNESS FOR SEVEN FUCKING YEARS to the point that he LEAVES THE PROSECUTION JOB TEMPORARILY. and then he is told, by apollo justice - former employee of his brother, frequent court rival, person who put his best friend AND brother behind bars, and current employee of phoenix wright the attorney that KLAVIER HELPED DISBAR - that the events that transpired seven years ago, when klavier was SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD, were manipulated by his brother. 

and he STILL wants to believe in kristoph. and that’s what gets me - we know next to NOTHING about these guys’ history. and yet we see it in everything - klavier and kristoph finishing each other’s thoughts as klavier fights harder than ever against apollo in the cross examination, klavier and kristoph showing superficial levels of affection that sink deeper for klavier but fall apart at the top level for kristoph, the respective distrust and resentment they have for one another, the fact that kristoph tells klavier to CALM DOWN and CALLS HIM USELESS and implies he’s IRRATIONAL over and over and OVER again even trying to THREATEN him into not saying anything - up until the moment that klavier says that it’s time for them to empty their family closet. 

up until the last line said in the court trial for kristoph gavin - in which klavier looks his brother in the eye and says “you are not needed anymore.”

and then it shows post credit scenes in which he’s like hey lol the gavinners are breaking up but i’m excited to go back into court again soon ^_^ LITERALLY HOW YOUR ENTIRE LIFE HAS BEEN RUINED BY THIS MAN . OR I GUESS LIBERATED . I HATE GAY PEOPLE 

anyway I love klavier gavin and we should have gotten more of him in later games but for now i’m going to go uhhh read fanfiction. or no shit i should do homework. read fic AND do homework. yeah :] 

[thesimpsbasement]

Randomly got a spur of motivation to write so I'm writing requests that were sent when they were closed

_______________

Fandom: Ace Attorney

Character: Apollo Justice

Author:Mod Betty

Warnings/tags: kabedon(against a wall),misunderstandings,confession,reader is a prosecutor and friends with Apollo

Reader is gender neutral

Word count: 559 words

___________________

Apollo has found himself quite in the predicament. Lately the prosecution wasn't Klavier or some rando he forgot about the minute he left the courtroom.Oh no it was much worse,it was you.The red clad lawyer is head over heels in love amd everyone else knows….Well everyone except you apparently. Mainly because Apollo has been avoiding you like the plague. He couldn't be anywhere near you without his cheeks flushing red,stuttering or stumbling in his words.He can't look this pathetic in front of you! But of course you didn't know that and you often found yourself questioning his actions.You've been friends for so long so why is he suddenly so distant?Did you accidentally say something wrong? Was he upset after a trial? You didn't know and it has been eating you alive,until one day you couldn't take it anymore.

The trial was tough,not necessarily because the case itself was hard,rather all you could think about was how you'll approach Apollo after this. Apollo also had his own dilemma, he couldn't really focus when you just looked so pretty,he was focused on your face,eyes,nose,lips,what suit you chose to wear in this case,the sound of your voice,everything. Trucy had to snap him out of his lovesick gaze and focus on the case at hand. Eventually things got sorted out and they began leaving the courtroom. While in the lobby Apollo managed to see you from the corner of his eye and told Trucy they should go but before they could rush out of there,you're already in front of him.

"Excuse me, but can I borrow Apollo for a second? It won't take long, just need to have a private chit chat " you say,hoping Trucy would get the memo. And she did as she gave Apollo a smirk before leaving much to his dismay.Great there's no way out of this.

"S-So uh what did you-" Apollo couldn't even finish his question before getting pushed against the wall,you hand right besides his."Don't pull that shit on me Apollo,spit it out,why have you been avoiding me?" You demand,not taking note of how your current position was rather…intimate. Apollo could barely utter a response, his face red as his uniform. "Apollo?" Unable to contain it anymore he blurts out."I'VEBEENAVOIDINGYOUBECAUSEILIKEYOU" in a rather loud voice. Despite how fast he was talking, you understood every word. "Huh? Wait, hold on! You're telling me this whole time you had a crush on me!?" You were flabbergasted, to say the least. "Of course! Everyone knew, so I thought you did too…I mean, how can I not!? Just look at you! You're a well-respected prosecutor, and y-you're just so..so perfect! I mean the way you talk and your stance,not to mention your charm and beaut-" Apollo cut himself off ,realizing he's rambling and should probably stop embarrassing himself when suddenly he heard you giggle "Man, I'm an idiot, here I thought you hated me or something, turns out it's the complete opposite" you laugh,face palming,your own cheeks flush. Apollo stood there and asked "so…do you…reciprocate?" You laugh again,inching closer."What kind of question is that, Mr. Justice? 'Course I do" *you smile before pressing your lips on his.

[ronsenburg]

Since you mentioned you were looking for drabble requests, if you haven't moved on from AA already, could I request something where Apollo or Klavier is struggling against pride/feeling that his problem isn't a big deal/some kind of internal roadblock to seek comfort from the other? Maybe they lost a case they don't think they should have lost, or it's the anniversary of something sad, or they just feel crappy physically or emotionally. Any reason is fine. Thanks for considering my request ^^

vorher:

It’s nearly six pm by the time Franziska finds him, tucked into a chair in the corner of some pretentious and probably ephemeral bar downtown.

It isn’t one of his usual haunts, but the staff seem to know who he is well enough, anyway. Though he is just barely twenty-three and his tab has been approaching the four figure mark for the past hour and a half, no one has bothered to card him or attempt cutting him off yet. Of course, that may have had more to do with the sizable tips slid to whatever staff member is closest in proximity rather than his rather notorious celebrity status, but Klavier’s ego has been rapidly ceasing to care about such things in recent months. What matters to him at this very moment is less the thrill of universal adoration and more the ability to nurse his wounded pride in pseudo-solitude with a vastly overpriced drink.

That solitude is shattered, however, by the arrival of Prosecutor Franziska Von Karma. The sound of her heels clicking firmly against the highly lacquered floors crescendos over whatever smooth jazz cover they’re piping through the hidden speakers as she makes her way directly over to him.

“Are you finished with your tantrum yet?” she asks, removing her dark sunglasses and placing them onto the surface of the bar beside him without any sort of invitation.

It takes a moment for the words to process; Klavier has spent so long playing the role of the ostentatious expat that his alcohol muddled brain can barely grasp the crisp and nearly foreign sounding syllables of her German.

By then, she has already removed her long leather gloves and cape, handing them off to an employee that floats near her elbow like a well trained dog on a leash. When she slides into the chair beside him and signals for the bartender, the scotch she orders for herself is nearly as expensive as Klavier’s own. If he weren’t so chagrined by her sudden interruption, he would likely be impressed.

“Since when is enjoying a drink after work considered a tantrum?” Klavier returns, finally, and also in German. He attempts to fire off one of his charming smiles as he speaks, but the words feel so clumsy and out of practice on his lips that the gesture falls short and sounds far more like the kind of sulk that directly proves the point she has made.

Franziska raises a perfectly arched eyebrow in reaction, though whether it is a response meant specifically for his faltering pronunciations or juvenile tone, Klavier can’t be at all sure. “Since someone recently made a complete fool of himself in a court of law.”

The words strike out like the lash of a whip; Klavier winces despite himself. Franziska is only two years older than him, but when she glances away with an air of disinterested disdain to take a sip from the tumbler placed in front of her, the gap seems far wider.

“You heard?”

“I saw,” she replies, glancing over to him again just long enough to offer a small, disparaging smirk. “It was quite the performance. Do people actually pay you money to see such foolishness on stage?”

The shame he’d been attempting to shove away for the past five hours flares up just below the surface of his thoughts then, hot and bright enough that he suddenly feels sick to his stomach.

“You are just as charming as they say, Fraulein,” Klavier smiles; the sarcasm tastes false and bitter on his tongue.

In truth, he had made a fool of himself.

Klavier has always prided himself on being meticulous in his pursuit of the truth, in perfectly balancing the demands of both his prosecutorial career and his life as a musician. And, most of the time, he’d succeeded so brilliantly that it had blinded him to the subtly advancing and yet still discreet signs that he might have been slipping.

There had been issues with the band’s latest album.

With the ink long since dried on the studio’s contract and their chosen title already heavily marketed, the pressure to produce something of value had been mounting. Every song he’d written since then had seemed increasingly vapid, words that fit a theme but lacked any sort of meaning, chords that sounded deliberately catchy but were devoid of anything new and surprising. They were going through the motions, but those motions were long since stale. There was nothing of the artistic fire that had skyrocketed them to success in their early years and that alone drained any last bit of excitement he might have derived from the process.

It was driving a neat wedge through the center of the band; Daryan called him a diva, so used to having things his own way that he fell to pieces at the idea of ever being told what to do. Take the money, release an album that was shallow but on brand. They could always switch it up next time when time was on their side. You’re the lawyer, he'd mocked, you should know exactly how much of our asses are on the line here.

Their arguments on the subject had become more and more frequent as the days passed, spilling from band practice to crime scenes and, finally, to the kitchen of Klavier’s apartment. This time, it was Daryan who had packed what few belongings he’d scattered throughout Klavier’s various shelves and drawers into an old duffle bag and left, slamming the door shut behind him with finality as he’d gone.

As Klavier’s luck would dictate, Daryan had been the lead detective on this last case. While they were both professional enough not to ignore each other completely during the proceedings, the type of communication necessary for a successful indictment had been… difficult, to say the least.

And so he’d been distracted in his investigation, enough that he’d overlooked a piece of evidence so decisive in the opposition’s favor that when it had been presented, he’d been left gaping in uncharacteristic surprise from his place at the bench.

Yes, he’d been slipping, unable to see the progression of his descent until he had been standing firmly at the bottom of a tall slope.

He was only lucky, he supposed, that this was not a murder trial.

Back at the bar, Klavier rolls his eyes softly, more an aversion of his gaze than a gesture for dramatic display. Franziska doesn’t seem to be paying him enough attention to notice such things, anyway.

“Well, you can consider me scolded. Your work is done.”

“And yet, that’s not why I’m here,” Franziska returns. Ignoring the eyebrow he raises toward her in obvious question, she instead tilts the tumbler back, swallowing the last centimeter of the amber drink. “I would not waste my time and energy searching the city to scold a fool who seems to be doing an admirable job of berating himself. No, despite your recent failures, there are people in this city who seem to care about your well being. It would be a shame if you were to drown in a pool of your own vomit.”

He cannot help his rather obvious flinch at her words, no matter how quickly he endeavors to mask it. “How very touching, ja? I was expecting more anger.”

Franziska pauses in the midst of extracting a matte black card from the small handbag she carries. When her steel grey eyes meet his, Klavier suddenly understands the fear the von Karma name had once inspired in courtrooms across the world.

“Oh, I am angry,” she smiles, wagging her finger in such a way that it is clear she is mocking him. “You allowed a criminal to walk free today. But he is guilty, I am certain of that. And now he will be cocky.”

Klavier is so stunned by her words that he barely registers that she has slid her card across the surface of the wooden bar, let alone has the presence of mind to argue.

“There will be more evidence to find and new charges to file,” she continues, unperturbed by his gaping. “I will assume that next time you will have your priorities in the correct order.”

With that, she stands and turns to the attendant who is still waiting nearby, ready to help her back into the dark, cashmere folds of her cloak. When the complex ritual of donning her long gloves and sunglasses is complete, she turns once again to face him.

“I will be driving you home. You may choose, now, whether you would like to accompany me willingly or if you will require Detective Gumshoe’s escort. You have until I reach the door to decide.”

It feels as though a whirlwind has swept through the room, appearing out of nowhere to disrupt his wallowing completely before disappearing as suddenly as she had come. Klavier is not stupid enough to doubt Franziska’s words, despite the fact that he is twenty-three and more than a bit inebriated. He wavers only slightly as he finds his own feet and follows her out onto the sun soaked sidewalk beyond the bar.

If she is smiling when she looks back towards him, it is the small, private smirk of victory. Klavier finds that he is too preoccupied with the act of placing one foot in front of the other along the uneven slabs of concrete to care. He stumbles gracelessly into the backseat of the car Franziska indicates, through a door held open by a man that Klavier can only assume is the Detective she had mentioned inside.

“Huh,” he comments before closing the door. “Somehow I thought you’d be taller, pal.”

A sharp stab of pain somewhere behind his left temple resonates brightly in response.

This is something he will certainly regret tomorrow.

nachher:

“Okay, spill,” Apollo demands, crossing his arms in a visible display of stubborn obstination that, at any other time, Klavier might find endlessly adorable.

Tonight, however, he has reached a new level of exhaustion, one that leaves him blinking back at Apollo in baffled surprise as he attempts to pivot his thoughts from their previous trajectory in order to make sense of the other’s sudden words. “Spill was?”

As his words indicate, the intended course adjustment doesn’t go very well at all.

“Whatever’s going on with you,” Apollo replies, huffing out a sigh of what sounds nearly like frustration. “You’ve been working late, you don’t eat, you haven’t been sleeping. Something’s up; I think you should tell me what it is.”

Though Apollo’s words and posture are combative, it is all for show. There is an uncertainty in his eyes and concern exposed in the way he bites at the inside of his lip in silence, waiting for Klavier to speak. The fact that Klavier has learned to recognize this expression through repeatedly causing it is a painful enough thing to shoulder; to admit to the reason behind his behavior when it will only bring them both all the more strife, however, would be far worse. Not because he doubts the limits of Apollo’s strength; it is his own resilience that is threatened by the thought of divulging the extent of his insecurities.

Klavier runs a hand through the strands of hair that have escaped the hasty braid he had tied earlier that evening and attempts an apologetic smile. “Ach, Liebling, there is nothing to tell. It is just work.”

“You’re lying.”

It is stated as a fact, nothing more. But while there is nothing accusatory in Apollo’s tone and his face is perfectly even as he says it, Klavier still feels the words as though they are the sting of an attack.

“Ja?” he responds. “And you promised there would be no bracelet inside the house, did you not?”

What he intends is for the words to sound facetious, a nod to the same kind of fond banter they had indulged in long before the intimacy of a romantic relationship. But Klavier is lying; it is not an offense often committed between them and certainly not one he has reveled in or perpetuated out of malice, now. Still, to be seen through so shifted his smile without meaning to. Klavier can feel it teetering on the edge of a sneer that feels both unfamiliar and familiar all at once.

What follows, then, is a long pause.

A lifted arm, a proffered bare wrist, is Apollo’s only response.

That gesture feels more devastating than the aftermath of an actual, physical fight. Klavier can feel the air exit his lungs in a sharp hiss of remorse, his posture on the plush sofa of their study crumbling as he leans forward to place his head into his waiting hands.

“That was uncalled for,” Klavier begins, though his voice is muffled by the skin of his palms pressed firmly against his speaking mouth. “I am sorry, Schatz, I—“

But his words are interrupted by the sudden creak of sofa springs, the cushions on either side of Klavier dipping under the newly applied weight of Apollo’s knees. There is the feeling of Apollo’s warm fingers wrapping around the skin of his wrists, gently pulling his hands away from his face.

“I know you, Klavier,” Apollo says softly; his voice is so uncharacteristically gentle that the words sound less like a statement and more the sweetest declaration of love. Maybe they are. After all, Klavier has been loved before. But being actually, truly known? He glances up into Apollo’s brown eyes, warm with determination and affection. “I don’t need the bracelet to see when you’re upset. If you don’t want to talk about it right now, I understand, but you don’t have to go around pretending everything is okay when it isn’t.”

“Bold words for someone who insists upon always being fine, ja?” Klavier murmurs, another half hearted attempt at humor that falls flat in what little space exists between them. 

Apollo still lifts the edge of his lips in a small, humored smile of concession. “In court, maybe. But not with you. We all need to be vulnerable, sometimes.”

The breath that Klavier exhales wavers under the strain of unspoken emotions, his eyes fluttering closed just as Apollo leans forward to place a featherlight kiss against the center of his forehead, against his cheekbone, against the corner of his downturned mouth. 

“You can trust me, Klavier,” he concludes. “I’ll always be here, whenever you’re ready, okay?” 

Klavier finds he does not have the words to respond, then, even as the sound of fabric rustling against fabric fills the air and the hands holding Klavier’s wrists retreat. Their absence is felt immediately in the lack of warmth as Apollo slides back off the couch and onto his feet. 

“Apollo?”

Apollo’s footsteps stall halfway through the door.

Klavier still finds he needs to clear his throat before he can continue to speak, swallowing back the sentiments that have collected there that he is otherwise unable to express. “Could you stay? Bitte. Just for a moment.”

This is a weakness Klavier should not afford himself. It is selfish to ask Apollo to comfort him when Klavier cannot even bring himself to explain precisely why he requires it. But Apollo’s eyes are soft when they find Klavier’s gaze once again, inexplicably fully of acceptance and, beyond that, what Klavier knows is love.

“Yeah,” he nods, “of course.”

Apollo stays far longer than a moment, his fingers combing through the strands of Klavier’s loose hair under the fading light that filters in though the slightly open window. They don’t speak, but the steady rhythm of Apollo’s breath in the otherwise silent room, the gentle pressure of his fingers, is enough to distract him from the tumultuous cascade of his own thoughts.

[synnefo-nefeli]

Working on a WIP scene for Heard Your Heart Beating, my Klapollo friends to lovers post AA5, slow-burn fic

___

//Come fix your prosecutor// read Athena’s text. Apollo groaned wondering what Klavier could have done in the hour Klavier had spent at the WAA.

He adjusted his tie in the mirror of his locker, checked to make sure that he no longer looked sweaty from his ride over from court, and shoved his cycling outfit into his locker along with his helmet.

He could hear laughing on the other side of the office’s front door so that was a good sign, he hoped, as he swiped his keycard through the lock.

“Herr Forehead has finally arrived from his battle with the courts!” Klavier beamed at him with the smile that Apollo was now coming to call “on-stage-mode”. Klavier was sitting on the sofa next to Athena, coffee cups and tea biscuits between them on the table.

He could hear Mr. Wright bustling in the office kitchenette.

“I am back,” Apollo announced, “...and I survived Blackquill-“

“Oh, is that the reason you biked back? Simon didn’t offer to give you a lift?” Athena laughed, “how mean. He needs to learn to leave it in the courtroom.”

Apollo rolled his eyes, “Probably, but I am sure it has more to do with him needing to go down to the precinct and yell at the poor detective who sent him into court with an outdated autopsy report...also, what would I have done with my bike? I don’t want to ruin the guy’s new car by stashing it in the back seat.”

Mr. Wright arrived from the kitchen, fresh pot of coffee in hand, “Wow. A defense attorney having an updated report instead of the prosecution? Never thought I’d see the day...”

Apollo flopped on the couch opposite Athena and Klavier, “Hey. Miracles do happen...and considering all of our court win-streak, we shouldn’t be too surprised that they exist.”

“Here. Here.” Klavier said amiably into his coffee looking as if he was about to attempt to change the subject. Oh, Klavier wasn’t getting away from whatever occurred before Apollo arrived so easily,

“So... what’s this about me needing to fix ‘my prosecutor’?”

Klavier made an amused expression, “Ah, is that what I am called? Well I am honored to be Herr Justice’s”

Athena rolled her eyes, “Oh stop with the charm-“ she looked at Apollo, “he doesn’t want you to know that he’s never been to the Tragic Kingdom”

Apollo stared at Klavier, “Seriously?” which earned Klavier a playful elbow to the ribs from Athena, “Told you he would react like that”

Klavier sighed, “Is it really that big of a deal? Not going to a children’s amuse-“

“HOLD IT!” Apollo didn’t care that everyone about him flinched (“Indoor voice, Polly, jeeze”, Mr. Wright muttered”), “Disneyland is for everyone,” Apollo breathed, “you seriously haven’t gone? Ever? I mean...it’s only in Anaheim. That’s less than an hour without traffic from here-“

Mr. Wright handed Apollo a cup of coffee, “It’s been a while since ‘Mr. Disney Adult’’s shown his face at the office.”

“You say that as if you don’t have an annual pass too, Mr. Wright.”

Klavier appeared lost in the conversation; it was refreshing to see Mr. Tall, Blonde and Unflappable looking out of his depth, “Is it really a big deal that I haven’t?”

“Mm...not so much,” Mr. Wright said before Apollo could object, “well it wouldn’t be a big deal if you were hanging out with someone else, but I mean considering that you two have been spending a lot of time outside of court together, I think it’s more shocking that Apollo *hasn’t* dragged you down there already.

“You act like I go there all the time-“

“Says the person who has scheduled himself to come in late on days where there are morning annual passholder events,” Athena mused, “or how about the time you, Clay and Trucy, just decided to go to Disneyland after work because you wanted corndogs for dinner”

Across from him Klavier made a face, as if silently saying “Corndogs for dinner? Really? What are you, five?”.

Apollo met ‘his prosecutor’s’ eyes, “Those corndogs are legendary, and the only ones I’ll eat,” he rebutted, not caring that Klavier hadn’t actually said anything.

“He has a point there,” agreed Mr. Wright, “so I guess the big question is- how long before Klavier gets pulled into driving Apollo down to Anaheim?”

Klavier looked around the room at all of the other attorneys as if expecting for someone to tell him suddenly that this was all an act. Apollo meanwhile was mentally running through his calendar to figure out when he would have time to properly take Klavier to the park. There was so much to do at work-not to mention, he would have to prep Klavier for his first park visit.

“Do you like amusement parks?” Apollo asked Klavier.

The blonde man simply shrugged, “I’ve only been to a few in my life. Mein family wasn’t really into things like theme parks; didn’t see the value in them as entertainment. And when I moved here, I just didn’t go-“

“Not even grad-night?” Athena asked, “Junie told me that’s what the student council is setting up for the seniors. It’s tradition. Heck, every high school in Southern California does a school trip there at least once.”

Klavier shrugged, “I graduated early, remember? I guess I could have gone to the ceremony with the class that was graduating that year, but I wanted to get mein badge so I went home as soon as I could to pass the bar in Germany.”

“There’s one in France!”

Klavier sighed, “If I asked to do anything outside of museums and cultural experiences while we were in France, I would have been left in Germany.”

“Anyway,” Athena said, “If you’re going to hang with Polly, you’re going to have to go to the parks eventually-“

Apollo felt his cheeks heat, “I mean if that’s not what you like to do for fun, you don’t have to-“

“Oh please,” Mr. Wright interrupted, “I can confidently bet that you’ve been sitting here this entire time planning a trip for him.”

Apollo crossed his arms and sat back in defeat as Athena continued to regale Klavier with anecdotes of the WAA’s trips to the parks as well as Apollo’s impromptu visits,

“Has he shown you his pin collection yet?” Athena said in a tone that was too close to the tone she liked to use whenever she teased Apollo about his and Klavier relationship not being as platonic as Apollo made them seem.

//As if she doesn’t know the actual truth// Apollo grumbled, “Okay enough. Klavier already knows I am a nerd- he doesn’t need any more evidence about it”

“Ach you’re always cool, Herr Forehead,” Klavier smiled again in “on-stage mode”, which made Apollo decide that he needed to show Klavier what he was missing.

“When’s your birthday?” Apollo blurted.

Athena groaned, “Oh my god, Apollo, haven’t you heard of Wikipedia?”

“I like that Herr Forehead doesn’t feel the need to research me, it makes a rock god like me feel practically human,” Klavier teased and then with an amiable grin, “May 23rd.

However-I told you that on Valentine’s Day, don’t you remember?” He said a little too suggestively for Apollo’s comfort,

“I’m hurt that you don’t remember… and here I thought things that were shared during sleepovers were sacred,” he added a pout for good measure.

Out of the corner of his eye, Apollo saw Athena not-so-subtly pull out of her phone to text something, most certainly to Trucy.

Great, he was not going to know peace from either of them for the foreseeable future.

Although, Apollo appreciated that Athena had the grace to attempt to hide her grin.

Whether or not Klavier was aware of what was happening next to him, Klavier only sipped at his coffee.

“So in three weeks. Great, guess what we’re doing to celebrate your 26th birthday,” Apollo announced.

“It’s on a workday.”

“Take off.”

“Don’t you have to work?” Klavier asked

Apollo turned to Mr. Wright, “Mr. Wright, may I have the 23rd off?”

“Of course. Just put it on the calendar.”

Apollo, having won the debate, smiled smugly at Klavier, “Get ready, we have a lot to do before then.”

Klavier looked genuinely confused, “Like what?!”

He was about to ask what Klavier’s favorite Disney movie was, but then Athena’s phone buzzed, “Simon’s here- he needs help bringing up the food...and Trucy says she wants to also go to Disneyland for Klavier’s birthday, I think that’s a good idea; what do you think, boss?,”

Before Apollo could say anything about Athena or Trucy inviting themselves, Mr. Wright smiled and said,

“You know what- unless something pressing comes up and Trucy doesn’t have any projects or tests at school, I think the agency needs a mental health day. Maybe Miles and Prosecutor Blackquill need one too,” he remarked walking towards his office in order to most likely call his fiancé.

Finally alone- sort of. At least until Athena and Prosecutor Blackquill came upstairs with the food. But still, alone enough to enjoy Klavier silently trying to figure out what the hell just happened...or Apollo would have enjoyed Klavier’s genuinely flummoxed expression, except that he remembered how Klavier, despite his celebrity status, didn’t like to draw attention too himself unless it was in court or on stage- and especially not in public.

It was the reason Klavier hadn’t shown up to Clay’s funeral after all. He looked at Klavier feeling guilty for putting his friend on the spot,

“Sorry, if you don’t want to- we don’t have to-“

“Nein, nein,” Klavier said with his genuine smile, “you all are so passionate about it, now I have to experience it”

“Are you sure? I didn’t even ask if that’s how you wanted to spend your birthday-I just kinda got caught up in it.”

Klavier shrugged, “Honestly, considering that I usually spent the last few dragged to stuffy VIP lounges of clubs I wasn’t interested in, with people who, as it turned out, cared less about me- I think this may be a gut change of pace.”

Well that made him feel better...and a bit sad for Klavier, “I’ll make sure you have a good time and we won’t be overwhelmed. A lot of celebrities go to Disneyland, and they don’t get mobbed- people are pretty respectful of celebrities having their time in the parks.”

“You sound as if you are familiar.”

“Clay...worked there for a summer, celebrities would come all the time as park guests. And aside from maybe helping a celebrity escape a crowd, they don’t give anyone special treatment unless they’ve paid for a guided tour-“

“Oh- are we not doing that, Herr Forehead?”

Apollo snorted,“Hell no, you’re going to stand in line for Space Mountain like the rest of us plebes.” Also I’m not about to suggest we spend $800 an hour for a theme park tour...

Klavier’s laugh was enough to make Apollo feel better and better about commandeering Klavier’s birthday. He was going to look forward to these next few weeks in getting Klavier ready for his first time at the park. The thought of movie nights made Apollo feel a bit warm inside. Warm in a way that he hadn’t felt since Klavier had comforted him during his own birthday.

The office door opened, Athena holding it open so that Simon could come through with the large box that contained their takeout dinners. Apollo braced himself for any barbed words from Athena’s prosecutor; considering how the day’s court proceedings had gone, Apollo expected some amount of sour grapes. Instead Simon ignore Apollo and incredulously regarded his co-worker with,

“You’ve seriously never been to Disneyland, Gavin-dono?”

***

[ayame-fey]

i think emapollo is the cutest thing so here are some headcanons

1. apollo always thought it was kinda funny how annoyed ema got when klavier flirted with her, but as they grew closer, the more he understood that she honestly disliked it a lot. he didn't talk to klavier about it, but he would keep an eye out in case ema got too uncomfortable.

2. they were able to bond over growing up without your typical family dynamic, ema losing her parents when she was a child, and apollo- well, you know.

3. they had been friends for the longest time, and nobody expected anything else to blossom from that friendship - but one day, upon seeing klavier get a bit too close to ema, apollo felt his heart beat faster than normal. he couldn't quite make out why he reacted that way, but he couldn't stop staring at the two of them, wanting ema to turn around and walk away from klavier.

4. the next few weeks, apollo acted a bit strange around both her and klavier. trucy and athena noticed this and wondered if something had happened, but he truly didn't understand it himself. 

5. anyway, athena talked to ema about apollo, asking if she knew anything about his odd behaviour. ema hadn't noticed anything, she said, but their conversation got her thinking and she began paying attention to him more closely as a result.

6. not being afraid of confrontation, she surprised him one afternoon at the office by asking why he'd been so distant lately. flustered and scared ema had started to catch on, he was unable to give her a convincing answer, just rambling about work being stressful these days. ema didn't buy it, of course, but she could tell it was something personal and so didn't press any further.

7. it wasn't that apollo didn't want to tell ema about his feelings, but he was scared of everything it implicated. he had never had a girlfriend before and he wasn't used to being so nervous around someone he was close to. everything was just new to him - he wasn't sure what it all meant or how it would play out. he didn't want to make her uncomfortable or ruin their friendship, but he didn't know how to act normal around her either. apollo figured it was better to avoid her for a while, but then she'd get the wrong impression too ! he spent many a night, face down in his pillow, frustrated and in love and unable to think.

8. in the meantime, everyone at the office was starting to really worry about apollo. he hadn't opened up to any of them about what was going on, and they had no clue as to what it could be. ema decided to take matters in her own hands - she was tired of him being sullen and so boring - and paid apollo an unannounced visit. when he opened his door and saw who has standing there, he panicked and closed the door right in her face, instantly regretting it and reopening it with the most forced smile plastered on his face. she raised his eyebrows at him and walked into his apartment. she started talking to him as usual, not wanting to turn this into an intervention or anything, but apollo was just acting so strange, barely saying anything at all.

9. ema was thoroughly puzzled, but continued talking as if nothing was off. she mentioned klavier had teased her again today at work, and apollo immediately froze. ema laughed at her own anecdote, saying she didn't understand why klavier had been so flirty lately, insisting she didn't even look cute today ! apollo's head was turned slightly down, looking at his own feet, and told her under his breath that he thought she looked really pretty today. right there and then, it was as if something clicked for ema, who now wore a deep-red flushed colour on her cheeks. she fumbled with her bag and announced she had somewhere to be and took off. apollo stood alone in his living room, didn't even look back at ema as she exited, and told himself that he was the most stupid person in the whole world.

10. as soon as ema had left the apartment, she grabbed her phone and started calling athena, but cancelled the call before she could even pick up. she stopped in her tracks and she walked back to his apartment, knocked and told him to please open up. and so he did. he opened his mouth when he saw she had tears in her eyes, and immediately started apologizing for burdening her, promised he would never call her cute or anything again- but she stopped him, held his hands and smiled faintly. he was really scared now, not grasping what was happening, why she was crying like this. she laughed through her small sobs, saying she had been wanting him to call her cute for the longest time, dummy. she hugged him. it took a few seconds for him to do the same, but he smiled like an idiot with his head reaching down to her neck as he let her cry on his chest.

11. they didn't announce that they had started dating, but everyone was surprised (to say the least) when the pair walked into the office holding hands a few days later. athena teased apollo relentlessly, saying he had finally found someone who could tolerate being with him, but she soon started to cry instead. she saw how well they fit together and she couldn't be happier knowing her friends had found each other like that. phoenix felt like a proud dad - he cared about them both so much - and trucy was overjoyed.

12. their relationship is a best friend kind of relationship. since their feelings grew slowly over time, they already knew so much and cared about each other. the only difference now is that they don't only love one another, they're in love too.

13. they really look like they belong together. they're about the same height, are both brunettes, and always look like they would never want to be with anyone else. they spend a lot of time together, want to do everything together, but they also understand the importance of alone time, doing things without the other person. although they're quite different in terms of personality, they understand each other so well and has respect for their differences. they love that about themselves, wouldn't want it any other way. 

14. neither of them are experts at expressing how they feel, and displaying affection doesn't come all that easy to them. when they first said 'i love you' it was a cute but awkward mess. they were hanging out, laughing together, when apollo blurted out those three words without giving it any thought. ema looked at him with wide eyes as he put his hands over his mouth and mumbled something about how he hoped she wasn't upset that he had said it so carelessly. she looked down on her hands and said that she felt the same. naturally, she couldn't handle the situation and started stuffing both her and his face with food.

15. now, they're both young, and so they haven't really thought about the future too much, but suffice to say that when they're in bed together, looking at each other, they both know that this is the person they want to spend the rest of their life together with. and that's all they really need to know for now.

[swansstuff]

So uh, I've been thinking about a hypothetical Trucy Wright: Act Attorney and here is the very poorly written outline for it because yeah. No spoilers except the Apollo Trucy thing. Tw death, murder, blood and grieving so yeah.

Trucy's first case is literally her first ever case. This is a flashback case. We follow her as she wakes up, slightly stressed about today, Phoenix gives her cereal and a pep talk and a cryptic message. Trucy asks where Papa is, it is Miles, they are married. Phoenix is cryptic about that too. He stays behind as he "has to buy groceries" so Trucy heads into the office. Apollo greets her, it's clear they know they're siblings, and he hands her a case. Miles is prosecuting. She is fucking terrified. She goes to the crime scene, Gumshoe is the detective and he's educating his teenage sons, constant confusion of who's who, because they are twins and they look very like Gumshoe, it'll be kinda funny. Its a simple investigation. During the investigation, the player can check Trucy's profile and the profile system shows character's middle names now. We get some gems such as Klavier Hyacintha Gavin later on, the reasoning behind this is coz Trucy is nosy. The important one here is Trucy Mia Wright. She says something about how she chose her own middle name when Phoenix adopted her and she chose Mia after learning about her. Yada yada. Trucy wins the case. Edgeworth is very proud, Phoenix is in the gallery and there's a flash of him crying proud tears, Apollo hugs her afterwards, Athena congrats her.

Next case, flash forward three years later, we do not see Phoenix and nobody really mentions him. Thats because he's fucking dead but we don't know that yet. This case is a Fey case, we meet Maya who is married to Franziska and they're technically on honeymoon in Kurain and Pearl becomes the Maya to Trucy's Phoenix. Its another fey murder case. There are a few mentions of Trucy's admiration of Mia, mainly just a mirror of a few lines she's said and a conversation where her and Maya talk about her, Trucy says she would have loved to meet her and Maya explains how her spirit has been dormant for ages now and how she assumes she's moved on.

"If you want I can try and channel-"

"No no no no NO. Its ok!"

This is our first hint that Phoenix is no longer with us, but we don't know until later thats what she means. Sebastian is the prosecutor, the player finds out that Miles is taking a break from prosecuting work, Trucy already knew of course, and Sebastian is dubbed Chief until he comes back, Fran says

"It would've been me were I not on my literal honeymoon right now." We are not told why yet, but it is because of Phoenix. Kay Faraday is the detective, somebody murders someone and frames Maya, no-one is shocked by this. We also get an update on Iris, she's thriving. She wins yada yada.

Next case, a couple of months later, Trucy gets a call from a friend that the player can't identify at first. Its Katrielle Layton. She needs Trucy's legal knowledge because someone is sueing her detective agency because have you seen how they practice. This, of course, turns to murder and we get another surprise when we meet the prosecutor. Who probably has a licence to practise law in England? Simon Blackquill, he is British ok. Yeah, Trucy wins with Kat's help, we meet Ernest and Sherl and Alfendi and Flora if we have time. I miss them. Trucy and Kat have a conversation that cryptically addresses their fathers and their "whereabouts" and living up to their legacy. We see Trucy cry, but only a similar flash to AJ:AA and we do not know why. Yet.

Next case, flashback case. Trucy is the assistant on this case but we still play as her, even in the court sections since Phoenix is prepping her for the bar and getting her to give him the answers. The bar exam is only in three days. Klavier is prosecuting. The case somehow relates to Kristoph and there's the whole mirror dynamic thing of when Phoenix lost his badge. Kristoph is dead by now, but the whole thing is there was a plot inside prison to make Phoenix pay for putting a bunch of them in, Kristoph was the assumed ring leader until he died and the cops now dont know who's running it. Somebody (Godot? That would hurt big time) was their inside man, sent to figure that out, so when whoever it was turned up dead, the whole thing got exposed. We get a bit of a Mia moment in the trial where Trucy tells Phoenix to flip over the receipt (thats evidence for some reason). Phoenix says "I feel like that shouldn't be the second time someone has said that to me". The killer is found, by Phoenix, and put into isolation, as have most of the other participants. We then see Trucy get her badge. They have a conversation and Trucy says Phoenix basically forgot about it for a couple of months. The case closes with a foreboding "and I forgot about it too, until..."

Next case. Phoenix is fucking murdered. Trucy gets a phone call late at night, she hears laboured breathing on the other end and a "don't forget I love you" from Phoenix. Trucy pulls a simba and goes "dad? Dad?!!" And the line goes dead. The player is presented with a choice of who to call. They have two phone calls. Who they choose first makes no difference, but the second time they are forced to choose Ema who will trace Phoenix's phone call. They could call Apollo and he would comfort her, Miles would panic, Maya would say he was just messing around, Athena would sense her distress and say she's coming over etc. You could attempt to call Phoenix back but he would not answer and you would be allowed to call someone else. Ema then traces the phone call and we follow Trucy to the crime scene. We get a truly haunting cutscene where everything kinda goes blurry except Phoenix's face and the blood. Trucy doesn't cry. She stands there in shock. The WAA is there in various states of shock and upset. Return of grieving Apollo I guess. Miles turns up and the look on his face is haunting. Trucy and him make eye contact and they share the thought of something has to be done. And then. "The bar association took me off the case and Papa too, they said we were too close to it. As a result, we never found out who did it... Until now." And we see a determined Trucy face. We jump forward to where we last saw Trucy, she and Pearl are coming back from England and its a bit more cheery. Trucy sends Pearl on a train back to Kurain and heads on home. She enters the house and we see Miles pouring over Phoenix's case. He jumps up and runs towards her.

"Trucy! I think I have a lead, I-"

"Papa, you're tired, go to bed." (Or better dialogue along those lines)

Its clear he's been doing this sort of thing a lot.

"But I do! At least...I think I do..."

He trails off and rests his head in his hands.

"Do I? Or am I just a mess?"

Trucy gives him a sad smile.

"C'mon let's go to bed."

Miles returns the sad smile and fades out like all ace attorney characters do. The player is given the option to look around. There's probably some emotional dialogue and bits that give clues to how she and Miles have been fairing the past 3 years. Answer is, not very well. Examine the pile of papers on the table. Trucy will take a look and then realise her papa may have actually been onto something. Its a diagram of which prisoners knew each other, with an arrow from each leading to a defense attorney we have never met. Trucy is confused, but she calls for Miles anyway. He comes back downstairs and Trucy asks him about this lead he found.

"Well I realised all those prisoners would know this defense attorney (insert name?)"

"Why? And why would they be suspicious?'

"They (pronouns?) Were always the defense attorney who would take on the cases of those Wright had already accused. They gained a reputation of being the doomed defense attorney."

"So... They knew all the prisoners in the plot and they had a grudge against daddy... Papa I think you're onto something!"

And the case continues, since we already know who's been accused, it plays out more like an investigations game, Trucy has to prove it, with Miles' help of course, literally every other character we know and love plays a part in making sure this guy gets a guilty verdict. There is still a courtroom bit and a moment when all is looking dark, Trucy literally has a full on breakdown as the Judge threatens to remove her from the case again. Miles is by her side, they're both technically prosecution here i guess. Miles, however, is too deep in his own mental breakdown to help. Everyone else is in the gallery besides Pearl. Pearl channels Phoenix as a last hope sort of thing. Phoenix comforts her and tells her to keep fighting, he touches her badge and probably says some sort of bullshit about it. The Judge is about to bang the gavel when Trucy and Phoenix object at the same time. Miles looks up and realises whats going on and he objects too, a little later. The battle goes on until it finishes and the other attorney has a breakdown that steals little bits from every other murderer Phoenix has put behind bars.This is the one time seeing the word guilty on your screen feels good. There's a whole heartwarming celebration at the end, Phoenix sticks around for a little bit and everyone gets a bit of closure. Its assumed he's gone since Pearl passes out and Trucy dips out for a sec. She's away from the festivities, staring at the badge in her hand and we see someone coming up behind her. Maya is channelling Phoenix now. He gives Trucy a hug and utters the words "the only time a lawyer can cry is when its all over and, Trucy darling, my light, its over." Echoing both Diego and Mia.

And the screen fades to black with a final hug between father and daughter.

:)

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG181!

- Little nice touch: the fact that time was passing normally inside of the house… immediately felt through the sound of the clock in the background, marking the passage of time:

(MAG180) SALESA: [SAD SIGH] [SILENCE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] ANNABELLE: I did say this might happen. SALESA: You did, you diiid. Well… so much for my big reveal… Shame.

(MAG181) [CLICK–] [CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] [CLASSICAL MUSIC IS PLAYING; LOUIS SPOHR’S “SECHS DEUTSCHE LIEDER FÜR EINE SINGSTIMME, KLARINETTE UND KLAVIER, OP. 103: N°2 ZWIEGESANG”] [SOUNDS OF CROCKERY AND LIQUID BEING POURED] SALESA: Hmmm.

(I still have the reflex of associating the sound of a ticking clock with Elias’s office, so I was expecting Big Talk from the get-go! Aaah, I wonder if we’ll “hear” Elias’s office again, before the end…)

As they discussed, time was quantifiable again, existing outside of Jon&Martin (even when they were sleeping), not solely as events succeeding to each other. … On the other hand: it’s concerning that the tape’s case number was still “########-21”: time passes and is quantifiable on a day-to-day basis, Martin was able to conclude that it was daytime thanks to the light, but there was still no date inside of the house. It’s a “little bubble” of normalcy and time, but still existing in the middle of a chaos.

- In the same vein as last episode it was also neat how we could already understand that this space was operating differently, since Jon&Martin needed to physically take care of themselves again:

(MAG180) SALESA: Ah, well. We can talk after they’ve slept, I suppose. Urgh! And had a bath. And some food. No rush. [SOUNDS OF CROCKERY MOVING] We have all the time in the world.

(MAG181) [CLICK–] [CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] […] SALESA: Come in! Did you sleep well? Have you had something to eat? Annabelle said she’d shown you the pantry? [SALESA CEASES THE MUSIC] ARCHIVIST: [UNCOMFORTABLE] I, er… We… slept. I, I don’t know… H–how long’s it been? SALESA: About seventy-one hours by my clock. […] Come on, sit down, have a drink. [CLINKING SOUNDS OF GLASS AND ICE] MARTIN: You’re… sure? What time is it? I– Oh, huh. Huh! I can actually ask that question here! SALESA: You can indeed. MARTIN: And the sun’s high, so… SALESA: Good eye…! Martin, was it? MARTIN: Uh, uh… Yes. SALESA: Well Martin. It’s about ten in the morning, more or less. […] You’re sure you won’t have a drink? We definitely had some tea around here somewhere. MARTIN: Uh, I… already had some, thank you, uh! Some of us know how to be polite guests. ARCHIVIST: [SHARPLY] I don’t intend to accept anything offered by Annabelle Cane.

They slept, drank and ate! (But did they bathe. We don’t know if they did bathe. Though, Salesa would have probably commented on it again, if they didn’t.)

And on the one hand, I’m laughing really hard that they needed to sleep for three whole days to compensate for time spent in the apocalypse (that’s a long nap.), on the other hand… that’s weirdly optimistic for the rest of humanity trapped out there: I was fearing that if Jon&Martin managed to turn the world back, everyone would just collapse and die on the spot from exhaustion/hunger/thirst but, no, it seems like they could recover in this case?

- More on the differences between Jon and Martin later, but I like how it was quickly clear that Jon was less in control than his usual, and very aware of it: Jon was “disorientated”, his sentences were more hesitant, while Martin was quick to notice things, bouncing off from Salesa’s or Jon’s sentences, able to make small jokes. I loved and got sad over the Beholding one, since:

(MAG181) SALESA: How’re you feeling? MARTIN: [BLOWING AIR] ARCHIVIST: Disorientated. It’s like, hum… li–like I’ve lost my sight o–or, uh… SALESA: Well, you have, haven’t you? [HE CHUCKLES. IT ISN’T THE FRIENDLIEST SOUND] Annabelle tells me you work for “The Eye”. [PAUSE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] ARCHIVIST: … Well, I–I wouldn’t exactly say I, I “work” for it… MARTIN: Uh… Well, I–I mean, you say that, but when you stop to think about it, it was literally our employer, Jon, so… Mmh! ARCHIVIST: I, I suppose.

They were actually talking about two different levels, each correct in his own way? Back in season 4, Martin had already pointed out to Jon that working in the Archives meant working for Beholding (MAG129: “I just– I worry. You’re working for someone… really bad!” “Yes, I’m not an idiot, Jon, but it’s no… worse than working for something really bad, so…” “At least, The Eye hasn’t gone after our own. Lukas has vanished two people!”); but on the other hand, Jon… has tried to distance himself from The Eye and what he wanted (by stopping to take live statements, by refusing to indulge in any contentment induced by the apocalypse, by deciding to stop the smiting spree): “working for” is both true (as a neutral stance, since they were tricked into working for Beholding through the Archival contract) and wrong (“working for” also implies some level of active participation?). It reminds me of Melanie’s stance about it (MAG150: “I didn’t say I was going to quit. I said: I’m not going to do my job. No researching; no filing; no… field trips. Nothing that is going to help the Institute in any way. […] Because this place is evil, Jon! And so… doing this job… Helping it out… even in small ways, i–is in some way… evil too! Every time we try to use it to do good, it just seems to make everything worse, and… and I will not be a part of that anymore. […] If I’m… just another cog, er… Maybe I can’t leave the machine, but from this moment? I–I–I’m not turning. I’m… jammed.”), and makes me wonder whether Martin and Basira’s ties to Beholding have been more or less protecting them in the apocalypse… Basira said that she thought she had been protected from the first wave because she was in the Institute, and Jon told her he couldn’t ensure her safety if they went their separate ways, and it didn’t prevent Daisy (who had been bound to the Archives by her own archival contract since season 4) from losing herself to The Hunt, but I still wonder if their ties to the Institute will factor in at some point…

- Blowing kisses in Martin’s direction for being a Polite Boy… and also absolutely doing with Salesa what he did with Peter and Simon – he KNOWS how to play older and potentially terrible men like cheap whistles and/or to get information out of them, and how to get them to like him!

(MAG120) MARTIN: W… what… What are you doing here, mister Lukas? PETER: Please, call me Peter. MARTIN: N–no. No, I think I’m okay.

(MAG151) SIMON: Let’s start over. Simon – Simon Fairchild. Peter asked me to look in on you and… have a small chat. Well! A big chat, really. Answer all those… nagging questions. MARTIN: Simon Fairchild. [PAUSE] [NERVOUS CHUCKLE] Wait, “Simon Fairchild” as in… SIMON: As in “all those people who said I did horrible things to them and their loved ones”? Yes. They have been in, haven’t they? I’d hate to think I’m underrepresented in here, not when Peter tells me that that… “bone” fellow has at least half a dozen. MARTIN: N–no, no, [NERVOUS CHUCKLE], not… not at all. Y–you’ve sent plenty of people our way. […] Right. SIMON: Sorry. Too “big” picture? I get that a lot. MARTIN: No, it’s… [INHALE] Thank you. This has… actually been quite helpful.

(MAG181) MARTIN: Uh… Mr.… Salesa? SALESA: Mikaele, please. Come in!

(MAG126) PETER: He managed to convince himself that he could get his ritual off first, which would have made all of this a… bit moot, but that’s not really an option anymore. So it’s down to us. You and me. The dynamic duo.

(MAG151) SIMON: And he’s not at all certain the world as we understand will come out the other side. MARTIN: And let me guess – you think he can’t see the “big picture”? SIMON: [INHALE] I see why he likes you! MARTIN: [SIGH] […] I thought you said that the maths doesn’t work. SIMON: Oh, you are a quick one! […] And this has been fun! [INHALE] Now. [CHAIR SCRAPES ON THE FLOOR] If we’re about done– MARTIN: We’re not. Sit back down. SIMON: Boooold~ [CHUCKLE] [CHAIR SCRAPES ON THE FLOOR] I like it.

(MAG181) MARTIN: Uh… Well, I–I mean, you say that, but when you stop to think about it, it was literally our employer, Jon, so… Mmh! ARCHIVIST: I, I suppose. SALESA: [FRIENDLY CHUCKLES] I like this one! [SHUFFLING] Come on, sit down, have a drink. [CLINKING SOUNDS OF GLASS AND ICE] MARTIN: You’re… sure? What time is it? I– Oh, huh. Huh! I can actually ask that question here! SALESA: You can indeed. MARTIN: And the sun’s high, so… SALESA: Good eye…! Martin, was it? MARTIN: Uh, uh… Yes. […] [SCOFF] In my experience, open books can actually be pretty dangerous…! SALESA: Ha! I do like this one! […] MARTIN: [LAUGHS] So–sorry, sorry! Y–you did look kind of funny, it was… li–like, like you were flunking an exam or something! SALESA: [CHUCKLES] Yes! Exactly that! […] MARTIN: Look, fo–for what it’s worth, I’d, I’d also quite like to know how this all happened? SALESA: … Fine. I’ll tell you how it happened. But you must sit quietly while I tell it.

I love Martin’s ability to get what he wants by weaponising his politeness/social niceties/a sense of familiarity.

- How Dare You, Salesa.

(MAG181) MARTIN: [SCOFF] In my experience, open books can actually be pretty dangerous…! SALESA: Ha! I do like this one! [SOUNDS OF CROCKERY BEING PUT DOWN] Now you mention it, you actually remind me of Jurgen a bit. In his– MARTIN: Ah, uh… SALESA: –younger days of course.

That was SO RUDE (who, in their right mind, would like to be compared to Leitner), and:

* Martin’s comment was quite interesting given that he never got directly involved with a Leitner, unless there is a Secret Story incoming from the time he worked at the Institute library, before the start of the show? But statements-wise (the ones Martin recorded, at least), the “DIG” book from MAG088 hadn’t been identified as such… and Martin had however speculated that Dexter Banks’s book, destroyed by Alexia in MAG110, was “a Leitner”. And it was a Web one.

* Not a direct experience, but he witnessed someone use one:

(MAG158) MARTIN: … That’s a Leitner. PETER: It is! MARTIN: And the, hum… the blood on it? PETER: That’s Leitner too! MARTIN: … Riiight… PETER: Do you want to see how it works? MARTIN: Uh, n–no; no, I’d really rather you didn’t mess it up– PETER: No, I insist! Watch. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Very impressive. PETER: I’m reading. Shush.

… And had been the one to discover the body of Leitner himself, alongside Tim, at the end of MAG080. Martin, especially Martin, wouldn’t want to be compared to Leitner given how he lived his life and how he ended.

* “In my experience, open books can actually be pretty dangerous” says Martin, who WANTED TO TOUCH THE BOOKS:

(MAG113) MARTIN: Ooh! Ooh! There’s a book in this one. ARCHIVIST: [HASTILY] Don’t…. touch it! MARTIN: Ooh… OH! Right. Yes. ARCHIVIST: Let’s… not touch any books we don’t know. MARTIN: Right.

(The books, and the plastic explosive. Arsooooon!)

- … So, Martin hadn’t had a direct first-hand experience of how dangerous ~open books~ could be, but meanwhile, someone who had a direct encounter with a Web one withdrew from the exchange and only chirped in when prompted, and to be distrusting of the Spider person. Jon wasn’t having a perfectly excellent time at the moment, uh?

(MAG181) SALESA: You’re sure you won’t have a drink? We definitely had some tea around here somewhere. MARTIN: Uh, I… already had some, thank you, uh! Some of us know how to be polite guests. ARCHIVIST: [SHARPLY] I don’t intend to accept anything offered by Annabelle Cane. MARTIN: [SIGH] SALESA: Oh, you know Annabelle? [SILENCE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] ARCHIVIST: … Sort of. You do know she’s part of The Web? SALESA: [SARCASTICALLY] No? I assumed the thread holding her head together was due to a childhood knitting accident! [CHUCKLES] MARTIN: Ha!

* … I’m REALLY, REALLY, ABSOLUTELY NOT SURPRISED that Jon, especially Jon, would want to avoid any “gift” from a Spider-person, given how 1°) he read enough statements about Hill Top Road to know that Raymond Fielding was making the teenagers eat apples full of spiders to turn them into eggs sacks (don’t accept the Spider’s food!), 2°) it mirrors guests bringing gifts to Mr Spider in the hope of not getting devoured. Was Jon internally panicking during their stay, fearing that Annabelle would take Martin like Mr Spiders had taken the gifts and the people bringing them, including Mr Horse’s son…? (I doubt that Martin made that “guests” comment on purpose; I’m still not sure he knows the details of Jon’s childhood encounter with The Web? He knows that Jon hates spiders and is wary of them, that he has suspicions about Annabelle Cane, but did Jon tell him the whole story about the book?)

* … However, that brings to mind the lighter again: Jon “I don’t intend to accept anything by [Web-related individual]” has kept the Web-design lighter since he realised it had been delivered to him in MAG036, had been unable to question it when prompted by Gerry (MAG111) and Daisy (MAG136), complete with static-indicating-that-something-supernatural-was-going-on in the latter case… So, hum. Jon, your lighter. Think about your lighter, Jon. Was it a gift, and for what, Jon. Is it a 100% Web-flavoured gift, or is there a bit of something else (Desolation, Agnes) in that one making it more acceptable, Jon.

* Uh, so quite strangely, we got confirmation that Annabelle does look like the description we previously had of her, with her head injury:

(MAG069, Darren Harlow) “With a sudden, unexpected motion, he charged at her and slammed his full weight into her side. The attack took her completely off guard and she fell hard against the edge of the broken window, the side of her head making a god awful crunching sound as it hit. […] I looked at the crumpled form of Annabelle Cane just as it started to get back up. I could see the side of her skull had been caved in, and beneath the wet mess of blood and bone, I saw a mass of dull white cobweb.”

(MAG123, Angie Santos) “As he told it, she was young, rail-thin underneath an oversized brown hoodie, which she kept pulled up, trying to cover up a network of pale stitches that stretched over one side of her head. […] All through it, she just kept staring at him, hands pressed into the pockets of her hoodie – occasionally pushing long, spindly fingers out against the fabric, smiling to herself.”

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “It was almost six months ago when the woman came to our door. She looked like a film student, and at first I took her for a fan. […] I was about to ask her to wait while I checked with him but as I started to speak, she turned her head, revealing a mass of white thread, criss-crossing all over the side of her temple, standing starkly against the dark brown of her skin. She told me to sit down. And I did.”

… Which is… rather distinctive, so how come Jon apparently got a bit of trouble recognising her immediately when she opened the door?

(MAG180) [DOOR OPENS] [MUSIC CAN BE HEARD PLAYING MORE CLEARLY] MARTIN: Oh. Oh no, uh… [FOOTSTEPS] ANNABELLE: Good morning. ARCHIVIST: [FAINT GRUNT] MARTIN: Uh… Yes… ANNABELLE: Come on in. He’s waiting for you. ARCHIVIST: Oh. And who exactly– MARTIN: J–J–Jon. Jon. ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: I think… Hum… Annabelle? Annabelle Cane? ANNABELLE: Come on. He’s very excited, you know. [FOOTSTEPS AS SHE TURNS TO LEAVE] MARTIN: [FAINT GROAN] So, do we… follow or…? [PIANO CEASES] ARCHIVIST: I… I suppose. [FOOTSTEPS] [DOOR CREAKS] [STATIC RISES ABRUPTLY, WITH A GLITCH, AND FADES] ARCHIVIST: Oh… MARTIN: Oh, hum… ARCHIVIST: Oh. [PIANO RESUMES] [DOOR CLOSES] [FOOTSTEPS ECHOING AS THEY GO] MARTIN: [INHALE] [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: So… Annabelle, what are you playing at, what are you doing here?

Was it Jon recognising her but not making a fuss about it? Being so used to relying on his powers that he didn’t even have the reflex of connecting the dots himself? Was Annabelle’s head covered, or was she showing another side of her head?

- Letting The Web do whatever is confirmed as the most popular tactic to deal with it, uh.

(MAG121) OLIVER: Honestly, I’m… still not exactly sure why I’m here. But… you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what She asks!

(MAG147) ARCHIVIST: I’m sure the flares will work fine. … I mean, un–unless it’s all some… elaborate… plot… to have us… burn this place down again. BASIRA: So what if it is? ARCHIVIST: I don’t follow…? BASIRA: I mean. Anything we do could be part of the “Grand Master Plan”. So – what, we do nothing? Just… sit on our hands, and hope that’s not what the spiders want? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH]

(MAG148) BASIRA: Or that we were being stalked by some freaky spider woman. Don’t tell me you didn’t know about that! ELIAS: Ah, uh, y–yes… W–well… To be honest, I’d… advise you to leave that one – well alone. BASIRA: Oh yeah? ELIAS: Uh! Look, look, look. I’ve… been doing this a long time now and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about The Web, it’s that it plays its own game. All you can really do is… hope it doesn’t get in the way of whatever your plan is. Because the Spider usually wins…!

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: O–kay. [SIGH] It’s just… The Web can be subtle, you understand? MELANIE: And? For all you know, its plan is to paralyse you with indecision…! ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] MELANIE: Leaving you… sitting here, terrified that… everything you do is somehow all part of its Grand Plan… And who do you think that fear is gonna feed? ARCHIVIST: Yes, well. [INHALE] You are… not the first, to make that point.

(MAG181) SALESA: Of course I know she’s with The Web. ARCHIVIST: … And that doesn’t bother you? SALESA: Not especially. And even if it did, what good would it do? MARTIN: … Uh, so what’s the deal with you two anyway? SALESA: It’s an odd situation, but not a complicated one. Shortly after I decided to stay here, she arrived; wandered in from the chaos out there and told me she was going to stay with me. I didn’t get this far by pitting myself against The Web, so I welcomed her in. ARCHIVIST: … “And”? SALESA: And sometimes she cooks. ARCHIVIST: She “cooks”? SALESA: I don’t know what you want me to say, it’s a big house and I don’t see her much. Can’t even say which corner she’s made her nest in! Whatever she’s doing… all I can do is hope it doesn’t wreck my little oasis. And if it does… then I hope that by keeping her in good graces, she’ll at least do me the courtesy of killing me first? MARTIN: Mm-mm… SALESA: … Anyway. Let us talk of happier things, or perhaps just take a moment to enjoy not being out there…! […] She keeps… mostly to herself, and when she does talk, it’s usually more of the sinister monologue variety– MARTIN: Ah! SALESA: –or cryptically telling me I’ve got “guests”…! […] ARCHIVIST: I… It’s going to be difficult to relax, with a spider lurking around. MARTIN: [SIGH] SALESA: … It gets easier with practice.

I mean, as mentioned by Salesa, there is still the risk that Annabelle will kill him or make him suffer worse, and has just been using him for her own goals… But also: not worrying about it means not feeding The Web? Unlike Jon, who spiralled so heavily into paranoia during season 4, worried about being trapped in The Web’s plans, about being potentially influenced and threatened by it.

I love how Salesa depicts Annabelle’s arrival and behaviour towards him: it’s… absolutely spider-like? She entered the house, made herself at home (she even has a “nest”), and gets rid of the insects. She had told Martin&Jon that Salesa was waiting for them:

(MAG180) ANNABELLE: Come on in. He’s waiting for you. […] I’m just helping out around the place a little bit. Making myself at home. You know how it is. MARTIN: … Jon, I don’t like this. ANNABELLE: You can relax, Mr. Blackwood. You’re safe here. […] Well. There you go, then! Just in here. [OPENS THE DOOR] Your guests are here, Mikaele. [PIANO CEASES] SALESA: Hoo-hoo-hoo! Excellent! Come in, come in! Ah, a pleasure to meet both of you. Thank you, Annabelle! ANNABELLE: You’re quite welcome. [PIANO RESUMES] Have fun.

… but it was initially her who just Informed Salesa That Yep, He Has Guests Coming, Lucky You, and Salesa rolled with it.

- On the one hand, Salesa is going with the flow hoping that Annabelle doesn’t intend to make him suffer much even if she needs/wants him dead, and sounds pretty rational about it… But on the other hand, OOFT, BIG RED FLAG that Salesa, who sounds like his situation is still on his terms… was and is at the same time shown as a heavy drinker, who could potentially die from over-consumption:

(MAG141) FLOYD: He was drunk for the next two days, and we kept sailing on towards Cape Town. We no longer had anything to deliver there, but no-one was really sure what else to do. Whenever there’d been similar disasters before, Salesa was quick to make a new plan, let Captain Gaultier know what the next steps were. It was one of the reasons the crew trusted him so much. He just always seemed to know what we needed to do next. This time, though… felt different. He was distant, quiet. His words, when he spoke to you at all, were blurred with alcohol and regret. Nobody knew what the plan was, so we just kept going.

(MAG181) SALESA: Well Martin. It’s about ten in the morning, more or less. [PAUSE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] MARTIN: … And you’re drinking. SALESA: Of course! Even in my little bubble of peace, I find drinking after dark leads to some rather morbid thoughts. […] And when I realised that the power moves with the camera, well, hm!, let’s just say I loaded up a truckload of supplies and went on some journeys of my own, before I found… this place. [MORE CLINKING GLASS AND ICE] No reason to not live the apocalypse in style…! [STIRRING NOISES] In the end… I find myself quite happy. I’ve supplies, for a good few years, and then I… plan to take my own life. I think perhaps that’s the greatest blessing the camera can bestow: I – can – die – here. Escape this place. Not yet, of course; and maybe the wine will do me in before I have to take matters into my own hands, but still… it remains a comfort. Anyway, no more stories, I think. Let us relax, and talk, and drink […].

Which. Is self-destructive on its own, and clearly indicating that Salesa hasn’t been quite as fine as he likes to pretend (assuming his role, hiding himself behind it with his friendliness and knack for stories), but also concerning when associated with Annabelle’s presence:

(MAG147, Annabelle Cane) “Looking back, of course… and remembering the crunch of used syringes beneath my feet, I realise that addiction… is one of the strongest vectors of control there is.”

We-oops.

- Did Annabelle gossip about Jon&Martin here and there?

(MAG181) SALESA: Annabelle tells me you work for “The Eye”. […] Your powers won’t work here, Jonathan Sims, Head-Archivist-of-the-Magnus-Institute-London! The Eye can’t see this place…! […] You know, Gertrude once used that little trick to ask if I was trying to sell her a forgery? Admittedly I was, so I don’t hold a grudge; but I didn’t much care for the experience. Anyway.

He knew about the compulsion from Gertrude, as well as the nightmares induced by giving a statement (MAG115: “So I suppose if it’s a statement you’re wanting… it’s no inconvenience to me. I don’t sleep well anyway.”), Annabelle apparently introduced Jon&Martin a bit (and had warned him that they would pass out when entering his “little bubble”)… but what about Jon’s title as “Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London”? It was Jon’s way of introducing statements from season 1 to 3, not Gertrude’s (“Gertrude Robinson recording.”)

Did Annabelle make him listen to a few tapes? Specifically the ones about Salesa? Or did she report the way Jon used to introduce himself, a lot, to the point of Salesa internalising it as a way to chide and make fun of Jon?

- Oh JON…

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: What is this place, how did you find it? SALESA: [SLIGHTLY CURT] I didn’t find anything. I made it. ARCHIVIST: [COMPELLINGLY] Tell me what happened. SALESA: … “No”. ARCHIVIST: I– Uh… Wh… Wh–what? SALESA: [DEEP AND LONG CHUCKLES] The look on your face! [CHUCKLES] Look, he’s so confused! MARTIN: [LAUGHS] ARCHIVIST: Martin! MARTIN: [LAUGHS] So–sorry, sorry! Y–you did look kind of funny, it was… li–like, like you were flunking an exam or something! SALESA: [CHUCKLES] Yes! Exactly that! MARTIN: [CHUCKLES] SALESA: Your powers won’t work here, Jonathan Sims, Head-Archivist-of-the-Magnus-Institute-London! The Eye can’t see this place…! [SILENCE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] ARCHIVIST: … So what now? SALESA: Ah, no need for the suspicion, I’m not going to hurt you…! You’re quite safe! I’ll tell you soon enough; like I said, I have no secrets. But it will be… in my own time. ARCHIVIST: … Right. SALESA: You know, Gertrude once used that little trick to ask if I was trying to sell her a forgery? Admittedly I was, so I don’t hold a grudge; but I didn’t much care for the experience. Anyway. For now, just relax, and no doubt I’ll get there eventually; I haven’t had anyone to talk to properly in months! MARTIN: I thought… What about Annabelle? SALESA: She keeps… mostly to herself, and when she does talk, it’s usually more of the sinister monologue variety– MARTIN: Ah! SALESA: –or cryptically telling me I’ve got “guests”…! MARTIN: Uh…! Yeah, that sounds familiar. ARCHIVIST: I’m trying to be less cryptic…! MARTIN: I know, I know.

* That was incredibly rude of Jon, technically, so I laughed altogether with Salesa&Martin! Jon… is not used to people refusing to answer anymore, uh? But, on the other hand: YIKES that Jon is not used to people refusing to answer him and that he would try to rely on his compulsion… on someone who had been pretty chill and friendly so far, and wasn’t actively hiding anything or saying that some topics were forbidden. Jon was cut from The Eye in there, so it’s really… him, and him alone, who still has the reflex to ask / order people to give him an answer? It’s him and him alone trying to rely on his powers to gain control of a situation, when said powers weren’t currently influencing him? He wasn’t asking/ordering for The Eye or pushed by The Eye? I wonder if the few days he spent in the house helped him a bit to think about the habits he grew as Archivist, what had become a reflex that he had to let go of…

* Keyboardsmashing over Salesa cheerfully explaining that Gertrude had compelled him to check if he was trying to swindle her, and that he was, so he found it fair. Though, “I don’t hold a grudge”: he might have been a bit more pissed at the moment? I remember his MAG115 statement, where he was clearly annoyed and frustrated and toying with her, after one of his artefacts caused damage in the Institute – I like the permanent ambiguity, in Salesa’s words, making you wondering if he’s absolutely sincere… or “playing his role” of the good-natured and jovial merchant, who does awful things but is above feelings like regrets, heartbreaks or annoyance. There is definitely a bit of unreliable narrator vibe to his whole persona?

* Sarcasm was through the roof, tho (Annabelle’s knitting accident, Jon’s face when failing to compel, Annabelle being cryptic), but AHAH for Martin joining him – he’s getting to see many new deluxe Jon faces! (Pretty sure Martin must have found Jon’s bewilderment super cute?)

- I love how Martin can be laughing and the instant afterwards be firm about words that could cross a line:

(MAG181) SALESA: So what’s it like out there? I assume the Archivist must be a rather… powerful position, since you seem to be travelling through it pretty freely? ARCHIVIST: It’s, uh… Uh… Hum… MARTIN: … Jon? ARCHIVIST: Uh, sorry, I–I just, uh… Hmm. MARTIN: Uh, i–it’s bad. Really bad. [SIGH] It’s, it’s all carved up between the powers, and everyone has just been, sort of… scooped up and chucked into their deepest fears, it’s just… it’s just nightmare after nightmare after nightmare, and… I… uh… Why are you smiling? SALESA: I’m sorry. You’re quite right, it’s inappropriate. It’s simply… [INHALE] I have spent the last decade preparing for this to happen. Not just something like this, but almost exactly this situation. There was every chance, in fact, the great likelihood… that I was wasting my time, and throwing away years of my life on a ridiculous precaution. But I was right. I. Was. Right. … And now here I am, safe, warm and comfortable while out there the whole world screams! I don’t mean to sound… uh, uh, a–as if I’m happy that people are suffering– MARTIN: Good, ‘cause it does sound a bit like that. SALESA: … Then I apologise. I’m just not sure I can fully communicate the sense of… of vindication that I feel, all those long nights I spent wondering if I was paranoid or overreacting. But no! I am here. And I am safe. MARTIN: [SIGH] I mean… I guess that makes sense?

* So, unlike other avatars, who were able to tell on sight that Jon had a “powerful position” in the new order, Salesa deduced it from facts! That was a nice touch.

* … Worried over the fact that Jon… didn’t seem able to describe the apocalypse spontaneously. Was he trying to “know” about it from inside the house, once again hitting a blank wall, just like when he tried to compel Salesa? Has he lost the habit of just… storing, remembering and using information regarding what he experienced? It’s interesting that there was no static at all during the whole exchange: Jon was indeed unable to use his powers there.

* LOVE HOW QUICKLY MARTIN REACTED when he saw Salesa’s reaction; Martin was probably gauging him? He had been quick to ask for smiting (and was even planning for the possibility when they were at the door of the house), so… did Salesa dodge a bullet. (Martin, please.)

* Salesa has been shown to be quite prideful, uh? “I made it”, “it will be… in my own time”, “I was right”… (And I can’t tell whether he’s absolutely sincere about that pride! Is it, genuinely, an absolute comfort, or is he grasping at straws because what’s the point of being right when you’re alone and basically waiting for your death with a few luxuries?)

- So, confirmation that Annabelle does know about their journey! It was rather obvious but technically… we didn’t know for sure, since Martin had bullshitted a bit when reporting her words to Jon:

(MAG166) MARTIN: Just, what do you want? ANNABELLE: I want to help you, of course. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … No. Thank you. ANNABELLE: It’s a hard place to find yourself in, maybe I can be of some… assistance…! MARTIN: You can assist me by giving the… “creepy phone” thing a rest…! ANNABELLE: He is more powerful here than he’s ever been, isn’t he? [PAUSE] And you’re not sure what that means for you. MARTIN: [INHALE] I’m hanging up now. ANNABELLE: Does he even need you at all?

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: Help us with what? MARTIN: ‘xcuse me? ARCHIVIST: Annabelle, help us with “what”? Our–our, our journey, killing Elias, vanishing the Entities – what? […] So. What did Annabelle say? MARTIN: She offered to help, but she didn’t say what with; she… asked us where we were going. I didn’t tell her, but… [SNORT] it was pretty obvious she had a good idea.

(MAG181) SALESA: So what of you two, what, what, wh–where are you going? You seem to be travelling with some purpose…! ARCHIVIST: Did Annabelle not tell you that? SALESA: She said you were travelling to the Tower, the, hm, “Panopticon”, she called it? Whatever that might be; she didn’t say what for. [SUSPICIOUSLY] Nothing that might cause me trouble, I hope? MARTIN: We’re going to try and end this. Turn the world back. ARCHIVIST: Martin…! MARTIN: Wh–what? Okay; maybe he can help. We could use some support and it’s, it’s not like he wants the world to stay like this either! SALESA: You are right. To a point. [INHALE] I would welcome a return to the real world. Eh! To be the only man to weather the greatest disaster in history of reality, utterly unharmed… What an achievement that would be, quite the boast! But alas, no, [INHALE] I can’t help you. MARTIN: What? Why not? SALESA: I have nothing to offer. Well, except perhaps some… basic provisions. I have food, drink, a few luxuries, but none of that would help you out there, and I’m certainly not going to follow you. No, I think the best thing I can do is to welcome you to stay in my sanctuary as long as you wish…!

* Annabelle at least knew their destination already; which means she might have a good eye on the map, and would know that (according to real-world geography) they’re also coming closer to Hill Top Road…? Also: was she expecting them to change their mind about their initial plans to turn the world back? Or did she not tell Salesa because she assumed it was doomed already, or in order to not worry Salesa too much?

* … I keep hearing Salesa and going “Welp, that’s someone who is VERY depressed and also good at hiding it”: the way he jumped with such curiosity and passion on Martin&Jon’s current journey, the fact that they had a “purpose”? It feels to me like someone who currently doesn’t have any, is missing company, and wants to hear about anything that could manage to break his routine.

* Martin had mentioned with Helen already that they were lacking allies, and he&Jon just separated from Basira… So he really craves any help they could get, uh… AND AT THE SAME TIME: Martin is very good at weaving truths when he’s trying to manipulate people; he did that with Elias to make Elias accept (/feel like he had decided) that Martin would stay behind at the Institute in MAG116, he did that with Peter all through season 4 (believing in The Extinction, wanting to stop it… but also, loathing Peter and refusing to serve his plans)… so was he trying to do the same with Salesa, sneaking into his good graces and pretending to be absolutely transparent, nothing to hide sir!, before evaluating whether Salesa was a threat to be disposed of or just harmless?

- … So, Annabelle had been there for at least a month, so she definitely banked on them finding this place on their way… or did she find ways to influence their journey in order for them to walk by the house…?

(MAG181) SALESA: It’s an odd situation, but not a complicated one. Shortly after I decided to stay here, she arrived; wandered in from the chaos out there and told me she was going to stay with me. I didn’t get this far by pitting myself against The Web, so I welcomed her in. […] ARCHIVIST: … Alright, I… [INHALE] I guess we can stay. Just for a bit. SALESA: Excellent, ah! I haven’t had guests since the world ended. ARCHIVIST: [FLAT] Lovely. SALESA: Oh, saying that, I suppose there was that insect thing that stumbled in here a month or so back… MARTIN: Oh, uh, uh, in–“insect thing”? SALESA: Some creature of the Crawling Rot. Anyway, it didn’t actually make it into the house before Annabelle managed to get rid of it. So, I refuse to count it as a guest. MARTIN: Mmm. ARCHIVIST: I suppose that makes sense…! SALESA: Of course, I can’t actually stop things crossing the border into my hideaway, as you both discovered. Another reason I’m content to leave Annabelle to whatever schemes she might be weaving.

Or did she influence Salesa in taking residence there? The fact that he would be there and that Jon&Martin would come close enough for Jon to notice that the whole area was weird (and that they both agreed to take a look) is… a lot of coincidences. Jon “baited” Basira when they were close enough, and they then hunted Daisy; and as for Helen, she has been explicitly following them – those weren’t coincidences, but intended. On the other hand, the current layout is a bit more suspicious?

… It also takes us back to the start, for a Web-affiliated person to go against a Corruption-thing. We had witnessed this since season 1: spiders attracted by worms because they’re food (as Martin suspected in Carlos Vittery’s building), a spider warning Jon of the incoming Prentiss attack (end of MAG038), big spiders eating worm corpses in the tunnels under the Institute…

(… Salesa mentioned that Annabelle was cooking, WHAT IS SHE COOKING. DID SHE COOK THE CORRUPTION THING… DID SHE FEED THEM ALL WITH THE CORRUPTION THING…)

- Aaaaah, I’m having so many feelings over Jon asking so many questions and being so curious!!

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: What is… this place? SALESA: I just told you. It’s my little bubble. My silver lining on an otherwise cloudy day. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] That’s not an answ– SALESA: Now tell me […]. ARCHIVIST: … So, you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions? SALESA: [SIPPING FOLLOWED BY CONTENTED SIGH] … I am an open book. […] ARCHIVIST: What is this place, how did you find it? SALESA: [SLIGHTLY CURT] I didn’t find anything. I made it. ARCHIVIST: [COMPELLINGLY] Tell me what happened. SALESA: … “No”. ARCHIVIST: I– Uh… Wh… Wh–what? […] How big is your safe zone, is it… is it always the same size? H… How did this happen? SALESA: [CHUCKLES] Look at him! Not three days without his master spooning knowledge into his head, and he can’t bear it! I thought ignorance was meant to be bliss? ARCHIVIST: [FRUSTRATED SOUND]

Same as last episode, that was Jon! It was Jon being himself and curious… Georgie had pointed out that it was Jon’s personality (MAG093: “If your job is asking questions, I mean. You were always the one who pushed too far, and asked smart-arse, awkward questions. I always was surprised you never got punched.”), even before the influence of The Eye – and now, we have the additional dimension that Jon might have grown a bit too accustomed to, indeed, Knowing things, and to getting people to answer him whenever needed or desired… But still. It feels like he was back to his roots?

(And Salesa was doing his best to frustrate him, cutting him off or commenting on it, pfft.)

- While Jon was more pressuring and blunt, I’m reeling over Martin who sugarcoated his approach a bit (joking with Salesa, sometimes agreeing with him or not antagonising him too much while having clear limits)… and got Salesa to give up his story:

(MAG181) SALESA: Of course I know she’s with The Web. ARCHIVIST: … And that doesn’t bother you? SALESA: Not especially. And even if it did, what good would it do? MARTIN: … Uh, so what’s the deal with you two anyway? […] Mm-mm… SALESA: … Anyway. Let us talk of happier things, or perhaps just take a moment to enjoy not being out there…! You are, of course, welcome to stay as long as you like. MARTIN: Uh, that’s… very generous…! […] I thought… What about Annabelle? SALESA: She keeps… mostly to herself, and when she does talk, it’s usually more of the sinister monologue variety– MARTIN: Ah! SALESA: –or cryptically telling me I’ve got “guests”…![…] I am here. And I am safe. MARTIN: [SIGH] I mean… I guess that makes sense? […] SALESA: No, I think the best thing I can do is to welcome you to stay in my sanctuary as long as you wish…! MARTIN: … Oh, well. [EXHALE] Thank you. I–I think we just might. Jon? […] Look, fo–for what it’s worth, I’d, I’d also quite like to know how this all happened? SALESA: … Fine. I’ll tell you how it happened. But you must sit quietly while I tell it. MARTIN: [CHUCKLE] Don’t worry, I have had lots of practice. SALESA: … And you? ARCHIVIST: [DISGRUNTLED SOUND] MARTIN: He’ll behave. SALESA: … My story is not a long one.

(GRUMPY JON WAS SO CUTE… JUST LIKE AN ANNOYED CAT…)

Martin has had experience with Peter and Simon, knows how to be strategical, and it worked. Salesa was clearly craving to give his story, to be the centre of the attention (the main star of the show?), and Martin… played the right cards to get him there?

There was no static, Salesa pointed out that Jon couldn’t use his Eye powers here, Salesa insisted that his statement was on his own terms… but I still wonder if he wasn’t compelled a bit? We didn’t learn much, it had a bit more flourish than our usual (but it’s not unheard of: avatars were shown to be very happy to portray themselves at their best during them), there were some potentially unreliable bits here and there (not unheard of either), but it was also… pretty coherent. Flowing naturally. A long tirade going straight to the points.

Could Salesa have been influenced by Martin? Simon had made it clear that Beholding had compelled him (through Martin) to give him his piece. Or was it… the tape recorder, somehow? It turned on when Jon&Martin were arriving (so, when a discussion would happen), and turned off after Salesa was done:

(MAG181) SALESA: Anyway, no more stories, I think. Let us relax, and talk, and drink, and… not worry about who might be… listening. [CLICK.]

So it was there for Salesa’s statement. Did it compel him?

- I like how we technically didn’t learn much through Salesa’s statement! Well, not much factual info, at least: we already had gotten a recent-ish written statement from him (MAG115, from January 2007); we knew that he had been Leitner’s assistant and had fled when he understood what Leitner was dealing in, that he initially mostly wanted to use his list of clients and had ended up dealing in supernatural artefacts almost coincidentally, that he let (rich) people acquire the artefacts they wanted and too bad for them if they caused them misery, that he was getting angstier between 2011 and 2014, culminating in the last mission to retrieve the camera, and that he had then vanished, presumed dead.

But I feel like we mostly learnt about his personality, in contrast to MAG115 (in which he was a bit more on the defensive, given that the Institute and/or Gertrude was going at him for a Slaughter artefact that had… got out of control) and MAG141, in which Floyd Matharu, who clearly kinda liked and respected him (“He was a good boss.”), had given us another look on Salesa: someone who was tired, who had lost people and was growing tired of this life. I find it really interesting to compare MAG141 and MAG181 since, in this episode, Salesa is clearly putting on a show of his own story:

(MAG141) FLOYD: Once found him pouring over an old photo album. The ship was there in the pictures, but a different captain, different crew. I asked him who they were, and he just looked at me, eyes sunken like he hadn’t slept, and for a second I felt like he was seeing someone else, not me. But then he just shrugged. “Dead now,” he said, “doesn’t really matter.” […] I followed slowly, unsteadily, but got there just in time to see Salesa throw both him and what looked like a blank rug over the side and into the ocean. Then he collapsed against the railing, a look of intense exhaustion passing over his face, and I left him there. He was drunk for the next two days, and we kept sailing on towards Cape Town. We no longer had anything to deliver there, but no-one was really sure what else to do. Whenever there’d been similar disasters before, Salesa was quick to make a new plan, let Captain Gaultier know what the next steps were. It was one of the reasons the crew trusted him so much. He just always seemed to know what we needed to do next. This time, though… felt different. He was distant, quiet. His words, when he spoke to you at all, were blurred with alcohol and regret. Nobody knew what the plan was, so we just kept going.

(MAG181) SALESA: But the years, they wear on you, and as I talked to more and more people versed in that secret world, more acolytes and would-be cultists about “rituals” and “destinies”, I began to come to a conclusion. As the number of people in the world grew, and the amount of fear grew with it, I began to become convinced that it was only a matter of time before one of them… succeeded. Before the world was transformed into… Well. You’d know better than me…! So I began to plan for my… retirement. I spent most of my fortune preparing. Some on supplies, but mostly hunting down an artifact that I hoped might give me some… protection. One I had sold right at the start of my career: an old broken camera. One that through some… quirk had the ability to hide you from the Powers…! […] Staging my death was a… comparative, erm, afterthought. In some ways… just a happy accident. And so I waited, and lived out my days in comfort. For the longest time I thought that, well… maybe I had simply entered normal retirement really dramatically! But then… well… I was right.

* “a happy accident”, says the person living with a Web person who knew he was there and threw Jon&Martin at him. (What happened, back then? Why the explosion, why did Gaultier report that they had been “betrayed”? Was someone else after Salesa, or “helped” him hide? If Gertrude was behind the explosion, it would have been mentioned at this point… Was it Annabelle, to ensure that Salesa would be a reliable trump card in the apocalypse?)

* It had been addressed during Arthur and Gertrude’s discussion, and has been a reccurring theme in the series: who really are these characters?

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: What was Agnes like? ARTHUR: … What? GERTRUDE: Well, for all The Web bound us together, I never actually met her. What was she like? ARTHUR: I… [PAUSE] I don’t know. Not really. You got as many answers to that as… folks who met her. Never really knew what she felt ‘bout any of it! Not really. Not in her own words. Guess that’s the thing about being the… Chosen One, or… I mean, Agnes was always quiet; but even if you spend all day, every day, throwing out commandments and… laying down parables… At the end of it, you’re always just the… point of someone else’s story. Everyone clamouring to say what you were, what you meant, and… your thoughts on it… all don’t mean nothing.

Is the real Salesa the self-serving and self-centred man who explained his story to Jon and Martin, all about money and then self-preservation, not giving any retrospective thought about his crew and the people who were following his orders and yet died because of it? Is the real Salesa the “good boss” Floyd had described, who was clearly nostalgic and affected by the losses throughout his life (why keep pictures of the deceased, if they hadn’t mattered at all)? Or is the truth somewhere within the mix, every statement a bit of it – how these characters used to be perceived, how they want to be perceived right now, how they acted then and how they act now?

* There is a bit of a parallel with Jonah, with the way both reached the fatalistic conclusion that someone would eventually manage to bring forth the apocalypse:

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Why does a man seek to destroy the world? It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality, and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my God! The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness; to place yourself beyond pain, and death, and fear. It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, Jon, the freedom of it all…! I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers, all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction, in that choice. […] Of course, this desire did not manifest overnight. When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott and the rest – to discuss and hypothesise on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner… I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear. But as he compiled his taxonomy and codified his theories on the grand rituals, I began to develop a very specific concern. Smirke was still so obsessed with his ideas on balance, even as our fellows began to experiment and fall to the service of their patrons: I began to worry that if one of them successfully attempted their ritual, then I would be as much a victim as any, trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world. At first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless. The only way to ensure I did not suffer the tribulations of what I believed to be… an inevitable transformation, was to bring it about myself. So what began as an experiment… soon became a race.”

Both came to the conclusion that an apocalypse would be likely to happen, and both of them worked on a way to mitigate the effects for them and them only, instead of ensuring that others wouldn’t succeed. … And in both cases, it doesn’t feel like they realised how they might have been used rather than in control: Jonah could have just NOT LAUNCHED ANY RITUAL when he discovered that anyway, a ritual would never work unless all the Fears were to be brought through together; and Salesa… had a few holes in his story? Admitted that there was an “accident” leading to his official death, allowing him to go into hiding? Is drinking heavily while having a Web-person as housemate, who explained how “addiction is one of the strongest vectors of control there is”?

- I wonder whether Salesa knew what had truly happened to Leitner, or not at all?

(MAG181) SALESA: … My story is not a long one. Not the parts that you care about, at least. The Powers I first learned about from Jurgen Leitner – you’re familiar with him? Then I don’t need to explain further. When I say I was one of his assistants, you know exactly the kind of education that would be. Terrifying, fascinating, misguided. The man was a genius, and an idiot. It didn’t take me long to see what he was blind to his whole life: that trying to control the Fears was a good way to get yourself killed, or worse. … I left long before he got what was coming to him, and tried to forget what I knew.

He probably assumed that Leitner had died when his library was attacked? Not brutally pipe-murdered by Elias.

(And sidenote, but: Salesa wasn’t presented as an avatar but he also joins the list of people in season 5 not even mentioning Jonah at all as an agent who matters, while Jon was identified as A Big Deal in the apocalypse. I don’t know if Jonah is still in any state to know and watch these things (merged with the Panopticon? Trapped within his old decaying body at the centre of the tower?), and he was certainly not able to see anything inside of the camera’s domain, but I hope that it Stings.)

- I’m not so surprised that Annabelle and Salesa seem to be getting along, since they both sound aware of their “role” in the overall narrative frame:

(MAG147, Annabelle Cane) “Now, I believe the tradition is to tell you the story of my life; the sinister path that led me inevitably to the sorry state in which I now find myself. Well, let it never be said I do not dance the steps I am assigned.”

(MAG181) SALESA: I lived my life, and I lived it well – successful, wealthy, and a little bit feared…! Smuggler to the rich and famous! There wasn’t an art dealer or curator out there who didn’t pretend not to know me! But the trouble is, once you’ve seen backstage, it’s hard to believe in the show anymore. You understand, I’m sure. You can never quite shake off the desire to have a peek…! To see what’s waiting in the wings…! […] Again, I made a lot of money, and remained untouched. It’s the sort of thing to set a man thinking about his life, you understand? I began to think hard about the world, about my place within it, and about fear! About the figure of the merchant, the trader who deals in strange and dangerous goods – how it can be found in so many myths and fables, dealing in second-hand nightmares. And how rarely the merchant themself is ever punished in those stories. […] To tell you the truth, I got a real kick out of playing my role. To think of myself as a purveyor of curses, walking softly through the most dangerous edges of reality, so that the rich and arrogant could buy their own doom.

(+ in some ways, Peter, too: “Thinking about it now, perhaps one of the reasons I lasted as long as I did was that I was, at the end of the day, predictable. A ‘known quantity’. I had my little patch, sending my poor lost sailors to their Forsaken end, but I rarely stepped outside of it. When I think of all those I met who travelled in this secret world we found ourselves in – Gertrude, Simon, Mikaele, even Rayner… there are plenty whose lives might well have been easier with my death, but it was rare that I strayed outside my habits.” (MAG159))

- So, who was the thing/person Salesa was “working for”?

(MAG181) SALESA: Sometimes people would come to me for solutions, protections or talismans to ward off the attention they had already called down on themselves. I sometimes did what I could to help, but I had to be careful. I could never afford to forget who I actually was working for.

Himself? The Fears, given how he made them more impactful by digging out and spreading cursed artefacts?

(Also, aaaah, I’m guessing that Noriega had been asking for help, back in MAG016, while he was suffering from Angela’s curse and had met with Salesa…)

- Salesa reminded me a bit of Leitner, and he would haaaaaaaaaaaate it? Leitner also wanted to take on a “role” and it… had backfired very badly:

(MAG080) LEITNER: I… thought that I could control them. That I alone had the knowledge to contain them. Back then, I believed they were simply books. Horrifying, powerful, yes; but with rules, limits that could be charted. … I was a fool. I had no idea what forces lay behind them, or that they had other servants that might come searching. […] I saw myself as a guardian, a reverse Pandora, gathering the evils of the world and locking them away. And so I branded them with my seal. I told myself that if any should escape such a mark could help me retrieve them. But I think, in my heart, I dreamed of my work becoming known. That “The Library of Jurgen Leitner” would stand as a symbol of courage and protection. Hubris. I suppose it is fitting punishment that my name has become a watchword for evil, spoken by those who only know it as marking the darkest, most terrible of secrets. My name has become a curse.

Is the merchant truly never punished in all these stories? Quite clearly, Salesa has it waaay better than the people out there (he’s not trapped in a personal nightmares, forced to relive terrible experiences over and over again)… but it’s also such an empty existence, with him having become what he used to loathe – as someone who felt like he was punishing the rich, he’s now living in luxury (Upton House, playing the piano, listening to classical music, drinking alcohol in the morning in nice crockery and assuming that said alcohol might end up killing him)…

- Aaaah, I love how the way the camera works does feel like it makes sense within that universe:

(MAG181) SALESA: So I began to plan for my… retirement. I spent most of my fortune preparing. Some on supplies, but mostly hunting down an artifact that I hoped might give me some… protection. One I had sold right at the start of my career: an old broken camera. One that through some… quirk had the ability to hide you from the Powers…! It was in the possession of another scared old man, one who had long been running from his own supernatural debts. I believe it operates as a sort of, uh, battery, charging itself on all the quiet worries that come from living in hiding, and then when the sanctuary collapses, eh!, all that fear flows out at once. … No doubt if my oasis breaks before I die, The Eye will get quite the feast from me. But in this new world, I would hope it has other things to keep itself busy. […] it hid me from The Eye, which, in the new order of reality, also protects where I am from the hellscape all around us. And when I realised that the power moves with the camera.

I also like that… just like a regular camera, it puts some distance between the one who is protected and anybody else, cutting them from reality. It explains why everything went to hell on that island after they took the camera (MAG141) and might be a curse in itself: feeding from the fears of the people into hiding… and anticipating their demise? (We also got told how Salesa could “end”, if it happens offscreen: if Annabelle’s plan is to use the camera without him… either she’ll be charitable and kill him, or tell him in advance for him to kill himself beforehand, either she will just leave with the camera, and Salesa will have it worse than everyone else.)

Also explains why Jon didn’t “know” anything about Salesa’s fate after talking with Floyd, and why he might have been drawn to him? Since he was a blind spot for Beholding, someone hidden from it. It’s quite interesting that we’ve seen so many different ways to get a (temporary or permanent) protection from Beholding? Gertrude was cutting eyes from pictures all around her (and Elias admitted that she had grown quite good at hiding from him); Leitner had the A Disappearance book, preventing Elias and Beholding from seeing him; Eric and Melanie discovered that gouging out their eyes freed them from the Archives; and now, Salesa pointed out that the camera was even specifically anti-Eye – thus, Jon not being able to use his powers around it… Was it initially a Dark artefact? Or an Eye one, just with a delayed reaction (as the fear of “being watched, being followed, having your deepest secrets exposed”)?

- CRIES, because it was to be expected that Jon wouldn’t fare for long in this place:

(MAG181) [PACKING NOISES] MARTIN: You’re sure we can’t stay longer? ARCHIVIST: Yes, I–I–I’ve been, hum… Uh, these last few days I–I’ve been… getting weaker. Dizzy spells, vagueness, you’ve seen it. Being cut off from the Eye, i–it’s not good for me. MARTIN: Yeah, but if… [INHALE] If you’re that connected, that… dependent, what happens if we actually, y’know, do manage to– ARCHIVIST: We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I just need us to be moving on. MARTIN: Hm… […] Feeling better? ARCHIVIST: Uh… Yeah. I’m afraid I am…!

And he reminded me a lot of how he sounded during his partial withdrawal (from live statements), in the second half of season 4: raspier voice, tiredness, the feeling unwell…

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: … Still feeling weak. Restless. I want to be proactive, but there hasn’t…! That hasn’t been going quite so well for us lately.

(MAG152) HELEN: Hungry, are we~? ARCHIVIST: That’s not…! I haven’t done anything– HELEN: Yet. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I feel like if I don’t… I might die. Fade away into nothing.

(MAG154) MARTIN: No, ’t’s fine, I ju– You just surprised me, that’s… Jesus, you all right? You… you look like hell. ARCHIVIST: Oh! Uh, right, I, em… ki–kind of weak. Hungry, I–I guess, sort of. I–I’ve been trying to a–avoid, being, hum… Sticking to old statements?

(MAG155) ARCHIVIST: I feel weak. Like I’m… fading away. Do I restrain myself, keep my appetite in check, even at the cost of my life? Or do I try to rationalise what I am, like… Ms. McHugh? I find myself… hating her, her… callous self-deception. But am I so different…?

Except that, back then, Martin hadn’t directly witnessed it – Jon went without statements after MAG159, for three weeks at most (after taking Peter’s live statement), and he sounded mostly fine if eager to read when they received Basira’s statements. Here, it feels like Jon’s degrading state went much quicker and more impressively… and it was a reminder of Jon’s connection to The Eye. Jon cut the conversation short, but they really will have to talk about it, and about how setting the world back, as of now, really sounds incompatible with Jon’s survival…

(Sob at Jon’s “moving on”, because it echoed MAG180’s title: back then, “moving on” had given the feeling of… reaching another chapter, accelerating after a stagnation? But now, “moving on” means returning to the apocalypse, the Fears, their journey towards the Panopticon, and did they learn anything that could help their quest inside of the house? The camera could be useful, maybe, but then…)

-I am HOWLING at Martin’s outburst of rage towards Annabelle because AHAHAH, who used to accept her tea and be a ~polite guest~?

(MAG181) SALESA: Did you sleep well? Have you had something to eat? Annabelle said she’d shown you the pantry? […] You’re sure you won’t have a drink? We definitely had some tea around here somewhere. MARTIN: Uh, I… already had some, thank you, uh! Some of us know how to be polite guests. ARCHIVIST: [SHARPLY] I don’t intend to accept anything offered by Annabelle Cane. […] [FOOTSTEPS] [A DOOR CREAKS OPEN] ANNABELLE: All packed? ARCHIVIST: Mm. MARTIN: Oh! Finally showing your face? ANNABELLE: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. MARTIN: Oh, pffft! All week, you scuttle around with… with food and drinks and all that other stuff, whatever we need, and just when we need it, but if we actually try to talk to you, you’re gone. ANNABELLE: [SMILINGLY] I’m very busy…! ARCHIVIST: Martin, don’t… bother, we–we’re not going to get any answers out of her. MARTIN: You–you’re joking, right? She’s been lurking at the edges of this whole thing since the beginning, and now we can finally actually talk to her, and…! What, you’re just going to pass? You don’t have any questions, nothing at all?

WHO usually provides food and drinks to get some results with people?

(MAG053) MARTIN: I was just going down to the café, did you want a sandwich? ARCHIVIST: Uh, that, that depends. Are you… hum, are you going to keep hovering around me if I go to the canteen? MARTIN: [SIGH] I just worry. You needed five stitches after you “accidentally” stabbed yourself with a breadknife. If you’re still claiming that’s what happened. ARCHIVIST: I am. MARTIN: Then you’ll forgive me for worrying when you use sharp knives. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Fine. I’ll come with, just… give me a second to grab my coat.

(MAG069) MARTIN: … Look. Jon… when was the last time we all just… talked? Just talked, without all of this– ARCHIVIST: Thank you for the tea, Martin. MARTIN: … Oookay. Fine. [DOOR OPENS] He’s not wrong, you know. [DOOR CLOSES]

Annabelle is just doing The Usual Martin Things, and Martin accepted it at first, probably thinking that it could put her into good dispositions to talk, except that tactic is NOT working with her and he’s SO PISSED about it =D Oh, Martin…

I’m super amused at Annabelle having so much fun being domestic and taking care of the guests while looming in the background; it’s an interesting dynamic where you can clearly feel like… everything is happening on her terms, and Martin and Jon don’t have any control over it. (And Martin is SO annoyed at the lack of control, ooooh Martin…)

(- And this is how Web!Martin can still w- (No but, seriously, I thought about how spiders can be territorial and usually don’t share the same living area?))

- I adore how you could HEAR Annabelle’s smile while she was clearly having fun.

(MAG181) MARTIN: Oh! Finally showing your face? ANNABELLE: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. […] ARCHIVIST: Look. I–it’s no accident we finally meet face-to-face in the one place I–I can’t get any answers out of her. ANNABELLE: [SMUG] I’m sure I don’t know what you mean…! MARTIN: … Why are you here? Mm? What’s your game? ANNABELLE: Perhaps I just value my privacy. MARTIN: Fine, fine! Why did you call me before? ANNABELLE: Perhaps I thought you could use a friendly voice…!

Not committing to any answer, and it was driving Martin mad, uh.

- LOVING HOW MARTIN IS JUST “RESENT AND REMEMBER”:

(MAG166) ANNABELLE: He is more powerful here than he’s ever been, isn’t he? [PAUSE] And you’re not sure what that means for you. MARTIN: [INHALE] I’m hanging up now. ANNABELLE: Does he even need you at all? MARTIN: Bye! [BEEP] [SIGH] [LOUDER, CLOSER HOWL] … I know, right?

(MAG181) ANNABELLE: Perhaps I thought you could use a friendly voice…! MARTIN: “Friendly”!? You told me Jon didn’t need me! ANNABELLE: Objectively true. MARTIN: [AGGRAVATED SIGH]

(Jon was out of it for most of the exchange, but… If he had been in a better state of mind, he might have reacted to this: Martin hadn’t told him about that part of the phone call, Martin hadn’t shared that with him in the following episode. So, that was new information… unless he had already “known” about it from Martin’s mind and didn’t tell Martin?)

And! We! Still! Don’t! Know! What Annabelle! Wanted! To Achieve!

(MAG181) ANNABELLE: And more importantly, perhaps I thought you might need a little bit of righteous indignation to help you power through the next steps. […] For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. The call was… clumsy. There were so many things to keep track of at the moment. I must confess it did lack my usual… nuance. ARCHIVIST: And perhaps you’re now just trying to humanise yourself so we underestimate your next move…! ANNABELLE: Perhaps.

* What was that “righteous indignation” about? At this point, Martin was already pro-smiting. Did she want him to focus on his resentment towards her? Did she want to prompt a conversation between Jon&Martin, as it happened in MAG167, leading to Jon admitting to Martin that he was his “reason”? I still feel like if that exchange hadn’t happened, Martin would have had it way worse in the Lonely house a few episodes later…

* It feels like the “Jon does(n’t) need Martin” might be about two different things? It’s objectively true that Jon would still be fine without Martin… but would he keep going on his quest without him? Jon said that Gertrude likely would have given up (implying that his difference with her is that he had “a reason”, in Martin). And Jon himself had told Martin, that it wasn’t just about what he needed in the “survival” sense; it was… about what he wanted for himself:

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: Listen – I know you think you want to be here, I know you think it’s safer and w– … well, maybe it is… But we need you. I need you. MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] No, you don’t. Not really…! Everyone’s alone, but we all survive. ARCHIVIST: I don’t just want to survive!

- Martin and Being Manipulated~~

(MAG126) MARTIN: But if I could just explain– PETER: And how do you think Jon’s going to react, to that explanation? Hm? Do you think he’ll accept it calmly? Come through with a well-considered, rational response– MARTIN: That’s not fair– PETER: –or would he assume he knows better than you and do something rash? [SILENCE] MARTIN: … I don’t like being manipulated. PETER: That’s fair. But I’m not wrong.

(MAG181) MARTIN: … I, I don’t like being manipulated. ANNABELLE: Then we probably aren’t going to be friends. MARTIN: Urrrgh! [SIGH]

(And both times, about Jon.)

- Jon was exhausted, but also kind of fatalistic over the fact that they couldn’t do anything against Annabelle anyway; had Salesa been right when he had told them they would get used to it? And in a way, Jon being less angsty over it… might be good for him – not spiralling into paranoia, being just aware that anyway, he can’t know anything for sure about Annabelle. (… Or is the feeling of powerlessness feeding her anyway?)

(MAG181) MARTIN: So, so that’s it, then? We, we’re just going to leave her here? ARCHIVIST: Yes. MARTIN: We could make her tell us. ARCHIVIST: No, we couldn’t. I don’t have my powers, if it came to a physical fight I really don’t rate our chances…! MARTIN: Hey, I can handle myself! ANNABELLE: But can you handle me? [SILENCE] MARTIN: … I don’t like you. ANNABELLE: I know.

GNIIIIIIIIIIIIH over Martin just. Being absolutely too honest and just telling her, to her face, that he doesn’t like her. Martin, you rude brat.

I got Michael flashbacks, too, because it wasn’t the first time that:

(MAG079) MICHAEL: I think I might also kill you. It would be easier than killing the Archivist; none of you are protected down here. MARTIN: No, no, now hang on… MICHAEL: You are going to try and help him. And I want to see what happens without you there. TIM: Martin… MARTIN: No, no, okay, because there’s two of us and there’s one of you, okay. He’s not killing anyone! TIM: Martin, look at his hands! MARTIN: Oh.

MARTIN WAS READY TO THROW DOWN.

- YIKES over what Annabelle has ~in mind~:

(MAG181) ANNABELLE: Don’t worry, Martin. We’ll meet again. Hopefully when you’re feeling a little bit more… open-minded…! MARTIN: I wouldn’t count on it. ANNABELLE: I would. MARTIN: [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: That’s the trouble with old houses, I suppose. Full of spiders. ANNABELLE: You boys better take care of yourselves. I’m sure we’ll see each other again very soon. Here! Why don’t I show you out?

* Was the “open-minded” a reference to the fact that her own head was opened and is currently stitched together thanks to spiders.

* So, they’re meeting again “soon”… at Hill Top Road, maybe?

* Annabelle is implying that they were refusing something about her, as if there was currently an offer on the table – what was it? Was it about the fact they were antagonising her? Jon didn’t trust her (or at least raised the possibility that she could be trying to make them underestimate her; she had explained that “I have always believed that the key to controlling people… is to ensure that they always under, or overestimate you. Never reveal your true abilities or plans” in MAG147), they were wary of her… and were they right about it? She made sure they drank and ate, she encouraged them to be well; she needs them functioning and still going, but what for? I’m still really curious about Annabelle; it felt to me that she needed them to reach a certain conclusion by themselves, and that they have failed so far… Or is it way more sinister than that, is she waiting for them to ask for her help regarding Jon’s current state?

* Overall, it feels to me like she’s focusing on Martin more than Jon, as if Jon was a “given” in her equation but Martin a more active and rebellious piece?

- Ooooh, Salesa… he really was craving for company, uh.

(MAG181) SALESA: Aaah! You are off, then? [FAINT SOUNDS OF MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND; LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN’S “9TH SYMPHONY: FINALE”] ARCHIVIST: … Yes, uh… MARTIN: Uh, thank you, for all your hospitality. SALESA: You are sure you won’t stay a little longer? You’re more than welcome! ARCHIVIST: N–no, I, uh… I got to, hum… leave. MARTIN: What he said. SALESA: Ah, such a shame. And you’re sure I can’t give you a little something for the road? Uh, food, wine? MARTIN: Uh, no, thank you. Uh… [SIGH] Nice things, they… tend not to stay nice out there. SALESA: [SCOFF] True enough.

And sob about the fact that Martin has learned to not trust “comfort” too much. (What about the tea he had stored in his own bag? And the bandages he used on Jon didn’t turn against them either, so a few things stayed safe.)

- I love how Annabelle and Salesa seem to be getting along with their cruel humour:

(MAG181) SALESA: Well: best of luck I suppose. And if in the end, you can’t save the world… you know where I am. ANNABELLE: Actually, he doesn’t. SALESA: [CHUCKLES] Of course. What a shame. [INHALE] Well then, I guess it really is goodbye. Travel well. Don’t be Strangers! [MORE CHUCKLES, LOWER AND DARKER]

(SOB, Salesa, “Don’t be strangers” had been copyrighted by Georgie in season 3 already!)

… Really curious that Annabelle seemed to already know that Jon would quickly forget about the place, as soon as they would leave; in the same way that she predicted that they might pass out when entering the domain protected by the camera. She… knows… stuff… and understands how things work, uh…

- Cries about Jon just fading from conversation, it REALLY was time for him to leave:

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: Yes, I–I–I’ve been, hum… Uh, these last few days I–I’ve been… getting weaker. Dizzy spells, vagueness, you’ve seen it. Being cut off from the Eye, i–it’s not good for me. […] MARTIN: You don’t have any questions, nothing at all? … Jon? Jon! [CLICKS HIS FINGERS IN FRONT OF THE ARCHIVIST] ARCHIVIST: [DISTANT] Wha… Oh, yes, uh, sorry… Look. […] MARTIN: God, fi–fine. Fine! [BAG IS GRABBED] Come on, Jon. ARCHIVIST: [VAGUE] Mm… Oh, I’m… sorry, what? MARTIN: We’re leaving. […] SALESA: You are sure you won’t stay a little longer? You’re more than welcome! ARCHIVIST: N–no, I, uh… I got to, hum… leave. MARTIN: What he said. […] Y–yeah, uh, come on, Jon. Let’s go. ARCHIVIST: Mm, what? Oh. Yes, ri–right. Yes…

Jon prompted their departure, but it sounded like he forgot about it multiples times during the conversation… He was absolutely drained and ready to collapse, uh?

(Or is it linked to his other memory losses, such as forgetting his bully’s name, or that he had gone for ice-cream with the assistants for Martin’s birthday? I think it really was exhaustion in this particular case (head empty), but…)

- … Jon’s sense of humour…

(MAG181) MARTIN: Feeling better? ARCHIVIST: Uh… Yeah. I’m afraid I am…!

“Afraid I am” – said he, who is currently back to feeding on fear.

- I’m glad that Jon apologised for making them leave, was aware of what Martin had to give up for him, but also that Martin was clear about his Priorities (and differences from Salesa, who was satisfied being protected and safe in his “little bubble” while others are suffering) and absolutely not holding it against him:

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I… It would have been nice to stay. MARTIN: [WISTFULLY] Yeah… I’d almost forgotten what it was like, you know? A bit of peace, eh! ARCHIVIST: I mean, you could have… MARTIN: No, don’t say it, Jon. You know I never would. I–I can’t just “forget” about all the people out here! Besides, I’d rather be trapped in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with you than spend one more moment in paradise with her. ARCHIVIST: [FAINT CHUCKLES] That might just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!

… But it also makes me worry about the alternatives Martin didn’t mention: what about “spending time in paradise without her nor you”, or “going back to the normal world without you”…

- I personally interpreted the last scene as the camera taking back the memories with it, since it was supposed to protect itself and the perimeter around it from The Eye, and Jon knowing/remembering about it would mean giving Beholding access to it:

(MAG181) [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Ah… Pity. MARTIN: What? ARCHIVIST: It’s, uh… It’s going away. That… peace; the, the safety, the memory of ignorance… MARTIN: That’s… [INHALE] Yeah, I guess that makes sense. [STATIC FADES] Do you… remember any of it? Wha–what Salesa said? Annabelle? ARCHIVIST: Some. I–I think. It’s, uh… Do you mind filling me in? MARTIN: Wait, you need me to tell you something for once? ARCHIVIST: I guess so! It’s, uh… It’s gone. Like a dream. … What was it like? MARTIN: … [SIGH] Nice. It was… It was really nice.

(“Ignorance” both as willingly ignoring something you’re aware of, and not knowing what’s happening out there…)

But CRIES about the tinge of nostalgia, at the fact that Jon had been so hopeful during MAG180 while discovering this place (… and was now walking out of it with mixed feelings), and the fact that… these nice memories are stored within Martin, and Martin only.

… And the tape which recorded Salesa’s statement.

- WHAT ARE THE TAPE RECORDERS…

(MAG181) SALESA: Hmmm. [SHUFFLING] Interesting… […] Now tell me, do you know why there’s a tape recorder here? I noticed it just now, but I don’t believe I actually own one. ARCHIVIST: … Uh… Not really. MARTIN: They sort of just … follow us round? SALESA: Hmmmm. Interesting. Did you carry it in? Things shouldn’t be able to manifest in here like that. ARCHIVIST: … You had one in your… bag, I–I think, Martin, did, did you drop it here? MARTIN: Uh… I, I don’t think so…! SALESA: … Very well. In that case, we shall leave it to be. It’s hardly valuable, and it’s probably best not to upset whatever it might be involved with. Besides! I have no secrets to hide. […] Anyway, no more stories, I think. Let us relax, and talk, and drink, and… not worry about who might be… listening.

Jon had already told Tim back in MAG114, but the fact that this place was an anti-Eye zone kinda confirms they’re not Beholding? But outside of that…

* It’s interesting that Jon immediately asked Martin if it was his. Did Jon have his own in his pocket and could tell it wasn’t his? When did Martin acquire one: was it the one drifting alongside him in the water (or not water), in MAG163? Or was the one in MAG170 different?

* We’ve seen with the mention of the Corruption creature that people can go inside of Salesa’s property. We’ve seen that Jon was cut off from Beholding, but what about other powers? Jon was still fearful of Annabelle – so The Web could still be active inside of it? Is the recorder Web, another power?

- Why did Annabelle want them there? Was it for them to learn about the camera, to use later? To close the Salesa chapter? To give them some respite, for funsies? To introduce herself properly while in control of the situation, where Jon couldn’t compel her? To make them lose time because something was happening outside?

- It’s getting clearer and clearer that there are maaaany holes in Jon’s pseudo-omniscience: he’s unable to see inside of the Panopticon. He can’t see the future. He can’t know about The Web’s plans due to it being too fragmented and complex. He doesn’t know about Melanie&Georgie. He couldn’t know about Salesa’s “little oasis” since it was safe from The Eye.

What else is he missing from the big picture?

- So now, what’s coming next?

* If it was indeed Upton House, they’re getting pretty close to London, and with a slight detour, Oxford (and Hill Top Road) could be on their way; given how Annabelle told them they would meet again “very soon”, they might revisit the house… well, Martin would be visiting it for the first time. It was already weird before the apocalypse; how is it as a place, now?

* We still haven’t seen Georgie&Melanie, so they could be coming soon, unless Jon is reuniting with them in MAG189, right before the hiatus, in the same way as they managed to trap Basira in MAG176 as the ending to Act I… (And as usual, where are they? Unlike Annabelle, Jon had been able to hypothesise that they could be in London (MAG164: “Hm! I’m… I’m not… sure, I–I can’t really see Melanie o–or–or Georgie. […] if they were dead, I– I think I would know that, I just… I–I don’t know… where they are, w–what they’re doing. L–London, maybe?”). Are they in the Institute? Behind Helen’s door? Protected because Melanie cut her connection to The Eye and Georgie can’t feel fear, putting them off Beholding’s radar?)

* Basira was supposed to meet them again at the Institute; given that Martin&Jon stayed at Salesa’s for a while, I wonder if she’s ahead of them, now…?

* Last time we saw Helen was in MAG177, and we know that she was usually spying on them…Was she able to materialise her Door into Salesa’s house, or not even? I’m guessing she could be popping up soon, if she couldn’t get her hands on Jon&Martin for a while… (Oh no: given how she liked to casually torment them, she probably witnessed Daisy’s death and bring that topic back on the table just for funsies…)

I’m a broken record, but wow, MAG182’s title is concerning (WHEN IT SHOULDN’T BE…). Spiral (and Helen), Corruption or Lonely stuff? And with the second meaning, a discussion about Jon’s status in the apocalypse? (I’m also thinking about The Admiral ;_;)

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 29: something of an overdue talk, in a long overdue chapter.

Hey everyone! We’re back at it, hopefully, with a few orders of business.

First things first: I’d like to issue a small warning for a short discussion of past suicidal ideation that pops up during this chapter. Since this series is a retelling, generally most of you do know what’s coming up next and what we’ll run into and to brace ourselves for that. You know about the characters’ past traumas and future choices and know where that pops up, or if it becomes unexpectedly relevant or makes a new parallel, you did at least know in advance that it happened. Phoenix’s occasional oblique allusion to Edgeworth’s “choosing death”, for instance. 

As this is not something quite like that and comes up more out of nowhere than usual, I just wanted to make sure that no one is uncomfortably caught off-guard. It felt like something different to me personally as I was writing - whether it’s going to strike any of you as different than other heavier material we’ve had in the past, I can’t say, but I’m erring on the side of caution today. If you’ve got any questions or concerns or anything you want done for content warnings in the future, please do come talk to me and let me know!

On two lighter notes: thank you all for bearing with me through the “oops all Fire Emblem only Fire Emblem” hiatus. It’s been a weird year, obviously. I’m hoping that I can carry on with room in my brain for both.

And finally: Happy UR-1 day! Today is, yes indeed, the exact day that Simon Blackquill is arrested for murder, and in honor of that, have a chapter where I mention him one (1) entire time.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches of Los Angeles Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

Golden Saturday-morning sunlight streams in through the blinds, lighting up the dust particles swirling through the air. The office is colder than Apollo expects for the end of October - colder than it was last year this time - and Phoenix is even wearing a sweater, the shining locket that Apollo hasn’t seen in a while hanging around the outside of the tall collar. “Morning,” Phoenix says, without raising his eyes from what appears to be a manila folder full of newspaper clippings he is perusing. “What’s up?” 

Straight to business, then. Apollo is fine with that. He grabs the chair from his desk and drags it around, not directly in front of Phoenix’s desk, but near enough that it will be harder for Phoenix to ignore him.

“Is there any way to break a curse?” he asks, shoving his hands deep in the pocket of his hoodie. If it were this cold in a regular office on a Saturday, that would make sense; save money on heating bills when no clients are coming in. This is just - fae bullshit. The beginning of their seasonal tantrums. Winter only properly begins on the solstice, and Apollo really wishes that the fae of Kurain would respect the astronomical seasons. Stave off the snow until the end of December and end it in March. Don’t allow it to span from October to April. 

Phoenix sweeps the scraps of paper all back within the folder and ducks down to set it inside a drawer. “If I knew a way,” he says, rising back up with the magatama in hand and setting it down on his desk with a hard clack, “do you think I would go around looking like I do? You don’t think I would’ve gotten this mess cleaned up a long time ago?”

He doesn’t offer Apollo the magatama for a refresher on what that mess looks like. Maybe he was just making a dramatic point with it. “Oh,” Apollo says, scratching the back of his head, faintly embarrassed by how obvious the answer is if he’d given it a modicum of thought from that perspective. “I guess not.”

“Right,” Phoenix says. “As my understanding goes, you can theoretically maybe mitigate a curse, if you layer another opposing blessing on. I am ‘lucky’” - he makes sarcastic quotation marks to ensure that the bitterness dripping from the word doesn’t go unnoticed, as if Apollo could possibly not notice - “to have known enough fae that I’m saddled with both Fortune and Misfortune, and Life and Death. But I’m also not certain that when you drop those on each other they don’t just each take their own separate niches. I’m not dead, but god knows when I try to go somewhere for a vacation or a day off, I still stumble across crime scenes like nothing else. Stunningly lucky in some aspects, and wildly unfortunate in others. You know me. I don’t need to elaborate too much, do I?”

Apollo nods. 

“So that’s the theory, but I don’t think that helps anyway for your purposes, which - this is about Prosecutor Gavin?”

Apollo nods again. Phoenix sighs and rubs his eyes. “Shit,” he says, folding his hands together in front of his face and leaning his head against them. “I - believe me, Apollo, I wish I had some - I wish I had any way to help him.”

And Apollo does believe him. Apollo has to believe him, and believe that Phoenix means well, because he’d go crazier if he wasn’t reminding himself that Phoenix’s most frustrating decisions are born out of good intent. That Phoenix thinks he knows what’s best, but there’s still that old saying about good intentions. 

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Apollo asks. “You knew before this. You knew before he asked you.”

Phoenix raises his head. “And what does telling him get him? Secure in the knowledge that his brother - who is already in jail by the way, don’t need any more proof of his crimes, he’s already never getting out to be able to hurt anyone ever again - hates him enough to have wished him dead?”

Basically the same reasoning that Klavier had, but Apollo has a counterargument now. “Gives him time to come to terms with it before someone dies!”

“You don’t!” Phoenix slams his palms on the desk. Apollo flinches. Of course everyone is volatile and heated over this topic, but that doesn’t make it easier in the moment that it first gets directed at him from people who are usually frustratingly calm and casual. But Phoenix winces, lifting one of his hands and dragging his fingers through his hair, and sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says, and repeats, much quieter, “You - you don’t. Or I never didn’t. I knew from right when it happened that I was cursed; I had three years between then and when Mia died - it - I could’ve had a decade, or two, and it - it wouldn’t have helped. I wouldn’t have felt any differently. Any more come to terms with it. With the thought that I - helped cause—”

His tongue heavy in his mouth, Apollo nods. “But - but wouldn’t it have been worse to find out right after she died?”

“Of course it would have,” Phoenix says blithely. “Of course that - this - is the worst possible alternative. Of course I would’ve said something if I’d known that this was what would happen instead.”

“But you have to have expected that someone would—”

“No, I didn’t,” Phoenix interrupts. “That’s not how this works. You know Klavier. You know how much he doesn’t say, don’t you? How much I don’t - you know what people like us are like. Who’s going to tell him? Sebastian forgets half the time that he even has the Sight. Kay only acts like she knows things. Prosecutor Blackquill spent until two days ago acting like magic isn’t real even when he knew we knew otherwise. Someone who means ill isn going to keep that information to use it, and not to just plainly say something.” He frowns. “Well, usually not. Unless they’re a clumsy interloper stumbling in somewhere they don’t belong and getting themselves fucked over for it too.”

“So other than Means just walking all over everything” - because he wasn’t immersed in this kind of fae etiquette, didn’t grow up in it, learned just enough to spot what he thought were opportunities and ruined himself by it - “you think every other random stranger is just going to respect all these - these weird little rules about what you don’t say?”

“Rules of engagement, basically,” Phoenix says. “Yeah, I do.”

“Prosecutor Gavin told me that you’re cursed,” Apollo says. “Don’t just tell me that’s - that’s the exception that proves the rule, or whatever.”

Phoenix’s expression, smug and trying to dampen that smugness back into something that respects the seriousness of the conversation, tells Apollo that yes, yes that is absolutely what his retort was going to be. Apollo considers screaming. “I’ve been tangled up in this for far too long,” Phoenix says. “I can promise you, I know the patterns. I know the way these things go.”

“And because you’re so much smarter than the rest of us, that makes it okay?” Apollo demands. “To take a gamble and just hope that it won’t go wildly wrong?” 

And he wants to, really wants to add, I guess that’s what you do, just gamble with people’s fates, and he doesn’t, and Phoenix’s face still darkens like he knows, like he can read Apollo’s mind. Because every time Apollo ends up arguing with him, that’s always at the core. This playing card that haunts them both, burnt a bridge barely built, and they keep trying to balance on the ashen skeleton of it. “Just because Prosecutor Gavin is too fucked up about everything else to be mad at you for hiding this—”

“I did,” Phoenix says, voice low, eyes narrowed and dark as an evening’s storm clouds, “what I thought would be best, based on my prior experiences of both how curses don’t get talked about, and knowing exactly what it is like to personally live with knowing that I’m cursed. This is not something I want anyone to have to know how it feels.”

“So you think ignorance is bliss,” Apollo says. Klavier said that. Apollo wants to know how Phoenix takes that statement.

“I wouldn’t call it ignorance,” Phoenix says. “It’s not like he, or you, didn’t know what Kristoph was like until you found this out. You know the crime, the verdict, the sentencing - and everything else that Kristoph tried but failed to do. That Kristoph also wanted Klavier dead is only another small piece in the grand scheme of it all.” 

Still the same argument that Klavier made; Apollo can’t imagine they discussed it. What brought them to the same conclusion? That they both have lived this strange specific kind of grief? This common ground that they share that is foreign to Apollo.

“Come to terms with - Klavier’s already got to come to terms with the rest of that,” Phoenix continues. “It was obvious during that trial how much Kristoph despised him. He knew that too. He knows that Kristoph ruined more lives than just the people he murdered - that he tried to kill more people than he actually succeeded at - cursed and tried to kill children because he couldn’t have - didn’t want anyone remaining who - who could - could… say…”

If Phoenix hadn’t faltered like that - fumbling and failing to continue, words petering out as he went back over what he just said, his eyes going wide and welling up with horror - then Apollo would have simply assumed that his thoughts were moving too fast for his mouth and he couldn’t keep them straight. It would have been easy to talk right through it, and Apollo wouldn’t think twice. If Phoenix hadn’t showed his own hand, gave the game away. Something too terrible for even seven years of professional poker to hide. 

“Mr Wright?” Apollo asks, and Phoenix turns his head, glancing away away, no longer meeting his eyes when less than a minute ago he was staring him down with a cold confident glare. “What - what are you talking about? Vera, and - not someone else? Who else?”

Phoenix makes a tiny shake of his head, and even that little motion is a bright, distinct liar’s red. It lights up his eyes, too, when they dart down to the floor. “Mr Wright?” Apollo repeats. When would this have been? He casts his mind over everything he learned, just a little over a year ago, Phoenix sitting him down to explain seven years of information collected about Kristoph, what he’d done and how he’d tried to cover it up. He tried to kill Drew Misham to tie up that loose end; he cursed and poisoned Vera, two precautions because he wasn’t confident enough in the former, hoping that if she ever left the house she wouldn’t be able to speak to his identity and the forgery he requested. He killed Zak Gramarye seven years later to hide the same. He wanted to eliminate every link in the chain that connected the diary page to him. Its makers Vera and Drew, and Zak who knew he was the first attorney on the case, and then the page got to Phoenix via—

Via—

“Mr Wright,” Apollo says. His voice shakes. “He didn’t—”

“Promise me something, Apollo,” Phoenix says firmly. His mouth is drawn in a tight line but he doesn’t look stern. He looks more like he’s going to cry and is desperately trying to stop himself. “Promise me.”

“Wh - what? I can’t—”

“Promise me, Apollo.”

Not until you tell me what I’m promising, Apollo thinks, Apollo knows is what he should say. He’s been told this enough times; he’s aware of this on his own. Don’t agree to a deal before all the terms are set. Don’t sign the contract before it’s read thoroughly. Rules for lawyers and fae are the same. Just because Phoenix means well doesn’t mean that Apollo agrees with those decisions he makes; certainly not the one they have been discussing, and likely not whatever Phoenix is asking him to agree to. 

“Please.”

The air in the office is so cold. Even the sunlight seems cold now. Apollo shivers, hunches himself up further. What does Mia think? Is this secret-keeping so natural to her, easy as breathing once was, because she’s fae and that’s what they are, liars by trick and by trade?

“Just promise me you won’t tell her until I do.”

His mouth dry, Apollo nods and croaks out, “All right. I won’t.”

He almost regrets pushing the issue,regrets ever asking Phoenix why he faltered. Phoenix sits slumped, his hands in his hair, and when he glances back up at Apollo, he looks so exhausted that it reminds him of Klavier last night. Burnt-out and broken, when it’s so rare for either of their masks to break. Rarer for Phoenix not to be positioning himself as the one with all the cards in hand; for him to fall apart, for Apollo to actually see him upset. “Yeah,” he whispers, soft enough that Apollo sits forward to make sure he can hear him. “Everyone involved in getting the diary page from him to me, Kristoph wanted dead, or to make sure he could silence them. Everyone who knew, even if she was - eleven years old, or eight. The girl who made it, and the girl who gave it to me. He fucking hated the Gramaryes. You think he didn’t jump at the opportunity to try and get rid of all of them that he could? That he wouldn’t cast a curse on each one who ever entered his sight?”

“And she” - Apollo’s voice cracks - “she doesn’t know? You didn’t tell her?”

“Shit, no,” Phoenix says. He sounds close to cracking, too, and when he drops his hands to his desk he starts shaking his head, his eyes scrunched closed. “Being a Gramarye has been goddamn enough of a curse for her. She lost all her family and then found out that her grandfather buried her mother’s soul in the woods because he was a monstrous son-of-a-bitch who deserved worse than getting to go out on his own terms by shooting himself in the fucking head—”

Apollo shudders. Phoenix had never before directly stated his opinion on Magnifi, but Apollo could definitely tell he held only disdain for the man. This, though, is more than disdain. This is positively venomous, and more than a bit frightening. Did he always feel like this, and hid it, or is this hatred something that has only come about since last year Trucy came back to the office with her mother’s soul in her hands?

“—so yeah, on top of that, I’m definitely going to tell her that the same man who killed her father cursed her just because of the accident of who her family is.”

“B-but—” Apollo doesn’t quite know what he’s arguing. He also doesn’t know where all of his prior conviction went. Of course Klavier should have been told - because he found out in the worst way possible - and Trucy - to take a gamble with her too - that’s got to be just as wrong— “Nine-Tails Vale,” he says suddenly. “We went there, and then there was a murder - that - that’s - is that like—”

“Like what happens to me?” Phoenix asks. “What happens with a curse? Yes. That’s how it goes.”

“And you - you’re not going to - to tell her? Ever? In case - in case something happens to her like with Klavier, or—” Too many thoughts are playing in his head, and the next one grabs hold of him and pivots him away from the point he was going to make about maybe why Trucy should know. “The concert,” he says. “When we went to the concert, Trucy and I, and Klavier was there too of course but that’s - Romaine LeTousse was murdered. They’re both cursed and they - wait, was Klavier cursed then? That was before…” 

Did Klavier know when it happened? Did he tell Apollo? He’d said that Phoenix had seen him twice since the trial last October. Presume then that Kristoph cursed him then. The last time the brothers saw each other, and that doesn’t make one bit of sense. 

“How could Kristoph have cursed him?” Apollo asks, and he doesn’t miss a momentary flash of panic that passes over Phoenix, his eyes popping wide for half a second and a loud, sharp intake of breath. “Klavier always has iron on him. He gave me—” He looks down at his hand, and then back up, to Phoenix’s lifted eyebrows. Apollo sticks his hand back in his pocket. “What’s the point in iron if it doesn’t actually save you from being cursed?”

Phoenix is obviously trying not to move. He knows Apollo is watching him, waiting for a twitch, anything to pounce on and draw an answer out of him. Staring steadily back at Apollo, he barely blinks; he rests his folded arms on his desk and his fingers curl just a little tighter into where he’s gripping his arm. Apollo is right to be asking these questions. He’s getting closer to something that Phoenix is hiding. 

“Or it does,” Apollo says. The veins on the back of Phoenix’s hand flex from his grip. Apollo thinks about someone else with a tense hand and secrets. “And he couldn’t have been cursed then, at Vera’s trial, if it does. So then Mr Gavin hated him that much before then.” Phoenix blinks placidly, but he doesn’t adopt his lazy-eyed gaze. Too serious even for that. “And you lied,” Apollo adds. “You lied about when.”

Phoenix flinches. It’s just a tiny one, pulling his head back, the muscles in his jaw and neck tightening, but Apollo can’t miss the light show. Can’t miss that the lie is bleeding out of him.

He finds himself on his feet, not stepping any closer to Phoenix’s desk, just needing the height, just needing to move a little to stop the shaking in his hands and in his chest, a trembling that goes right down to his heart. “He knew already that he’s cursed! Why did you keep lying to him!” 

“I didn’t lie to him,” Phoenix says evenly, but very quietly, and Apollo wants to go over and slam his fists on the desk and make him stop with these hollow justifications, make him face what he’s done couched in none of his winding words. “I just didn’t correct his assumption.”

“That’s lying!” Apollo shouts. “That’s still lying! That’s what happened in Mayor Tenma’s trial! Do you remember that? Do you care!” 

“Don’t accuse me of not caring.” Phoenix’s voice is low, his eyes dark, staring up at Apollo. “I do care. I—”

“You don’t care about lying! But you do care about - what, about us? Doing this because you care, because you always know what’s best for everyone not to know!” Apollo throws his hands in the air. Phoenix’s brow furrows further, his jaw set tightly. “Never mind that Athena had a breakdown during the trial because Means hit her exactly where you were worried she would be! And you didn’t prepare her! Never mind that Klavier’s having a breakdown now because he found out at the worst possible time! When you could have told him! You know—”

“And if what he knows already hurt him this badly, then what do you think would be happening if he knew Kristoph cursed him years ago?” Phoenix slams his hands on his desk like he’s at the defense’s bench, pushing himself up out of the chair and onto his feet. “That his brother’s wanted him dead for that long? You think that’ll help anything, for him to find that out right now on top of all this? You want him to have that to come to terms with right now, too? I didn’t lie to him! He made an assumption that I didn’t correct because I’m not in the business of salting anyone’s wounds!”

He makes - a point. Apollo sees where he’s coming from. Why he’d do that. An additional piece of truth, yesterday the same as a salting of the wound. “But you don’t think he’s ever wondered if - if Mr Gavin resented him for that long? If he - if you would be setting something to rest, if you told him that. You can’t decide for someone else what they’re capable of handling.”

“Fair point,” Phoenix says. He sinks back down into his chair, and then motions to Apollo’s, suggesting he sit back down. “If he’d asked, I’d have told him. If he ever asks, I’ll tell him. I just wasn’t about to drop that on his head with him unprepared. Or if he asks you - I’m not asking you to swear silence to that. Shit, if you ever think that it’ll help him to know, then tell him - tell him you just found out from me, throw me under the bus and lie to make me look worse, that’s fine.”

Apollo returns to his chair, still not feeling any less like he wants to take a swing and see if he’s gotten any better at punching since last April. “You want me to lie now too?” he asks. 

“I want you to use your best judgment about what he might want to know or be able to handle,” Phoenix says. “To not pile on more if he didn’t ask, if you don’t think he’s prepared. Like I said, when it comes to being cursed, I didn’t ever not know, and I know what the knowing is like. Yeah, I took a gamble that if I didn’t tell them then no one else ever would. That they’d never know, I hoped.” 

He shakes his head and then leans it back against his chair, his eyes closing. “See, it’s not just grief, not at all. The woman who cursed me was someone I thought I knew. Though I’d known for a while. She had actually wanted me dead since we first met.” His eyes pop back open. “Eventually she tried to poison me, and when that didn’t work she tried to frame me for murder, and when that plan fell apart she just tried to kill me with a curse because she was pissed about it. She was a lot stronger than Kristoph, I’ll tell you that much. But Mia stepped in, and now I’m still alive and other people just drop dead all around me instead.”

He sounds almost like he is making a recitation, like he’s rehearsed it, scripted it. Apollo wonders if he’s ever told anyone else all these details, if anyone else lacking the Sight knows that Phoenix is cursed, and if he used this same script then too. He’s speaking about himself, something so personal, in a way so curt and crisp, so much more detached than he’s been speaking about Klavier, or Trucy. 

Apollo nods numbly, unable to force his tongue to ask any of the questions he has.

“I could have come to grips with her hating me that long and that much - I could’ve come to terms with it and moved on. I was - well, I eventually became glad to know what she was. I could’ve been okay with all that. Eventually. If I hadn’t known about the curse. But I did and the - the knowing, the - Mia was murdered. Three years after she saved me. That long, thinking I could accept that I was cursed, and as soon as something really happened - I couldn’t.”

He presses his hands together and rests them against his chin. “And I couldn’t ever even just grieve her, because I had this guilt. That her death was my fault - I know, I know, some other man murdered her. He got to rot in jail for the rest of his life for his crimes, and he would’ve hated her whether or not I was cursed. For the things she did and because of what he was, and I had no part in any of that, but I was still - thinking, if maybe if she hadn’t ever taken me under her wing. If I hadn’t been around, maybe it would’ve been different somehow. Maybe she would have survived.”

The lights flicker gently and return dimmer and softer than they were before. Everything that gets talked about in this office, Mia hears; Apollo wonders if Phoenix doesn’t get sick of it sometimes, just want to say something without her offering input. Even if this is presumably well-meant, some attempt at comfort, the most a dead woman who can’t speak can give. Apollo exhales and can see his breath. He shivers again. “Why are you telling me this?” he finally asks. 

“I want you to understand.” Phoenix rubs his hands together, a vacant look in his eyes, like he hasn’t quite realized why he’s so suddenly cold. “What it felt like, and what I’m worried about. If I’d told Klavier, or I tell Trucy - once I say something, I can’t take it back. That’s it, and they know, forever, just like I do. So I want to be sure that this won’t - I want—” He drops his hands and reaches over and picks up the magatama, idly spinning it around between his fingers. Apollo can’t remember ever seeing him this uneasy, this fidgety. “Klavier, especially, reminds me of myself when I was his age, and of a prosecutor I knew then, too. And that - recognition” - he gestures with the magatama clutched in his hand - “is not good, because we were not - okay.”

Apollo wishes he could remember with clarity all that Phoenix said to him about this time a year ago, about Klavier, about Phoenix being concerned for him. He does remember that Phoenix said something about some other prosecutor then, too, that Klavier reminded him of. Or that he was worried Klavier was going to end up like.

Phoenix inhales slowly, and says, “Six months after Mia was murdered - which was three, three and a half years after I was cursed, mind you - I lost someone else. I didn’t realize how badly he was doing - he did a good job at hiding it, and I didn’t know how to reach out. I was wrapped up in my own loneliness and depression, and then he was gone.” 

He stops turning the magatama between his fingers, staring down at it for a few seconds, and then he resumes fidgeting with it. “I felt like I’d caused both of those. Couldn’t convince myself otherwise. Every other factor I knew there was, every single thing I couldn’t prevent or control, all these other things that other people did - I still thought that if I wasn’t cursed, then it could have been - just different enough that they would still be here.” He reaches up, brushing his fingertips across his temple. “Wouldn’t have been a fatal wound. Or wouldn’t have—”

He falters, staring past Apollo now, over at the window. This is the same thing he said about Mia earlier, about that sense of guilt, even knowing someone else murdered her. That he held some kind of responsibility, for a curse that seems to manifest itself as coincidence. Just coincidence, a little too often. 

“They could’ve been okay, somehow, in the end, I thought,” he continues. “And instead, I was - I was there, I was still around, and they weren’t. And all I could think was that if I didn’t do something, then I would just lose the other few friends I still had - they would be around me, and they would die for it.”

“Didn’t you say that there’s no way you know to break a curse?” Apollo asks. From Phoenix’s solemn expression, he’s not going to suddenly say that there is a method, but Apollo has no idea what he is going to say. What that something he thought to do was. 

“Right,” Phoenix says. “So I thought - only way to take the curse out of the equation is by taking myself out of the equation. I thought - as long as I’m not around - if I go and die, then anyone else who I love won’t. The curse will be gone, right, if death finally takes me. But the curse only seemed to hit other people, not me, so if dying was what I needed to do, then I…”

Klavier lying on the stage, wondering why it had to be Courte who died instead of himself. Phoenix’s dark, pained eyes, as he speaks again, finishes the thought in a voice barely above a murmur. “It made - made far too much sense to me, then. Was far too appealing a prospect.”

The question of what Phoenix won’t quite spell out catches sideways in Apollo’s throat, and when he tries to force it he just makes a soft croaking sound. Phoenix presses his lips together and glances away. “It’s a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” he adds softly. “Klavier’s - he’s what, twenty-whatever? I was twenty-five when I—” 

When Mia died, Apollo thinks, but that Phoenix doesn’t finish the thought, swallows hard and stares at his desk and says something else, makes Apollo think there was something even worse he could have said, with that implication he didn’t say. “And Trucy - she’s my daughter. I’m supposed to protect her. I took her in because I couldn’t live with the thought of anything else happening to her when I could bring her here, hope that Mia could somehow bless and protect her as much as she did me. But I can’t imagine just - I can’t let that happen to her. To suffer the way I did, to - to spend her life wondering if wherever she goes, someone’s going to die - the concert, Nine-Tails Vale, to ever - to think she can blame herself. Or that everyone she loves is better off without her. Or to—”

He blinks, fiercely, his eyes watering, and Apollo hopes he’ll never have to see Phoenix this close to tears again. Phoenix, cursed and trying - and in the case of Klavier, now failing - to shelter others from that same pain. Klavier, and Trucy, and—

“What about Vera?” he asks. “You explained to me, but did you ever tell her that she’s—” Phoenix stares at him, blinks slowly. Apollo squeezes his own eyes shut. “You didn’t tell her.” He’s unable to muster the same indignation he was before. He can’t really even bring himself to feel manipulated. Phoenix told him exactly that he was saying all this to make Apollo understand. Phoenix sought this reaction. But Phoenix’s chessmaster act has never superceded his desire to keep secrets before; there’s no way that Apollo can convince himself that this emotional vulnerability is all entirely a ploy to get Apollo to shut up. How many times has he refused to explain something and just left Apollo to stay angry about being in the dark? He has never been reluctant to do that. To just sit silent and lock Apollo out. To let Apollo hate him for his secrets.

He wanted Apollo to understand, intimately, whatever it took. So that Apollo would agree keep these secrets. So that Apollo would go along with him. And it might be concern that drives him - he cares, of course he does - but it’s still manifesting in the most infuriating ways possible. In well-meant silence.

“Would you want to know?” Phoenix asks, and that question at this time is an answer and confirmation in itself. “I know the truth is important to you, Apollo - I know it is to all of us.” 

For once, Apollo believes he means it. He’d know it’s the truth because he can see when Phoenix is lying, but he’s actually convinced, this time. 

“But,” Phoenix continues, “if you already know that the person who cast the curse hates you and is in jail for committing murder - already got to come to terms with that, or grieve that, or for someone else dead - you already know that truth. Would you really, honestly want to live with also knowing that you’re cursed?”

To possibly want to die because of it, like Phoenix did? Apollo opens his mouth. He wants to say yes, yes he would like to know, because that’s the truth of it and he wants to always know the truth, all of its facets no matter how ugly. 

Doesn’t he? 

He thinks about Nahyuta, about Dhurke, about trying to forget they ever were anyone, because that’s easier than facing the fact that Dhurke abandoned him, and they might both be dead by now. Easier than wondering whether they were human or fae or something else. He doesn’t want to know what they were. He wants to deny the dreams, to convince himself they’re nothing but the weird subconscious mash-up of memory and the fae horrors Clay has spent all these years warning him about. He doesn’t want the truth about his childhood. He doesn’t want to remember his childhood at all.

(Is it well-meant silence when he doesn’t tell Clay, or Trucy, or Klavier, about them? To not worry them about his life and his past? Or is it just cowardice on his part? Blissful ignorance.)

He closes his mouth. Thinks about the smile Trucy forced onto her face as she realized that Apollo was about to reveal to the court that her father Zak Gramarye was murdered six months before then. Thinks about how she couldn’t keep that smile forced when she found out that her dead grandfather took her mother’s soul for his own personal gain. Thinks about Klavier lying on the stage wishing that he had been the corpse there, not Courte. All the pains that truth has caused them. Is that better or worse than that alternative? Does it depend on what truth it is being hidden?

(He thinks about how long it’s been since he’s said Nahyuta’s name out loud. What color were his eyes in real life, and not Apollo’s haunted dreams? He doesn’t remember.)

“I - I don’t really know,” he admits.

The smug, victorious expression he expects never arrives on Phoenix’s face. There’s no satisfaction in winning this argument. “I’m sorry,” he says, closing his hand around the magatama. “I told you about Vera because it mattered directly for that case, but the rest of this - I wanted to shoulder it myself. So the rest of you don’t have to worry about it. I don’t want you to have to keep secrets from anyone. But I don’t know what else to do.” He forces a smile onto his face with visible effort that makes Apollo wince. Nothing masks the exhaustion written into the lines on his face. “Maybe we put our heads and together we figure out some better way to talk about it. If I ever figure that I should tell…”

He trails off, touching a finger to his locket. Tell Trucy. If he ever gains reason to think that he should tell Trucy. Would he actually run it by Apollo first, ask for his advice? The possibility of being in Phoenix’s confidence for something that isn’t a case doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. 

“I still don’t think you should try and keep it secret forever,” Apollo says, “but I - I guess I see what you mean. And why you don’t just…”

Why he doesn’t just tell her. More reason that just because Phoenix doesn’t “just tell” anyone anything. For once, he’s not being a cryptic bastard.

“Believe me, Apollo,” Phoenix says darkly, “I’m always thinking ahead and trying to plan for the worst. I’m not naive enough to just hope that anything will stay one way ‘forever’. But I have to be sure I don’t make it worse, either.”

It isn’t the lack of a visual cue that makes Apollo believe him. It’s knowing him that makes Apollo believe him. Phoenix always has his eye on something down the line, playing out the plan a few steps ahead to find the complications. Even - especially - while he wasn’t a lawyer. A gambler’s steady hand holding the cards, chancing on an outcome, because the cost of doing nothing at all is even more unthinkable. 

Apollo nods, more times than necessary, lacking anything else to say. Phoenix cocks his head. “Apollo, you all right?” he asks. 

What the hell is he supposed to say - how the hell is he supposed to be? Fine? In what world is he possibly fine? At the end of this, he’s learned more than he ever dreamed he would from his sole initial question, but in it all, that first answer has never changed. 

This is all there is. A rabbit hole of pain so unfathomably deep and winding, and in its darkest depths, the same as the answer given to him on the surface: there’s no way to break a curse. Their lives aren’t the kind of fairy tale where true love’s kiss can wake a sleeping beauty or transform a beast back to a prince - it’s grimmer than that, colder than that, crueler than that. Curses not so concretely visible but more like haunting coincidence, a ghost whispering at the shoulder with reminders of guilt. How could a man who wasn’t even there when the crime happened blame himself for his mentor’s murder? And yet, even after the killer’s confession, how could he not? How can even the curse’s caster be blamed when someone else wielded the murder weapon? And yet, how could they not share in it?

Apollo would rather someone have been turned into a frog, honestly. Wouldn’t that be easier to grapple with, a simple chain of cause and effect, and no ambiguity in who to blame. 

“No,” Apollo finally says. “Not really, no.”

“I guess that was a bit of a stupid question, huh.”

Apollo nods. No kidding. What’s a better question at this point, anyway? Not what he says. “How - how can there really not be any way? For a curse to be broken, I mean.”

Phoenix spins his chair around, resting his head back against it, eyes turned up to the ceiling. Once he slows to a stop, facing the windows, he says, “I mean, maybe it’s possible there was, once, but it was forgotten. There’s a lot of magic that’s gone that way.” 

He gives Apollo a moment to digest that, and then continues, “The Court’s heyday was thousands of years ago. They’re living ruins of what they used to be, and a fraction of what they used to know. Maya - you haven’t met her, she’s Pearl’s cousin - Maya’s helping me out with some matters by trying to dig up more about some kinds of magic they’ve forgotten the nuance of. But even that’s something we’ve got a hint that they knew, once. Not like—” He shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a way to break a curse.”

“Oh,” Apollo says, somewhat surprised, but pleasantly so, that Phoenix said that much. It would be typical of him just to reiterate that no, there just isn’t any way he knows, that’s all, and to skip the explanation for fear of giving Apollo false hope. But thinking about the prospect of false hope is still easier than really, truly considering the meaning of what Phoenix just said - that this, that everything they’ve ever had to deal with in regards to the fae, could have be so much worse. They could do so much worse than all this pain they’ve ever wrought - they were once so much more dangerous than this, and now their Court is only ruins. This is what they are when they are weak.

“If I do find anything out, I’ll—”

Phoenix breaks off, rising up slowly from his chair, staring at something past Apollo, over his shoulder. Apollo twists around to look, not sure what he expects to see, but it certainly isn’t Vongole standing in the doorway, her head held high, her body much more solid than it usually appears, and stiller. The wispy fur at the back of her legs and off of her tail does not stir as though she is made of mist and surrounded by a breeze that affects only her; she could almost, in this moment, be a normal dog, but for her glowing eyes and her ears so bright red as though they were dipped straight in paint.

All the color drains from Phoenix’s face. He snatches up the magatama and springs to his feet, hurrying past Vongole to peer into the other half of the office. Apollo rises to his feet; if Klavier was here - if he heard what Phoenix was hiding - how Apollo promised to keep it a secret—

Vongole stares at Apollo. She doesn’t move. Phoenix reappears in the doorway, curling a hand in his hair, but his face has fallen slack with obvious relief. The claws curled into Apollo’s heart unclenches. “So then what are you doing here?” Phoenix asks the hound, whose ears fold back flat against her head, though her snout does not turn to shift her attention to Phoenix. She stares Apollo down like she will pounce. “Does he send you places or did you just wander here yourself?”

“You don’t know?” Apollo asks.

“You think I’ve ever had the chance to ask either Kristoph or Klavier about the logistics of their spectral hellhound?” Phoenix asks. Apollo tries to remember when he first started seeing Vongole. Whose ownership she would have been under. How soon after Kristoph’s arrest did Klavier come back to Los Angeles?

Despite her weirdly lanky proportions, like a regular dog was put on a rack and stretched out, Vongole always moves with grace, a predator’s prowl and elegance. A monster, but a beautiful one. She circles Apollo like she intends to herd him somewhere, like she is a shark smelling blood waiting for the moment to strike. “What—” Apollo spins too, trying always to keep her in his sight. She moves just slowly enough that he can keep up, but just quickly enough that he becomes slightly dizzy in his efforts. “What do you want?”

She stops. Apollo steps forward, trying to escape her circle, but she swings suddenly to the side, throwing her body up against Apollo’s hip. He expects her to fade through him, as she does walls and doors, but when she hits him he staggers with the force of her weight. And the cold - her body is cold and it reaches straight through his clothes, cold enough to burn, ice on bare skin type of burning, and Apollo doesn’t understand. He’s touched Vongole before, without problem, hasn’t he? Surely he has. What’s wrong with her? Or is something wrong with Klavier?

She trots over to the door, standing on the threshold, staring back at Apollo with her head aloft. He can’t bring himself to move, can’t unfreeze his feet from where they are riveted into the ground. Vongole presses her ears back against her head, lowering it so that her neck is level with her shoulders, prowling again, and she makes another circle of Apollo before again stopping in the doorway.

“I think she wants you to go with her,” Phoenix says.

She wags her tail, much faster than the usual low, wide swishing path that it takes. Apollo wrenches his foot from the floor and takes one step forward. Vongole bounds through the front room of the office, weaving between magic props tossed carelessly on the floor as though she couldn’t pass through them. And she stops and waits at the door, glancing expectantly back at Apollo. He fumbles his phone free from his pocket, finding no messages waiting for him; why would Klavier do something as cryptic as sending his faery dog to collect Apollo, rather than just calling or texting him?

Unless it isn’t Klavier instructing Vongole. Unless she’s acting on her own. Or unless Klavier is in trouble.

“You’d better go,” Phoenix says. “I can lend you the—”

“It’s fine,” Apollo says. He’s pretty sure that Klavier hates the magatama, and he found him fine without it last night. And he didn’t have Vongole guiding him then. 

“Let me know that everything’s all right,” Phoenix says quietly. Apollo opens his mouth to ask what Phoenix knows, why he’s so sure that this means something is wrong - remembers what Phoenix said about himself and how Klavier reminds him of himself, long ago. Closes his mouth. Knows why Phoenix worries.

Phoenix always worries. He means well. His road is paved in well-intended worry.

“Yeah,” Apollo says. “I’ll - I’ll let you know.”

Vongole waits for him only to reach the door, diving through it as his hand reaches for the doorknob. He next finds her waiting beside the bike rack, her smoky fur drifting independently of the chill breeze, and as soon as he mounts his bicycle she lopes off down the sidewalk. She never looks back at him but is obviously monitoring him in some way, her pace changing depending on obstacles and traffic so that she always remains in his sight. He follows her through the quieter (relatively, anyway) city of weekend mornings, through his usual stomping grounds, to end up on the stoop of an apartment building that is - quite frankly, not as grandiose as Apollo would expect. He presumes this is where Klavier lives.

(If it’s not, then he’s far too deep into something that it’s also far too late to back out of.)

Vongole noses one of the buttons on the buzzer at the entryway and disappears through the door. Only seconds later, too quickly for her to have physically covered the necessary amount of ground, the door clicks to unlock. Apollo enters the lobby and before he has time to take in his surroundings, she appears in front of him. Literally appears - not bounding up to him out of a wall, but materializing out of the air, white fog swirling in circles around her ankles. She directs him to the elevator, pressing her nose into the button for the fourth floor and then several times in quick succession slamming her nose into the close doors button. “So were you always like that, or did you pick up your impatience from him?” Apollo asks.

She sits down and fixes her eyes on him. He doesn’t know what that means. He’s not sure why he bothered talking to her. She can’t respond - can she understand? Does she have some way to communicate information she hears to Klavier? Surely not - hopefully not, depending how long she was in the office.

She does not move until the elevator halts at their destination, and she springs to her feet and slips through the doors before they have opened wide enough for a fully-corporeal dog of her size to pass through. But when he makes it through, she meets him right at the other side, her impatience not taking her any further down the hall until Apollo can follow right at her tail. The walls are not cracked and peeling as in Apollo’s building, but they are certainly plain - again, very much not the kind of place he would imagine Klavier to live.

Vongole throws herself through the door of Apartment 404, and Apollo waits in front of it. A moment passes, and then another. Right. Even a faery dog doesn’t have opposable thumbs to grip a doorknob. He fails to swallow his apprehension but knocks anyway. There has to be a reason Vongole brought him here. He can’t just run away from it. 

The seconds crawl past. Apollo reaches up to knock again, but the door swings suddenly open, and he flinches back.

Klavier’s hair is barely held together in a ponytail, strands falling loose around his face, and he looks even more like he hasn’t slept, going by the shadows under his eyes. And Apollo never thought there would come the day that he sees Klavier in sweatpants, but - he’s still alive. He’s still intact in one mobile piece, and he’s lucid enough to look annoyed. Apollo fumbles for words, any at all, but none arrive on his tongue. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He starts to raise his arm to point at Vongole, to blame her, and before he can, Klavier sighs, shaking his head, his apparent annoyance sliding into exhaustion, and he steps out of the doorway, pulling the door open wider, and gesturing for Apollo to come in.

-

[notes on the chapter]

[aquilamage]

I finally finished the Klavier pov companion fic to the last klavbastian thing I wrote! (which I’ll rb in a moment because I know this site doesn’t like links in original posts)

Klavier composes his first letter before he even finishes unpacking, scribbling it out over a box in his lap because the desk is too cluttered to use. It’s nothing too fancy. Just enough to tell Sebastian that he made it safely and give him a mailing address like he promised. It gets sent out a few hours later once he’s shown the nearest post box. Klavier knows it’ll be a few days’ wait both ways (and anyway doesn’t expect a response to this one), so he resolves to write another one soon.

‘Soon’ turns out to be several days later, the single one between orientation and the start of classes. He’s simply been so busy that the energy to write out as detailed and heartfelt a letter as he wants simply hasn’t been in him. Sprawled across the floor, he fills the page. Themis starts a few days later than them, so hopefully this should reach Sebastian when he’s at the same point Klavier is now. He pauses when he thinks of that. It’s a nice thought, that all these little facts have lined up so that the two of them are separated by time and distance and yet also technically having this conversation at the same point in their lives.

There’s definitely a song in that, he thinks, and smiles as he skips down a few lines to tell that to Sebastian.

He also tells him to watch out for himself this year, especially since “you’re going to have to share top of the class with someone else. Try not to make me too jealous?” That had been one of the similarities the two of them had bonded over, along with their age. It wasn’t a massive difference from their peers, but they had still been the youngest in every course. Klavier had actually struck up their initial conversation based on this, reasoning that they ought to stick together. Even though they’re apart now, he writes, that sentiment hasn’t changed.

---

He finally gets around to decorating in the second week of classes. After ages of looking at the box of things and meaning to get to it but only ever remembering at the most inconvenient times, he sits up from his textbook and starts right then. It’s a complicated affair, with everything he’s brought. The highlight, though, is the photographs – a few with his parents (copies, he didn’t want to risk bringing the originals); newer ones of just him and Kris; Professor Courte before his first mock trial, her hand on his shoulder and her expression immeasurably proud; random group shots of friends and the band; a lot of weird selfies with Daryan.

Putting them up takes longer than if he were simply doing the physical act. Klavier stops to really look at them, remembering the people with a fondness that only gets stronger when he remembers that he won’t be seeing any of them again until he’s done here. Each captures his attention for different reasons, but the one that gives him the longest pause is of himself and Sebastian.

Klavier’s arm is over his shoulder, the other held out to take the picture. Sebastian’s hand is on Klavier’s and he’s looking at him more than the camera. It had been an ordinary…well, Klavier can’t remember the day of the week, but the two of them had been hanging out after school somewhere on the grounds last year when Klavier realized he didn’t have any pictures with or of his friend. That situation had to be rectified immediately, of course. The clearest thing Klavier remembers is Sebastian’s initial surprise that he even wanted one. Mostly because it was a bit of an odd reaction, but also for how it pulled at Klavier in the same way seeing his friend in distress did, although he has yet to figure out why those seem connected. And then of course, there was Sebastian’s wide-eyed look when Klavier presented him with a copy the next day. He had tucked it inside one of his books with delicate care.

Despite having known the fact before, it was only after that event that Klavier’s mind had really registered the fact that Sebastian didn’t have any other friends. On the barest surface level, he supposed he might understand. But even that was hard because Klavier knew if people took even a few seconds to look past Sebastian’s first impression, it wasn’t exactly difficult to see what he was really like. Becoming friends hadn’t even been any effort. Show Sebastian the smallest bit of interest and kindness and he was all over you. (To the extent that it worried Klavier, sometimes.)

But despite Klavier’s subsequent efforts to help expand his friend’s social circle, something out of their control always seemed to block their progress. Sebastian gave up relatively quickly, and Klavier respected his wishes enough to drop it as well. Besides, he still had time with Sebastian during the number of classes they shared, plus before and after school, and the lunches where he would sometimes leave his usual table and go sit with him in one of his hiding places (the latter not as often because Sebastian tended to alternate between ‘of course you’d want to be with me’ and distress about Klavier losing his other friends if he kept doing this).

Klavier sighs as he puts the picture up at eye level. It fits perfectly. He should write another letter.

---

Klavier isn’t worried about Sebastian’s lack of response yet. Themis keeps students busy even at the beginning of the year, and figuring out international postage does take a while. Besides, words aren’t Sebastian’s strongest point. If he can be patient with him during conversation, he can certainly extend the same courtesy over written communication.

Being conscious of that does encourage him to tone down on how often he scribbles down some new thought to share with his friend. It’s hard going from talking with someone every day to not at all. Klavier’s got a lot of friends, but there’s always been something about Sebastian that feels…different. In a good way.

A day or so later he’s thinking about someone else he’s been missing and a thought clicks into place for him. At the bottom of his newest letter, he adds a note asking him to say hello to Professor Courte for him, if he can. (He considers mentioning this to her as well, but decides against it. Better to let Sebastian do it on his own terms.) Now that he’s thinking about it, he doesn’t know why he never introduced the two of them before. Courte always told him any friend of his was welcome with her. And she’d be good for him, even if only to have someone to talk to.

---

Klavier still wouldn’t call himself worried, but he can’t deny a twinge of concern peeking out its head. By this point, it has been a non-insignificant time since he started writing. He checks his mail daily, enough that he won’t miss anything, but not so much that he’s working himself up. His first thought is that he’s somehow messed up the address and practically sprints out at the end of class to go check. Eventually, though, he’s forced to admit that the reference he’s been using is correct. Besides, if it really were wrong the letters would’ve been returned by now. Going off of that, though, he starts to think he somehow put the return address on wrong, which isn’t exactly anything he can check.

The next time he writes, he makes absolute sure that he’s gotten it perfectly and one hundred percent legible, just in case.

---

Midterms roll around and consume his attention. Those days fly past in a whirl of studying and test-taking where the only marker of time is what subject he’s working on.

Being done should be a relief. The night after his exams are completed, however, he finds himself unable to sleep, wracked with the dread of having forgotten something very important. It’s only during the latest hours that it dawns on him.

“Sebastian,” he whispers, clutching his hand to his chest.

(The fact that he’s also neglected communication with everyone else back home is realized a little later, and with less fanfare. And that fact isn’t something that he will pick up on for a while yet.)

The grip his feelings have on his insides won’t let him sleep. But he doesn’t write either. There hasn’t been much of interest to report, and he hasn’t any particular thoughts to say. It’s just that he misses Sebastian with a sudden ardency that’s a bit alarming, actually. (Another form of homesickness, he figures, to be expected when dealing with the withdrawal from someone you’re used to seeing so often.)

Fortunately, the next few days provide him with a diversion in the form of a local music festival. Klavier spends most of his time there after class. It’s nice, and by the end of it he’s also filled several pages describing everything to Sebastian.

Music’s always been the easiest connecting point between them. Despite, or perhaps because of their different preferred styles, it’s almost too easy for them to become tangled in complicated discussions, everything else forgotten. In terms of showing the other new music, Klavier is almost always the one doing it, but he doesn’t mind. It’s far too enjoyable an experience watching Sebastian react to things. That encouraged him, as time went on, to seek out music he thought Sebastian would enjoy, just to get another glimpse at that secret little smile he only seemed to make when that happened. Or sometimes things that he definitely wouldn’t like, because his passionate explanations about that were also invariably cute to watch.

It’s in that spirit that he’s been making recommendations in his letters, even if he isn’t going to get Sebastian’s immediate reactions. This time is no different, as he makes sure to emphasize the names of those artists who he thinks Sebastian would like.

That isn’t the only thing he enjoys about their conversations, he muses one day while studying. Klavier’s noticed Sebastian’s tendency to make himself bigger or smaller than he actually is when interacting with people. Talking with Klavier about music is one of the only times he doesn’t try to do either. He doesn’t know what about that situation makes Sebastian feel so at ease, but he’s eternally grateful for it.

Because that makes him comfortable as well. Sure, Klavier has other people he can and does talk music with, but there’s something different about talking with Sebastian. He figures it’s got to do with how passionate he is. Sebastian cares so much, is the only person Klavier’s met who shares his level of enthusiasm about music. Who hangs on to every word of Klavier’s but still freely expresses disagreement when it occurs. When they’re both in the middle of a discussion and getting progressively more excited, feeding off the other’s energy, it feels so right. Like that’s where the music of his life is and everything else in between those moments is just one big rest.

It isn’t until he drifts out of thought that Klavier realizes he’s been humming something. He runs through it again and smiles. New music.

---

Klavier tries to keep himself from missing Sebastian so much. But it's hard, going so long without talking to him, especially with how often he's reminded of him. In the way he instinctually turns to comment on something in class. In the music he listens to, so much of it having been shared. In the way other people’s gestures always make him picture the dips and twists of Sebastian’s hand while he’s concentrating. Even in the twinges of concern that run through him now and again, his mind used to interpreting not seeing his friend in a while as a signal that he should go look for him.

The missing consumes him, he could say, but the reality is nothing so dramatic. It sneaks up on him, quietly, softly, a variant on feelings he’s already experienced but never bothered to identify. And doesn’t, until he’s getting up, the early morning sun warm and promising on his shoulders. His eyes immediately fall on the picture of Sebastian, and he sighs. It comes to him then, as easily and undramatic as drawing breath. He smiles. Of course. With that recognition everything else falls into context.

He loves Sebastian. Has for some time perhaps, he isn’t sure. Not that it matters. All that does is the warm joy of the here and now.

---

The first time it does make him pause is the next time he puts pen to paper to write a letter. He wants to tell Sebastian, there’s no questioning that. But to do it in writing…he’s not sure how right that feels. He’d much rather in person. Then again, it’s still months and months until he goes back, and the idea of waiting that long…

So he writes out the rest of what he has to say. Carefully putting that to the side, he takes out some scrap paper. If he can’t figure out how to put what he wants to say into writing in a way that he feels satisfied with, then he won’t include it.

Nearly a week passes before he finishes striking the right balance. An honest, accurate expression of his own feelings that also make it clear that whatever Sebastian feels (Klavier had taken almost a full day off writing when that hit him, the thought that Sebastian might return the sentiment left him dizzy and clasping a hand to his chest from how full his heart was), Klavier will be fine with it. Klavier’s noticed how Sebastian thinks he has to earn people’s affection, and the last thing he wants is for that to happen here. That, more than anything else, he thinks, would hurt him to see happen.

He seals the envelope with a careful reverence and holds it close as he takes it to mail. And just like that, the deed is done. All he can do now is wait for Sebastian to read it.

---

Having already gone several months without any letters, Klavier really shouldn’t be so surprised that Sebastian hasn’t responded to this one yet. But as time goes on, he can’t stop thinking about how much he wants this time to be different. To get a response. He’s wishing with every feeling he has that it’s reciprocated, reassuring himself that either way, things will turn out alright.

But eventually, even that certainty begins to shake. Whatever other reasons he’s used in the past to understand why Sebastian never writes have been shoved aside as Klavier’s convinces himself that now it’s because of what he said. If Sebastian is happy, if he loves him as well or even thinks he could, then what reason would there possibly be for him to remain silent in the face of his confession? No, the only answer is Sebastian is angry or repulsed, or feeling like Klavier’s taken advantage of his trust. Maybe he has. What right does Klavier have to make such declarations? True, that’s what he felt, still feels now, but had he really thought through what it would be like on the other side of that?

---

Klavier starts writing again. The first letter is a simple apology, heartfelt as the confession but with quiet contemplation in the place of its warm exuberance. What he said can’t be taken back; he could never lie to Sebastian like that even if it might make his friend feel better. But if he can at least atone for what he’s done…

He writes many letters of that kind as the days go on. Initially of the same tone and content of the first, in the vague hope that perhaps Sebastian hadn’t opened the previous, the hurt of what Klavier had done being too near. But soon they begin to match the desperation in his heart, for the first time asking for a response, begging Sebastian to at least tell him if he was upset, he doesn’t even care at this point (that’s a lie; he does care. No matter how much he tries to bury it he can’t change the fact that even if Sebastian said he despised him to his face it wouldn’t be enough to root out the love nestled into the deepest part of Klavier’s being. It would only hurt). Anything would be better than the agony of not knowing.

He should’ve waited, he tells himself. Kept it to himself and treasured his feelings just like he’s come to treasure the person they concern, until he went back home and had the conversation in person. But no. No matter how much he’d dressed it up in pretty phrases, the fact was that Klavier had put his own silly emotions before those of the person he supposedly cared about so much. His brother has told him a thousand times that he is too soft, too emotional, that he runs entirely on impulses of the heart without so much as a thought in his head. And as time stretches ever on, faced with more of the same nothing in response, Klavier finally finally finally begins to resign himself to the fact that every bit of that is right, and now that inability to take things seriously has gone and ruined everything, leaving him with the ruins of a friendship and the heartache of knowing he’s responsible for hurting the person he loves most.

[kikiofthevast]

Fanfic I have downloaded on my phone

I do recommend all of these and read them fairly consistently.

---

Sanders Sides

---

A Lovely Night - Peter164

Summary:

Virgil has a boyfriend, a dramatic, over the top, self absorbed boyfriend. But his dad doesn't know. He asks for some help from a trusted adult. This trusted adult just happens to be his teacher. But it seems that there always has to be a secret boyfriend in the family when his dad starts dating.

Genre: Fluff and Smut

Ships: Prinxiety + Logicality

My Thoughts: Fantastic, and you can skip the smut chapters without missing anything. It's a good, pretty healthy, supportive romance on both ends and I love reading it, it's so nice.

---

Powerless - patentpending (on Ao3) (Tumblr: @/impatentpending)

Summary:

“People like us,” Logan had once remarked to Virgil. “Are statistical anomalies.”

(Almost) Everyone in the world has powers. As for those who don’t, well, they’re such a small part of the population - only 0.04% - why would anyone care about them?

Ever since he realized what people mean when they call him Powerless, Virgil Sanders has tried to fight back against the system that oppresses people like him, Patton, and Logan. When Patton’s bakery is targeted in a hate crime, he finally snaps. With the help of a mysterious sponsor, Virgil becomes a villain, ready to remake a broken society. The only thing standing in his way is the world’s most Powerful (and infuriatingly charming) superhero: The Prince, who is hiding the fact that his gilded life isn’t as perfect as it may seem.

Genre: Angst

Ships: Prinxiety + Logicality (with background OC+OC)

My thoughts: Without a doubt one of the best fanfics I've ever read. The author likes to keep readers on their toes and surprise you around ever corner. Every part of the plot is well-executed and enjoyable, and you can feel the emotion of the characters.

---

Horizons - triggermoreliketiger (I know they have a Tumblr but I don't know what it is)

Summary:

The life of Roman del Rey was planned to the bits. Born in a wealthy family he was supposed to take over his father’s business. His last moments of freedom? The journey abroad. He couldn’t have predicted that when he would come back, everything he knew was about to change.

On the opposide side of social ladder, the genius inventor- Logan Sanders was struggling to make it through another day. His only chance? Get himself a sponsor rich enough to fund another year of Logan’s work. He couldn’t know that his last chance would blew up right into his face.

Genre: Angst

Ships: Prinxiety + Logicality

My thoughts: Holy crap I love this fic so much you wouldn't even believe. I adore the way everyone is characterized and Virgil and Patton are probably my favorites on that front. Just go read it, you won't regret it.

---

Patton's Break - Shay_Nioum (Tumblr: @/sidespromptblog)

Summary:

When Patton snaps one day, it directly affects Logan. A misunderstanding on Patton's part, and a broken heart on Logan's.

Genre: Angst

Ships: Platonic Logicality

My thoughts: I read this whenever I need to cry. It's such quality angst and I love it a lot. Logan is trying so hard, poor boi.

---

Ace Attorney

---

The Phantom's Curse - gen

Summary:

Everyone knows the story of the Phantom; usually mothers whisper it to their babies to get them to behave, or it's told around the campfires of travelers. What they don't know, however, is that it is very real, and the Phantom could be watching at any time, from any set of eyes.

Genre: Angst and Adventure

Ships: Wrightworth/Narumitsu

My thoughts: I'm a sucker for pirates. I love the way this fic was written and executed you you should go read it. Also: don't be me and waste time being suspicious of Kristoph because he ain't evil in this. Still a bit of an ass, though. All the references to the cases were nice and the whole plotline was just so fun and enjoyable.

---

A Beautiful Thing - wrightgotwronged

Summary:

"The Girl was offering me a way out...and I was desperate enough to believe her,"

Private Inspector Phoenix Wright is given the case of a lifetime when the mysterious Dahlia Hawthorne walks into his office. With a missing girl and murder on his plate, Phoenix is caught in a whirlwind of confusion and deceit. His past coming back to haunt him in the form of the District Attorney doesn't seem to help either.

Genre: Angst and Mystery

Ships: Eventual Wrightworth (Brief Phoenix/Dahlia)

My thoughts: I adore this fic. It's got a good, substantial mystery, and though most people can predict some of the turns it takes, it's a fun ride and 10/10 would read again.

---

Turnabout: Bloodline - MalikRuttingAssassinAss

Summary:

Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth collapses at work in the midst of a heated trial. What comes from his hospitalisation throws both his and Phoenix's worlds into mass confusion, exposing forgotten family secrets, a murder, and uncharted feelings.

Genre: Angst and Smut (with a side of Fluff and Comedy)

Ships: Wrightworth/Narumitsu

My thoughts: This is a fantastic storyline, Phoenix is also kind of an idiot for the first bit but it's still really entertaining and nice.

---

The Turnabout of Hazakura - MalikRuttingAssassinAss

Sequel to Turnabout: Bloodline

Summary:

Losing patience with the so-called "gift" of his lineage, Miles Edgeworth, along with Phoenix Wright, seeks the tutelage of the Nuns of Hazakura temple. Whilst hoping to control his "gift" with a punishing endurance regime, a horrific murder is discovered within the Temple grounds, and the evidence points towards one person.

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, and Smut

Ships: Previously established, also developing Phoenix/Miles/Simon

My thoughts: This fic is incredible and I agree with Miles on the reveal of a certain plot point, honestly. But the mystery is well-executed and I just love the inclusion of Shi Long Lang (even though I haven't played either of the Investigations games).

---

sleep no more - prinsipe

Summary:

Blood is thicker than water.

Or: Klavier deals with the aftermath.

Klavier’s first memory of blood went a little like this: the turkey at the family dinner, the worn handle of the knife, and Kristoph’s brown hands.

In retrospect, it was those details that stuck out at him above all else—the family dinner, because it was the first and last of its kind, the worn handle of the knife because it made him think of how it looked like it was made for the grooves of Kristoph’s hands, and Kristoph’s hands because they moved in a way that made him think he was born for the kitchen, not the courtroom.

(Of course, as a child, it had slipped his mind that knives weren’t just used for cooking.)

Genre: Angst and minor Hurt/Comfort

Ships: Pretty Background Klapollo, implied past Daryan/Klavier

My thoughts: A very long but a very good fic. I love the way everyone is characterized, and honestly this is one of those stories that you get more out of it if you read it aloud. Klavier is just alone, and I love the way Apollo slowly helps him get back up.

---

Damage Control - pantswarrior

Summary:

After an emotional reaction from Phoenix following Edgeworth's return, Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death in truth. Fortunately for Phoenix, he doesn't quite succeed - and both of them have to learn a few lessons about communication.

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

Ships: Wirghtworth/Narumitsu

My thoughts: This is such a good story, but things have to get worse before they get better so read the tags and proceed with caution.

---

Lost in a Lie - court-ships (virtualbrownie)

Summary:

Miles Edgeworth learned to kill when he was a newborn, and he learns to love it at the age of six.

Genre: Angst and a bit of Horror

Ships: None

My thoughts: This is really dark, but I really like it and you should definitely proceed with caution. Warnings for character death, murder, animal death, and blood.

---

Intermetamorphosis - Jessepinwheel

Summary:

Or: Five Times Miles Edgeworth Didn't Know What Was Wrong With Phoenix and One Time He Wished He Didn't.

Or: God dammit Phoenix, stop shoving evidence in criminals' faces, or at least invest in a recorder.

Or: The story where Phoenix dies, but that doesn't stop him from being an ace attorney.

Genre: Comedy and Angst

Ships: None

My thoughts: This story is ridiculous but it's the good kind of ridiculous. There's just something so bizzarely funny about this happening that you just laugh at Miles's ignorance. Okay, that sounds mean, but really Miles?

---

Turnabout Santa Claus - lostangelssong

Summary:

A Christmas trial that could have been.

Genre: Comedy

Ships: None

My thoughts: It's literally just Miracle on 34th Street. That's all it is. But it's so gosh darn funny and ridiculous that I had to recommend it.

---

The Rise and Fall of the Stalk Trucy Wright Club - SlashPrincess15 (slashprincess15)

Summary:

Trucy Wright is a weird girl who makes all sorts of claims that cannot possible be true, at least that's what her school's student population believe. It all changes however when she starts getting picked up from school again.

Genre: Comedy and Angst

Ships: None

My thoughts: Such a nice fic, honestly. It's pretty funny, and the interactions Trucy has with the people that come to pick her up are fantastic.

---

The Realm - Farris

Summary:

It started off normal and innocent enough: a welcome home party for Iris.

But when a demon comes slashing through, bringing a world of ghosts and crazy with it, Maya Fey has no choice but to stand as Master to save her friends and restore balance to the Afterlife. Unfortunately, she's not Master yet. Nor is she sure she wants to be, given all that's happened to her and her family. Oh, and things only get worse when she discovers she must face a series of Trials to prove herself and her worthiness of said Master title.

Still very bitter about Kurain's role in DL-6, Miles Edgeworth finds himself having to come to terms with spiritual powers as he tags along to the realm between this world and the next. And then there are the monsters. And the gods, his father, and the Trials. Not to mention something is very much wrong with Wright... like the fact that he's not dead.

Genre: Action, Adventure, and Angst

Ships: None

My thoughts: Definitely in my top 10 favorite fics, if "A Beautiful Thing" is a 10/10, then this thing is off the scale. Also Gregory being a Good Dad™ deserves it's own book.

[bindingties]

(Edgeworth&Klaiver) Prosecutor, what do you think of Kristoph Gavin/your brother?

(( both miles & klav have answered a lot ic abt their feelings toward kristoph so this is kinda a fic-like thing??? i wanted to try something different rather than having the muses answer like they’re being interviewed shjdfgdhjf ))

The first time Miles meets Kristoph Gavin it is,unsurprisingly, in a courtroom.  Everyargument is an uphill battle; no matter what Miles says, Gavin has a quickcounter.  In a certain way, it isexhilarating to have such a quick and vicious opponent that forces him to stayahead.  On the other hand, he can easilytell that Gavin is not fighting for the same end that he is.  

He doesn’t agree with Gavin’s general philosophy but bears noill-will after the verdict is declared.

—

Gavin comes up again after Wright has been disbarred.  Miles had called his friend to Europe and isdoing his best to be supportive.

“You don’t have to go it alone, Wright.”

“Oh, well, I’m not, Edgeworth. I’ve got a friend back inCalifornia who’s helpin’ me out fine, so you don’t hafta worry so much aboutme!” He laughs and Miles rolls his eyes.

“Are you sure you want to get advice from Larry?”

Wright’s brow furrows and then he snorts. “Oh!  I didn’t mean Larry, I’m talking aboutKristoph Gavin. Probably should’ve mentioned that. Do you know him?”

Miles doesn’t know why he feels like the floor has opened upbeneath him.  Doesn’t know why thethought of Kristoph Gavin being Wright’s emotional support makes him want todry heave.  Of course Wright would haveother friends.  Of course.  It’s perfectlysensible that he’d go to the people who live near him and not across a fuckingocean.  He’d want someone who couldactually help and not someone woefully incapable.

“I’ve met him in court. I’m glad you have someone there.”

—

Miles sips a glass of water, watches Gavin and Wright talk,and decides that he hates Kristoph Gavin. What does Kristoph have that he doesn’t?  Why is Wright running to this purple bastardall of a sudden when Miles has been here….

Been here….

He hasn’t been here, has he?

He runs away at the drop of a hat and comes in like a stormand vanishes once more.  Why would Wrightever confide in him?  His grip on hisglass tightens and he feels bile rise in his throat as Wright chuckles atwhatever it is Gavin has just said.

He’s mine, Gavin.

But he’s not.

—

“Kristoph Gavin has been convicted for the murders of ShadiEnigmar, better known as Zak Gramarye, and Drew Misham as well as conspiring todisbar Phoenix Wright and attempting to murder Vera Misham.”

Hearing the report should not make him giddy – there is asizable body count and trauma – but Miles can’t help but feel vindicated.  He always knew that something was wrong withKristoph Gavin and had always been justified in hating him for it.

Still his sense of triumph is damped by the fact Gavin hadonly been sentenced to life in prison. Such a sentence will not do, in Miles’s opinion.  After all, someone so slimy is a disgrace notworthy of the air that they breathe.  

There is a precedent, and wouldn’t the world be saferwithout Kristoph Gavin in it?

—

“Kristoph Gavin has been executed this morning.”

Miles smiles into his cup of tea.

 ——————————————

One of Klavier’s first memories is tripping on his ownshoelaces and skinning his knee. Kristoph is the one who cleans and puts a band-aid on it.  And for the longest time, Klavier is entirelyunaware how strange it is that his parents are fuzzy ghosts barely at the edgesof his memories.

All he has is his older brother and he loves him with all hisheart.

—

“I FUCKING HATE YOU, KRIS!”

Klavier slams her bedroom door shut and kicks her trashcanfor good measure.  Who does he think heis?!  Telling her what she’s allowed towear?!  It’s not even that fucking cold.  Would it kill him to stop being such acontrol freak?

She snorts to herself as she slides her window open; itprobably would kill him.  

Carefully, she slips out of the window.

—

“Is this how you’re choosing to spite me this time, Klavier?”

“I’m not- It’s not- Just because you’re a defenseattorney, doesn’t mean I have to be one too!” And Klavier has done many thingspurely to spite his brother but choosing the prosecutor’s course is not one ofthem.  

He’s just worried that becoming a defense attorney wouldmean his brother also becoming his boss and doesn’t want to be under Kris’sthumb his entire life.  It’s bad enoughwith Kristoph being both an older brother and guardian.

Kristoph just peers at him over his glasses.

—

“The attorney who’ll be there in my place tomorrow is not tobe trusted. Don’t even give him the benefit of your respect. Listen, I want youto call in a special witness.”

Kristoph holds out a plain business card.  It would have been nice to face her brotherin court and prove that she knew what she was doing, that she didn’t need to bebabied.  Struggling not to scream, Klaviertakes the card and mentally waves her chance goodbye.

She trusts Kristoph’s words, of course she does, but shewishes that he had kept his nose out of this! Does he seriously not even trust her to corner a crooked attorney byherself?!

Why does he always have to try to control her life?!

—

“Prosecutor Gavin, we see fit to inform you that yourbrother, Kristoph Gavin, has been convicted of the murder of Shadi Smith.”

“Danke, I’ll return to California shortly.”

Klavier hangs up and doubles over a trashcan.  Nothing comes up and she wants to cry.  Why would her brother murder some randomguy?  It doesn’t make any sense!

When she visits him, she doesn’t get any answers. Why wouldshe?  He is allowed to pry into her life,but the reverse has never been true.

—

“I told you that Daryan boy was trouble, Klavier.”

“Just shut up.”

“You truly can’t trust anyone, can you?”

—

Klavier tries to keep his voice steady, tries to shine witha confidence he does not feel. “Let’s clean out the family closet, eh,Kristoph?”  He feels his brother’s steelygaze, but that isn’t what is making his stomach turn.

“Klavier… You’re spinning out of control. Calm yourselfbefore you say something you’ll regret.”

Before any performance, it is important to breathe and tokeep one’s eyes on the goal.  Breathe anddon’t get distracted.

“Spinning out ofwhose control? Mine? …Or yours?” Another confident retort said as he feelsadrenaline burn his veins and while he can’t keep his hands from trembling.  Honestly, he does feel like control isslipping away, but he can’t show weakness now.

“Take a moment to consider everything you’ve built. Yourreputation as a prosecutor… your fame with the masses. You could lose it all,Klavier.”

Just breathe.  Thetruth has always been his guiding light and he won’t let go of it now.  The truth will be his anchor.  He can handle what’s about to happen.

He can handle this.

—

“Infamous defense attorney turned murderer, Kristoph Gavin,has been executed today…”

Klavier is already well into a bottle of whiskey – it isn’tlike he hadn’t been informed earlier – and he just barely manages to grab atrashcan before he vomits.  He sinks ontothe floor, body wracked with sobs.  He’s broken, isn’t he?  What sort of person misses someone likeKristoph?

He looks at his knee and all he can see is Kristoph huffingout a sigh as he sticks a band-aid there. He just remembers meeting Vongole, just remembers Kristoph at hisgraduation, just remembers the trust and love he used to feel.

He wishes he had anyone to talk to.

‘You could lose it all, Klavier.’

You were right. Of course you would be right….

[linklethehistorian]

Miles Edgeworth Headcanons?

Thanks for submitting an ask, anon! This is my first time answering one, so I’m very excited! I don’t have quite as many headcanons about Miles that are coming to mind right now, but let’s see…

Orientation, Romance, & Family headcanons

- He’s asexual, aromantic; this is the true reason why he doesn’t seem to have any interest in marriage or relationships in general, and doesn’t necessarily believe in love or the power therein.

-Although a part of him wants to understand these things whenever Phoenix or another close friend of his brings it up, he just can’t seem to grasp it or bring himself to admit it really exists and therefore becomes easily frustrated over it, to the point where it can and has caused him to get into an argument with someone on multiple occasions. 

-With as long as he’s known him, Phoenix especially has learned not to bring it up with him unless he’s either in a particularly good mood, or it is extremely important. Gumshoe, on the other hand, still hasn’t learned how to keep his personal life completely out of the office, so he has a tendency to cause trouble on this front whenever he brings up his relationship with Maggey.

- He’s never dated anyone.

-This probably isn’t something a lot of people want to hear, but he probably wouldn’t ever get into a romantic relationship with — much less marry — anyone, no matter who they are or how they feel about him; Miles is more than happy being single, and no one could ever come along who could truly change that — or at least, that’s the way he looks at it right now.

-Despite this, there is actually a part of him that thinks it might be nice to be able to have a son that he could raise like his father raised him; this may at least partially be due to the fact he lost his father at such a young age and wants to make it right by ensuring that someone else gets to have the experience that he never did.

-If anyone ever did come along who was able to truly change his mind and convince him to be with them and start a family, although Miles would try his best to be supportive and complete his duties as both a husband and father, his SO would have to understand and accept that he is also very much married to his job and would often be out on business — another factor which drives him to believe he would not be fit for the role of a husband.

- If he had any children, regardless of whether he had a son or a daughter, he would raise that child exactly as his father raised him; with love and understanding, but also very strictly and with discipline. He would want his child to grow up a polite, distinguished, well-behaved, and responsible adult.

- His first son would be named Gregory, after his father.

Childhood

(Trigger Warning — mention of abuse.)

-Miles’ biological mother died in a car accident when he was only 4, and after that, his father took the responsibility of raising him all on his own. Nowadays, he barely remembers anything about her, but his father always said she loved to wear clothes that were the color maroon and that Miles got his hair color and eyes from her.

- After taking him into his care, Manfred von Karma was an extremely abusive adopted father to Miles, both emotionally and physically. As such, Miles endured a lot of abuse throughout his childhood well into his teen years — sometimes willingly; although Manfred was generally kinder to his daughter, even she had moments when her father would lash out at her and discipline her far more harshly than was necessary, and although the two children didn’t always get along, Miles still would often choose to take his little adopted sister’s punishment for her.

- The first night at Manfred von Karma’s house, he tried to watch the Steel Samurai on the television, only to be scolded and told that only immature babies who never intended to get their heads out of the clouds would watch such ridiculous trash. 

-Manfred ensured that most of his education was through private tutoring, as he didn’t want any other children “feeding him other ideas about how life is meant to be lived and spreading their ignorance to him like a disease”; this means that Miles rarely left Manfred’s sight.

-Occasionally, he would still be allowed to leave to go to the library to get books for study all by himself, however, and eventually, he learned to use this privilege to his advantage, sneaking volumes of the Steel Samuari official manga home inside of books he checked out there, allowing him to keep up with the series — something which helped him to feel closer to both his father, who once allowed him to watch it, and his two friends that he was forced to leave behind (who recommended it to him in the first place).

- He still has those exact copies of the manga today, along with every other officially licensed product relating to the series to date, which he keeps in a private room inside his house.

General

-Although Phoenix and Maya and their many friends have helped him to believe in the supernatural at least a little bit, he still has a great deal of trouble believing in anything he can’t see with his own two eyes or touch with his own two hands.

-He tends to overwork himself — a lot. There are many nights when he doesn’t go home at all, and instead falls asleep at his desk or on the sofa while still in the middle of reading a file or signing a paper.

-He’s had to re-print some documents several times because he falls asleep while signing them and accidentally marks up the entire paper.

-In spite of these facts, he somehow always seems to look and smell absolutely impeccably clean and fresh, and everyone he works with truly wonders how he does it. Ema Skye once said it was his “genetic superpower, scientifically speaking”, and that became a joke among everyone at the prosecutor’s office for the rest of the month. …No one really believes that she was actually joking when she said it, however.

-Of all his fellow prosecutors, he gets along with Simon Blackquill the most, and Klavier Gavin the least.

-When he’s having a bad day, you definitely want to steer clear of him; he may not be a physically violent man, but that does not mean that he is a prissy pushover, either. No one is really entirely sure how he does it, but the sheer aura of anger he gives off when he’s even just in the same room as someone else is enough to give that person chills down their spine and make them almost feel physically ill, much less if that person should find themselves caught in his stern glare.

-Anyone who has known Miles for any length of time knows that there are four things you don’t say to him/discuss unless you are willing to start an argument or put him in a bad mood: (1) that his father was an inferior defense attorney, (2) romance in general, (3) that Steel Samurai is a kid’s show and shouldn’t be watched by adults/The Plumed Punisher is better than the Steel Samuari/some other insult to the series, and/or (4) that coffee is far superior to tea.

-Don’t insult his triple cravat or call it something else unless you’re willing to have him glare at you, either (or call his suit “pink”…)

-In his house, he has one entire room dedicated to his fine china collection, and another to Steel Samuari. Trusted guests are allowed to see the former, but only he can see the latter.

-Despite his no-nonsense attitude, he actually gets along fairly well with children these days, although he can have trouble understanding what they want of him from time to time.

-He won’t ever admit it, but he does miss Kay Faraday a little and often wonders where she is.

-He actually really enjoyed substituting as a defense attorney for Phoenix once; it reminded him of his childhood dream.

-He is like an Uncle to Trucy, and often comes to visit her and her father on his days off.

*This first one may not be entirely a headcanon depending on who you ask, as him being asexual was mentioned in an interview with the game creators once; however, it is still debatable.

—

Whew, I think that’s all for now. If I think of any others, I’ll let you know. Again, thanks for participating! Hope you enjoy!

[crackmadhi]

That sounds fake

Sunday, 17 June 2029

“I have to admit that your friend group is, even though rather unconventional, quite entertaining”, Nahyuta told Simon while sitting on the brown couch in the others living room.

In the same time, Simon was washing his hands and responded Nahyuta offhandedly: “Our friend group. Moreover, it's always been like this for me. Somehow, I appear to give off a vibe that attracts geeks, nerds and eccentrics of all sorts. I came to accept it.”

Nahyuta chuckled a bit and looked over to the bathroom door. Klavier surly took his sweet time. Quickly forgetting about the blond rock star again, he turned his attention back to Simon and watched the man preparing a salad for the three of them. They would probably order some takeout later that night but for now, they'd have what Simon would make them.

Peacefully they stayed silent. Until Simon suddenly raised his voice and asked calmly: “You seemed to be rather surprised that Athena brought Juniper to the party. Why was that? I mean, it's not like they'd be the first gay couple you've ever seen.”

Nahyuta flinched a bit. This was not a question he had been prepared for. Nervously he blinked and composed himself.

“It's just something very unusual for me to see. In Khura’in, you don't see same sex couples in public and it's not something that's really talked about. Here, on the other hand, everybody seems to be very accepting and nobody is making a big deal out of it.”

Simon had stopped washing the salad and had turned in Nahyuta's direction. Frowningly he stared at the man sitting on his couch.

“What are you talking about?”, Simon asked unbelievingly. “You've seen Edgeworth-dono and Wright-dono together all the time and you never said a word. Hell, your brother is even in a relationship with the idiot, who is occupying my bathroom right now. What's different with Athena and Junie today?”

Nahyuta gulped. Simon was not wrong. But he was also not entirely right. To explain that to the stubborn Samurai, was the last thing he wanted to do right now, but there was no way that lead around an explanation.

So, he answered carefully: “Look I know this must sound weird to you, but… It's ... It's probably the fact that we were in public? I've never seen your superior or Apollo directly displaying affection towards their respective partner in public before. And that was different today.”

Simon let that sink in shortly. Yes, this had been the first time (save that one-time Klavier had basically ran into Apollo to hug the life out of him at the airport) that Nahyuta had seen any public display of affection by a same sex couple in the states. So, he had actually a reason to be a bit surprised by the whole ordeal.

Distractedly he turned back to his salad and commented gruffly: “Alright. I get that. Must be strange for you. It's a bit hard for me to imagine since I was practically raised by my hardcore lesbian sister. I kinda only saw gay couples in my private life and for me all of this is just normal. But so, you know, not all people of this country are very accepting and understanding towards the lgbt+ community. I've seen my fair share of homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and so on. It's getting better but it's still not where I'd like it to be.”

Nahyuta blinked baffled. He had not thought Simon to be a man who was so well informed about queer activism. Of course, he had known that Aura had been interested in Simon's mentor and Athena's mother Metis, so the lesbian part did not surprise him that much, but the rest had caught him off guard and he could not quite choose what he was supposed do with that information.

“I didn't know”, the khura'inese price mumbled. “Who would have thought that?”

"Would have thought what?”, Simon asked him expectantly.

Simon now was glaring at the man while displeasingly raising his eyebrows.

“Well, I'm simply surprised by your knowledge and passion for this cause. I didn’t know that you were a supporter and it surprised me”, Nahyuta explained unhappily shifting around on the couch.

A dark chuckle left the wannabe samurai's mouth and he returned to cut some tomatoes. With a bemused smile, he commented: “Isn't it a normal thing to fight for one's rights? And to be honest I'm not really an activist. I went to several Prides with my sister back when I was a teen and I'd stand up against homophobes wherever I ran into them, but I didn't do a lot beside that. I just wanted acceptance for queer people. I never saw what was so different between the straight cis people and the trans, gay, bi, pan and aro/ace people like me.”

Awaiting Nahyuta's response Simon continued cutting his tomatoes. But there came none. The prince remained silent and Simon was wondering why that was. When he shot him a look, he recognized a slightly ashamed expression on Nahyuta's face. Quizzingly Simon observed the man and suddenly realized what could have thrown off the man.

“Do you... Do you not know the expression aro/ace?”

Nahyuta's lips were pressed on another and formed a thin line. Unsure he met Simon's gaze and nodded helplessly. He somehow was afraid that he might have offended Simon by his lack of knowledge. But there was no anger in the elder’s face. On the contrary, Simon smiled calmingly and told him soothingly: “It's short for aromantic and asexual. Do you know these words?”

These Nahyuta did know. Immediately he felt a little sting. Quickly he shoved this hurt feeling away and tried to recall all the things he knew about the expressions. It wasn't much, and he wasn't entirely sure, if he remembered their meaning correctly. Asking couldn't hurt he decided and said cautiously: “Yes, I've heard these expressions several times in the past. But I'm not entirely sure if I have a correct definition, so it would be rather kind of you to enlighten me. If you'd like to, of course."

Somehow, Simon's smile grew wider and even more content as he heard Nahyuta's request. Patiently he nodded and told him: “Asexual is referring to a person's sexual attraction. It means a person does not experience sexual attraction towards anybody. It can be used as an umbrella term or as the name of a sexual orientation. So asexual is a bit different from person to person. And same thing goes for aromantic just with romantic attraction. Got it?”

Nahyuta thought it over. He felt like he had understood most of it but...

“I think I understand but just to be sure... As an example: It would mean that you'd never look at somebody and thought that it would be nice to date them? That would be asexual, right?”

“That's aromantic actually. Asexual is different, at least in my book”, Simon meant a bit unsure.

“What does that tone mean? Aren't you sure what asexual really means?”, Nahyuta asked frowningly.

Defensively Simon waved with his hands and explained: “Yes, I do. It's just hard to explain something you don't experience.”

Unimpressed Nahyuta laid back on the couch and frowned at the man in the kitchen. Demanding an explanation, he stared at Simon. Simon sighed and scratched the back of his neck. Well, now was explanation time and he wasn't sure, if he was up to that task.

“Look, uhm, sexual attraction is when you think that a person is somehow extremely attractive. Good?”

“Yes, so far so good.”

“Okay. So, they are so attractive that one has sexual fantasies about them or even wants to sleep with them. And that's sexual attraction as far as I know”, finished Simon a bit forlorn.

Unbelievingly Nahyuta gaped at Simon. This couldn't be true.

“That sounds fake.”

“What are you talking about?”, asked Klavier exiting the bathroom.

“Do you experience sexual attraction?”, Nahyuta blurted out animatedly.

Blushing heavily Klavier stared at the man sitting on the couch, who seemed to be dead serious about his question. Well, this was a personal detail Klavier had never been asked about by any reporter before. To find such a question one had to be incredibly lucky.

“I - “, Klavier stuttered looking over to Simon, who looked like he was about to burst into laughter, “why would you discuss my sexual attraction? How on – I mean seriously? Why?”

Simon let his knife drop on the counter as he collapsed with laughter. Nahyuta did not share his amusement and was perplexed and annoyed by the samurai’s reaction.

“I think, I need an explanation for this”, Klavier stated completely lost looking from the laughing mess in the kitchen to the confused man on the couch.

Nahyuta shot him a look and answered: “I guess you do need that, indeed. Though I can’t tell you why the panda is laughing like this.”

“Fair enough”, Klavier mumbled as he walked over to Nahyuta.

Sighing, he sat down and ignored the still cackling Simon in the background. Silently he observed how Nahyuta calmed himself down and became as unreadable as ever. It made him truly uneasy to see how well the monk managed to hide his true emotions. It always reminded him of … him.

“We were not speaking about your sexual attraction specifically”, Nahyuta began focused to speak and folded his hands composedly in his lap. “We spoke about asexuality as it came up in our conversation and Simon tried to give me an explanation what it was like to experience sexual attraction. The focus lies on tried, so he didn’t mange to give me a satisfying description of the matter. That’s why I turned to you. I hoped you could maybe enlighten me, since you might experience it, while Simon apparently doesn’t.”

For a second Klavier simply gaped at him. Then he could no longer hold back an amused smile. The monk’s unluckily phrased question immediately became strangely endearing, Klavier found himself thinking.

Cautiously biting his lips, he readjusted himself and began slowly: “I gather that… this is an important matter to you?”

Nahyuta nodded coolly.

“Ja, hmm, sehen wir uns das mal an… So, I do experience sexual attraction, and I’ll try my best to explain it for you without mentioning your brother, ‘cause that would be weird.”

“Agreed.”

“Okay. I’ve met a lot of people in my life and some of them I found very “sexy”, for the lack of better words. I mean, I didn’t just think they were beautiful in an aesthetic sense but in a sexual sense. And you see… when I looked at them it sorta – he could not help himself but blush - aroused me. That’s one way I experienced the occurrence sexual attraction in the past. But it has also happened that this attraction had developed over time. At the beginning I’d had no such feelings, but after some time spent together the feelings grew and suddenly I was sexually attracted to them. But that’s only what I know. Other people probably had different experience with it and would give you another definition.”

Klavier could now observe a deep frown in the monk’s face and sceptically lifted an eyebrow.

“See Sad Monk? I’ve got it right without ever feeling that kind of attraction. It’s literally just the desire to fuck somebody”, Simon stated unimpressed and startled Nahyuta with it, who had almost forgotten that the other man had been standing in the kitchen.

Klavier turned towards the Samurai and shot him a disapproving look. The other did not feel the need to respond but shrug and directed his energy back at cutting more salad. Annoyedly Klav huffed but said no more towards the Twisted Samurai. Right now, it was the monk who needed his attention.

For Nahyuta did not look very happy with the situation. Klavier could see it. There were only small signs, a light flutter of his right eyebrow, the tiny movement of his pointer finger over the fabric of his trousers. But Klavier saw them. He saw that something was not right.

“Yuta? What’s – what’s bothering you? Is there something for me to do?”, the rock star asked gently as he placed his hand on the other’s shoulders.

Warily Nahyuta lifted his eyes. He sat up as straight as he could and turned his head to the side. In a graceful, almost divine, motion he closed his eyes and sighed.

“I never felt this way towards anyone.”

His voice was small. No more than a whisper. He turned his head towards Klavier. The look in his eyes was full of vulnerability

“I didn’t realize that people felt like this… I never thought that I wasn’t normal. I -“

Klavier stopped him right there by gripping his upper arm determinedly.

“There is nothing like normality in this world. People might act as if it was normal to be heterosexual and cis, but it’s not. There is nothing wrong or unordinary with being asexual, Nahyuta. You’re perfectly fine, no matter what orientation you have. It’s not like you can choose for whom you fall or don’t fall, so never feel guilty for that, okay?”

Klavier knew that he had spoken too animatedly and vigorously. He could see it in the slightly shocked look in Nahyuta’s eyes.

But the rock star did not want the monk to feel isolated and lonely. He did not want him to think that there was something wrong with him. He knew exactly how internalized homophobia could destroy your mental health; he knew well enough from experience.

Cautiously he leaned back and sighed apologetically. But before he could apologize, the monk with his newly found composure stopped him with a small wave.

Calmly as ever Nahyuta stated: “It is quite alright. I’m grateful for your advice and insight to the matter. But I’m afraid I still have some trouble to grasp all the factettes of the subject. And – well – I probably need more time to figure things out? And more information, of course.”

“What do you wanna know? Maybe I can help you out? Or is it enough information for now?”, Klavier offered intently.

For a second Nahyuta hesitated. He shot a short look in Simon’s direction. He did not seem to be listening too closely to them. That was good. He did not want the samurai to hear what he would ask now.

“In fact,” Nahyuta began sheepishly, leaning in a bit closer towards Klavier, “there is something you could maybe tell me.”

“Sicher! What would that be?”, Klavier asked keeping his voice down just as Nahyuta did.

“This different attraction stuff… I mean I got the idea of sexual attraction now. Or at least a rough concept of it. But what is romantic attraction exactly? I don’t know what distinguishes them. Is romantic attraction the thing one experiences, when they fall for somebody? How would you describe it?”

“Boy, that’s the question now”, Klavier smiled and tapped his lip pensively. “I think it’s hard to just draw a line. I don’t think you can say that one think is purely sexual or purely romantic. Kissing, for instances, can be romantic, sexual or both at the same time. It depends on the person, the context and all that stuff. I’m someone who easily falls for people. It’s always like I see something exciting and fascinating in the other person and I want to know so much more about them. I wanna understand what makes them smile, what they hate, what music they love and why they love it. I wanna be there for them, be close to them. But it’s not always the same, you know?”

Klav stopped to check if Nahyuta was still interested in listening. The monk wore a peaceful smile and nodded encouragingly for him to continue.

“This stuff differs from person to person for me. The girl I first was with as a teen, she was inspiration. I felt like I could create without sleeping for days. It felt like a dream made of sugar. It was beautiful, but it faded fast. We never found a real foundation and so it wilted soon. With a guy I once felt incredibly powerful. He gave me the feeling that I could take on the world that there was nothing that was impossible for us. I had never felt so strong before. It was great, really. It just failed to become the truth. Stuff didn’t work out the way we imagined it would. I’d like to say that reality failed us, but I know we just were too naïve. Most of my crushes and relationships were short lived. There was no time for romance next to my rock star life and the work as a prosecutor, and I was tired of getting worked up over failed relationships. – He closed his eyes and lay his head on backrest of the couch – In a way I gave up on romance. In the end it often ended with me doubting myself. I always had the feeling that I had to do more for the other person. I had to love more, give more, smile more. As if I had to make up for my tight schedule and tiring career… With Apollo though… It was different. I mean it was always different from person to person but this time I do not doubt myself. My job as prosecutor and my rock star life don’t bother him. He’s a bit impressed by it, sure, but he pays it no mind. He respects it and thinks it’s cool that I live my passions. He loves it, in fact. But he loves so much more about me, I can’t even start to understand it properly. He lets me be myself and I don’t think I ever felt this relaxed around a boyfriend before. He’s awesome.”

A smitten smile had taken over Klavier’s face. Even when he was talking about Apollo he felt better. He was like the ultimate cure for him. He still had now idea how he had deserved that.

Nahyuta had observed the mood change in the blond’s demeanour. His brother surly was loved by this ridiculous man. It eased his mind to know that.

But through this speech Nahyuta had not only learnt new things about Klavier. He had also discovered that he could relate to the other’s experiences. He understood his feelings, had even felt similar things towards different individuals during the past. He had never acted on them; he could not risk people being dragged into the mess he called his life, but that did not mean he had never fantasized about being with someone.

“I’m glad my brother makes you this happy. You both deserve this much after everything…”, Nahyuta told Klavier, whose eyes were still closed.

Quickly Klavier opened his eyes and looked over to Nahyuta. Well, he had certainly drifted away from the topic they had started with. Or at least their focus had shifted from Nahyuta to Klavier and that was not what Klavier had wanted at all. And it was not helpful for the monk at all.

“Sorry, for making this about me. I didn’t intend to talk about this so long”, he apologized and scratched the back of his head.

Nahyuta giggled and shook his head slightly.

“It’s quite alright. And it helped me. I found out something important. I think.”

“You did? May I ask what you found out?”, Klavier asked curiously as he crossed his legs.

“Well…”, Nahyuta began and brushed his bangs behind his year. “The things you’ve told… I could emphasize with them. I felt similar things before, I just never acted on them. So, I guess that helps.”

“Oh wow”, Klavier uttered surprised.

As he saw the confused look in Nahyuta’s eyes he clarified: “I mean that’s awesome! I’m just surprised that you figured that out so fast. It took me way longer than few minutes to figure out my orientation. Anyway, you’ve been in love before? That’s cool. I hope you’ll get the chance to date somebody in the future, so you can make some experiences of your own.”

“That would be nice, yes…”

Nahyuta did not even realize that he subconsciously turned over to Simon as he had said that.

Klavier however had realized it. And he could put one and one together.

“Grossartig. Jetzt haben wir den Salat. Er hat sich also tatsächlich in den Simon verliebt. Ich frage mich wie das funktionieren soll. Und doch… Simon schafft es immer wieder uns zu überraschen. Wer weiss, vielleicht wird tatsächlich eines Tages ein Paar aus ihnen?“, Klavier thought contemplative as he looked from Simon to Nahyuta.

But there was nothing for him to do. They had to figure it out for themselves.

What Klavier could do, was satisfying his curiosity. So, he gently nudged the price’s upper arm and asked quietly: “Want to tell me how you felt while you had your last crush? I’m curious.”

Nahyuta blushed a little and declined at first. But it did not take much work for Klavier to persuade him.

Shyly he started to tell: “For the most time it felt pretty weird. I guess that is, because they a- were pretty weird. They were a way more touch-friendly person than you would think they are, when you first see them. So, they always came close to me, they hugged me and let me lean on them. I was so close to them physically and it did not seem to bother them at all. And other than that, I also felt like they did truly listen. With them I felt like I was being heard. Even, when they were gruffy and rough, they eventually apologized for the things we fought about and… I just… like them…”

Oh boy. This man had fallen deeper than Klavier had anticipated. This would get interesting for sure.

“Salad is finished”, Simon announced while dumping said meal on the kitchen table.

Both men on the couch flinched badly and scolded him for being so loud. Simon only laughed and told them to come over and eat. Klavier complained that Simon had taken far too long for preparing a simple salad. Simon ignored his complains completely and asked what they wanted to drink.

Chattering quietly, they finished their meal. They talked about anything and everything, neither of them later remembered what it was about.

Silence came over them as they started doing the dishes. Klavier remembered his conversation with Nahyuta again. He wanted to talk about it with him once more, but the monk did not appear as if he would come back to the subject himself.

While he was still thinking how he could drive him into the right direction, Simon surprised him by plainly asking Nahyuta: “And now that you’ve been informed by the fop, you know what sexual attraction is? You get it now?”

Nahyuta calmly dried the glass Simon handed him and answered without missing a beat: “I think so. I definitely know that I am asexual as well. So much is certain. And concerning the romantic attraction matter – Klavier what was the name for liking anybody regardless their gender?”

“Pansexual?”, Klavier answered baffled by the casualness of Nahyuta’s voice.

“Ah yes. So, I think I would be panromantic. I mean that’s a thing, right?”

Simon quickly looked in Nahyuta’s direction to built eye contact. A small smile decorated his lips, as he nodded and returned to washing the last plate.

“Yeah, that’s a thing”, he said lowly and felt how Nahyuta had also gone back to drying the dishes.

Shortly after they had finished, and Simon excused himself. He would go an take a shower now.

That left Klavier and Nahyuta alone in the living room. Nahyuta turned on the tv, in the hope to find the news, but was soon interrupted by Klavier. He had placed himself between the couch, Nahyuta was currently sitting on, and the tv, which was now stuck on a sports channel.

“You have to tell him”, Klavier stated seriously.

At first Nahyuta was confused. What now? But soon he realized what Klavier meant as his friend’s expression grew more concerned.

“You… Oh Holy Mother you figured it out?”, Nahyuta quacked with a high-pitched voice.

Klavier’s shoulders slumped down. He nodded and walked over to him.

“Pohlkunka!”, Nahyuta silently cursed and buried his face in his hands.

Klavier let him brood for some time before he cleared his throat. The prince looked up awaiting his next words.

“Look, I know this sucks. He’s aro and you can’t change that. But you can still tell him. I’m sure he’ll understand and who knows? Maybe it will result in something after all? You won’t know for sure if you’re not gonna ask.”

Nahyuta rolled his eyes unbelievingly and crossed his legs. It was easy enough for Klavier to say this. He was not the one who had had fallen for the man, who he considered one of his best friends. Who was smart and strangely endearing, even when he was a dick sometimes. Who made him feel safe in a world that had never failed to prove him that he should never feel safe.

“For all I know”, Klavier interrupted Nahyuta’s sulking, “he probably already suspects it.”

“What?”, Nahyuta shouted in khura’inese.

Klavier blinked for a second and answered: “I didn’t understand the word, but I’d interpret this as a very panicked and khura’inese “What?”. And yeah, you heard right I think Simon knows about your feelings for him. He’s not as clueless about love stuff as my beloved Herr Forehead is. Actually, he’s quite preceptive, as far as I know. I’m sure he realized how lovey-dovey you look at him. What is not that hard, considered that you do that quite often.”

“I do not do that! Or at least not often”, Nahyuta pouted and clenched his fist frustratedly.

“If you say so.”

“Okay, look, I see that you’re right. But I’m not ready for this right now. I can’t tell him. I don’t know how to phrase it and I need to prepare myself for possible responses. So, please give me some time to overthink it, okay?”, Nahyuta begged his friend with a slight hint of desperation in his voice.

Klavier huffed sceptically. He smelled that Nahyuta was playing for time and only pushed the problem away, instead of solving it. But he would not push him any further. It was not his responsibility to make the next move and he would leave it to Nahyuta to face this problem.

And so Klavier let himself fall next to Nahyuta on the couch and promised disgruntled: “As you wish. I won’t interfere anymore but know that you should not run away from this. This is going to catch up to you probably sooner than later and I really hope you’ll be prepared for it then.”

Link to the fanfiction on ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15943217

[herotheshiro]

ok i didn’t do a review of the phoenix wright trilogy but i’ll do a mini-write-up on apollo justice which i just finished earlier. this is mainly due to me looking up apollo justice/ace attorney afterwards and seeing ppl talk vaguely abt how and where the series and characters go after this... i wanted to add my 2 cents to the void of the internet i guess lol

spoilers for aa4 below

i think as a story, apollo justice is quite good but definitely a bit lacking in writing compared to the 1st trilogy. i feel like this is pretty much the common fan opinion, esp since the 1st trilogy was written all together as a 3-game-set and apollo justice has to conclude everything within 1 game. i think this game did real good at revealing info over time... i remember when they revealed the troupe gramarye poster and i was like WAIT... THAT’S SHADI SMITH... HOLD UP... personally though, i think the ending was not very strong for me -- i feel like we nailed kristoph almost a bit too easily at the end without much i guess concrete evidence linking him to everything even if basically everything was really pointing to him. [EDIT: lol ok reading summaries on aa4 and yeah apparently this is the point and why it being a jurist sys trial was so important… and the realization that he really could get nailed for the crime that he’s been paranoid abt for years made him break down at the end. Ok that makes sense I guess, I was just used to things playing out like the 1st trilogy where you would last min get decisive evidence lol] other than that, there was quite a number of loose ends that didn’t get tied up

so what happened to valant? i think the implication was that he was gonna turn himself in out of guilt even if he didn’t actually kill magnifi (sp?). and also w trucy having the rights i guess it would be complicated for the 2 of them to work that out. that whole aftermath wasn’t entirely clear to me esp since they didn’t give him a post-credits scene

so we’re not gonna get an explanation for why thalassa left her not-even-1-yo son to fend for himself? that was like my no. 1 thing i would’ve liked to get a reason for but the ending is just her being like oh yeah i remember now he’s my son and that’s it. no explanation for why she left him behind and returned to troupe gramarye w/o him. like at least a “oh it would’ve been complicated to bring a literal baby to raise back into that traveling group” would’ve sufficed, esp since we’re supposed to get the impression that lamiror is a kind woman. yet she left her damn kid behind with only a bracelet. were we just supposed to assume the explanation i gave above? i mean yes i’ve looked it up vaguely and i think we get more info on apollo’s growing up in later games but i’ve heard w very little mention of thalassa. which i mean i get, thalassa left him when he was around 1yo so he prob wouldn’t remember shit but man we never gonna get that explanation huh. it’s kinda messed up to leave this baby behind who i assume you care about; it’s another story if she didn’t want the kid and therefore didn’t care what happened to him but she left a bracelet w him which implies she does care

also the loose end of them not telling apollo and trucy they’re siblings. i’ll save this for a later paragraph though

also side note but when i was finishing the game up and before i saw the ending, i literally had a passing, very brief thought like “oh what if lamiror was actually trucy and apollo’s mom lol. what a crack thought” but then it actually happened... i mean it’s good to wrap up that mystery of lamiror’s past, plus they were insinuating so hard that maybe thalassa wasn’t actually dead lol so yeah you knew the mom was gonna pop up fr by the end

apollo himself as a character. now i’m not gonna nit-pick as much here bc he does show up again in later games w more backstory and character development as i’ve heard, but yeah he is very much a mystery character in aa4 i feel. he has basically no given history throughout the game, and the lack of detail made sense at first when you slowly started connecting the dots that he and the gramarye power were related, but then they never really shed any more light on him at the end. they really only reveal he and trucy are related just to explain why and how he has the power to perceive, not even to really indicate anything abt them as characters. i kinda forgot about this as i played the game, but i read a write-up by someone else being like “oh yeah phoenix you know his motivations as a defense attorney but apollo has basically none” and i was like yeah that’s right huh. bc the 1st trilogy reveals p early on that phoenix had a certain motivation to be a defense attorney but apollo you don’t get that, he’s just an attorney just to be an attorney i guess. which i mean is fine, you don’t always need a reason to do stuff sometimes, but it does make him a weaker character. i think maybe in the beginning they were like oh apollo respects kristoph as a lawyer but then they don’t really develop mpre  backstory there like how they met or why kristoph decided to take him on. i thought the latter was gonna be a point that was gonna come up, like maybe kristoph took apollo on as part of his large masterplan or something bc i think kristoph does mention being aware of apollo’s “power” but yeah they didn’t delve further into that. anyway i’ll go less on this bc i’ll just assume they had plans for him to show up in later games therefore they didn’t fully flesh him out here. otherwise that means they just didn’t bother on him other than him having the perceive power and having a personal relation to the whole gramarye case

how did drew misham or vera idk who painted it know abt all of apollo’s 3 cases? i thought it was gonna be like oh phoenix or kristoph saw all this coming and somehow told misham abt it who drew it but uh that didn’t happen. was that bc drew misham was following phoenix in the news and saw the stuff happening w apollo and was inspired to draw his cases? that was a dramatic reveal when apollo/trucy/ema found it out but i mean i guess it was just to show that misham was connected to them/the overall story more than just a simple jurist sys test case

the last writing thing i’ll mention is abt trucy and apollo being siblings. after the whole phoenix x maya crap in the 1st trilogy i suspected they were gonna do the same with apollo and trucy... thankfully they didn’t which was good bc i liked them a lot as a platonic duo, also since i actually thought apollo was 25yo for a while so that age gap is pretty weird too if you do it romantically. i suspected they were actually related p early on after discussing my playthrough w my sis who upon googling info said ‘lol i did say why not ship them but i will not say that anymore’ so i was like lol it’s prob bc she found out they were related or something. regardless i mean i would have suspected that anyway bc the game pushes the ‘oh this perceive power is really only seen in trucy’s family line’ so hard so it’s like not that hard to draw the line bw them, esp when they’re super vague abt apollo’s history and how he even got that bracelet in the 1st place. anyway i think it’s cute to imagine two siblings running all over town to solve shit. as expected tho, there are still ppl out there who ship them even after knowing the truth which is meh but i mean what do you expect of fandom/the internet.

although one of my biggest disappointments is the fact that apparently even in later games, the two never find out they’re siblings. i mean i guess it’s not a major plot point that NEEDS to be addressed as covered in point #3 above, but come on? their mom is literally still alive? a mom and her children reuniting and developing their family relationship again? i mean she’s been so distanced from them for so long that a family reunion would be awkward sure but zak literally made phoenix promise to tell trucy apollo was her bro so i’m surprised he never told her even before his conversation with thalassa at the end of the game. like i thought for sure they were gonna reveal their sibling relationship in aa4 but sadly my imagined revelation scene never happened

(i literally thought up a funny scene too... them seeing thalassa and both being like “MOM??” at the same time and then looking at each other in confusion before thalassa confirms that yes she is both of their moms. although this makes less sense on apollo’s part since he prob wouldn’t remember what she looks like but i mean same bracelets)

otherwise, gameplay was pretty interesting this time around. music was bopping tbh, i played aa4 right after finishing trials and tribulations and wow the music quality improvement was so obvious. the perceive thing was pretty cool and their tutorial on how to use it was super cute lol (apollo: that’s cool but i’m freaking out a little here // trucy: yeah your eyes are kinda bugging out); although absolutely hilarious on how apollo "explained” it in court... imagine a lawyer looking real hard at you and then being like ‘actually you swallowed weird when you said this therefore you’re lying’... i cannot even imagine how that sounded the 1st time to the judge and klavier... anyway i also thought the MASON technologies chapter was really interesting, w phoenix going back and forth through time and using evidence from the future for the past and vice versa. fun time traveling stuff!

ok and that’s kind of all i wanted to say i guess. i’m prob gonna try to stay in the dark on fan content stuff like i was purposely doing before playing aa... i was looking some stuff up and i was like ‘huh... i didn’t get this impression of apollo or the apollo/klavier ship when i was playing aa4...’ i don’t want to get my own opinion of these characters warped by fan content/others’ opinions so i might just take a bit of time to solidify how i feel about/characterize each of the characters before i trek out into fandom land. also it’s prob bc i haven’t played apollo’s later games since he supposedly gets more character dev later. tbh idk if i will bc to be frank i’ve been using emulators to play aa so far and i don’t think there’s a rom out for the later aa games on 3ds. i mean if there really isn’t, i’ll prob just watch a playthrough on YT so i can continue the aa story since i did like apollo as a character despite his lack of backstory.

i was considering skipping edgeworth’s games to go right to dual destinies and continue on apollo’s story/the aftermath of that game, but tbh i’m less incentivized to since i’ve heard that the story/character continuity aspect kind of goes out the window in later games (also the point abt apollo and trucy still being in the dark abt them being siblings. even though yes it wouldn’t change how they interact w each other, i would also prefer the fact to be known officially in-universe so characters don’t be freaks as apparently there are some lines in later games that are a little weird). i mean i could end up having a different opinion abt the continuity, but yeah seeing those comments did put a damper on me diving straight towards dual destinies. so i might just play edgeworth’s games first as i originally planned anyway since they were developed right after even if they take place before aa4

[synnefo-nefeli]

The Fun Author Ask Thing, could you share a WIP of Heard Your Heart Beating with us?

Alrighty kiddos, buckle up for the setup for the most self indulgent plot-point I am ever going to write. Please keep in mind, this is still very, very, very rough

___

//Come fix your prosecutor// read Athena’s text. Apollo groaned wondering what Klavier could have done in the hour Klavier had spent at the WAA.

He adjusted his tie in the mirror of his locker, checked to make sure that he no longer looked sweaty from his ride over from court, and shoved his cycling outfit into his locker along with his helmet.

He could hear laughing on the other side of the office’s front door so that was a good sign, he hoped, as he swiped his keycard into the lock.

“Herr Forehead has finally arrived from his battle with the courts!” Klavier beamed at him with his the typical smile that Apollo was now coming to call “on-stage-mode”. Klavier was sitting on the sofa next to Athena, coffee cups and tea biscuits between them on the table. He could hear Mr. Wright bustling in the office kitchenette.

“I am back. I survived Blackquill-“

“Oh is that why you biked over here? Simon didn’t offer to drive you?” Athena laughed, “how mean. He needs to learn to leave it in the courtroom.”

Apollo rolled his eyes, “Probably, but I am sure it has more to do with him needing to go down to the precinct and yell at the poor detective who sent him into court with an outdated autopsy report.”

Mr. Wright arrived from the kitchen, fresh pot of coffee in hand, “Wow. A defense attorney having an updated report instead of the prosecution? Never thought I’d see the day...”

Apollo flopped on the couch opposite Athena and Klavier, “Hey. Miracles do happen...and considering all out our court wins, we shouldn’t be too surprised that they exist.”

“Here. Here.” Klavier said amiably into his coffee.

“So... what’s this about me needing to fix ‘my prosecutor’?”

Klavier made an amused expression, “Ah, is that what I am called? Well I am honored to be Herr Justice’s”

Athena rolled her eyes, “Oh stop with the charm-“ she looked at Apollo, “he doesn’t want you to know that he’s never been to the Tragic Kingdom”

Apollo stared at Klavier, “Seriously?” Athena elbowed Klavier playfully, “Told you he would react like that”

Klavier sighed, “Is it really that big of a deal? Not going to a children’s amuse-“

“HOLD IT!” Apollo didn’t care that everyone about him flinched (“Indoor voice, Polly, jeeze”, Mr. Wright muttered”), “Disneyland is for everyone,” Apollo breathed, “you seriously haven’t gone? Ever? I mean...it’s only in Anaheim. That’s less than an hour without traffic from here-“

Mr. Wright handed Apollo a cup of coffee, “It’s been a while since ‘Mr. Disney Adult’’s shown his face at the office.”

“You say that as if you don’t have an annual pass too, Mr. Wright.”

Klavier appeared lost in the conversation; it was refreshing to see Mr. Tall, Blonde and Unflappable looking out of his depth, “Is it really a big deal that I haven’t?”

“Mm...not so much,” Mr. Wright said before Apollo could object, “well it wouldn’t be a big deal if you were hanging out with someone else, but I mean considering that you two have been spending a lot of time outside of court together, I think it’s more shocking that Apollo *hasn’t* dragged you down there already.

“You act like I go there all the time-“

“Says the person who has scheduled himself to come in late on days where there are morning annual passholder events,” Athena mused, “or how about the time you, Clay and Tracy, just decided to go to Disneyland after work because you wanted corndogs for dinner”

Across from him Klavier made a face, as if silently saying “Corndogs for dinner? Really? What are you five?”.

Apollo met ‘his prosecutor’s’ eyes, “Those corndogs are legendary, and the only ones I’ll eat.”

“He has a point there,” agreed Mr. Wright, “so I guess the big question is- how long before Klavier gets pulled into driving Apollo down to Anaheim?”

Klavier looked around the room at all of the other attorneys as if expecting for someone to tell him suddenly that this was all an act. Apollo meanwhile was mentally running through his calendar to figure out when he would have time to properly take Klavier to the park. There was so much to do at work-not to mention, he would have to prep Klavier for his first park visit.

“Do you like amusement parks?” Apollo asked Klavier. The blonde man simply shrugged, “I’ve only been to a few in my life. My family wasn’t really into things like theme parks; didn’t see the value in them as entertainment. And when I moved here, I just didn’t go-“

“Not even grad-night?” Athena asked, “Junie told me that’s what the student council is setting up for the seniors. It’s tradition. Heck, every high school in Southern California does a school trip there at least once.”

Klavier shrugged, “I graduated early, remember? I guess I could have gone to the ceremony with the class that was graduating that year, but I wanted to get meine badge so I went home as soon as I could to pass the bar in Germany.”

“There’s one in France!”

Klavier sighed, “If I asked meine family to do anything outside of museums and cultural experiences while we were in France, they would have left me at home.”

“Anyway,” Athena said, “If you’re going to hang with Polly, you’re going to have to go to the parks-“

Apollo felt his cheeks heat, “I mean if that’s not what you like to do for fun, you don’t have to-“

“Oh please,” Mr. Wright interrupted, “I can bet that you’ve been sitting here this entire time planning a trip for him.”

Apollo crossed his arms and sat back in defeat. Athena continued to regale Klavier with anecdotes of the WAA’s trips to the parks as well as Apollo’s impromptu visits, “Has he shown you his pin collection yet?” Athena said in a tone that was too close to the tone she liked to accuse him about his and Klavier’s relationship not being as platonic as Apollo let on.

//As if she doesn’t know the actual truth// Apollo grumbled, “Okay enough. Klavier already knows I am a nerd- he doesn’t need any more evidence about it”

“Ach you’re always cool, Herr Forehead,” Klavier smiled again in “on-stage mode”, which made Apollo decide to put Klavier in his place and show him what he was missing.

“When’s your birthday?” Apollo blurted.

Athena groaned, “Oh my god Apollo, haven’t you heard of Wikipedia?”

“I like that Herr Forehead doesn’t feel the need to research me, it makes a rock god like me feel practically human,” Klavier teased and then with an amiable grin, “May 23rd. However-I told you that on Valentines, don’t you remember?” He said at little too suggestively for Apollo’s comfort, “I’m hurt you don’t remember. Here I thought things that were shared during sleepovers were sacred,” he added a pout for good measure.

Out of the corner of his eye, Apollo saw Athena not-so-subtly pull out of her phone to text something, most certainly to Trucy. Great, he was not going to know peace from either of them for the foreseeable future. Although, Apollo appreciated that Athena had the grace to attempt to hide her grin. Whether or not Klavier was aware of what was happening next to him, Klavier only sipped at his coffee.

“So in three weeks. Great, guess what we’re doing to celebrate your 26th birthday,” Apollo announced.

“It’s on a workday.”

“Take off.”

“Don’t you have to work?” Klavier asked

Apollo turned to Mr. Wright, “Mr. Wright, may I have the 23rd off?”

“Of course. Just put it on the calendar.”

Apollo, having won the debate, smiled smugly at Klavier, “Get ready, we have a lot to do before then.”

Klavier looked genuinely confused, “Like what?!”

He was about to ask what Klavier’s favorite Disney movie was, but then Athena’s phone buzzed, “Simon’s here- he needs help bringing up the food...and Trucy says she wants to also go to Disneyland for Klavier’s birthday, I think that’s a good idea; what do you think, boss?,” she asked as she practically skipped out of the office.

Before Apollo could say anything about Athena or Trucy inviting themselves, Mr. Wright smiled and said, “You know what- unless something pressing comes up and Trucy doesn’t have any projects or tests at school, I think the agency needs a mental health day. Maybe Miles and Simon need one too,” he remarked walking towards his office to, Apollo imagined, call his fiancé.

Apollo would have enjoyed Klavier’s genuinely flummoxed expression, except that he remembered how Klavier, despite his celebrity status, didn’t like to draw attention too himself unless it was in court or on stage- and especially not in public. It was the reason Klavier hadn’t shown up to Clay’s funeral after all. He looked at Klavier feeling guilty for putting his friend on the spot,

“Sorry, if you don’t want to- we don’t have to-“

“Nein, nein,” Klavier said with his genuine smile, “you all are so passionate about it, now I have to experience it”

“Are you sure? I didn’t even ask if that’s how you wanted to spend your birthday-I just kinda got caught up in it.”

Klavier shrugged, “Honestly, considering that I usually spent the last few dragged to stuffy VIP lounges of clubs I didn’t care about with people who as it turned out, cared less about me- I think this may be a gut change of pace.”

Well that made him feel better...and a bit sad for Klavier, “I’ll make sure you have a good time and we won’t be overwhelmed. A lot of celebrities go to Disneyland, and they don’t get mobbed- people are pretty respectful of celebrities having their time in the parks.”

“You sound as if you are familiar.”

“Clay...worked there for a summer, celebrities would come all the time as park guests. And aside from maybe helping a celebrity escape a crowd, they don’t give anyone special treatment unless they’ve paid for a guided tour-“

“Oh- are we not doing that, Herr Forehead?”

Apollo snorted,“Hell no, you’re going to stand in line for Space Mountain like the rest of us plebes.” Also I’m not about to suggest we spend $800 an hour for a theme park tour...

Klavier’s laugh was enough to make Apollo feel better and better about commandeering Klavier’s birthday. He was going to look forward these next few weeks in getting Klavier ready for his first time at the park. The thought of movie nights made Apollo feel a bit warm inside. Warm in a way that he hadn’t felt since Klavier had comforted him during his own birthday.

The office door opened, Athena holding it open so that Simon could come through with the large box that contained their dinner. Apollo braced himself for any barbed words from Athena’s prosecutor, considering how the day’s court proceedings had gone. Instead Simon just incredulously regarded his co-worker with,

“You’ve seriously never been to Disneyland, Gavin-dono?”

[meanderfall]

Okay, so you don't have to answer this series of asks because it's just going to be me going into depth about the reasons I picked "Skeleton Key" for Klavier, because you expressed interest and I love talking about why I pick the songs I do. As I mentioned I'm a very music oriented person and this one struck me right away as something that'd fit him, although I'll admit that the "don't waste your worry on me" mostly resonated because it made me think of how he was in that fic you rec'd. (1)

(2) As you said, Klavier tends to be able to go places and do things that most people wouldn’t. His fame gets him special privileges (and he wears the symbol of his fame on a necklace), as does being a prosecutor. He’s welcomed everywhere because he’s famous. And “Cause everyone’s got someplace they wanna be let in”? What did he do when he first met Apollo and Trucy? He let them in to a crime scene they were barred access to before. And later he got them backstage passes to his huge concert.

(3) And then there’s the entirety of the second verse which basically explains everything we know about him. “The old men call me by me [brother]’s name, [he] looked just the same they say”, not only does Klavier for real look like Kristoph, but it’s very likely that Phoenix (and probably others) conflates the two of them together. “The children wave or hide behind their mother’s skirts afraid”, the first being how Trucy reacted to him, the second being how Vera reacted to him.

(4)“Strangers here still seem strange”, he finds Ema, Trucy, and Apollo very weird and interesting. “They hear the accent, know I’m from nowhere near, but I speak the language”, this is pretty self explanatory. “I come from over the horizon, pass through every dozen years”, he probably spent a lot of time out of the US (also works well with “come and go as I please”) and was away from that particular courtroom for 7 years (although I’d hope he kept being a prosecutor elsewhere, perhaps Germany).

TOO BAD FOR YOU I LOVE THIS ANALYSIS AND I WANT TO SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD 

You really connected specific lyrics with specific events, that’s so cool, it never occurred to me. I’ve said this before and i’ll say it again many times but!!! you are very smart and clever and make connections so quickly, i would like your brain pls

also you have A++++ taste in songs (as far as i can tell anyway) bc i adore everything about this song and i’ve been listening to it constantly ever since you told me about it

ALSO!!!! I ADORE HEARING PLAYLISTS AND THE REASON WHY PEOPLE PICKED CERTAIN SONGS SO IF YOU WANT YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY SPAM MY INBOX WITH THIS P L E A S E, I WOULD OWE YOU MY LIFE IM NOT EVEN CLOSE TO KIDDING ABOUT THIS