ooh the scrunkly

ah, this is gonna be pretty long so i'll talk about it under keep reading :^]

now i am no expert!!! i am just a guy!!!! i'll just be talking about how i do it! ok!

Oh! My first ever Lucy Gray Baird! ❤️

late night grocery run w the fam

Franziska and her wholehearted acceptance of Edgeworth as her brother despite them not being blood related

Franziska and her courage to try to stand up against her father to give said little brother a chance to shine

Franziska and her insecurities making her always strive to be perfect and better than others

Franziska and her stubbornness to never back down even though she's scared

Franziska and her support of women because she knows how hard it is to be a woman in a man's world

Franziska who, at her core, is aware she isn't perfect, is aware of who her father is and what he's done, is aware that she's young and has issues allowing herself to be vulnerable and isn't sure yet how to handle that trauma, but is still proud of who she is and how far she's come

anti-dysphoria stinkbug: if you didn’t have long hair, you wouldn’t have had that scrunchie on you and i would have been slightly harder to wrangle

me, sobbing: i understand why you came to me, i understand the lesson in self acceptance you wanted me to learn. nb has no “look” and i can just present in whatever way suits me.

“Are you crying from Ace Attorney sprites?”

“The way that our mannerisms are a reflection of the people we are surrounded by got to me.”

‘the angry/mean character is actually deeply emotional and using anger to keep it at bay’ is an incredibly common character archetype but it is so often done in a more shallow manner. like they will just bust out their tragic backstory in the 11th hour and we’re supposed to sympathize because awww they’re sad :( but we already know everything there is to know about franziska pretty much immediately. we know she is a child prodigy, we know she is a genius, we know she is fierce and dedicated and that she loves what she does. and we know she’s lost her father, and we know she’s upset with her brother and wants to see him again. but she does not invite pity, because she does not want it. she lays these details out clearly and concisely when they’re relevant to what is being discussed–they simply are. she remains as she is, and she fights the same way she always has, for what she believes in.

franziska goes through it. we watch her go through it. we watch her lose everything, and then we watch her have to be confronted with the fact that her brother disappeared on her and is utterly remorseless about it aloud. and then we watch her get shot by a violent hitman, and kick and scream and fight while she’s bleeding out because she wants to go to court. she has to be dragged to the hospital by force. never once does she back down an never once does she present anything other than this steely determination and resolve. until the very, VERY end. until POST CREDITS. she doesn’t even crack until AFTER THE CREDITS HAVE ROLLED!

and it is KINDNESS that breaks her! it is softness that makes her cry. i feel like to a lot of people what miles says to her in that scene might seem cruel, but it isn’t about what he says, it’s about what he does.

by franziska’s own admission she has abandonment issues. one of the few single insights we get into her pain is that people tend to discard her and make her feel left behind. miles fled back to his home country and left her all alone in germany to pursue his career, and he wasn’t wrong to do that, but it obviously hurt franziska and she felt neglected and like he didn’t bother to keep up with her. and then when he took his dramatic fucking sabbatical, he refused to loop her into that, too. miles decided without the consent of the people who love him that he was not worth it. he was unbelievably selfish to disappear the way he did, blinded by this idea that he is not loved or worth love. franziska loves him more than anything, and he did that to her on the tail end of her father’s incarceration. she lost both of her favourite people in the span of a few months. 

she ran away at the end of JFA and intended to give up on everything. and she ran away from him because if she abandons him first, he cannot abandon her. but nothing miles says in that scene undermines the fact that he chased after her. he could look her in the eyes and tell her she was scum to him but the fact of the matter is he followed her. he loved her enough to not be content just letting her give up and run away. he chased after her. can you imagine what that must’ve meant to her? 

he didn’t have to chase her. and he didn’t have to bring her whip back. and when he said ‘if you stop being a prosecutor, this is where we part ways’ i think we all knew he was not being literal. i think we all knew he was full of shit. i think what miles meant by that was to light a fire beneath her. to say that he had no intention of stopping, that he would keep on fighting, and that he wanted her to fight alongside him. they’ve always been rivals and they have always pushed each other to do better and be better, and miles knows that rivalry drives franziska unlike anything else. she doesn’t actually want to stop prosecuting, she’s just emotionally vulnerable and struggling to cope and throwing a bit of a tantrum about it, and so he pokes at an old button he knows will clear her head. franziska is a difficult person, but miles edgeworth knows her more than any person in the world, he knows how to love her and he does. he loves her so much.

she has seen a lot of pain in JFA. she has seen a lot of wicked words thrown her way, a lot of pushback, a lot of antagonism and banter and bickering, but the one thing no one shows her is kindness and love. phoenix tries, when he brings her flowers, but he gets nervous and backs out at the last second. gumshoe tries, but he does it out of earshot where she can’t hear. every nice thing someone says about franziska, they say while she is not there to listen. miles is the only person who looks her in the face and says he loves her. 

it is love that allows her the space to fall to pieces. it is love that shatters her veneer and turns her into a sobbing mess. she’s literally just a little girl who was forced to grow up too fast. she’s 18 years old and everything’s so hard. she just needed a fucking hug.