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the-bar-sinister · 9 days

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Head Games, Law Games (2467 words) by thesavagesabretooth

Summary: Phoenix Wright thought that the strange game between him and Kristoph Gavin had ended for good when he put his lover and rival in jail for murder. But when Miles Edgeworth agrees to have the killer mentally evaluated for suitability to start working in the courts from behind bars, Phoenix has to find out for himself just what's going on in Kristoph's head.

August 23, 2028– 1:15 pm

"How delightful to see you, Nick. I didn't expect you to visit today. Or ever again, admittedly." Behind the bars of his pleasantly appointed cell, Kristoph Gavin smiled beatifically outward.

Phoenix scowled, and fought the urge to recoil physically. Instead, he sat down low on the hard visitation chair just out of reach of the bars. He sat slumped with his elbows on his knees, and he carefully unbuttoned the last button of his blue suit jacket to avoid it popping off.

"Yeah, well, life's full of crazy surprises, isn't it, Kris?" he scoffed. He hadn't been planning to visit him ever again. He hadn't seen him in almost two years– not since the visit on behalf of Vera Misham. He'd been happy enough just to let him rot away in prison, and let the memory of that pretty smile fade further and further into the dark. But circumstances had changed.

"For better or worse, I've noticed that it is." Kristoph's posture changed to mirror his own, leaning forward toward him. "So what brings you to my humble 'office'?"

"Hah!" Phoenix shook his head. "Well, I heard you met my newest protege the other day, isn't that right?"

"Mr. Athena Cykes, yes?" Kristoph leaned on his hands, smiling like a cat. "A very charming young lady. And very talented. Yes, I met her and I have to say I was quite impressed. I can see why Miles sent her particularly."

Nick grunted. He and Miles had had a fight about it, when he heard that Miles was actually considering allowing Kristoph to become a prosecutor and handle cases from behind bars like he'd done with Simon Blackquill.

The difference of course was that Simon Blackquill had been innocent, and Kristoph Gavin was very much guilty. He had to be guilty. Even if it didn't make much sense.

At least Edgeworth had the sense to be hesitant about it, too.

'I don't think it's a good idea either, Phoenix. But Lana made her case very eloquently. I told her the only circumstances I'd allow it under were if Ms. Cykes gives him a good evaluation, and the living relatives of his victims agree to it.'

"Yeah, Athena's a bright kid," Phoenix agreed, shaking off the brooding reverie. "Usually I trust her judgment pretty implicitly."

"Usually?" Kristoph asked, cocking his head.

"Yeah. Usually." Phoenix rubbed the back of his neck. The problem in this case was that Athena was not giving him the answer that he wanted to hear. "Edgeworth showed me the tape of your interview."

"I see. That's fine. I already knew that the contents of that interview wouldn't remain private."

Phoenix's fingers itched. There was something about talking to Kristoph that always made him start to want a drink and a smoke. Even now, after he was supposed to be sober.

"Yeah," he nodded, and smirked at Kristoph. "It's going around the room like your brother at a party, Kris."

Kristoph rolled his eyes. "Very funny, Nick. I imagine you have thoughts about it."

"Yeah, I'll admit. There was one part that stood out to me."

The camera recorded the session from a high angle in black and white– the security camera mounted in the corner of the hall. It framed Athena Cykes from behind, looking inward, and captured Kristoph Gavin's smiling but troubled face from where he sat behind the bars.

The conversation had been going on for more than 20 minutes when Kristoph had seemingly decided to tell Athena a secret he'd kept from everyone else.

His motive.

"You work with Mr. Wright," Kristoph said, "So you know that he has a daughter. Almost grown now. An adorable, bright little girl with a big smile. Zak Gramarye's daughter."

Athena nodded with a slight widening of her eyes as she looked between Kristoph and her screen on the mood matrix, blurry and unreadable in the video

“Trucy. I know her really well…she’s been a great friend to me since I’ve started working for her agency…”

"I can imagine," he said, with a little smile. "I watched her grow up, you know. Being so close with Phoenix. I saw her often."

“That makes sense…he’d been raising her since that first trial, after all. It makes sense you’d see her grow…” She tilted her head. “you came to care about her, I imagine?”

"I'd be some kind of monster, if I didn't." He chuckled. "She's very charming. You know– on the day I spoke to Zak Gramarye with the hopes to represent him he said something to me. He said 'today I am praying my daughter won't grow up without her father'."

“....” Athena’s fingers hovered over the screen. “He said that, huh? But in the end she still did, didn’t she?”

Kristoph's fingers were laced very, very tightly together. He smiled, brightly, almost like an angel.

"She did. And do you know what he said to Phoenix Wright in that fateful conversation, Miss Athena Cykes? He told him that he had always intended to disappear. That abandoning his daughter had always been the plan. And that he would do the same that night, without a word."

He put his hands on his knees. "I consider it a personal moral failing of a dear friend that Mr. Phoenix Wright was going to just let him walk out of that room."

Phoenix felt a flush of anger and revulsion remembering the moment in the video, and he was sure Kristoph noticed it on his face. The killer– his old friend– leaned forward toward him.

"My motivation, you mean. You wonder if I'm telling the truth. Since every time you've asked before I've said it was random, and evil. You've suspected, I think, that it was out of malice for you. To frame you, specifically."

"I've suspected it, yeah," Phoenix admitted. "I couldn't figure out what other motive you might have had. After all, the Gramarye case didn't ruin your career. Why kill him?"

"Why indeed," Kristoph drawled blandly. Phoenix watched him lace his fingers together tightly, like he had in the video. "You've thought it was my final move in our lovely seven year head game. My checkmate."

"It was one theory."

It was the only theory he had. Nothing else made sense. Why would Kristoph kill the man and try to frame him except as the capstone of– as he had put it– their seven year head game. A seven year relationship of entwined friendship, suspicion, sex and romance that Nick couldn't say he had any less a part in playing that Kristoph. After all, Nick had been the one to enter the relationship with the intention of trapping Kris and exposing if he really had, or hadn't been responsible for his disbarment.

"I'm not flattered," Kristoph drawled. "What a poor checkmate. What a terrible game that ends up with the final move flinging the pieces off the table instead of putting them in my lap."

Nick felt a flush crawl across his face as Kristoph sneered at him, and called back to their silly dominance game of who would be sitting in whom's lap.

He rubbed his neck again and looked away. "So is it true, then? What you said to Athena?"

Kris got up from his high backed chair, and strode up close to the bars of his cell, lacing his fingers around them and leaning toward Phoenix.

"What does Ms. Cykes say about it?"

"She says it's consistent with your emotional responses and psychological profile," he admitted grudgingly. "And that she thinks you're telling the truth."

"But you're not so sure." Kristoph's icy blue gaze bored into him like a laser beam.

He looked away again. "I'm not. I trust Athena, but if something like that was your motivation– why try to frame me?"

Kristoph made a choked noise so loud it drew Phoenix's gaze right back to him, and he watched as the usually composed man's eye twitched and he grabbed the cell bars hard, as if to shake them, his shoulders straining.

"I never tried to frame you, you nitwit!" he snapped. "I was hoping that O'Rly would take the fall. That would have been the theory I was going to put forward– as your defense!"

Phoenix's blood went cold and he felt his heart thump like a lightning bolt had hit his chest.

"You were going to send an innocent woman to jail over it then," he said, staring up at Kristoph's face, watching the tension in his jaw, and the blond strands of hair over his cheeks.

"Please! Don't try to pretend Olga O'Rly was some shining jewel of virtue," he snorted. "If the law found her guilty, then she's guilty. It happens every day, Phoenix Wright. The law finds innocent people guilty and everyone moves on with their lives."

"It shouldn't happen," Phoenix insisted. The lightning bolt feeling had spread through the rest of his body, tingling through his hands and feet.

"Well it damned well does!"

There was a silence between them for a moment, and he watched Kristoph take a shuddering breath, and carefully fix his hair.

"We're trying to fix it," Phoenix said, finally. It seemed like an awfully pathetic thing to say in the circumstances.

"So I've heard," he replied, taking another long, deep breath. He painted the calm smile back onto his face. "And I'd like to be a part of that, Nick. That's why I asked Lana to talk to Miles. If you're going to remake the law, I can help. I want to help."

There was a desperate, cloying tone in Kristoph's voice. Phoenix didn't like that it reminded him of when they'd been in bed together.

"Look," Phoenix said, taking a long breath of his own. "Look, Kris, even if that was the real reason you killed Zak Gramarye– you can't just kill somebody for being a shitty father."

"No. No you can't just kill someone for that," he agreed. "In fact they put you in jail for it if they catch you!"

Kristoph laughed hollowly and he put his fingers around the bars again, as if it were all some joke.

Phoenix stood up from the little chair, and he walked up to the bars, close enough that he and Kris might have been able to touch. He slid his hands in his pockets instead, and slouched in front of him.

"They sure do, buddy," Nick sighed. "But that isn't even the only murder you committed. Kristoph– you poisoned an old man. You tried to poison a child. And for what? Your own ego?"

Kristoph looked away. "You would condemn me for a mistake made in my youth?"

Nick's ears rang. He'd heard it before, from Kristoph's brother. On that fateful day in court. He wondered if perhaps it was a family saying.

"Kristoph…" Nick began limply, and he trailed off. He didn't know what to say, what was there to say?

"Nicholas."

It got a laugh out of him. Lady Justice help him, it did. That stupid nickname.

"Why do you even call me that?" Phoenix asked, rubbing his eyes.

Kristoph smiled. "Because it's funny that it isn't your name."

"I guess…"

Seven years worth of memories flashed through Nick's mind, like seven years worth of knives. There were good times. Damn it– there were a lot of good times. Why did Kristoph have to be like this? Why did Kristoph have to be…

Kristoph's fingers stroked the bar between them. "I'd ask if I'd spoiled our visit, but I don't think there was really anything to spoil in the first place."

"Do you think I'm going to apologize for not visiting before?" Phoenix asked.

"Are you?"

He didn't answer the question. "You have Athena's yes vote for prosecuting cases, Kris."

"And what about your vote, Nick?"

Phoenix wrapped his fingers around the same bar as Kristoph was, just above his hand, not quite touching, but lingering. A glance at the man's fingers told him that Kris had lost weight in prison. He hadn't had all that much to lose.

"It's not my vote you need, Kristoph."

"I'd still like to have it."

Kristoph's fingers crawled up the bars, and their skin brushed. Phoenix winced at the contact, but he didn't move away. He didn't understand what was happening in his chest. The staccato beat loud, and insistent.

"It's up to Trucy," Phoenix said, still not answering the question. "And to Vera Misham."

Kristoph looked at him pleadingly, blue eyes as stormy as the sea. "Do I have your vote, Nick?"

Phoenix bit his lip, and his fingers came to rest on top of Kristoph's. "I'll talk to Trucy, okay? Don't expect much."

Kristoph's calm smile took on an uneasy edge, and he nodded, reaching out from between the bars to put his free hand against Phoenix's jaw. Nick winced, but once again, didn't pull away.

"I won't," Kristoph replied. "But you know, life's full of crazy surprises."

Phoenix made a choked noise as Kristoph, like always, threw his words back at him. He grabbed him by the collar, through the bars– and pulled him into a sudden, tight kiss that just barely connected, both of their faces framed and squished by cold metal.

It was a breathless, thirsty and desperate kiss, even more so than what had once been typical for them. When Phoenix let him go, Kristoph was panting, and his hair had once again fallen in front of his face.

"Yeah," Phoenix snorted. He rubbed his face, flushed. "Life's full of crazy surprises alright. I'd better go."

"Before the guard comes in to break us up?" Kristoph drawled. "Or to decide if he's going to sell the footage to the papers? Yes, you'd probably better. But… I enjoyed our little visit."

"I'm sure."

"Come back soon?" He leaned on the bars, smiling at him, and Nick felt a little sick to his stomach.

"Maybe. I'll talk to Trucy."

"Thank you, Nick. My dear friend.."

"Yeah."

Phoenix turned to go, but stopped when Kristoph addressed him one more time.

"Phoenix– say hello to Apollo for me, would you?"

For the second time it felt like an arrow went through his chest, and he turned to look over his shoulder at Kristoph, framed through the bars of the cell.

"Sorry, Kris, Apollo moved out of the country."

"What?" Nick watched as Kristoph pressed himself up against the bars. "Phoenix Wright, you come back here and you explain to me what the hell I've missed."

Phoenix grinned over his shoulder, and waved his hand, walking away down the hall toward the security checkpoint.

"Sorry, Kris. I'll catch you up on gossip next time I visit."

The game, it seemed, was back on. And for now, Phoenix very much had the upper hand.

#krisnix #kristoph gavin #phoenix wright #ace attorney #fanfiction #fan fiction #fanfic #archive of our own #ao3 #darkfic #dark fic

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marithlizard · 2 years

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Ace Attorney: Rise From the Ashes (Day Three, Investigation) (part 8)

Last episode, my client confessed to a terrible crime on the witness stand. Thankfully it's not the one she was on trial for. The near-riot in court gives us a few more precious hours to investigate. Whodunit is not a question in my mind, but I have many others including:

What did happen in the parking garage?

Why won't Lana tell us anything or act in her own defense?

What evidence did Mystery Sevens and Goodman remove from the locker? At least the knife (which was later found in the tailpipe of Edgeworth's car, wrapped in Lana's scarf) but anything else?

(Huh. Could Mystery Sevens have been Lana? seems unlikely, but)

How did an additional bloody, gloved handprint get on Gumshoe's locker?

Why so much blood on Goodman's trenchcoat?

Why has Gant been so determined to force Edgeworth out of his position?

Why were the evidence room shenanigans simultaneous with the claimed parking garage murder?

That last one actually seems obvious enough - they weren't. One of the times is wrong. But why would someone want to lie about that? Or even know enough to be able to?

Puzzled, we return to the office. Ema, you don't have to apologize for your sister. Or for not explaining something you clearly didn't know.

"That's why she used me...what happened to me" - wha? This sounds bad.

Ema says Joe Darke tried to kill her, and Marshall's brother got killed defending her. But then why the need for falsified evidence? Even with a melodramatic lightning storm and power outage, she saw Darke grabbing Marshall and holding a knife poised to stab. Seconds later Marshall was there bleeding to death, no one else around....open and shut, surely.

Oh. Oh, poor kid. She couldn't manage to talk on the witness stand, and the picture she drew wasn't considered good enough. Still....the case against Lana today is full of logic holes and no one but us appears to care in the slightest. Why did the case against Darke have to meet much more rigorous standards?

Phoenix and I are united in respect for Ema. She's still frequently an airhead, but she's a barely-trained sixteen-year-old turning trauma into motivation. Also she saved our butts in court this morning.

(Ema thinks (understandably if incorrectly) that her failure to testify is what made Lana turn cold. I've been assuming it was blackmail or other coercion. But perhaps it was simply guilt. )

I was going to say something snide about the prosecutors' offices having terrible security, but Phoenix is a step ahead of me for once and has legitimate questions about how Darke was running amok there with a knife. He wasn't! He was running amok in the police station, where Lana was a detective. She was promoted to Chief Prosecutor after the case.

Is it just me or is that a very strange career move? Don't you have to be, y'know, an attorney to be chief prosecutor? Why would an attorney have been a police detective? Let's go ask her.

Lana: Guilt? What guilt? Professional ethics are for wimps who aren't dedicated enough. Like my role model Gant, I feel nothing. Please ignore the bit when I look into the distance and mutter about having sold my soul.

Huh. I guess she was an attorney as a police detective, since she says she was only on the force to gain experience to use later as a prosecutor. A leap straight into Chief position still seems a bit much, but Phoenix doesn't ask further.

Ema FINALLY directly asks her sister if she murdered Goodman...and gets no answer other than "this doesn't involve just me" and some more SL-9 details.

She was the one to discover the scene: Joe Darke on the floor unconscious, Marshall lying on top of him with a knife in his back, and the passed-out Ema. Hmm. The image is striking, and not conclusive in itself, though I still think Ema's incomplete testimony ought to have cinched it. Maybe they had a less gullible judge than our usual one.

The crime occurred in what used to be Lana and Gant's office - he stayed put after being promoted to Police Chief, it seems. I can tell where we're going next. First I try showing her the broken, bloody vase from the crime scene, but she says she's not allowed to comment - quite flexible ethics there, madam. Also that's one of the stupidest rules I've ever heard.

We trudge off to the police station. Marshall greets us out front in full costume, philosophical about his disaster in court. He's on his way to a no doubt final interrogation. Let's pre-season him for the grilling, shall we?

Wow, Marshall's brother got the "king of prosecutors" trophy only hours before he was murdered. It's like the Hope Diamond only much uglier.

Marshall finally explains what was fishy with the evidence. The claimed murder weapon (the knife! Belonged to Darke, switchblade, broken tip, note to self) didn't match the wound according to the autopsy report. So...what would that mean? That Marshall was killed with something else, and someone-by-which-I-mean-Gant stuck Darke's knife in the corpse's back to make it seem more blatantly obvious for the judge? That is the kind of thing that would upset the corpse's brother, certainly, but does it change the central fact of who killed who?

Does it?

Don't tell me that Gant killed Marshall's brother and framed Darke for it. That would be a big enough crime to necessitate a mountain of coverup. It would explain getting rid of Marshall and Starr back then, and now murdering Goodman and framing Lana when they got close to the truth. New working theory: established.

Marshall thinks Goodman was left alone only because it would've been too obvious if every single detective on the case was removed. And he thinks Lana and Gant are equally to blame - though he does mention her drastic personality change.

Aw. Marshall says he now realizes "that boy Edgeworth" isn't the enemy after all, just an unknowing tool of Gant. That's decent of him. He wishes Baby Cow Ema luck in her career and moseys off. Farewell, Marshall: as they say, he a little confused but he got the spirit.

Where *is* the police chief's office, anyway? The Criminal Affairs department was so quiet when we stopped by earlier that I didn't even write it down. But we don't seem to have any option but to go back there - no, actually, let's go see how Edgeworth is handling this morning's revelations.

He's not in his office. Oh dear, is he being interrofired like Marshall? I know there's tons more of the Ace Attorney saga to unfold, but I like the ruffly dork and he's been as much an ally as an enemy recently. I don't want to lose him.

Back at the police station, the "Chief" tells us everyone else is in the conference room deciding what to do about Lana, Edgeworth, and the massive scandal that exploded in court this morning. I have to wonder what this guy is the Chief of, if he's sitting here in the empty office instead.

Ema, when the nice man tells you where Gant's office is, we say "thanks!" and go there at speed. We do not hang around helpfully telling him reasons to say no.

Chief: Hey, you're right! No!

Sigh.

We go anyway. Why did no one tell us the police chief moonlights as the Phantom of the Opera??

This "office” is the size of the entire criminal affairs department downstairs. To the left of the enormous pipe organ is a nice office setup that looks pristine and unused. On the wall is a large group photo that must have been taken on That Day: Marshall's brother holding the trophy, Gant, Lana, and two others I can't make out. Bit of a grisly memorial given the circumstances.

Ema - no, Ema, we do not play with the pipe organ, that is what we call "loud" and attracts attention. For example, there Gant is behind us, right on cue. Sigh. He tucks an interesting-looking sheet of paper into his desk which I expect we will come back to later.

Gant: Have you been swimming lately, my boy? ....I'm just going to blink affably and wait to see if you hear the unspoken "because you're way out of your depth". You didn't, which proves my point. Gosh what a firecracker that little Lana is with her provocative statements!

Have I mentioned that I hate him?

He points to the picture. Phoenix thinks there's something not right beyond its tactlessness, so I squint at it. The broken vase from the evidence room is there, and what looks like a golden suit of armor with a sword at the right edge, but otherwise nothing stands out. Lana isn't smiling but is she ever? We save a copy for later.

Gant shoos us out with a hint of teeth behind his folksy charm, which Phoenix correctly interprets as a sign that getting back in is now top priority. Downstairs we meet Gumshoe, who has been fretting on Edgeworth's behalf and reviewing the SL-9 files. He shares some more details. Darke killed several people in a panic, then turned himself in, then bolted in the middle of questioning and attacked Ema. It seems more and more absurd that faked evidence would have been needed. But no one is questioning it, so I guess we're supposed to accept it as part of the story.

We show Gumshoe the switchblade knife with the broken tip. Proven to be Darke's, and the broken-off tip was found in the fatal stab wound. Connect that with what Marshall told us about the evidence-faking and you get an ugly and deliberate picture - Gant(or possibly Lana) not just carefully sticking the knife inside the fatal wound on his coworker's still-warm corpse, but poking the broken-off tip deep inside the wound. Ew.

Perhaps fortunately, it's a picture that doesn't seem to have occurred to Phoenix or Ema yet. Instead they try to wheedle Gumshoe into letting us back into Gant's office. No dice - now what? Is Edgeworth back yet?

He is! Drafting a noble letter of resignation. And, typically for him, trying to tough everything out and have pride in the organization that's screwed him over. He does mention something odd - the list of evidence he was given for SL-9 was unusually short, though he was too focused on vengeance to question it at the time. (Is there a missing second page? With, perhaps, the actual murder weapon on it?)

We revisit the suspicious screwdriver from last episode. On the day of Goodman's death, Gant ordered Edgeworth to retrieve it from the evidence room and bring it back to his office. Obviously a setup, but to achieve what? Working theory: to ensure Edgeworth's car was in the underground parking lot, so that Lana could be caught "murdering" Goodman and putting his body in the trunk.

We also look at the copy of that memorial photo, and Ema finally points out what seemed odd to Phoenix. The big ugly trophy is different - it's now a K on a shield, but in the photo it had a sword too. Why is it gone? Surprise surprise, Gant had it removed two years ago.

Could the *trophy sword* be the actual murder weapon? I guess it wouldn't be the weirdest plot twist we've dealt with.

We take our leave, but not before Phoenix cold-bloodedly pockets the draft resignation letter. Desperate measures, I get it - perhaps it'll be enough to panic Gumshoe into helping us - but I have a bad feeling.

#aa #ace attorney #rtfa #ace attorney spoilers

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turnaboutimagines · 4 years

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THE COURT RECORD: An Ace Attorney x Reader Masterlist

Masterlist Updated: March 19th, 2020 Current Number of Pieces: 90

Characters sorted by alphabetical order of their first names, Godot is sorted by Diego! Pieces are listed multiple times under each character that appears in them, this is for your convenience so you can browse entirely by character and find all relevant pieces. ^^ For the Prosecutors group, poly ships, and miscellaneous, please scroll to the end!

Apollo Justice

Headcanons on reacting to reader panicking over last minute work feat. Miles & Apollo

“You take me instead, do you hear me? Give them back and take me instead.” prompt scenario.

Confession scenario.

Reader realizing he’s not all that fine after Spirit of Justice’s plot.

"Don't tell me you're fine, I can see the blood!" prompt scenario, hurt/comfort, Male!Reader

S/O with Hanahaki Disease. [ANGST, Reader death, unrequited love]

April May

“What’s in the shadows?” prompt scenario. [Fem!Reader]

Athena Cykes

“I know the signs…you can’t hide from me, (Name)." prompt scenario.

Distracting her with kisses to win at Mario Kart.

Dick Gumshoe

Meeting their doggos scenarios, feat. Miles, Dick, and Kris.

Gumshoe doing detective work with his s/o scenario

Crush falling asleep on their shoulder HCs, feat. Dick & Miles.

Pineapple on pizza argument scenario.

Pulling them down by the neckwear for a kiss scenarios, shorter!reader, feat. Dick, Phoenix, Miles, and Franziska.

Reader telling that they’re loving them on purpose feat. Larry & Dick

Detective!Reader twists their ankle and he carries them back to the precinct scenario.

Reader injured while trying to save a murder victim HCs. Feat. Dick, Miles, & Simon.

Seeing their crush in one of their shirts scenarios. Feat. Phoenix, Dick, Miles, & Ema.

Confession scenario where the reader directly tells him their feelings after subtle hints don’t work.

Fluffy first date HCs.

Getting mistaken as being in a relationship with the Reader HCs. Feat. Miles & Dick.

Drunk!Dick interacting with a sober S/O HCs. [TW Alcohol and Drinking]

With a S/O who likes to cook for them HCs. Feat. Godot, Dick, Larry, & Phoenix.

Diego Armando / Godot

Shy!Artist!S/O surprises them with a landscape painting and an encouraging note before court feat. Phoenix, Godot, & Klavier.

“Where you drawing me?” prompt scenario. Feat. Godot & Larry.

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios. Feat. the prosecutors.

Prosecutors with an Equestrian!S/O and getting to ride their horse.

With a S/O who likes to cook for them HCs. Feat. Godot, Dick, Larry, & Phoenix.

Ema Skye

Cuddling HCs feat. Ema, Trucy, & Mia.

Seeing their crush in one of their shirts scenarios. Feat. Phoenix, Dick, Miles, & Ema.

Franziska von Karma

“I have a hole…in my side.” - “I’m sorry, what?” - “I was shot.“ prompt scenario.

Relationship HCs with an autistic s/o. Feat. Miles & Franziska.

Pulling them down by the neckwear for a kiss scenarios, shorter!reader, feat. Dick, Phoenix, Miles, and Franziska.

Shy!Artist!S/O surprises them with a landscape painting and an encouraging note before court feat. Miles & Franziska

Crushing on an Oblivious!Reader HCs.

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios. Feat. the prosecutors.

Franziska not tolerating people being loud in court on behalf of her S/O with a sensitive sense of hearing scenario.

Prosecutors with an Equestrian!S/O and getting to ride their horse.

Kay Faraday

“You’re a coward, (Name)! You hide away this entirely different part to yourself all because you’re afraid that someone might get close to you!" prompt scenario.

Klavier Gavin

Reminiscing about his old band days with his s/o.

Falling in love + First Date HCs

Relationship HCs with a Detective!S/O

Shy!Artist!S/O surprises them with a landscape painting and an encouraging note before court feat. Phoenix, Godot, & Klavier.

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios. Feat. the prosecutors.

Prosecutors with an Equestrian!S/O and getting to ride their horse.

Kristoph Gavin

Meeting their doggos scenarios, feat. Miles, Dick, and Kris.

“My, oh my. You are such a beautiful creature.” prompt scenario.

How he relaxes after work with his Male!Prosecutor!S/O HCs

Attending a fancy party with his Male!Prosecutor!S/O scenario.

Lana Skye

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios. Feat. the other prosecutors.

Prosecutors with an Equestrian!S/O and getting to ride their horse.

Larry Butz

Reader telling that they’re loving them on purpose feat. Larry & Dick

“Where you drawing me?” prompt scenario. Feat. Godot & Larry.

With a S/O who likes to cook for them HCs. Feat. Godot, Dick, Larry, & Phoenix.

Manfred von Karma

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios. Feat. the prosecutors.

Maya Fey

"Do you believe in soulmates?" - "No." - "Oh, well that's a shame because I'm it. I'm your soulmate." prompt scenario. [Soulmate!AU]

Affection and spending time w/ S/O HCs.

Person A: “I really hope you have a way to get us out of this whole mess.” / Person B: “Of course I do, you’re just not going to like it.” prompt scenario.

Taking care of her after her trials to become master of the Kurain channeling technique.

Mia Fey

Cuddling HCs feat. Ema, Trucy, & Mia.

Miles Edgeworth

Meeting their doggos scenarios, feat. Miles, Dick, and Kris.

Houseplant shopping with his s/o scenario

Walking in on his s/o singing to themself.

Headcanons on reacting to reader panicking over last minute work feat. Miles & Apollo

Relationship HCs with an autistic s/o. Feat. Miles & Franziska.

“You are being extra sweet today.” prompt scenario.

“I will give you the sun.” prompt scenario.

Crush falling asleep on their shoulder HCs, feat. Dick & Miles.

Confession scenario.

With a S/O who’s into gothic lolita fashion HCs.

Pulling them down by the neckwear for a kiss scenarios, shorter!reader, feat. Dick, Phoenix, Miles, and Franziska.

Shy!Artist!S/O surprises them with a landscape painting and an encouraging note before court feat. Miles & Franziska

Having a heated debate about the best Steel Samurai episode with his S/O, feat. some Maya, Pearl, and Phoenix.

S/O leaves him a cute bento box scenario

S/O with Hanahaki Disease. Feat. Miles & Phoenix. [ANGST, Major character death + Reader death.]

Alternative happy version! Feat. Miles & Phoenix.

S/O injured while trying to save a murder victim HCs. Feat. Dick, Miles, & Simon.

Miles trying to cheer up S/O while he’s abroad HCs.

Seeing their crush in one of their shirts scenarios. Feat. Phoenix, Dick, Miles, & Ema.

Crush learning about his fear of earthquakes fluff scenario.

Elevator ride with an Afraid of Elevators!Reader scenario.

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios. Feat. the other prosecutors.

Getting mistaken as being in a relationship with the Reader HCs. Feat. Miles & Dick.

Miles and Married!S/O staying up late to work on a case together, they get sleepy but refuse to go to bed without him.

Miles bails out S/O after they get held for Contempt of Court after disrupting the Turnabout Goodbyes trial at a pivotal moment.

Reader gets kidnapped in exchange for a Not Guilty verdict, after Phoenix gets his badge back HCs. Poly Triad!Miles/Reader/Phoenix.

Large argument w/ S/O and them walking out for a few days scenarios. Feat. Phoenix & Miles.

S/O’s on trial for murder... and he’s on the case HCs. Feat. Phoenix & Miles.

(Not an x Reader, but I wrote a lil thing with Miles being a dog dad to Pess.)

Miles with a S/O who’s afraid of stairs HCs.

Wendy reacting to finding out Miles is engaged to his S/O HCs. [TW Stalking, nothing worse than she does in the games.]

Nahyuta Sahdmadhi

Romantic HCs

Warning Defiant Dragon!Reader to mind their business, only for them to confess. [SoJ Spoilers, Defiant Dragon!Reader]

Happy ending follow up scenario!

“I can’t open my eyes, I don’t want to." prompt scenario. [SoJ Spoilers, Defiant Dragon!Reader]

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios. Feat. the prosecutors.

Prosecutors with an Equestrian!S/O and getting to ride their horse.

Phoenix Wright

“You’re like my hero.” prompt scenario.

“You can hold my hand if you want.” prompt scenario.

Hurt/Comfort scenario at the hospital after his fall through the Dusky Bridge.

“I know I kissed you before, but I didn’t do it right. Can I try again?” prompt scenario sequel!

Trying to woo his S/O with his newly acquired attorney’s badge.

Pulling them down by the neckwear for a kiss scenarios, shorter!reader, feat. Dick, Phoenix, Miles, and Franziska.

Phoenix handling an investigator!reader who breaks down during the Khura’in trials. [SoJ Spoilers]

Drunk!Phoenix interacting with a sober S/O HCs! [Drinking TW]

Reader with Hanahaki Disease. Feat. Miles & Phoenix. [ANGST, Major character death + Reader death TW]

Alternative happy version! Feat. Miles & Phoenix.

Shy!Artist!S/O surprises them with a landscape painting and an encouraging note before court feat. Phoenix, Godot, & Klavier.

Seeing their crush in one of their shirts scenarios. Feat. Phoenix, Dick, Miles, & Ema.

Relationship HCs with a forensic psychologist!S/O.

S/O comforting him after a rough case.

College Era!Phoenix getting dating after the Hawthorne incident HCs.

Reader gets kidnapped in exchange for a Not Guilty verdict, after Phoenix gets his badge back HCs. Poly Triad!Miles/Reader/Phoenix.

Large argument w/ S/O and them walking out for a few days scenarios. Feat. Phoenix & Miles.

S/O’s on trial for murder... and he’s on the case HCs. Feat. Phoenix & Miles.

With a S/O who likes to cook for them HCs. Feat. Godot, Dick, Larry, & Phoenix.

Regina Berry

Regina taking in 6 year-old orphan to join the circus after he takes shelter in the big top during a blizzard. [Male!Orphan!Child!Reader]

Sebastian Debeste

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios. Feat. the prosecutors.

Confession scenario, with an Ace!Sebastian and an Ace!Trans!Male!Reader (who’s also a street performer!).

Prosecutors with an Equestrian!S/O and getting to ride their horse.

Simon Blackquill

Pre-incarceration/Post-incarceration Simon relationship HCs

“Are you trying to seduce me?” - “Depends. Are you seducible?” prompt scenario.

"Control your anger or you’ll have *me* to worry about.” prompt scenario. [Server!Reader, working at the Whet Soba]

“I don’t want to hurt you.” - “I’d like to see you try.” prompt scenario.

Reader injured while trying to save a murder victim HCs. Feat. Dick, Miles, & Simon.

Pre-UR-1!Simon confession scenario with Detective!Reader.

Play wrestling with his S/O, implied NSFW at the end.

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios. Feat. the prosecutors.

Prosecutors with an Equestrian!S/O and getting to ride their horse.

Pre UR-1 and Post-Incarceration where Athena informs Simon and his S/O of their feelings for each other scenario.

Trucy Wright

"Maybe if you actually stop staring at her and talk to her, you might have a chance." prompt scenario.

Cuddling HCs feat. Ema, Trucy, & Mia.

S/O gets interrogated by the found family scenario.

Wendy Oldbag

Wendy reacting to finding out Miles is engaged to his S/O HCs. [TW Stalking, nothing worse than she does in the games.]

Poly Ships!

Narumitsu/Wrightworth x Reader

Reader gets kidnapped in exchange for a Not Guilty verdict, after Phoenix gets his badge back HCs. Poly Triad!Miles/Reader/Phoenix.

Groups!

The Prosecutor Squad

“The way he watches you…like he’s ready to take a bullet for you.” - “Is that a bad thing?” scenarios.

Prosecutors with an Equestrian!S/O and getting to ride their horse.

Misc.!

Calling a very confused Dhurke a DILF in front of Apollo.

#ms hat's navigation #writing masterlist #the court record #you can really tell who the favorite of this fandom is lmao

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mrchalamet-mrstyles · 4 years

Link

*A MUST READ:*

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart never broke up. Indeed, their split was merely a distraction for the press that would guarantee the former Twilight stars privacy. In the interim period, where Pattinson got engaged to FKA Twigs and Stewart dated a series of women, including St. Vincent, the pair were actually living in wedded bliss. Their PR game was so effective that it helped to hide no fewer than two pregnancies for Stewart. Now, the Pattinson-Stewart family are happy together, laughing at the ignorance of the press and public who believe they broke up years ago and moved onto fulfilling and happy relationships with other people.

Of all the weird celebrity conspiracies that pollute the internet, the Robsten fandom may be my favourite one. It has everything: Press conspiracies, outlandish theories that would put Moon landing truthers to shame, the inability to tell reality from fiction, and of course, bad photoshops. Every now and then, when I see Pattinson and Stewart in the headlines, I go and visit the tin-hatters’ sites for that potent combination of entertainment and fear for my life. It’s astounding that they’re still keeping up this façade.

As time passes, I wonder more and more if they truly believe it or if they’re going full My Immortal with the scam. It’s too outlandish to be real, yet the emotions behind it clearly are.

Sadly, this is nothing new for the world of shippers, nor is it limited to the breeding pair of Twilight. Name a prominent pop culture property and the chances are there are hardcore shippers whose interest goes beyond a fizzy hobby. Some fans truly believe that Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson are a real couple, which is hysterical because their chemistry levels in the Fifty Shades series are sub-zero. The stars of Outlander face the same shippers. Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss are secret lesbian lovers, according to a subset of their fandom. Cate Blanchett will eventually leave her husband and children for Carol co-star Rooney Mara, thus freeing her from an exploitative bearding relationship with Joaquin Phoenix. The Larry fandom have yet to admit defeat, even as both Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson admit the fan delusions over their supposed secret romance hurt their real-life friendship. The Supernatural guys may never shake those conspiracies.

It isn’t all romance related either. Spare a thought for poor Benedict Cumberbatch, whose already overzealous fan-base includes a portion of people who think he was trapped into marriage and fatherhood by his wife, who they paint as the modern-day iteration of Medea. They don’t even think his kids are real. Apparently, one of them is clearly a doll.

If they call it out, as Robert Pattinson did, or mock it, like Armie Hammer recently did on Instagram after someone DM-d him to claim he should be gay like his character in Call Me By Your Name, then they write that off as simply proving their point. The majority of fans deride and condemn this behaviour, partly because it reflects badly on everyone else but mostly because it’s blatant bullshit that should be treated as such. What is most striking about these myriad conspiracies is how eerily similar they all are in terms of tone and content.

Historically, publicists and studios have operated with a certain degree of shadiness. In the Golden Era of Hollywood, where studios reigned supreme, a star’s image could be kept on a tight leash and their indiscretions hidden from the public. Fixers like Eddie Mannix (made famous in the Coen Brothers’ movie Hail, Caesar!) could clear up all manner of problems if the occasion called for it. Pregnancies could be hidden, illegal abortions procured, marriages annulled or concealed, and even the occasional murder dealt with (allegedly). We know this stuff happened, and we know that today, publicists do a lot of work to keep their clients happy. That probably doesn’t extend so far as to covering up marriages and multiple pregnancies and fake babies.

The psychologies behind these tin-hatter conspiracies tend to be remarkably similar too. There’s always massive amounts of paranoia at the heart of their delusions. Arrogance is key as well. You need infallible ego to maintain repeatedly debunked fantasies. They talk of their conspiracies as if they’re the most obvious truths in the world, deriding the ‘ignorant masses’ who refuse to see the reality in front of them, which they’ve kindly circled in MS Paint. The mentality is frequently rooted in a strong brand of self-victimization: They tie their theories to social issues like homophobia and claim anyone who opposes their belief that the One Direction guys are in love are clearly bigots. Even when the people in question call out this nonsense, they’re written off as poor closeted prisoners of invincible publicists. The game of tin-hating shippers is designed so that they never lose.

If Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan insist they’re just friends, it’s only to throw everyone off the scent. When Tony Goldwyn talks of his love for his wife, it’s just to distract everyone from his romance with Kerry Washington. If Robert Pattinson is smiling in public, it’s because he’s thinking of Kristen; if he’s looking a bit down, it’s because he’s thinking of Kristen.

When the fantasy does begin to crumble, the tin-hatters get violent in their rhetoric. Taylor Schilling’s rumoured boyfriend briefly deleted his social media after receiving harassment from her fans who think she’s with Laura Prepon (who just had a baby with Ben Foster). Rooney Mara’s so-called fans called her a disgrace for dating a man and claimed she was letting down LGBTQ+ kids everywhere because of it. Robert Pattinson’s then-girlfriend FKA Twigs faced all manner of horrific racist and sexist abuse for simply existing. It can be easy to laugh people like this off, but we’ve also seen what happens to celebrities when their obsessive fans decide to invade their lives. A 19-year-old fan of Lana Del Rey drove cross-country to her house, broke into her garage and tweeted about it. An obsessive fan of Paula Abdul committed suicide outside her house. Rebecca Schaeffer’s stalker shot her on her own doorstep.

The people who cross that line are a minority, but they’re a loud and insidious minority who shouldn’t be written off as mere ‘crazies’.

This phenomenon is undoubtedly fascinating and reveals a lot about various intersections of celebrity, media, the internet, fandom, and so on. It’s worth keeping an eye on, if only to ensure nobody gets hurt, because it’s not unique to internet culture. This stuff breeds, and that should concern us all.

Now, when do I get my shadowy PR conspiracy cheque?

#charmie #anti-ts #tin-hatting #rpf

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nikcosterwaldaus · 4 years

Photo

DON’T GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY

you’re sure for a quick demise

the town of exile has always been full of strange goings on, a safe haven for all that is unexplained and unnerving, but no one quite believed that there were bodies buried beneath the earth until the summer of 1993. seven teens went on a camping trip to the woods and all hell broke loose.

what started as a simple prank between a couple of them, setting traps around the trees, bushes and stumps to scare the rest of their friends, led them straight to ezekiel sutton - a leader of a very unsavoury cult, called the church of the all seeing eye, from the next town over - burying a mangled body in the damp earth. the air seemed to still, the wind blow ice cold, and the two pranksters ran back to their hideout to tell their friends exactly what they’d seen.

the problem was, ezekiel followed them back too.

in the dark of the night, the seven teens were stalked through the woods, tripped up by idiotic pranks and traps set by their friends. ezekiel got to them, one by one, taking them down and trying to make it so none of them would see the light of day. but, through the power of team work, they managed to outwit the killer; string him up, tie him down, wait until dawn to get help and escape from this forest of madness.

it’s been 27 years since the incident and it affected each of the group deeply. still living with the trauma of not knowing if they’d see another morning, they went their separate ways, trying to forget about that night and get on with what life they could salvage. now, however, things are about to change; ezekiel sutton has been released from prison and the teens - now adults - are all brought back to exile on a lie: their friend, mike, is dead.

but, when they all turned up at the church in their mourning clothes to pay their respects, who came out to greet them but mike themself. it was all a rouse to get them back, here, to exile. they needed help. ezekiel sutton was put away for one murder, but mike is convinced they’ve committed countless more. the only way they can prove it is by finding the bodies, and they can’t do that alone.

the characters listed below are based on archetypes from the it movies (and book), as well as the until dawn video game. please bear in mind you don’t need to have watched, read or played any of these to be involved in the plot. while they’re based on the characters from these franchises, they’re not identical and do not have any of the same relationship plots; we don’t expect anyone to adhere to gender or ethnicity when creating them apart from mike who we will want to keep bipoc; however, it would be fantastic if the rest of the group was diverse (characters of colour, disabilities, gender and sexuality), though it’s not mandatory - just something to think about!

all of the characters will be between the ages of forty-four and forty-five, so please make sure you follow the site’s play-by rules when choosing someone for the group! the request will include themes of murder, horror, death and stalking (serial killer > the kids). we’ll be trigger warning everything within the plot, but if you’re sensitive to any of these themes, please let us know and we’ll do our best to help you feel safe.

please note: we are more than happy to discuss any of these blurbs and they are completely open, we just wanted to give you something to go off if you’re creating a character from scratch. if you have anyone else that you might want to bring to this plot, let myself or pomona know and we’d be happy to chat with you!!!

main characters

bev / mike → prickly, confident, aggressive, independent

with a bad home life and bullied at school, bev struggled to fit in; that was until they found the rest of the group. being an outcast didn’t seem so bad when they were friends with a bunch of other outcasts and they became somewhat protective over the others - not that they let any of the group know that. they stayed in exile for a while after the events, slowly watching their friends leave until they realised there was no point; there was nothing to fight anymore. everyone had gone. now they’re back, bev is wary. they don’t want things to go back to the way they were because, last time, everyone left. they’re keeping the others at arm’s length until they can really work out where everyone’s priorities lie.

reserved for: lana

ben / ashley → shy, sweet, lonely, intelligent

the softest and kindest member of the group, ben took the incident in the woods the hardest and has suffered greatly since. barely able to keep their life on track, they’ve hopped from one thing to the next, never quite able to settle down. it’s a shame, for someone with so much heart, that they’ve had it broken and damaged in so many ways; yet they never let themselves become jaded. needless to say, they’re trying to keep the group in exile to help mike find more bodies, not only feeling some semblance of loyalty to them (and the others), but finally feeling whole again after so many years of turmoil and strife.

reserved for: mc

bill / sam → haunted, honest, reckless , brave

they always thought they were the leader of the group, but at the end of the day they were the first to leave town after the incident. their seat at the police station barely cold, they disappeared from exile almost a week after the group came out of the woods and no one ever saw them again. that is, until now. bill’s surprisingly straight and quiet about what’s happened in the intervening years - something about finding out who they really are and learning to forgive themself - but one thing’s for sure, they’re fitting back into that leadership role like no time’s passed at all. it’s just whether the rest of the group really wants them “in charge” after bailing out the first time around.

reserved for: pandora

eddie / emily → neurotic, loyal, obsessive, genuine

having lived a half shut-in, medically induced hell of a life as a kid along with their sibling, eddie was both ecstatic and terrified at the thought of moving away from exile. their mother made them believe (truly believe) they had a plethora of illnesses and it was only at the age of twenty-three, when their mother finally passed away, that they could go and leave the horrors of their childhood behind. they moved to another small town, settled down into a quiet little life and they were happy and dandy until mike’s letter came through. now, more than anything, even more than before, they want out of exile. but something is keeping them there, and they can’t quite pinpoint what. whatever it is, it’s fucking annoying.

played by: anais (miriam chomsky - rachel weisz)

mike / josh → intense, caring, introverted, observant

after the tragic, violent deaths of their parents, mike was raised under the stern but firm eye of their aunt and uncle. mike was something of an outcast at their school but in the summer of 1993, after a run in with the infamous bully henry, mike’s bond with the rest of the group was forged in the fires of joint misfithood. a grounding presence and the self appointed guardian of the group, mike was the one who remained in exile - literally and figuratively - to ensure that the influence of ezekiel sutton would be forever stamped out. yet, life rarely goes the way we want it to, and since the release of sutton, mike has been desperate to get the old crew back together to see sutton punished for the monster he truly is - desperate enough to even fake their own death.

reserved for: yenna

richie / chris → joker, insensitive, determined, brash

the nerdy clever clogs that forged themself a suit of armour out of terrible jokes and snide remarks, richie was desperate to cut loose of their past in exile and forge a new path in the bright lights of tinsel town. best buddies with stanley since their kindergarten days, but cementing themself in the ranks of the group with his corny humour, richie has always been happy to play the clown. yet, as with all clowns, the smile is little more than a mask, and beneath the mask and the armour is a soul wracked with guilt and self loathing. no amount of gallows humour will keep these old demons at bay, and richie is a hair’s breadth away from high tailing it back to beverly hills as fast as their porsche convertible can carry them.

played by: pomona (seth spector - joaquin phoenix)

stan / matt → weak, trusting, wise, sceptical

though stan has always been a key part of the group, they’ve never exactly felt like an integral part. they’re kind, generous and trustworthy, but always seem to be in the background. always seem to be the weakest link. not much has changed over the years. the initial pranks were stan’s idea and they’ve never let themself forget it, believing that if they hadn’t decided to trick everyone with stupid games, then they wouldn’t have all almost died. their bravery and strength haven’t improved and they still can’t quite find a foothole to grab onto. their life has been an undulating mess since they left exile and it doesn’t look like coming back’s going to make that any better.

reserved for: michelle

additional characters

henry / beth

a lost and twisted soul, henry was never destined for a life of bucolic bliss or carefree contentment. raised under the iron thumb of a domineering parent, henry vented their frustrations and rage upon their school peers with infernal ferocity. the infamous bully of their school, henry perhaps would have burnt themselves out with their own banal forms of sadism if it weren’t for ezekiel sutton. meeting sutton was like henry’s eureka moment, and while his connection to sutton’s foul deeds was never revealed back in the 1990s, it is henry who has been keeping the church of the all seeing eye alive and well. now with the return of their idol and mentor, henry is keen to prove themself as sutton’s most devoted follower.

pennywise / hannah

ezekiel sutton is a man of great importance. no one in exile knew who he was up until the events of summer, 1993; now everyone wishes they didn’t know his name. dubbed the executioner of exile, he’s been in prison for the past 27 years on one charge of murder. the police could never pinpoint the location of any of the other bodies he so clearly buried in the woods, and ezekiel never let on to having done anything but put the man he did bury out of his misery. the kids? well, he never meant to scare them. and you know how teenagers can be; so dramatic!

now he’s out on good behaviour and has no clue (yet) that the kids he never meant to scare at working to find his very real skeletons in his metaphorical closet and expose him for the serial killing ass he is. still, his old cult are welcoming him back with open arms, delighted he’s managed to maintain his innocence throughout his arduous trials.

ezekiel is a npc thus unplayable.

#exilebuzz #s: exile

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hotel-japanifornia · 4 years

Note

If Phoenix or Maya died instead of Mia, that would be a very sad AU to the entire series as a whole. Who knows what that would have done to her.

Well, I did write an AU where Maya got murdered by Redd White. I’m not going to act like my fic is the definitive of how Turnabout Sisters would have gone if Maya was the victim but I do think that it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that things would have gone that way. Mia for sure would have figured out that Redd White was the murderer and would have gone after him, and do anything in her power to take him down.

As for what happens to Mia after The Reversal of Sisters, well, here’s how the rest of the franchise would have gone at least in my view:

Mia finds out that Will Powers, the actor of the Steel Samurai was arrested for murder. Recognizing that name as the show that Maya loved so much, she takes the case because she knows that’s what Maya would want her to do.

Phoenix insists on tackling Turnabout Goodbyes on his own as he desperately wants to help his friend out. He loses because Maya isn’t around to call Lotta out on the validity of her testimony, and Edgeworth is found “Guilty” of murder. As a side note, Von Karma disappears and is never heard from again. Afterwards, Phoenix slips into a deep depression and Mia consoles him, the two comforting each other due to them both losing someone they care about deeply.

Mia ends up defending Lana at the request of Ema Skye. Lana is much more open to the idea of having Mia as her lawyer but still acts similarly cold and distant towards her as she did Phoenix. Mia, with Ema’s help, manages to defend Lana successfully, though she still goes to jail. At the end, Lana and Mia promise to stay in touch during the former’s prison sentence through writing letters.

The Kurain case never happens as there’s no Maya for Morgan to plot to get rid of. Instead, Dr. Grey goes nuts and tries to murder Mimi Miney who is disguised as Ini. He is arrested for attempted murder. The reason I think Grey would go after “Ini” is because he would want to take vengeance upon the sister of the woman who had in a sense, ruined his business. I also don’t think Mimi would have gone after Grey had he not suggested the channeling honestly.

The Lost Turnabout and Turnabout Big Top would have been taken by Mia. She offers both cases to Phoenix, but he’s still depressed after losing Edgeworth. She does manage to convince him to stand in with her during trial.

Mia would have no reason to take Farewell, My Turnabout. In actuality, I think that Matt Engarde’s case would have been taken by a public defender as everyone else is convinced of his guilt. The public defender loses the case and Engarde is found “Guilty. And as an added bonus, the public defender’s body is found the next day but nobody knows if their death was a murder or a suicide. You could argue that maybe Mia would have taken Matt’s case, but I’m not so sure. Engarde looked rather “Guilty” from the onset and if it wasn’t for DeKiller, I’m not so sure Phoenix would have taken it either…without coercion from Maya.

Diego wakes up in August 2018. Mia, scared of losing him again, proposes to him very soon after he wakes up. The two of them marry and Phoenix is the man of honor.

Soon afterwards, Diego joins the Fey & Co. Law Offices as a third lawyer.

Phoenix, inspired by Diego’s return to law, starts taking cases again, but starts off slow with simple hit-and-run and assault cases. He doesn’t take up the case revolving around the murder at KB security (Diego does), but does take up the murder at Tres Bien which goes much differently than it does in canon. This is because he isn’t as popular in this universe so Furio Tigre can’t impersonate him to get Maggey convicted of murder.

Diego is Phoenix’s aide during the Gramarye trial and tells him to watch out for that forged diary page. With his help, Phoenix is able to avoid being disbarred. However, Zak still disappears after the conclusion of the trial (because why wouldn’t he honestly?) and Phoenix still adopts lil’ Trucy.

As a side note, because AAI and AAI2 require the presence of Edgeworth, the smuggling ring and the Mastermind are never caught for their crimes. Actually come to think of it, the Mastermind actually WOULD be put in jail, but for a murder they never actually committed.

Turnabout Visitors ends up going differently since it requires Edgeworth to have the room he has in canon. If Jacques was able to get Edgeworth’s room, he might not end up needing to murder Buddy after all. On the other hand, Rhoda would be accused of murdering Akbey, Lauren would be accused of murdering her father, and Kay would be accused of murdering Coachen. I don’t know who would have been accused of murdering Ka-Shi-Nou though.

The fake president is never discovered and SS-5 is never resolved. Blaise, Patricia, and Di-Jun-Huang never face retribution for their crimes.

The UR-1 trial goes a bit differently than it does in canon. Since a Fey & Co. defense attorney may have taken young Simon’s case, it’s possible that they’re able to prove his innocence and demonstrate the existence of a “phantom” killer. He would have still been arrested on tampering with the crime scene but on a lighter sentence due to trying to protect a young Athena. Make no mistake though, Simon totally adopts Athena once he gets out of the slammer. Whether or not she becomes a defense attorney still is up in the air but I think it’s likely. She might get inspired by watching Simon in court and want to face off against him in court.

Because the UR-1 trial goes differently than it does in canon and Phoenix is never disbarred, the dark age of the law never truly starts.

Apollo ends up working for the Fey & Co. Law Offices instead of Kristoph. I’m not sure how exactly AJ would have gone down. I think Kristoph would still have murdered Shadi and Turnabout Corner and Turnabout Serenade may gone down like in canon. Whether or not Kristoph is caught for murdering Shadi…is a different story.

Ema also doesn’t grow up to be a grumpy bear detective but probably is still bitter about not getting her dream job.

For DD, I can see 5-2, 5-3, and 5-DLC going the same just with Simon acting in a different manner since he was never convicted of Metis’ murder and as such, doesn’t have the lingering threat of death hanging over his head. I don’t think that Bobby and Simon knew each other before the latter got convicted so it’s probably a different detective working those cases. Unless the Phantom kills that guy and somehow manages to manipulate Simon into thinking the other detective just simply quit…

The Khu’rain cases in SOJ likely don’t happen because none of the Fey & Co. defense attorneys have any real reason to travel there. 6-2, 6-4, and 6-DLC might still happen but with different lawyers working those cases.

As for the sibling reveal, well, like in canon, it still hasn’t happened yet. That’s mainly because it’s really not up to any of the lawyers to decide when Lamiroir will let Trucy and Apollo know of their heritage, Although, it might be a bit sooner since Apollo doesn’t go to Khu’rain in this version.

Phoenix never finds out the truth about Dahlia. As a result, he probably stays single for the rest of his life. He almost definitely would have trust issues if he ever got into a relationship again.

Lastly, Morgan receives a call from Mia about Maya’s murder. She decides to use Maya’s death to her advantage and tells Pearl a couple hours later that Mystic Maya had contacted her personally and told her that she never wanted to see her or Pearl ever again. Pearl is inconsolable at first and refuses to believe that her beloved cousin would ever do or say such a thing. However, over time, as Pearl grows older and Maya never returns, she begins to take Morgan’s word for it. Meanwhile, Morgan does her part to ensure that Pearl never finds out the truth and murders anyone who threatens to try.

Pearl becomes Master as a result in 2021, she doesn’t receive the Master’s Talisman from Misty and is instead given a new one upon courtesy of her mother (I don’t think we ever learn if new Master’s Talismans are made when a person becomes Master. I’m pretty sure they aren’t passed down though). By the time she’s 18, she’s blocked the memory of her cousins out of hatred towards them for leaving the family. Misty never goes out of hiding out of fear that her sister might kill her if she tries to reach out to Pearl. She and Larry are still master and student though.

Pearl does go for training in Khu’rain but it’s unknown if she stays with the Inmees like Maya does in canon.

This at least, is an outline of how it could have gone. Things almost certainly would have been very different if Phoenix had been murdered. He would never have been the lawyer he is today, etc. Maya and Mia probably would be working together to try to put Redd away, so that’s a fun thought for an AU.

#ace attorney #the reversal of sisters #ah shit i spoiled the reversal of sisters expanded universe #eh i'll still write it #long post #sorry i get passionate when i think of my au #ask

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years

Text

chapter 11.5 -- okay, 12, it’s chapter 12, fine, fine. I should stop trying to predict how long my chapters will be. I’m always wrong. the Fae AU keeps escaping all my predictions. it’s fine. it’s cool.

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

It is not, as Apollo expects, the worst road trip he has ever been a part of. Trucy likes to sing along to the radio – she has a surprisingly good voice – which stops Clay from starting up his usual road trip tradition of bellowing out “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and seeing how much he can get through before someone slaps him. Trucy claimed shotgun, as “the woman with the magic map”, meaning Apollo is shunted to the back with Ema, who upends her bag on the floor to pull from it a jumbo-sized pack of Snackoos and offer a handful to him.

“None for us?” Clay asks, pouting in the rearview mirror.

“Backseat privileges,” Ema replies.

Trucy cranks the radio up as a familiar guitar riff begins.

If it’s extortion, it works; she and Clay have not finished the first verse, Trucy’s almost-operatic interpretation running up against Clay’s off-key warbling, before Ema is shoving the Snackoos up between their seats, offering a trade of chocolates for an end to the car-vibrating force of Guilty Love.

“Not a fan?” Clay asks.

Ema groans. So does Trucy. “Don’t get me started,” Ema says.

“Yeah, please don’t,” Trucy adds.

“He’s a pretentious fuckin’ diva who—”

Trucy begins yelling out the chorus to the song over the second verse emitting from the radio.

They are all still arguing – Ema berating Clay’s taste in music while Trucy moves into an attempt to sing My Boyfriend is the Prosecution’s Witness to the tune of Guilty Love and Apollo tries to turn the volatile atmosphere anywhere else – when the song ends. Trucy shushes everyone, violently, smacking Clay on the arm and then flailing back at Ema, and turns up the radio. A DJ is in the middle of saying something.

“—announced today on their social media. While fans are disappointed, no one can say that the break-up comes as a surprise, after the sentencing of guitarist Daryan Crescend for murder in July, and the three months of, ahem, radio silence that’s followed. And earlier this week, leader singer Klavier Gavin’s brother was indicted on a second count of murder – I can’t say I blame him for maybe wanting to duck out of the spotlight. Gavin’s brother was previously charged in April, for—”

Trucy changes the channel. A commercial for a local furniture outlet doesn’t help break the awkward spell fallen over them. “Yeah,” she says, after a full minute, during which time they discover their new channel is a country music channel. “No real surprise.”

“Brother and bandmate,” Clay says quietly. “Hell of a year.”

“Hell of a six months,” Apollo says. And he was there for all of it – he was there for more of it than Klavier ever was. Klavier wasn’t there in April, not when Kristoph fell, not when any of them could have had any idea what was ahead. How much magic would surround them.

“If my older sister had been convicted of murder, I was gonna crawl into the dirt and die,” Ema says, “so I’m with the fop on that one, actually.”

There is a worrying lack of hypotheticals in the second half of Ema’s scenario. No “would have”s. Like she was where Klavier is, but the trial had a different outcome, and the frozen expression on her face, her eyes gone blank, she looks like she has caught up with her own words. Said too much. Apollo doesn’t know much about her as a person, her life before failing the forensics exam, how it was that she knew Mr Wright, but he can sympathize with that fear of having given away too much, turned the conversation down a path that should stay blocked off.

“You have a sister?” Trucy asks, turning around in her seat. “You seemed kinda ‘only-child’ to me.’ “Yeah,” Ema says quietly. “Older sister. Her name’s Lana. We don’t… talk much.”

Apollo doesn’t know why the name feels like it strikes something in his brain, the way Ema’s did when she first introduced herself.

“Oh.” Trucy visibly wilts. “Sorry.”

Ema shrugs, slumping back against her seat, her arms folded. “It happens,” she says. Her eyes are glazed over, settled in Clay’s direction. Her mouth quirks in the beginnings of a smile. “She took me to the Space Museum once, not long after it first opened.” The wistful smile has grown a little larger. “Back when I didn’t know what kind of scientist I wanted to be, so I wanted to go everywhere, and she was like ‘Ema I’m not taking you to the fucking tar pits again, how about space?’, and—” She shakes her head. “Sorry. Your jacket got me thinking. Do you work there or something?”

And that is the question that Clay most likes to be asked, that or literally anything else ever about space, and that is the end of any of them getting a word in edgewise – but while Apollo’s heard it all before, Trucy has questions galore, and Ema sits forward, slowly losing the pretense of not being enraptured.

They have driven for over two hours by the time Trucy directs them to pull of the highway at an exit that tells them there is nothing for them that way but another 38 miles until Kurain Village. “Is that where the Fair Folk live?” Ema asks dryly, in her voice none of the nervousness that people tend to have. Apollo hasn’t spoken much with her about magic, doesn’t know what she thinks – but, well, she knows Phoenix. That’s clue enough that caution comes secondary.

“Not really,” Trucy says. “They just named it that. It’s part of our world. Sometimes some of the fae do show up and hang around, I think – Maya tried to convince Daddy to move out here, once, apparently, but he wouldn’t leave the office.”

“Who’s Maya?” Apollo asks. Sometimes he realizes how little he knows about Phoenix’s personal life, too.

“Daddy’s friend. She’s – wait, stop! Here! Turn down this road here!”

“This is not a road,” Clay says, hunching over the steering wheel. “This is some dirt, off the road, not even in the shape of a dirt road.”

The car groans as Clay turns it off of the asphalt into the dirt. Trucy pops open the door and stands, holding herself between the door and the car roof and turning her face to the sky and the no-longer-distant mountains looming above them. She says something, muffled, and points into the trees. “We’re close,” she says, ducking back inside the car. “Let’s park and go – we’re close.”

“Park right here?” Clay asks, raising a doubtful eyebrow.

“Barely anyone comes this way,” Trucy says. “Like, one bus, except I’m not even sure if this is on its route. It’s fine.”

“I’m more worried that this is some sort of sacred ground that we’re stomping on,” Clay says, but he turns the key and then smacks his head against the top of the wheel. “How much are we going to regret just walking out there?”

“Probably we won’t,” Trucy says. She flings the door open and jumps out, stretching her arms up into the air. “C’mon already!”

“So what are we doing now?” Ema asks, crumpling the Snackoos bag back into her bag and tumbling forth from the car like a liquid spilled. “Just walking into the woods until we find treasure or a bear?”

“We do have a map.” Trucy waves it at her. “But yes. That’s what we’re doing.” She lowers the page halfway to her side and then stops, tilting her head back. “I’ve been here before,” she says. “Grandpappy and I – sometime – sometime after my mom died.” She takes a few slow steps toward the treeline, her movements uneven, as in a daze. “It was just the two of us. And we came here, and we buried—” She spins around, eyes wide, looking at all and none of them. “We buried his grimoire.”

Without another word of warning, she dashes into the woods, sending them scrambling to catch up to her. It’s colder here than in the city, though Apollo didn’t think they went up too far in elevation. Leaves thickly coat the ground; do they hide rings of flowers beneath them or do those in their magic break through? They finally reach Trucy when she, focused on her map, walks straight into a tree and takes some time to properly reorient herself.

“Do you know why here, of all places?” Apollo asks. “Is it because of the mountains, and he was…?”

He stops. Does Trucy know what her grandfather was? Phoenix didn’t say. Of course he didn’t.

“He said this is where he landed,” Trucy replies, crunching a leaf beneath her foot. “He said he fell, and this is where he landed.”

“Was he—” Clay’s sense, that question that they all know they shouldn’t ask, that question that Apollo has asked again and again anyway, wars against curiosity, against more than wanting to know – needing to know, to understand what is Trucy’s family. “Was he, erm, one of – Them?”

He can’t even bring himself to offer up one of the epithets. This close to the mountains, Apollo isn’t sure that he could bring himself to speak of them plainly like he has learned to.

“Yeah,” Trucy says. “But I’m human. Don’t worry.” She flashes a grin, one of her usual grins, but it is tempered by the speed with which is vanishes from her face again, replaced by a frown of concentration. “I think we must be close, but not quite yet.”

“Hey, Trucy?” Ema asks. She pushes a branch out of the way and it snaps back to nearly strike Clay in the face. “Not to pry, but – if your grandfather was one of the Fair Folk, are you the changeling, or was it your mother?”

Trucy stops.

“Wait,” Ema says. “Not a changeling – that’s the fae child. The human kid, the one swapped out. Is there a word for that?”

“I don’t think so,” Trucy says. She hops over a log. “I don’t think there’s a name for people like that.”

She doesn’t answer the first question. Maybe she doesn’t know, either.

“When you say you buried it,” Apollo says, aware that there is nothing subtle about this lifeline he is throwing to pull her away from questions best left avoided (am I a child stolen away, raised by the fae? Did they take me from the life I should have had?), “have we come all this way to be foiled for want of a shovel?”

“Oh fuck,” Trucy says.

“Hey!” Ema barks, her sharp rebuke the manifestation of that urge Apollo feels to scold her for that. “Language, young missy!” She folds her arms across her chest, her glare a fond one. “Where did you learn that?”

“My daddy’s a card shark,” Trucy says, countering Ema with a smug grin of her own.

“I thought he was a piano player,” Clay says.

“Only because you’ve never heard him play,” Trucy replies. “Easy mistake to make.”

“Considering it was all magic that hid the map,” Ema says, with nary a pause to acclimate everyone to the idea of throwing the conversation back past that latest sharp turn, “wouldn’t it be magic to hide it again, logically speaking?”

“Where’s the logic here?” Clay asks. Ema snaps a twig off a bush and flicks it at him. “And I mean, if it’s just covered up with some illusion, couldn’t anyone stumble into it?”

“Maybe it takes the map, too,” Apollo says. “Or maybe only a Gramarye can unveil it.”

He steps up onto a tree stump, like the extra five inches can grant him some kind of special insight or a better view in the forest of brown. Then he is falling, the wood rot giving way beneath his foot, a sharp jolt running up his leg from the twist of his foot. “Shit!”

Trucy winces. “Ouch. Poor Polly. I—”

“Apollo,” Ema says, very seriously, but somewhat muffled by her hand over her mouth. “Move. Move right now.”

“What?” He sits up, dislodging his foot from the stump, and looks about himself. The forest floor of dead leaves has cleared, as though by a strong, concentrated wind, revealing browned dead grass encased by a perfect circle of blue flowers. “Oh. Oh shit.”

Without an ounce of grace, still on his hands and knees, he scrambles and rolls his way out of the faery ring. “So according to the map,” Trucy says, and above his head Apollo hears the flutter of the paper, “I think we found it.”

“Only a Gramarye, huh,” Clay says dryly.

“That was only supposition!”

“So who’s gonna stick their hand in a rotten tree stump?” Ema asks, producing a flashlight from her bag and shining the beam down into it. “I volunteer Trucy, because she’s wearing gloves, and is our Gramarye.”

Trucy kicks up the leaves on her approach, searching for hints of another ring around the stump, more than just Apollo’s that sits adjacent to it. “If I get bit by a squirrel and get rabies and die, it’s your fault,” she says, kneeling down next to the stump and brushing her hair back to peer down into it.

“Statistically, your chance of getting rabies from a squirrel is negligible,” Ema says. “That shouldn’t be your worry.”

“What should I worry about, then?” Trucy asks. “Can you bring the light a little closer?”

“Bats, racoons, foxes, feral cats and dogs, and right now, probably non-rabies Fair Folk curses, since we’re fucking around by a ring.”

“I’m still concerned about bears,” Clay says.

“I’m not,” Ema says. “I’ve already got my plan, which is to trip you into its path.”

“General ‘you’, or me, specifically?”

“You specifically. Nothing personal, though. I just know Trucy and Apollo better than you.”

“This is way heavier than I thought,” Trucy says, falling off-balance and dropping something dark and rectangular. “Oof! Okay. Okay. We got it!” She lifts it up onto her knees, a thick book with a black cover and a character emblazoned in flowing purple script on it. “I knew I remembered this.” Her voice is quieter as she opens the book and flips through the rough-edged pages. “Grandpappy’s grimoire.” She closes the cover again, reverently, and keeps it balanced on her legs as she turns back to the stump. “Light again, please. I thought I saw something else.” Trucy has her head nearly in the hole, which can’t help her with her light situation, and she sits back and plunges her hand in again. “Yep! This is a – a funny-looking magatama?”

She holds it up, the blue stone sparkling in the flashlight beam, but also seemingly with its own interior glow, and Apollo gasps.

Three sets of eyes turn to him.

“That’s a mitamah,” he says, and to his own ears he sounds like he’s choking, but he feels like he’s choking too, and maybe the others don’t notice but he doubts it. “That’s someone’s soul.”

Trucy drops it into the leaves.

“What?” Clay looks suspicious – Trucy looks horrified. “How do you know?”

(“There’s no reason to give away your soul,” Dhurke told them, sternly, the sternest he ever got. “Never.” And then they tried to argue, to come up with reasons, because of course they did, and he hugged them both close. “You’ll make great lawyers someday, always looking for reasons and other ways, but this one – promise me. Nahyuta. Apollo.” He prodded each of them in the chest. “Don’t let someone else get their hands on your soul.”)

“The tail of it is different.” Apollo picks it up, brushing off the dirt and leaf particles that cling to it, and points to the longer, squiggling protrusion that extends from the loop. It doesn’t fully connect like a magatama, either, more like a hook than a circle.

It feels warm in his hand, humming through his fingers and up into his ears. It reminds him of the office – familiar, but disturbing, because there is no reason that it should feel so familiar and comforting.

“Could it be your grandfather’s?” Ema asks.

“Wouldn’t that mean he’s still alive?” Clay asks. “Is that possible?”

“It couldn’t be,” Apollo says. If he stares at the mitamah he thinks he can see flecks of gold within the blue, like stars on a constellation chart. “The Fair Folk don’t have souls like we do. They can’t sell them or manifest them like this.”

“Is that why they want human souls?” Ema asks.

“How do you know?” Clay repeats.

Apollo’s heart has stoppered up his throat.

“It makes them stronger,” Trucy says softly. “When they buy names, or souls, it makes their magic stronger. But this – this can’t be that.” She hugs the grimoire up to her chest. “It can’t just be that.”

“Should we just… put it back?” Ema asks. “Someone’s probably looking for it, right?”

“It’s been seven years and no one has come before us,” Apollo says. The humming isn’t as steady now, seems more like a song, and familiar, damned familiar. “No, we can’t just leave her here.”

In the silence, even the song seems to stop. “What?” Apollo asks. Their three sets of eyes are on him again, even more piercing, Trucy’s wide and Clay’s narrowed and Ema’s narrowing too.

“‘Her’?” Ema repeats. “Why ‘her’?”

“I…” Apollo swallows his heart. “I don’t know, but I… I know?”

“I don’t think you should be holding that in your bare hands,” Clay says.

But the alternative seems to be dropping her in the dirt again, and Apollo’s fingers curl tighter around the stone. He can’t do that, either. Trucy unties her scarf from around her neck and silently passes it to him, letting him wrap the stone up in the red fabric and then cradle it close again. The song thrumming in his ears ceases. “I guess we should take it to Mr Wright and ask him if he knows what to do,” Ema says. “He’ll know what to do with it. Her?”

Trucy’s gaze is unfocused, her head slowly drifting away from the horizon back toward the stump. “Trucy?” Apollo asks. “Are you okay?”

“He wouldn’t do that,” she says. “Just buy up someone’s soul all for himself. He wouldn’t. There had to be some other reason. It wasn’t just power, there had to be a good reason.”

(“There’s no reason,” Dhurke said. “Never.”)

“He gave me magic, as a gift,” Trucy says. “He was a good man.” She looks up at Apollo, blinking her blue eyes furiously. “Wasn’t he?”

It takes them another forty-five minutes to stumble out of the woods and find Clay’s car again. Ema makes everyone nervous talking about the odds of them stumbling across a body decomposing in the undergrowth – “I have zero desire to ever get caught up in one of your murder investigations,” Clay says, picking up a branch from the bushes and brandishing it like a baseball bat – and bears. The two of them are at least doing a good job of filling the silence left by Trucy, uncomfortably quiet, walking in a trace. Apollo tugs her by the arm out of the way of trees. He could put the mitamah in his pocket but hasn’t, has kept it held close to his chest.

The story that Phoenix spun of the Gramaryes is gnawing at him. A woman, on the bad end of a deal with Magnifi – Apollo doesn’t want to think about the possibility.

(Trucy must be thinking about the possibility, mustn’t she?)

She crawls into the back seat of the car, depositing the grimoire in the middle, and Ema makes a mad dash for the front seat, leaving Apollo to sit on the other side of the grimoire, separated by it from Trucy. The only time she speaks is to call Phoenix and ask him if he is at the office – he is, because she directs Clay to go back to the office.

It is a long, quiet ride home, some subdued conversation between Ema and Clay about their fields of science rising over the country music still on the radio. Trucy taps Apollo’s hand and beckons him to hand her the mitamah. She takes off one of her gloves and weighs it in her hand with an ever-deepening frown until she wraps it back up and passes it back to Apollo.

Ema shouts “Yellow car!” and hits Clay on the shoulder. He hits her back and tells her that she needs to specify no punch-backs next time.

Phoenix is sitting on the floor leaning against the couch with two notebooks and a stack of papers spread out in front of him, the coffee table shoved to the side, a pencil in his mouth and another tucked behind his ear, when they stagger into the office. Apollo is mediating an argument about the merits of Eldoon’s for a late lunch – Ema does not want to brave it, while Clay wants nothing more than to do so. Phoenix does not look up.

“Hey, Daddy,” Trucy says wearily.

His head snaps up, dislodging the pencil behind his ear. “What’s wrong?”

“You always complain about your back hurting, and now look what you’re doing.” Trucy’s words sound forced through a smile. Phoenix’s frown deepens. He watches Trucy walk past him to deposit the grimoire on his desk.

“We went looking into the envelope you gave her the other day,” Apollo says. “The real last page.”

Phoenix doesn’t look back from Trucy right away. “A full expedition team, huh?” he asks, raising one eyebrow as he looks over Ema and Clay. “Who’s this?”

“Er, oh, yeah. I’m Clay Terran. Apollo��s roommate.” Clay points with his thumb at Apollo, even though they all know there is only one Apollo that they know. “You’re Mr Wright, yeah?” He doesn’t do a good job of feigning enthusiasm.

“I know that look,” Phoenix says, standing with a wince and an audible crack of some of his joints. “That’s the ‘I’ve heard about you and it’s nothing good’ look.” He lets Clay splutter for a full two seconds before he grins crookedly and adds, “That’s fair.” Almost immediately, his expression flattens out to something stern and almost entirely foreign. “Trucy,” he calls. “What’s wrong?”

“We found my grandfather’s grimoire,” she says, sitting on the desk and holding it up, only for it to slip from her hands and crash to the floor. “And Polly has the other thing that was with it.”

Apollo unwraps the mitamah.

Has he ever seen Phoenix surprised? The man spent seven years an unbeaten poker player, and this past half-year absolutely inscrutable to Apollo’s eyes. There is nothing controlled in his reaction; his mouth falls open and his eyes go wide, turning blue immediately and staying blue, horror apparent in how they linger on the mitamah. “Oh,” he breathes. “That is – yeah.”

He reaches forward with trembling hands and scoops up the scarf spread across Apollo’s hands. He holds it cradled close, too, his free hand cupped beneath the one holding it, prepared to catch the stone should it slip, but still not having touched it with bare skin. “So,” he says. “The ‘source’ of Magnifi’s magic – that grimoire, and this soul.”

“But,” Trucy says, “that…” She stops. She chews on the inside of her cheek. Mr Hat, the wisp, is visible, bobbing frenetically around her shoulders. “It’s…” Her shoulders slump. “Do you know what to do with that, Daddy? Is there a way to know what person a soul belongs to?”

“Not from looking only at the mitamah,” Phoenix answers. His eyes still hollow blue when he turns them back to Trucy. “I am not particularly familiar with mitamahs, honestly, but I’ll look into it and see what I can do to get it back to her.” He takes the stone in one hand and offers Trucy her scarf back. “If the fae who has possession of a soul is still alive, they can just give it back – not that many are willing to, mind – but since he’s dead – well.” He shakes his head. “Thank you, though. For helping Trucy, and bringing this back.”

It’s a firm end to the conversation, not that Apollo knows what more to ask about a soul. Ema, though, is frowning, her arms crossed, her mouth twisting like she is puzzling out something. “We were gonna go get noodles at Eldoon’s,” Apollo says. “If – if you wanted to come, Trucy.”

“Oh!” She looks surprised, like she hadn’t expected to be addressed. “Um.” Her heels bounce against the desk. “Thanks, but I’m okay.”

Her hands, curled around the edge of the desk, shine red. Apollo doesn’t even need that to know she’s lying.

“We all agree she’s not okay, right?” Clay asks.

They were silent for a block down from the office, Ema not even complaining about losing the Eldoon’s battle. (Apollo was prepared to tell her that she didn’t have to come, but she had attached herself to them without a cursory protest.)

“Definitely not,” Ema says. “I guess she doesn’t want to believe that her grandfather was the double-dealing type of Folk – which, I’ve read the case file on his death, I’d believe that about him in a hot second. There’s nothing worse than a blackmailer like that. Also.” She plants herself firmly in the sidewalk. Apollo and Clay both bump into her. “None of us referred to the mitamah as ‘she’ or ‘her’, right? Like you were, Apollo.”

“None of us but Trucy even talked about it,” Apollo says. Clay nods. “Why?”

“Because Mr Wright did.” Ema’s forehead creases. “He said he would ‘get it back to her’. He wasn’t even touching it, was he?” Apollo shrugs. Ema shrugs too. “He knows something. More than he said.”

“He always does,” Apollo says.

They reach Eldoon’s, and Ema says that it’s weird to see the stand without a corpse attached. The look that Clay gives her makes her and Apollo both laugh. Once they have their noodles, they walk another few blocks to People Park and find a bench not far from where the noodle-stand crime scene once stood. Apollo has learned to be grateful for the mouthfuls of broth that taste of so much salt to sting. It feels a little more like safety, like salt across a doorway.

He starts to say what he’s thinking, that Trucy might be worried that the mitamah is her mother’s, or at least he is, but the words die on his tongue, shriveled by the salt. He doesn’t feel right to tell Clay and Ema about Trucy’s mother’s death, when he has no idea if Trucy knows or not. Phoenix has made him the guardian of family secrets that aren’t his and something about that feels wrong. Maybe necessary in some way, to understand the case, to understand what happened with Kristoph, but still wrong.

Instead, he helps Ema explain to Clay her earlier comments about Magnifi and blackmail. You can’t refuse, and we both know the reason why – Trucy can’t know he did that. She seemed to idolize him. What a hard way to fall.

He’ll text her tomorrow, Apollo decides. Check in, see how she’s doing.

(There’s probably someone else he should check in with, too, the events of this week all considered.)

#fic: the seelie of kurain #roddy fanfics #start your morning with some magic and gramarye fuckery wooooooooooo

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cindersinrags · 6 years

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Sadly, this is nothing new for the world of shippers, nor is it limited to the breeding pair of Twilight. Name a prominent pop culture property and the chances are there are hardcore shippers whose interest goes beyond a fizzy hobby. Some fans truly believe that Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnsonare a real couple, which is hysterical because their chemistry levels in the Fifty Shades series are sub-zero. The stars of Outlander face the same shippers. Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss are secret lesbian lovers, according to a subset of their fandom. Cate Blanchett will eventually leave her husband and children for Carol co-star Rooney Mara, thus freeing her from an exploitative bearding relationship with Joaquin Phoenix. The Larry fandom have yet to admit defeat, even as both Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson admit the fan delusions over their supposed secret romance hurt their real-life friendship. The Supernatural guys may never shake those conspiracies.

I could go on, listing the many other fandoms I’ve come across with these near identical conspiracies of secret relationships, hidden children, public relations bullying, and so on. From Scandal to Orange is the New Black to The Hunger Games, it’s as big a part of fandom as cosplay and dirty fanfiction. A lot of the time, the celebrities being obsessed over don’t even know it’s happening. If they call it out, as Robert Pattinson did, or mock it, like Armie Hammer recently did on Instagram after someone DM-d him to claim he should be gay like his character in Call Me By Your Name, then they write that off as simply proving their point. The majority of fans deride and condemn this behaviour, partly because it reflects badly on everyone else but mostly because it’s blatant bullshit that should be treated as such. What is most striking about these myriad conspiracies is how eerily similar they all are in terms of tone and content.

The basic set-up for a tin-hatter shipping conspiracy is thus: The pair are in love, the pair are in a serious relationship, but they have to hide it from the world because of ‘evil PR’. The nature of this shadowy public relations organization is never made clear. It’s mostly rooted in conjecture and a hazy understanding of how the entertainment industry has worked over the decades. Historically, publicists and studios have operated with a certain degree of shadiness. In the Golden Era of Hollywood, where studios reigned supreme, a star’s image could be kept on a tight leash and their indiscretions hidden from the public. Fixers like Eddie Mannix (made famous in the Coen Brothers’ movie Hail, Caesar!) could clear up all manner of problems if the occasion called for it. Pregnancies could be hidden, illegal abortions procured, marriages annulled or concealed, and even the occasional murder dealt with (allegedly). We know this stuff happened, and we know that today, publicists do a lot of work to keep their clients happy. That probably doesn’t extend so far as to covering up marriages and multiple pregnancies and fake babies.

That’s the sad part of this all. They won’t be proven wrong simply because they’ve invested too much of themselves into this fantasy. They run around in circles, desperately claiming everything is against them and only they are smart enough to know the truth. If Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan insist they’re just friends, it’s only to throw everyone off the scent. When Tony Goldwyn talks of his love for his wife, it’s just to distract everyone from his romance with Kerry Washington. If Robert Pattinson is smiling in public, it’s because he’s thinking of Kristen; if he’s looking a bit down, it’s because he’s thinking of Kristen.

Real person shipping (or RPF) doesn’t bother me in theory. If you just treat it like any other fandom hobby - safe, private, clearly fiction - then go for it. There’s a major difference between liking two actors and writing silly fanfiction about them and going to extremes to prove they’re actually married. The people who cross that line are a minority, but they’re a loud and insidious minority who shouldn’t be written off as mere ‘crazies’. This phenomenon is undoubtedly fascinating and reveals a lot about various intersections of celebrity, media, the internet, fandom, and so on. It’s worth keeping an eye on, if only to ensure nobody gets hurt, because it’s not unique to internet culture. This stuff breeds, and that should concern us all.

Now, when do I get my shadowy PR conspiracy cheque?

#Real Life Shipping #Scandal #Outlander #Where is the lie?#I wonder what happened to Carmen Sandiego?#Samcait shippers are kinda the worst at this point #and no you can't ship what you want if it affects those people directly #samcait #Terry #Those Terry fans were also the worst #The idea that those two people are trying to hide their relationship when in reality it would be great PR for the show?#Nah son

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lemedy · 7 years

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HOLY SHIT, LEMEDY’S FINALLY PLAYING SPIRIT OF JUSTICE: CASE 2, PART 1

The second that Trucy was up there on stage I thought ‘I am calling it, I am calling it right fucking now, baby Wright girl is going to be accused of murder because frankly, she hasn’t had her turn yet. I WAS RIGHT. BABY WRIGHT GIRL IS ACCUSED OF MURDER.

This game is dragging me, kicking and screaming, into the Gramarye family drama again and look, I love and adore Trucy but I do not give a single shit about the Gramaryes and their fuckery. I realise that Capcom is trying to recreating the Fey clan drama that spanned multiple games, but the trick with that was that the Feys were actually INTERESTING, I gave many fucks about Mia, Maya, Dahlia, Iris and Pearl. Infinite more fucks. Jesus, please spare me from more ‘I WILL MURDER FOR THE ULTIMATE MAGIC TRICK’, we’ve done this before, and I’m legit disappointed we’re going here again.

(If the game is revisiting the Gramaryes to finally reveal to Trucy and Apollo that they are siblings, all will be forgiven)

Athena and Apollo going to Trucy’s show!! Supporting her!! Cheering for her!! I love this little trio so much, and I am very happy and greedy that Capcom is giving this to me. Athena and Trucy teaming up to eternally pick on Apollo is just. JOY. IS WHAT IT IS.

Also appreciate the kids talking shit about their boss behind his back: ‘TROUBLE’S DRAWN TO HIM LIKE IRON FILLINGS TO A MAGNET’. Harsh, Apollo. NOT UNTRUE, THOUGH.

TRUCY CRYING BECAUSE SHE’S SCARED AND DOESN’T KNOW IF SHE RUINED EVERYTHING AND ACCIDENTALLY KILLED A MAN. It fucked Apollo up, it fucked me up. Because it’s so well-established that the most important thing to Trucy is to always keep a smile on her face, so her breaking down? SHE IS NOT DOING SO WELL. PLEASE, APOLLO AND ATHENA. SAVE TRUCY.

Robert Downey Jr is freaking me the hell out.

EMA’S BACK. And I got really fucking hyped to see her interact with Athena, even if it was only a little bit. And as much as I loved cranky jaded Ema in AJ, it’s legit nice to see her happy and smiling and finally, a forensic investigator. SHE GOT THERE. GOOD JOB, EMA.

(I will also sell part of my soul to hear her talk about Lana. HOW IS LANA DOING)

Interesting little bit about Edgeworth ‘reorganising the prosecutors’ office’, and getting rid of corrupt prosecutors. Not sure if that’s a throwaway line that’s there just to give a reason for the new prosecutor to show up, or if that’s going to be an actual plot in the game.

(Another thing I would sell a bit of my soul for: wacky times in the prosecutor’s office. Edgeworth, Simon, Klavier, Fran. All disasters. All together. FUN FOR ALL).

Okay, so with ‘Bonny’: I’d convinced myself immediately ‘she is either the murderer or in on it’, but then we talked to her and she seemed legit nice and caring and helpful. But then we overhear her and Robert Downey Jnr talk and she’s kind of terrible and evil and PLOTTING AGAINST TRUCY, THE GREATEST SIN OF THEM ALL and….I’m not sure why the game decided to reveal this hand so early? I’m not sure if I would have rather seen her inevitable breakdown on the witness stand before she reveals her true colours, so….idk. Not sure if I love the whole ‘eavesdropping reveals she’s evil after all’. Unless there’s some other plot twist coming.

APOLLO DOES NOT WATCH POPULAR TV, HE’S TOO BUSY READING MANGA AND DOES NOT HAVE TIME FOR YOUR GAME OF THRONES, YOUR BACHELOR, YOU’RE THE WALKING DEAD.

(Not see: that one season that Klavier did the Bachelor. It was weird time).

Apollo is scared of heights and Athena holds his hand like the bro she is. Good job, Athena. Protect the baby chicken lawyer.

‘YOU GET AWFULLY PRICKLY WHEN IT COMES TO GAVIN’…Apollo is being awfully catty about Klavier. I can only assume that Klavier drank the last of this morning’s milk and put the empty carton back in the fridge, or forgot to clean the cat’s litter box, or left the iron on. Apollo is a cranky boyfriend today.

‘YOU’RE LOOKING UP MICROAGGRESSIONS LATER, APOLLO’. ATHENA, I LOVE AND ADORE YOU. THAT’S RIGHT, DON’T TAKE THAT SHIT FROM BABY CHICKEN LAWYER. EDUCATE HIM.

And then there’s a legit nice moment between Apollo, Athena and Nick (WHILE THEIR OFFICE IS BEING REPOSSESSED), and I tend to have a slightly darker view of the Phoenix/Apollo relationship a lot of the time….but a nice scene is a nice scene, and I do like seeing that Boss Lawyer trusts his kids enough to not only run things, but also to take care of his daughter. A good moment.

(The dad nearly getting executed in Make Up Foreign Land, the daughter being arrested for murder. GOOD TIMES IN THE WRIGHT FAMILY. MILES, WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH YOUR HUSBAND AND DAUGHTER).

#lemedy plays spirit of justice #lawyer game blogging

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modusoperandi · 7 years

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I guess you don't really have a choice bc theyre both your muses, but I love that you remember their relationship and that they've known each other for quite some time. you dont downplay it in favor of other, More Common friendships and it's nice to see

Thank you!! :D

One of my favorite things about Ace Attorney is that there are a lot of really subtle relationships between the characters, and that’s one of the things that makes it feel really weirdly realistic to me, for a series where multiple plots involve murder from beyond the grave by channeling the murderer as a spirit medium. Lana and Miles struck me in the first game–there were others that struck me in the following games, but I just really like Lana lol–because of Miles saying “She was my boss. I always felt like she was looking out for me.”

Which is so interesting, even if they never go back to it in depth! Because by that point, we’ve already compared Ema to Maya, and we know that there was some kind of relationship between Mia and Lana, where Lana trusted Mia more than she would have trusted any other defense lawyer (and Mia was a terror for the prosecutor’s office). It pretty much just puts Lana in a position where, even if her relationship with Miles isn’t analogous to Mia’s relationship with Phoenix, Phoenix doesn’t say so but he is the kind of empathetic person who would definitely see it that way.

But it is not actually analogous to Mia’s relationship with Phoenix–or it is, in that Miles’s relationships with his mentors and bosses tend to be twisted versions of the relationship that Mia had with Phoenix, and it’s kind of heartbreaking. And it really interested me that Lana seems to like Miles (complimenting him, albeit a little bit sarcastically, all throughout the case–I think at one point she tells him to basically just figure something out, because she knows he can, and she adds, “you’ve always had a good head on your shoulders”), and that she did want him to succeed, and Miles still shows respect to her throughout the case, even if it might come off as a little sarcastic–

Ganto: You see, I wouldn’t participate in a match with a lost cause.As I thought… the Goddess of Victory was on my side again today.…Okay, Cho-san. See you later!Judge: I warned you earlier.This… is an affront to the head of our nation’s law enforcement agency.Naruhodo: Ugh…Aaaaaaaaugh!Mitsurugi: …The “Goddess of Victory”, hm? Or so he thinks.Judge: What is the meaning of this!? …Prosecutor Mitsurugi!Mitsurugi: There’s one “Goddess” who knows the course of this trial…We haven’t yet had the honor of being graced with her word.

They’re not friends, really. They’re both kind of bitter and standoffish–which makes their quiet professional relationship an interesting focal point for a case that is all about how the detectives’ office and the prosecutors’ office need to trust each other. Especially since it all centers on someone who switched from being a detective to a prosecutor, and the ways in which getting tangled up like that ruined the course of justice.

So, yeah. I love the squee-inducing nature of Phoenix and Miles’s relationship. I love love love Lana and Mia, and Lana and Angel. I love Miles and Franziska’s sibling relationship, too, I think it’s really ridiculously sweet. The canon relationships are so much fun.

But I also really love that Ace Attorney gives so much opportunity to explore those kinds of less-emotional relationships that spring up out of necessity. Because Ace Attorney characters all have such great motivations, you can really explore how those motivations might contradict each other and work against each other, and how that’s negotiated in the end! Some of my other favorite scenes from this case are the ones where Lana is talking to Phoenix, or the ones where Lana’s giving a roundabout apology to Gumshoe for lying because no one would do what she wanted, or even, to take examples from other games, Miles and Iris talking in Bridge to the Turnabout. I still think that was one of the sweetest relationships in the series so far, with the two of them confusing each other and accidentally scaring each other and apologizing endlessly and eventually trying to trust each other with the truth. Like, god, it makes every time another series does that exact same emotional arc with a “now we have to dance because of Reasons” scene seem like CHEATING.

Also, this is the entire reason that I love murder mysteries. As a genre. And why I spent high school watching Numbers and NCIS and every single other crime procedural drama I could get my hands on.

#thank you!!! :D #Anonymous #i didn't mean............... to talk so much #nice things people say to me

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marithlizard · 4 years

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Ace Attorney: Rise From the Ashes (Day Two, Investigation Former) (part 4)

(There’s so much to speculate on at this point in the game that I ended up just plain narrating all the events in detail. It was fun to write - but is it fun to read? Or do people prefer the less wordy format?) Today on Ace Attorney, we have our mission clear in mind: bring down Stinkyhead Gant the police chief, thereby saving both Lana Skye's life and Miles Edgeworth's career. And oh yeah we should probably figure out who killed Detective Goodman.

Twice.

Simultaneously in two different places. Could be twins, but my money's on the second victim being someone else dressed up in a white trenchcoat and fedora, and Gant was playing elaborate word games at the trial to technically not lie about it. No idea why.

A quick review establishes that the two crime scenes are 30 minutes apart by car, and then we're off to the parking garage to do Science(tm), I guess?

Ema announces that no body was found in the evidence room murder. Huh. That certainly wasn't mentioned at the trial! How, exactly, do you ID a nonexistent body? In particular, why would you think it was someone who was provably elsewhere and also dead?

Also Ema: Murder, sure, but my sister would NEVER erase evidence, that's unthinkable!

She's all excited about spraying for blood traces. And she has a point that we can't trust the police. Pink glasses on, new game mechanic engaged, and... we find some splotches right next to the car trunk. Not enough for a fatal knife fight, though. Lana's shoe has more blood on it than the ground.

Hello, lunchlady. You're much more friendly today. Though your bentos are no more appetizing than usual.

Angel Starr: Yes, I totally lied about these key facts to make my enemy seem more guilty. But you haven't caught me in any lies about these OTHER things, and that's what's important!

Instead of pointing out that we have no reason to trust ANY of her testimony, Phoenix muses that the photo she took must have a Clue in it. Hm. Re-examining it, I see:

Lana still has both shoes on and they do not match the shoe submitted as evidence. Clue or low production values?

Lots of blood on her trenchcoat, no scarf, gloves, she's about to shut the trunk. But she didn't, since the crime scene outline tape shows the body was hanging out of it when found.

I dunno, man. The Clue eludes me. We ask Angel about her past as a detective instead. I get the distinct sense she is bragging about having tortured suspects.

Ema rises ten points in my estimation for a perfect delivery of the obvious food-poisoning insult. Angel barely notices, though; she's too busy being bitter about the case that got her fired. The SL-9 incident - same name as the tag on the knife, no surprise there.

Our victim Goodman was the lead detective on the case, she says. The knife was the murder weapon (duh), and in her eyes the case isn't over. (Goodman probably thought the same. Does Lana?) But it seems that's all she wants to say. We give up and head to the police department. There's another crime scene that could use a dose of Science.

The moving doll is still out front. Inside, the head detective won't talk about the situation, but will brag about his plush version of the doll. The other detective at his desk is working on his Agatha Christie fanfic. I'm not exactly sensing grim determination to avenge a fallen colleague, here.

We reach the security guard office. Cheesy cowboy decor, eleven booze bottles plus a full glass right on the front desk, and a line set up for hanging laundry. Somebody sleeps under his desk and has no fucks left to give. A lasso "trap" in front of the inner door looks like something set by Wile E. Coyote on an off day.

Ema's imagination is good enough to compare her sister to a cactus - but not good enough to think of using the ID card in our inventory to get into the evidence room. Or looking up stuff on the conveniently unguarded security computer. Instead we stand around waiting for Marshall until I give up.

Detention center: Lana is being interrogated. Will she be charged with both deaths, common sense not being an obstacle around here? But no, Phoenix remembers that Gant said they'd caught a suspect for the second murder. I really hope it's not Gumshoe.

The Prosecutor's office doesn't seem to be available right now. With no other options, we head back to the lunchlady and try again. I throw everything in my inventory at her this time. To my surprise, she has some solid observations to make:

- If Angel hadn't witnessed the crime, Edgeworth would've been the obvious first suspect. ...Was that the plan? I assumed before that she was planted at the scene as a witness, but now I'm not so sure.

- She's backed off from her blind rage against Lana enough to admit that it's very odd for such an organized person not to have brought her own murder weapon.

- She could've taken her photo from the overlooking guard room, instead of spending five minutes running all around the edge of the parking garage and climbing a high chain link fence. Her testimony looks fishy because of that.

Ema points out that lying on the stand is fishier. Angel retorts that her testimony was "disregarded" before in THAT case, and she was determined not to let it happen again. Do tell, lunchlady. Vent your bitterness at us.

And she does. (Flashback image: Angel, Goodman, and Marshall bent over a map, with a fourth person mostly hidden by the speech bubble.) The prosecutors, she says, were desperate for decisive evidence of guilt. They did not find it...so they used fake evidence to convict and execute the suspect. And then fired or demoted all the detectives involved.

Oof. So, falsified evidence *isn't* common practice here, depite the rumors about Edgeworth. It's so rare and so unacceptable that this level of coverup was needed to prevent major scandal. Angel has reason for her hatred of prosecutors - but who exactly was responsible? Edgeworth was new on the job at the time. It would have been Lana, pressured by Gant. And that's why Lana has been a cactus ever since.

I still don't like Angel, but she's smart enough to recognize Phoenix will serve her ends. She gives us an actually tasty-looking lunch! I thought it was a present in recognition of allyship, but no, it's a bribe. Presumably the smell of steak will lure someone back to his assigned guard post.

Ema blurts out her concern for Marshall, who apparently was a lot nicer before SL-9 and did not use to refer to her as a baby cow. Angel assures us Marshall is not one of her many boyfriends. I'm not sure why this makes Ema feel better, but it does.

Back to the PD we go with steak in hand.

Gumshoe is not arrested! He'd tell us who is, but we only have one piece of protein in the inventory and there's no need to trade it for the name. I can easily imagine who would be "having a good cry" in detention...but I can't imagine him doing murder. Even the judge wouldn't buy a whopper like that.

Waving the steak around at the security guard office fails to summon Marshall, so we head back *again* to lend the Sniveling Mailman a handkerchief. (Phoenix is racking up a lot of taxi or subway expenses, here. And he won't have the heart to bill Ema if Lana is convicted.)

S.M. Meekins, left hand thoroughly bandaged, can't imagine himself doing murder either. He is very confused and very loud. I am confused too, about why the guards haven't taken his portable loudspeaker away. But his garbled tale of woe clears things up for me if not for our heroes.

Meekins saw a "suspicious person" in a white trenchcoat and fedora on the monitors in the guard office, went into the evidence room and asked him for his ID. The guy pointed a knife at him and Meekins freaked out and tried to attack. Then he fainted and awoke alone with a bleeding hand. Soo...There's no body because nobody died. Gant is just *claiming* there was a murder because

well um because

Why would he claim that??? It's easily disproven. The security videos would normally show what happened clearly so they must've been deleted, or the cameras weren't working. And Marshall was not at his post.

Ema, bless her heart, connects the lack of dots and points out there was no murder - so why is Meekins in jail? Apparently there IS a security tape, I was wrong, and it shows the crime...and that it really was Goodman in the evidence room.

Twins? Lies? But which parts are lies? I throw some inventory items at Meekins just in case, and he recognizes the knife. The broken-tip knife with the SL-9 tag that was found in Edgeworth's car muffler, wrapped in Lana's scarf. Meekins is incoherent so Phoenix writes it off - but I don't.

Twin Goodmans AND identical knives is too much even for this series. And that means the real lie is about the time. Goodman was not in the evidence room and the parking garage simultaneously. He was in the evidence room first, perhaps? Getting the knife? But the security video must have timestamps...

I really want to see this security tape now. So we take our meat back to the police department, only to find Gant bullying the chief on duty. You. YOU ARE EVIL AND CONFUSING. I'm going to leave a 1-star review on ratemyvillain if you don't organize your nefarious plot better.

Gant is demanding that everything of Goodman's be found/removed, down to the trash in his wastepaper basket. (But he's happy to stop and chat with us and slander Edgeworth some more, with a bonus suggestion that Phoenix too is corrupt for having "proved" his innocence last game.)

The duty chief must not like being bullied, because he shows us something he kept back: a lost item report Goodman half-filled-out on the day of his death. It doesn't say what was lost. His ID, perhaps?

Surprisingly (suspiciously), Gant is willing to let us investigate the evidence room. He even gives us a guest ID card. And Marshall finally deigns to show up to work, though with the clear intention of not actually doing any.

Meat: deployed Marshall: impressed Me: ...those two ARE dating, and moreover communicating in a secret code of boxed lunches. It suits them.

"Steak filet lunch" apparently signals "render all assistance". Marshall willingly admits he's a grade-A slacker and doesn't even bother to understand the security system. (That explains the lasso.) He still doesn't want to tell us what the SL-9 case was about, but reminds us it was officially closed two days ago on evidence transfer day.

(That's the key to everything that happened on the day of the murder, isn't it? Goodman took the knife (and maybe more?) from the evidence room to keep it from being permanently "archived". He was killed for it - but someone protected it by hiding it in the car muffler, and now it's in the court record. That knife must be the key to solving SL-9. ...And that's why Gant showed up at the courtroom! He must be *so pissed* that this deadly piece of evidence is back in the public eye, it's a real danger to him. Okay! Now I have the shape of what we're dealing with.)

Marshall hasn't bothered to look at the security tape, but from what Meekins told us, other officers have. (Wait. Is that a safe assumption? Since all that matters is Gant's official talking points. they could simply be claiming the tape shows Meekins stabbed Goodman. I'd say this was implausible but I live in the US in 2020. )

Ooh, this looks useful - a list of every use of the card reader on the day in question. 4 different IDs are recorded. 2 of them must belong to Goodman and Meekins. One is nothing but sevens, that's certainly not ominous.

Next: the evidence room!

#ace attorney #aa #ace attorney spoilers #tumblr is going to screw up the formatting #sorry about that

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marithlizard · 4 years

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Ace Attorney: Rise From the Ashes (Day Two, Trial Former) (part two)

I feel like screenshots would add zing and be helpful, but it’d be a pain to do my own for technical reasons. Does anyone know of a good image gallery for RftA? Google didn’t turn up much.

Anyway. Day Two, and it’s time for the trial of the already-confessed suspect.

"How did the investigation go yesterday?" Lana, you could tell us something yourself. Even if you're lying through your teeth it'd give us something to work with.

Ooh, barbed little exchange between Lana and Phoenix. "Never believe your client, they're probably a lying scumbag." "See, being a defense attorney requires some basic faith in humanity. Unlike Mia, you don't appear to qualify."

Huh. We’re given an upfront ambiguous warning from Edgeworth, right in front of the court. Yes, yes we know personal feelings are icky and you don't want them near your tailored waistcoats, but why do you feel the need to disallow them right now? Phoenix has no personal emotional stake in this case. Unless...Edgeworth thinks the proceedings are going to rebound on him.

Ema, this is not the time for sexy cross-examination fantasies. You can go home and write fic after your sister is safe.

The dominatrix lunch lady is a "professional" witness? Edgeworth I hope you didn't mean that the way it sounds.

Edgeworth is unmoved by your rice. Take that, lunch lady. (If only the judge had as much dignity.)

OH I misread that completely. She's a former detective! (And Jake Marshall is a demoted detective. Connection?) And while Edgeworth accords her due respect by calling her work first-rate, she's openly hostile to him.

And she arrested Lana herself? If this crime was as staged and performative as I suspect, was that all part of the act? Yeah, I don't think you were alerted by a sense of destiny or your finely honed instincts, lady. Or that you were there to bring lunch to your boyfriend.

Would the stabbing have been as easy as Angel Starr describes it? Didn't Goodman put up a fight at all? Sadly our autopsy report has all of two sentences in it.

Ooh, she just opens fire on Edgeworth with both barrels. And she offers a motive, the first one we've heard so far, that Goodman was killed for knowing too much about corruption of evidence.

My goodness. Evidence is sacrosanct, but sexually propositioning the judge while giving testimony is fine? Got it. (Phoenix at least tries to call out her obvious bias.)

Here’s a photograph, which the lunchlady so very thoughtfully took. Lana with a bloodstained trenchcoat draped over her, wearing gloves, seemingly about to close the trunk of the car. This was clearly taken after the stabbing. But...if you witnessed the crime itself, and arrested the suspect on the spot, would you really have had time to take this picture? You'd be busy trying to reach Lana, surely. (Smartphones were not a thing yet, were they? Did Angel just happen to be carrying a camera? ....She did. A lunchbox camera. Perhaps for spying on prosecutors.)

Edgeworth why do you even own a knife like that? And how did Lana supposedly get ahold of it?

Yes, thank you, that cannot possibly be a photograph of the moment of the crime, given the lack of either victim or weapon in it.

"Are you trying to test me? I sell box lunches for a living, you know." The translation team was having SO much fun with these.

Aha, so the knife was in the trunk. Unless Lana knew it was there, she didn't have a weapon prepared, which seems off for a premeditated murder.

...actually why aren't we hearing Lana's own confession account on the stand instead of the lunchlady's? I know, I know, it works better for the game to force us to reconstruct it all from clues, but what's the in-story reason?

"Mommy, are prosecutors bad people?" Yeah, this whole thing is definitely at least partly staged to smear Edgeworth's reputation. (also why are small children in the audience for a murder trial)

It doesn't seem to have affected his spirits, though, since he can make lunchbox jokes. And oooh, he's firing back at Angel. He doesn't care if it's premeditated or not, but she does. (Why does she care so much? it's the death penalty either way in this system, isn't it?)

Wait why is she testifying about Lana calling Goodman out to the Prosecutor's Office? She has no personal knowledge of that at all. (Indeed, it turns out there is no evidence it even happened.) Annnd here we go, she's perjuring herself. Purple prose about "plunging the knife in again and again" that directly contradicts the autopsy report. She hates Lana so much it's really clouding her judgment.

Edgeworth is holding Angel strictly to account on her testimony even though it favors his case. And he's getting distinctly sardonic about her lies. It's nice to see that the truth does matter to him.

Ooh, he points out the contradiction with the autopsy report himself, stealing Phoenix's thunder! That would never have happened in previous AA games. He's really changed, or perhaps he feels so under threat that there's no point holding back.

She...thought she saw repeated stabbing because Lana had a red scarf on? That doesn't make a particle of sense. And wait, in the photograph Lana wasn't wearing the scarf at all. Why are we listening to a thing this woman says?

For the second time in a row, Edgeworth interrupts and takes over Phoenix's objection for himself. He's demolishing her quite satisfyingly. Perhaps it's not a desire for the truth so much as finally getting to strike back, after having people speak ill of him for years.

"After the murder, the suspect attempted to run behind the partition". Yeees, that absolutely fits with your picture of a cold-blooded (yet enraged) stabber committing premeditated murder in a public place with evidence all over.

You climbed a nine-foot chain link fence, in your negligee, fur coat and heels (you are definitely wearing heels), so fast that you were able to apprehend the fleeing suspect after stopping to take a picture first. Riiight.

Lana said "muffler"...like the car muffler? On the phone? That means Ema has lied twice now - first she hid the fact that her sister called her right after the murder, then she claimed her sister hung up without saying anything.

Ah! So Lana wasn't attempting to hide at all, she was attempting to make a phone call. Like you do when you've discovered a body.

Hah! Phoenix points out that Angel just claimed to be able to look straight through the concrete partition. I didn't actually pick that up. And he's no longer taking anything she says at face value - he believes her statement that she saw Lana try to use the wall phone only because it's a pointless detail that no one would bother to lie about.

...So he's willing to believe she saw what she says, but from a different location? I have to agree with Edgeworth, that also sounds pointless. Why claim to be standing somewhere else? "Where" isn't hard - she must've been in the pointedly-mentioned and clearly labeled security room, looking down from above. Why not say so?

And the judge FINALLY chastises her for lying, if only mildly. She freely admits she'll say anything to take down Lana. And it sounds like she has a reason, beyond personal hatred. (A justified reason?)

Good for Ema, she points out there's no obvious benefit to the location lie. And Phoenix is the first to say the p-word. What benefit would be worth that?

"I swear it on my finest plastic spork!" A bible would surely be redundant.

Yes, five minutes between murder and arrest is a TON of time. Lana could easily have escaped if she'd wanted to. Angel surely made enough noise to alert her, running around and even taking her picture. And Lana just apparently stood there? Why?

YES boot her off the stand, judge! Don't let the caviar lunch sway you!

Court is adjourned, but there are still so many questions. We still don't know what- huh? Angel isn't ready to stop talking yet?

"I... might be able to save you." Now isn't THAT an interesting statement. It sounds like she's offering to save Edgeworth himself somehow, not just his case. Even though she hates his guts.

The judge very politely tells her to feed her new claim of "decisive evidence" to someone else. I approve, though of course she'll end up having her say anyway.

NOW you bring up a bloody shoe? Which was, I'm going to bet, not in the police investigation report? Why do you have Lana's shoe, and what does blood on it prove that the blood on her coat and gloves doesn't?

I was right, Edgeworth did not know about the shoe. And he brings up "evidence law", that new evidence can't be introduced without the approval of the police department. Which is weird, because I certainly remember Phoenix producing all kinds of new evidence during former trials. Not infrequently hidden or stolen from the police. (Does that mean the victim's ID card which Phoenix pocketed is inadmissible? I bet it does not mean that. Edgeworth just doesn't want to accept evidence from this annoying person who hates him.)

Too bad for him, because she got it approved by the police department on her own...today? I know Edgeworth is the opposition here, but that does not seem fair to him. People who are not Phoenix need time to prepare their cases. (Mostly because, unlike Phoenix, they actually have cases.)

Huh. I don't know if this will be called out as a plot point, but a fundamental difference in approach just struck me here. Edgeworth claims there could have been some bloody footprints that just didn't happen to be in the picture. He doesn't know, because unlike Phoenix he doesn't go to crime scenes. He relies on the police reports given to him. That seems like it could come back to bite him in a much bigger way than just this shoe.

Lana kicked over a water-filled oil drum while struggling with Angel. ...Apparently no one but me finds this highly implausible. Oil drums are heavy! Even when empty, kicking one over is a stunt for a martial artist, and when full...I can't picture it.

"Ah, yes, I will perform this feat of strength to wash away the bloody footprints, removing all the evidence against me. Except for my bloody coat, gloves and shoes, the murder weapon, the body, the eyewitness, and the photo." Edgeworth why does this seem logical to you? I an almost see Lana rolling her eyes in the prisoner's dock.

Hah. At the moment of failure, Ema stumbles on the one sure way to get Angel Starr pissed off enough to derail the trial again - accuse her of being on the side of a prosecutor in any way, shape or form. She obviously *is*, in that she and Edgeworth want the same verdict, but she can't stand to hear it said out loud.

NOW of all times, she produces a photo of the body?? ...I guess proof that she withheld even more evidence from Edgeworth, against both their interests, is supposed to be proof that she isn't on his side?

The ghost of Mia appears in Phoenix's mind, telling him not to give up. And indeed, that photo shows something sticking out of the car's muffler. I was right, Lana meant that when she said "muffler" on the phone.

The trial has to be suspended while someone goes and looks to see what the thing in Edgeworth's car muffler is. (Which really should've been noticed by any competent police investigators. As should the fact that the suspect's shoe was missing on her arrest, and nowhere to be found. Is the cowboy not actually very good at this?)

Next time: trial part 2, in which the judge is hopefully so stuffed as to no longer be susceptible to lunchbox bribery.

#ace attorney #rise from the ashes #ace attorney spoilers

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