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The worsties.... How I love them <3

Illustration of a scene from this fic by @musashi

Let me explain real quick how I got to this fic because it's a little ridiculous and convoluted and I think that's kinda funny.

I'm not a big fanfic guy, generally. I am extraordinarily picky, I didn't get into it as a teen because I had already been blindsided by horny fanart for children's media and did NOT want a repeat of THAT experience (I was devastated to learn that safe search did practically nothing), and tbh all the fanfic websites scared me because I don't like learning new UIs or signing up for things. I just sort of missed the prime window for getting into fanfic as a hobby. Unless something is specifically recommended to me there is a high chance it'll just never cross my path.

Cut to sometime in early November, 2022. I had just recently gotten into Ace Attorney so that I could talk about it with a friend. As I often do, I accidentally became obsessed with it and shot way ahead of where my friend was, ironically making it difficult to discuss it with him. And now I'm drawing a lot of Franziska, and thinking "damn I wish she had a game". Not much longer after I posted some sketches about the concept, I got a notification from @pictureswithboxes. Turns out, she had seen my silly little doodles AND WRITTEN AN ENTIRE COURT CASE BASED ON THE IDEA!!

That story is called Turnabout Substitution, and it's phenomenal. I also have some doodles from that one, but I want to polish them before I share. Anyways, the point is I died on the spot and now, three years later, I've reread the finished story at least 5 times. About a week ago I noticed that there was a new story available, Metal Masquerade. After reading the available chapters I realized that this story has a co-author. Well, I've enjoyed these ones so much, I wonder if this person has any other- OH WOW THAT'S A LOT. Well who do they tend to focus on- FRANZISKA???!? MY BELOVED FRANZISKA VON KARMA!?!?

And that's how we got here :D

Both of these writers have such an exquisite handle on these characters and what makes them interesting, I was genuinely just as entertained by Franziska unraveling a murder case as I was by Phoenix picking up pastries from a café. They're all so full of life, every single scene I've read has been a treat. They're funny, they're dramatic, they're well-paced, introspective, and curious about this fictional world and the people in it. I cannot recommend these authors enough, and I feel genuinely lucky to have found their work

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Law Professor Phoenix Wright would be a great fit for the character, but also absolutely petty and unhinged. Like he would give his students the transcript for the “Updated Autopsy Report” case with names taken out, and after letting the students rant and complain about the bullshit of it for 15 minutes, invite in Guest Speaker Miles Edgeworth to be eater alive by undergrads. 

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tbh hate jokes that are like apollo finding out phoenix cross examined a parrot and being shocked and dismayed. Apollo already knows this. Apollo used to think it was one of the coolest things Phoenix Wright ever did. Apollo used to have a timeline on his wall of Phoenix's cases and weird theories.

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Epic!Odysseus: My journey home was long and arduous because I was not willing to be ruthless and the weight of my sins clouded my mind until I became a monster.

Homer!Odysseus: My journey was long and arduous because my men were f***ing idiots.

Epic!odysseus: Actually that was also part of that reason. Did Poseidon have it out for you? Cause he killed most of my crew.

Homer!Odysseus: He did send a storm near the end of my journey when I was heading to Ithaca, but that wasn’t that much of an issue. but aside from that he really wasn’t that much involved. It was actually Zeus that had it in for us, but mostly cause what I said before, my men were idiots!

Epic!Odysseus: Wow, you had to fight Zeus?! I had to one v one Poseidon and stab him with his own trident to get him to finally f*** off. How did you get Zeus off your back?

Homer!Odysseus: YOU DID WHAT TO POSEIDON!?!?

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one of those polls from the premiere

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home

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Jorge did an excellent job in showing Penelope's character and why Odysseus and Penelope are made for each other in two songs

Of course throughout the whole saga we are told Odysseus loves Penelope more than anything, she and Telemachus are his one life line and one motivation to getting home

But when we finally heard Penelope, in her two actual songs (by that I mean not counting Ody's hallucinations and the siren), we are shown why

In the challenge, she's smart, shown by her weaving and unweaving the shroud, and in setting a challenge that she knows only Odysseus can complete once she suspects he's close to home. She's steadfast in her love, never faltering in the face of 108 strong men taunting her, and pressuring her every single day. She's a queen, holding herself with dignity and authority. She's an amazing woman.

In Would You Fall In Love With Me Again, she once again demonstrates her intellect both logically and emotionally by testing Odysseus with the wedding bed. Then she breaks down in tears and anger letting go of all the pain and suffering and longing and yearning and agony she's gone through in the past 20 years. She was in so much pain and agony, but she kept waiting.

This is a story about a man who moved mountains and seas for his love and a woman who stood still in the midst of storms and terrors for hers.

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Still thinking about EPIC because I just love how EPIC handles Ody’s guilt.

Now, I don’t think I need to deep dive on how Odysseus’ guilt drives him in Act I. We’ve been obsessing over that for ages lmao, but very briefly: He feels awful for killing the infant Astyanax, and tries to force Polites’ “Open Arms” philosophy in order to ease that guilt.

Then, in “Monster,” Odysseus grapples with how his guilt leads him to make mistakes, asking: “What if I’m the one who killed you / every time I caved to guilt?”

And the implication is that gives up his guilt, deciding he needed to be a monster who “threw that guilt away.” And yet.

He never does.

He never stops feeling guilty—not about what he does in Act I, and not about what he does in Act II. We see it in how he agonizes over Zeus’ impossible choice in “Thunder Bringer”; in “Love in Paradise” when he’s haunted by the ghosts of his loved ones. And it’s not like he’s unaware of what he’s doing—Odysseus knows he’s been trying to suppress his feelings, most of all guilt and remorse.

In “Six Hundred Strike,” Poseidon rhetorically asks “How will you sleep at night?” He wants to know how Odysseus is going to live with his guilt, if he even still feels guilt. Odysseus answers his rhetorical question literally, “Next to my wife.”

Which, not only is that just a raw line, but it also does give a rhetorical answer. Odysseus knows that he isn’t going to be okay, that the guilt will way him up inside for the rest of his days, but he also knows he can count on Penelope. That she will help him shoulder his burden.

And he’s prove right in “Would You Fall in Love with Me Again.”

Because, finally. After twenty years, Odysseus is home, safe and sound—and all at once the guilt hits him. The pain and regret over every decision he had to make comes crashing down the moment he no longer had to suppress it.

And he hates it; he hates himself for making those choices, even when there was no other way to get home.

So he tries to dehumanize himself once more—to convince Penelope and himself that he’s become some kind of remorseless monster. Because that’s how he coped with it last time. That’s how he survived “Monster.”

And Penelope sees right through his bullshit. She cuts through his guilt and self-loathing to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he is still human; that he is loved. And in doing so, tells him that it’s okay to grieve, to feel that guilt and let it go. He’s suffered enough.

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Conflicting character development

Alternatively

"When your mom is a better grandma than she was a parent"

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it’s that time of year again

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he's so real

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In all seriousness, while I loved it, I do understand why people aren't happy with 600 Strike. That being said, that's what the fan animatics (and imagining scenarios in your head) are for, so you don't have to chose the "canon" version with the windbag-jetpack (and this is still a concept album at the moment). You don't need to write the whole saga off for that specific moment.

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odysseus really went "i'm not stuck in here with you. you're stuck in here with me"

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I wonder if another reason why Poseidon losing like that doesn’t bother me is because I grew up on the PJO/HOO series. Yeah it was rough but at least he wasn’t getting beat up by a 12-17 year old.

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ALSO!!! I love how much Epic really shows that gods can’t die yes but they can feel pain still.

Whether it’s emotional pain like (starting off small): Calypso with the actual real anguish she feels towards Odysseus’ refusal of her love. She has been alone her entire life and has had no one to relieve her of that. The pain she is feeling when Odysseus is sailing off is tangible.

To take it a step further, there’s Athena. All those years, she’d just had Odysseus’ words echoing in her head, to the point that she couldn’t sleep at times. The guilt she felt was so strong that it led her to giving up her pride, her stubbornness and need to be right to save the person she cared about the most. Regret is its own special sort of pain.

God Games gave us the idea that gods can be wounded and is left pretty ambiguous (or not depending on what you believe) on whether they can be mortally injured. Zeus unleashes a great deal of power over Athena and hurts her so badly that even Ares has to wonder whether she’s dead.

So, to really drive that point home that gods can feel pain and get hurt with Poseidon was perfect. Not only can gods hurt and bleed but it can be done by a mortal. And that’s the thing- gods aren’t supposed to be hurt by mortals like that- I believe it was genuinely shocking to Poseidon.

He is one of The Big Three, he doesn’t get hurt- he doesn’t get injured. This is a being who probably doesn’t know physical pain or at least has felt it so rarely that the moment that trident met his flesh it was a special sort of horrific shock that froze him, left him reeling to the point that Odysseus could keep doing it over and over and over.

In those few moments, Odysseus introduced him to suffering and gods like Poseidon do not know what that is. It is as foreign to them as being without their powers and just as dangerous. And worse? He used his symbol of office- his divine weapon crafted especially for him. The trident is not just a tool, but a beacon of his might - PRACTICALLY A PART OF HIM- and it was just used to draw his blood, to cause him pain.

That is why I believe in the final battle victory. Pain blindsided Poseidon because he believed he was untouchable and Odysseus proved that wrong in one of the most violent ways possible.

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My first thought after listening to the vengeance saga: The reason “Get in the Water/Six Hundred Strike” stuff isn’t in the Odyssey is because Poseidon made sure that all retellings of the story included the fact that he was:

-“Too busy to bother with Odysseus-”

-“He was totally at a cool party actually-”

-“Odysseus totally washed up on some random island and was sent home from there-”

-“He definitely never got stabbed a bunch of times by a mortal using his own trident”, and “Insinuate that again and he’ll turn you into a fish”.