#b plays aai2

[musashi]

I honestly forgot people are huge fans of Morgan. Like what the fuck… if you never played AAI2 then Morgan is THE abusive parent. I like villains, I like Morgan’s character. But she isn’t defendable in the slightest. She’s even far below Dahlia bc she’s half the reason Dahlia acts like that in the first place.

I LOVE MISTY BTW. I AM THE MISTY FAN. I did make jokes about her being a deadbeat while I was playing but it was only a joke. And I Was upset about Edgeworth’s disappearing, moreso than I ever cared ab what Misty did lawl. Also perfect to note that she cared more about Pearl than Morgan ever did

I could go crazy about the fey family for forever but Morgan really is the only one I’d say I dislike and that’s… how it should be. Like I get why people would disagree with what Misty did but at the end of the day it’s about how she’s treated VS Morgan and Blaise, who ARE abusive, as you’ve said. Crazy ass fandom

And yeah I project onto Dahlia and Eustace so easy but that’s because I’m also cluster b and narcissistic like yeah guys. I get it. slay. More people should like them

its genuinely so strange when the morgan fans look at me like i'm crazy for liking mvk. like dude? we are sisters. put down the torch. let's talk about them doing hot girl shit in prison.

i love the whole fey family so much! they are a fucking mess! just the way i like it!

[morphogenetic]

Mediaposting 2024, #6: Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2/The Great Ace Attorney Resolve

Completed: April 21st, 2024 (/i still have to watch the DLC episodes that didn't get released with the official loc, I guess but I'm not playing it any more so ?? lol)

Time spent: 49.5 hours (will be like 50.5 after the DLC stuff)

Rating: 9/10 (more objectively. but a very biased 9.5 in my heart.)

ohhhhh my god alright where do i even start with this. i guess i also have to talk about dgs1 a little bit in this review/mini completion log but I will TRY and keep it to just 2. [editor's note: somehow succeeded with this! lfg]

first, to get the non-spoiler parts of this out of the way:

please for the love of god play this fucking game if you've played the original AA trilogy but not the DGS duology. i can not stress this enough. i would not recommend playing them as your FIRST aa games because a) they will set your bar way too high (and too low simultaneously bc wow dgs1 still has whack as hell pacing) b) there are a few details, especially in this particular game, that will evoke no reaction in you if you haven't played at least the main three games but WILL cause you to start gnawing on drywood if you have Knowledge Of The Future

the whole dgs duology - and specifically as a duology, bc 2 makes no sense without 1 but 1 by itself is not on this level - is absolutely in my top 3/4 AA games now. i admittedly have not replayed the original trilogy in quite a while, buuuuuut T&T/AAI2/DGS1+2 are my new top 3. not necessarily in that order, give me a bit to think about it lol.

im going to be thinking about this game for the rest of my life probably. i can see why my best friend wanted me to play it for uh. seven years. because yeah it really is that good.

i want to cosplay four different designs from it. i have not wanted to cosplay anything new (to me) since neo twewy came out three years ago. take that as you will.

music still slaps. obviously. my favorite new song is absolutely partners (IYKYK) but agh. the new theme(s) that characters get are all so fucking good. clenches fist. the leitmotifs

definitely becomes relevant in retrospect in a few places where capcom obviously cut the hell out of the budget but they saved it for where it matters so i dont care. im also uh. very used to low budget VNs so frankly even 3D models are better than I'm used to LMFAO. i also you know. didn't realize that they did that until after the fact. so. they hid it well

if you havent played this go and play it (after playing the original AA trilogy). please for the love of god im on my hands and knees.

everything below the cut (i.e. below this point) has blatant unfiltered spoilers. you have been warned.

okay so welcome you've presumably played all of dgs2 if you're reading this. i have THOUGHTS. a lot of these will come off as critical/negative but i need to strongly emphasize that these are the only reasons that this game is not a 10/10 for me and otherwise i'm in love with it. it is fucking CLOSE. i am not talking a lot about the things i really love because that is.............................a lot of the game for me and we'd be here all day. the critiques are much more limited in number. but. you know.

dgs2 absolutely has much, Much better pacing than dgs1 does overall. it does not take 3 cases to get past a bunch of tutorial cases. this is a good thing. however..............the first two cases are still very slow. i won't call them pure filler, because a) reminding us about yuujin was a very good idea, b) they contribute to the Themes of the game. and im glad hosonaga was there again and (of all of the side characters we could have had) seeing souseki was good. i like them. but they really didn't need to be there to fulfill the themes of the game. case 2 in particular feels like a filler case, which I do not love given how tight the rest of the plot feels. if anything i feel like they should have done an interim flashback case without susato, as much as I adore susato, because as-is it's canon that ryuu had 3 cases in the span of a week. which feels INSANE

speaking of better pacing: im so glad dgs2 remembered that AA games can take investigation breaks between courtroom shit because running through ALL of the trial after ALL of the investigation in 1-5 was. let's say. taxing. the 'finding their footing' aspect of the first game

i do kind of wish we got One more case with the masked apprentice where susato wasn't there at all for the entire case. if only because then the delay between ryuu Thinking It and susato Knowing it would be even more painful. but i do really appreciate that they don't try to make it a woah big reveal as much as a painful "i know who you are but you don't." really adds a certain je nai se quois or however the fuck you spell that. idr. its 1 am when im typing this

also hey asougi can we fucking unpack how susato (the girl you were raised with to some extent, probably not like your sister but your weird younger cousin) called your name and you didn't remember who you were but you DID remember when you saw a wax reconstruction of your dead dad. can we fucking talk about that for a minute. can w

speaking of asougi. my god. they did such a good job with him. i think i wouldn't have cared nearly as much about him if all we had was the dgs1 stuff but his extreme motivation for the truth almost turning him into a violent attack dog is. aaaaaaaaaah. god. and the parallels between him and his father's followers (read: the von karmas) that one has from playing the mainline AA games. truly brainworm material

speaking of this: i can absolutely tell they did NOT think about writing the professor stuff with this game until they added in the masked apprentice - before he got turned into asougi - even though the reaper was obviously something that was planned. i do not care personally about this, because game dev is weird as hell and it REALLY works with asougi and van zieks' character arcs. in the same way that i don't think [SPOILER CHARACTER] from vlr would have been as good without the knowledge of 999, i think if barok had been foiled against a new character it wouldn't have worked as well. all that said. it sure is obvious they didn't know what they were doing. this makes me even more impressed that that they got it to work at all

the same is true of everything with the hound of the baskervilles but im really glad that they took it in the direction that they did.

also man it is so obvious that they probably wanted to have this be a proper trilogy like the original trilogy but then budget happened. because 2-3 through 2-5 all slap but they feel so fucking weird next to 2-1 and 2-2. like i dont feel that theres anything missing per se but a little more time for character growth would have been nice. hell even adding in an extra case (and/or editing 2-2....)

the only writing thing, aside from. 2-2 being like that. and the other weird pacing issues..that extensively is off to me is the whole assassin trading plot. i do think it is Very stupid and that they clearly wrote themselves into a corner with 1-5 on how to deal with it because they just...proceed to not deal with it until 2-4 and 2-5. however. even with that said. i actually kind of like that it is so stupid. because stronghart definitely feels SO obsessed with his version of justice that he wouldn't think through the potential downsides of having two free-roaming assassins running around and maybe coming to get his ass. obvious flaw that would not occur to him because of his insane ass behavior

its still dumb. but it's ace attorney dumb. so i can excuse it a little bit

stronghart being a damon gant expy was funny but goddamnit was it predictable. making him be so obssessed with justice that he talks to ryuu about it for 4 hours was funny as hell though and absolutely adds to him as a character. still dont like him that much Personally but hes definitely a character

his breakdown was peak. by the way. top 3 breakdowns in the series

jigoku being like that kills me. also. the way he just let genshin

g. genshin impact (sorry)

i dont care that sherlock's bullshit was a deus ex machina bc honestly.....electricity was real at that point. its fine

also. holy shit i love ryuunosuke in this game even more. 'i'm not doing this for you, kazuma. i'm doing it for the truth.' BANGER!!!!!!!!!!!! his growth across these two games is really good but especially in this one he shines so brightly

however..........this game made the glaring lack of ryuu's parents even more obvious. its not like i Need it or anything but considering how he very literally refers to yuujin/susato/sherlock/iris as his family in 2-4.....where are your parents!!!! what was your childhood like!!!!!! I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS THAT I WISH COULD BE ANSWERED!!!!!!!!!

and asougi. i could write an essay on asougi alone i think. but i adore how both he and ryuu are like 'you've changed' at each other and neither of them are wrong but then by the end they're like 'wow you're the same as before.' theyre so fucking gay. anyway

and sherlock (WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY DO YOU LIE FOR FUN LIKE THIS????????)

and yuujin (partners ~ game is afoot starts playing and i start crying). obsessed with how they only had to write the dynamic for a single case and you can believe all of it because they can just go. lol. ACD canon. anyway

and susato

and, most surprisingly of all for me.....fucking barok van zieks. i would not call myself a Fan of him in the way i am a Fan of asougi and ryuu, but i am obsessed with him. he did so many things wrong but realizes he genuinely fucked up and wants to atone for it. he gets genuinely upset in prison when he can't join the red-headed league. he's a professional alcoholic. he has bats in his office (???). what is wrong with him. (i know the answer is 'literally everything that could be wrong with a person.' but still

i love every single character in this game (or i hate them but because they were written to be hated)??? how did they manage this again. dgs1 helps so much here because the character growth.

argh. the character parallels with everyone realizing their parent / mentor figure was fucked up and/or hiding shit from them in some way. thinking emoji rotating in a circle goes here

wow that magically became way less critical as i was writing it. i thought it was going to be a lot stronger of a critique. its still weird pacing stuff basically that bothers me but i have very minor complaints that im forgetting aside from this

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAH HI GUYS IM BRAIN ROTTING NOW FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this has had almost the same brain impact on me (as evidenced by the 1 million words about it) as raging loop i think and thats never a good sign since i still think about raging loop at least once a week despite the fact that i played it 3 goddamn years ago

[selfdiagnosedeyemotif]

this is beyond late but if you are willing to bite. for the character ask, maya & franziska?

my dear fellow it is NEVER too late to take me up on ask games.

Maya

Favourite Thing: i simply ADORE the burden of responsibility as a trope and maya pulls it off in SPECTACULAR fashion. you can feel the fear and uncertainty she feels about her role as the master of kurain through the screen when she finally opens up about it in bridge to the turnabout (and the little crumbs we get about it in reunion and turnabout) (and it's only augmented by the fact that it was suddenly thrust upon her by mia's departure)

Least Favourite Thing: a bit of a nitpick but there are some aspects of the mechanics of maya's channelling that give me a bit of an ick (channelling mia. go figure), but i do like the way the technique plays into the mystery during reunion and bridge

Favourite Line: either her little speech to nick before she leaves for kurain at the end of goodbyes or her so desperately trying to protect diego during the dying light of bridge, can't decide between the two

brOTP: PHOENIX!!!! they're such best friends. they mean so much to me. its like. everything that apollo and trucy did in aa4 (which i notoriously also love), only with way more time to develop and simmer, so it's like. perfect. i love maya and phoenix

OTP: i have two ships that completely consume my mind. one of them is not for this fandom. the other is franmaya. they're such unexplored narrative foils...

nOTP: i mean. phoenix. 'nough said

Random Headcanon: i think that, for all of her hyperactivity (at times), she embroiders in her free time, and got pearl into it as well during the seven-year gap. pearl quickly surpassed her.

Unpopular Opinion: STOP SHELVING HER IN YOUR FICS, PEOPLE. SHE DOESN'T GET ENOUGH LOVE. PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU IS THIS THING ON

Song: Soulgazing by Gregory and the Hawk (vibes alone, im bad at assigning songs to characters)

Favourite Picture: this redraw of her unused objection sprite by @/u3pxx, i love it so very much

Franziska

Favourite Thing: the sheer hurt and terror that sits at the corners of her character but never gets touched on outside of the airport scene because good GOD there's so much guilt and shame for her imperfection and terror about turning out like her father and CAN I TALK ABOUT THE BULLET. THAT DAMNED BULLET.

Least Favourite Thing: not enough screentime. i need more franziska content like i need air

Favourite Line: "You, you're running away from Von Karma… from me!?" "So… you're leaving me behind again!? I'll never… Never forgive you for this!" from The Forgotten Turnabout in aai2 because HELLO??? this is one of the most important pieces of franziska characterization we get EVER because a), she's still clearly still holding onto her father's memory, or at least the pedestal she had him on, b), it showcases how quickly she turns to wrath as soon as the chips are down, and c), MOST IMPORTANTLY. LISTEN TO HOW SCARED SHE IS. or dont listen i guess but like. still. she sounds TERRIFIED of losing her brother all over again.

brOTP: torn between either edgeworth because i love the vk sibs or kay because their friendship is adorably sweet and pretty underrated part of aai

OTP: once again franmaya cuz. god. theres so many emotions.

nOTP: cant think of any that i genuinely dislike besides the Nigh-Universally Hated One (her and edgeworth) so im gonna say that

Random Headcanon: she doesn't give phoenix the calling card during the hazakura temple investigation. she wants to. she has it on her and everything, but she couldn't work up the courage to do it. way down the line, deep into the 7yg, she shows up to the wright residence, has a long chat with phoenix, and finally gives it to him

Unpopular Opinion: i know its been said a lot that she probably does have some normal teenager aspects to her (the example ive seen the most is "owns a hello kitty tshirt and reads yuri fics"), but i think she's a little too repressed to have that until at least after aa3. maybe she gets a little more normal during the 7yg but im not sure yet

Song: Top of My School by Katherine Lynn-Rose because come ON. you've seen the animatic with the clip of that song over franziska stuff. if you haven't then you will soon cuz its linked here (full song first, then the animatic)

Favourite Picture: this wonderful number by the incredible and talented @/ind1c0lite because uh. i like fran angst.

[browneyedwright]

when polly the parrot said "don't forget dl-6" so true girl i haven't stopped thinking ever since i found out about it

[aroacettorney]

aa7 but its actually ace prosecutor starring sebastian debeste and his legendary mentor, miles edgeworth, bonus the great thief yatagarasu, kay faraday, as their investigative partner.

[maskdemasquedits]

horace knightley and simon keyes icons!

requested by: @off-brand-phoenix-wright

please like or reblog if you save or use!

[aquilamage]

been thinking about badd in aai2 again...both because of him and Sebastian, but also once they realize they can get along Badd and Justine would be amazing....

pov you just said something rude to Sebastian and are about to get your shit wrecked for it

[wugblogs]

@sumi-tunes saw your tags #badd is THE most underrated aa character of all time no i will not take criticism and not to go on a tangent here but

honestly i think he would be more popular if he were not (a) only in investigations, which are less played for obvious reasons (b) not directly related to any of the non-investigations characters (even without playing aai2 people like me probably went "holy shit, miles' dad's old mentee is around? edgeworth has an honorary uncle?!?!) and (c) not the kind of character you see one line from and immediately go "oh you are Archetype XYZ" i love kay but you really only need to see her for 2 seconds to get most of her personality. badd being gruff means you actually have to pay attention for the moments where it's obvious what kind of guy he really is.

anyway badd's definitely a unique flavor for someone on the detective/prosecutor side. gumshoe and ema definitely want to do the right thing, but they also tend to bow to the wishes of whichever prosecutor's in charge (and they both work at least sometimes for a prosecutor who is not concerned with doing real justice.) it's a nice contrast for badd to just fully not give a shit what von karma says if he knows that's not right.

[4ragon]

Got any hcs for Sebastian Debeste? He's one of my favorites

I do for sure, I love this guy!

Sebastian is very musical, and can play most instruments. However, he is not a very good singer

He didn’t have a lot of friends in high school, since most of them thought he was A) Conceited, and B) Cheating

Sebastian was pretty sure he was best friends with classmate Klavier Gavin, but Klavier had always thought Sebastian was trying to bully him

He still has a tendency to get words mixed up, but after a lot of practice, it’s much less frequent. However, it does tend to happen more often if he’s distracted or stressed

He’s still very close to both Justine and Miles after the events of AAI2. Justine has him over for dinner very often, and of course, he’s basically Miles’s number two at the prosecutor’s office

He stayed with Justine for a bit after AAI2. He and John get along pretty well, and Sebastian tries to watch the movies John is in when he remembers

He’s also very good friends with Kay, and they hang out frequently, even though Kay’s ideas of hanging out sometimes are a little more Heart Attack Inducing than he’s used to

[tonaldissonance]

hey im bored so if u want 2 give me some drawing ideas thatd b pog,,,,,,,ace attorney and hlvrai only plz

(just 2 warn u i most likely wont do every request)

details under the cut

ill do whatever.....prolly full art w/ shading bc i physically cannot just draw a sketch. itll b done in autodesk sketchbook

please try n b detailed when u send in a req.......like a specific scenario or pose would be ebic. u can send in an image in ur asks if u have something really specific in mind. ill do (almost) any character btw

no nsfw/suggestive content (haha funy pepis joke is fine) nothing gross or weird obvs. i can refuse any req 4 any reason (that includes 'idk i just dont feel like it') sorry if i dont do ur req tho.

nothing past aa4 plz :(

ships ill do:

frenrey

boomer

sodashipping

tomrey

freelatta

frenreylatta

-

wrightworth

klapollo

franmaya

lanamia

langworth

claypollo (havent played dual destinies)

hughdebeste (havent played dual destinies or finished aai2)

asoryuu (havent finished dgs)

id prefer frenrey, sodashipping, wrightworth, klapollo, and franmaya but *shrug*

uhhhhh if i think of anything else ill add it here lol

[gemstoneslesbian]

I love you Matt hcs so much! So much inspiration for mine too!

Have you got any post-cannon hcs? (Maybe angst/Whump one? But that’s not so important I would love to hear any ^^)

Thank you sm!! :D

All right SO, my main niche in the fandom is fleshing out the Ace Attorney prison, examining the relationships between all the characters there, fleshing everyone out, considering their character arcs, etc. It’s definitely something I put a lot of thought into and get excited about ^^

I imagine there being three main prisons:

Prison A

The canon prison shown in Ace Attorney Investigations: 2. Prisoners are allowed one animal companion, there’s a supplier with influence over the warden (and, imo, the guards as well), it’s overall a prison that can be interpreted as more relaxed--with limited corruption, due to the fact that, in my opinion at least, Sirhan Dogen wouldn’t put up with much BS. Although he can’t control everything, Dogen has a decent amount of power that he uses to make his prison livable.

Prison B

This is the opposite of Prison A. Damon Gant is in charge, but in a different kind of way; after being Chief of Police for so long, he still has a lot of power and connections, and many officers hold respect and / or fear towards him. The prison is a hierarchy of power and control with a lot of corruption, and anyone who doesn’t work for Gant is in danger.

Prison C

The women’s prison. Dee Vasquez has the upper hand here, due to her outside connections with the mafia. She handles things in a more manipulative, underhanded kind of way--isn’t so much focused on the prison at large, but moreso on securing her own matters. She uses protection or exploitation sparingly, and when she does, she deflects attention off of it as much as possible. While the prison isn’t as horrible as Prison B, it’s not as safe as Prison A.

Now that the environment has been established, time to get into the details about Matt:

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Matt Engarde went to Prison A.

In Ace Attorney, fame and riches seem to make little difference when it comes to putting someone behind bars. However, the game does show that it can add complications, and affect things to a certain level. With that said, here’s how I imagine things went over with the arrest:

Things are a whirlwind of chaos and fear and pain at first, but it doesn’t take him long to get a deal set up with the prison. Sometime within the first week of his imprisonment. Thankfully, this is done quickly enough that his assets haven’t been transferred to his parents, yet.

His sentence is 10 years. No death penalty or life sentence, because the deal is that, for each year that Matt Engarde is alive and healthy, the prison receives $500,000. This would give them ample reason to take measures to protect him from De Killer.

Matt doesn’t have an endless amount of money, and he also doesn’t want to be stuck there forever. In his mind, hopefully De Killer would be behind bars or dead by the end of those 10 years, and if not... well, he’ll figure it out when he gets there.

He’s given the cell down the hall from Sirhan Dogen, the infamous assassin. This scares the HELL out of Matt at first, but the guards assure him that it’s for his own safety:

However, since he’s placed in this cell before the deal is made, there was an ulterior motive as well. Due to the fact that Shelly De Killer is another infamous assassin, Warden Roland considered it a possibility that he’s one of Dogen’s outside contacts. If Dogen were to rat out Matt’s location to him, the prison would be prepared to capture and arrest De Killer, and it would be confirmed that they had been contacts.

Obviously, Dogen could rat him out no matter which cell he’s in, but it’s more convenient to place Matt there as bait since the hallway is monitored so heavily--they’ll be prepared to restrain both De Killer and Dogen if/when that time comes.

If the deal were made beforehand, he likely would have been sent to Prison B; even though it’s a harsher atmosphere, no one in there is presumed to be a contact of De Killer’s. While he could have been transferred at this point, it’s decided that they’ll stick to their regular plan, just with added precautions and safety measures.

Matt, although suspicious, never has any sort of confirmation that he’s being used as bait--at least, not until years later.

BUT ANYHOW.

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Interactions and Reputation

I get into it a bit in this fic*, but the gist is this:

There’s no point in continuing to act charming when everyone knows it’s BS, and any chance of Toughness or Good Standing he could have had are kinda... shattered by his frequent (very loud) panic attacks late at night.

For the first year, he doesn’t bother trying to make friends. He doesn’t care about them, they won’t care about him, and he’s not interested in playing a tug-of-war with power dynamics when he knows he won’t always necessarily come out on top. So he’s kind of a loner here. Occasionally entertains himself by picking fights.

*(Spoiler warning for AAI2 in the fic I linked!!)

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Character Arc

From this point, I can see it going in several different directions. I have two different fic AUs where things turn out differently in each one, and I also have an extensive role-play I did with a friend of mine. In terms of imagining his “canon” life and his future, I definitely learn towards the events that transpired in the role-play, so I’ll focus on those.

(My friend and I made a post analyzing his personality and character arc, so most of the things I’ll mention here have been mentioned in this post in greater detail. HOWEVER the post is EXTREMELY long and also contains major spoilers for AAI2. So if you want to avoid spoilers and also want a summed up version, feel completely free to just read the summary below!) (oh also, with relation to the post I just linked, tw for?? a variety of common triggers)

I should mention that this might not be COMPLETELY spoiler-free, but I do avoid saying the spoilery name. It’s hard for me to accurately gauge what is and isn’t revealing, since I already know all the spoilers haha.

And, without further ado:

-Everything about his world has been turned upside-down. Instead of being adored, he’s despised. Instead of being the one with power, he’s the one under the thumb of others. Instead of a life of comfort and privilege, he’s confined to small, uncomfortable areas, and is barely paid anything for his labor. Additionally, he could be killed at any moment at any hour at any location--and this is something he’s forced to endure for years on end. The entire situation is incredibly stressful and traumatic for him.

-About a year after his arrest, a guy moves into his cell with him. Things align in just the right way that a friendship of some sort is formed between them: the guy is friendly, pretty, relatable, into some of the same hobbies he’s into, and he has power within the prison walls. It’s beneficial to form a friendship with him... and the guy isn’t annoyed with him for his (now much less-frequent) panic attacks, but rather, shows sympathy.

-Neither of them particularly trust one another, but they enjoy each other’s company.

-Humans need comfort, and Matt is no exception. Under the intense trauma and stress he’s enduring, it’s all too easy to form some sort of bond with the nice guy who dances with him and pets his hair and holds him.

-It’s important to mention that Matt is rendered unable to do his usual power & control shit. And he especially can’t get away with that kind of stuff when his new cellmate shows up. The guy is Very Alert to underhanded behavior (due to his own underhandedness + the fact that he’s dealt with one too many bastards), and is quick to call Matt out on even minor things. So Matt’s options at this point are either:

a.) try his manipulative shit and lose any small amount of power or comfort he may have had, with an added risk of retribution

b.) resist all forms of connection / interaction with other people, and just be miserable and alone and scared all by himself

c.) be friends with the guy WITHOUT being a shady douche, and getting to enjoy the comfort and benefits that provides

-So... YEAH. Long story short, he makes friends with the guy. And, also, lowkey catches feelings for him.

-Matt also makes friends with Simon Blackquill a couple years later (and that has its own backstory)

-His previous ways of moving through the world do not work at all here. In the end, Matt’s main goal is to get what he wants, and to feel good. With the circumstances, he has to completely change his approaches in order to meet that goal.

-Matt may be cold and uncaring towards other people’s emotions, but it’s clear that he does have very intense emotions. He shows much more vulnerability and pain now than he used to, because doing so makes him more sympathetic to his friends--but he also needs to learn to not be as manipulative about it, and to actually consider the other person’s emotions instead of making it all about himself.

-He does ultimately decide to make the overall changes necessary for healthy interpersonal connections, since it’s in his best interest to do so. It’s not easy, and he hits plenty of road bumps along the way. It definitely dredges up a lot of shit, a lot of painful emotions; he’s extremely self-protective, and genuine vulnerability is hard and frightening.

-The tl;dr is that he’s dragged through a healing arc, kicking and screaming the entire way.

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That’s what his life in like in prison, overall! There’s a ton of aspects and details, but I figured it’d be best to cover the basic storyline ^^

I also have thoughts on how things would go after he’s released from prison.

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...OH SHIT I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO MENTION THE SHELLY THING LMAO

I’m gonna make a post where I detail out what happens, and then link it here when I finish.

Edit: Here it is!

[thelittlemissfortune]

Knightley for the character meme thing! :)

My fave bastard man??? Thank you!

Favorite thing about them

He is great.

He’s just such a fun character for the first case, he’s so over the top (the ridiculous gun twirling tricks when he first introduces himself? Amazing) and he’s so petty, his motives are (seemingly) ridiculous, I love fun villains like that. And then he kept being relevant to the story? And he got a backstory which explained so much about him and why he is how he is, and just aaaaa he’s so good please play aai2

Least favorite thing about them

The fact that he dies in the second case is very cool storywise but I’d rather he didn’t :( also he’s very hard to draw. 

Favorite line

I’m not sure about anything specific, but can I just say his whole flashback scene with Simon in prison? I was so surprised by how different his dialogue is with Simon compared to the rest of the game. He’s so positive and friendly with Simon, he’s so happy to see him, when realistically you’d imagine he’d be upset about his own situation (especially with how self focused he seems to be). It’s such a nice dialogue shift to show their relationship, he’s head over heels in love with Simon okay

brOTP

Honestly I can’t imagine this man having many friends... With how he acts and views others, Simon’s probably his only friend, or at least close friend. I wish Edgeworth got to play chess with him petty chess buddies ig!

OTP

Manosouta <3 <3 I was shipping them from pretty early into meeting Simon and that did noooot change. The ship gets depressing but happy aus and hcs help, and its not like I haven’t shipped depressing ships before

nOTP

With anyone but Simon

random headcanon

He collects knight chess pieces bc of course he does

He remembers some of the kidnapping incident as children and feels very guilty about it + has some trauma from it and later events

He likely has a cluster B personality disorder. He fits best into narcissistic personality disorder but he has traits from all of them

He wants to be the Best bf and stole books on like dating advice when he was a teen

unpopular opinion

It’s hard to know what's unpopular since he doesn't have a huge fanbase and most of it is Japanese, but I think my hc of him running away from the orphanage with Simon is uncommon?

song i associate with them

Knights and Rooks by Claire Jackson

Be nice to me by the Front Bottoms

favorite picture of them

Absolute peak bastard grin

[selfdiagnosedeyemotif]

5, 35, 72? ^_^

5. Favourite Culprit?

Mimi Miney actually! reunion and turnabout is one of my favourite cases and her combination of a clever plan, a good theme, and an honestly kinda horrifying backstory (she woke up with her late sister's face...) were a big part of that

35. Smartest Murder Plan?

the death of Horace Knightley. it was brilliantly played. Simon put the idea of the fake assassination in his head, knowing that it would A) cover for his for realsies assassination attempt, and B) land Knightley for sure in jail. at that point he was screwed because he had the perfect person to do the killing for him, whose suspicion he had been building for MONTHS at that point (playing the chess game with Dogen to build a connection between him and Knightley). after that, all he would need to do would be to plant a bit of evidence on Knightley, and he was toast. hell, the evidence in question even doubled as a convenient murder weapon. ily simon keyes

72. Do you like the Investigations games?

i am an aai girlie through and through, they are my best friend. the first game is dicey, yeah, but that's more because of the first three cases (especially the third) than the final two. and aai2. oh my god aai2. my beloved. i love wipe-spanning plots and tangled webs and little hints that come together in a horrifying tapestry and by GOD did that game deliver on it. im also one of five people who actually enjoyed turnabout ablaze so that definitely helped

[browneyedwright]

like father like son

[yomiel]

found a translated rom of aai2 so i’m playing that rn...... first case and i’m already having a good time B)

[rivalsforlife]

reminiscences!

Me, a fool: yeah absolutely I can do the reminiscences there’s like what, one per game

Each game: at least three reminiscence themes

me: ohhhhhhh I may have made a mistake

ANYWAYS, to try and save myself from this grave I dug, I’m going to just… group them together by game because I got 40 Reminiscence themes (no, really) and a lot of them I don’t have strong feelings about. But I will comment on the ones I do care about!

I managed to avoid any major spoilers in the analyses, and I linked to the songs in question, but since they’re Reminiscence themes they may kind of hint at spoilers for some stuff (especially in the comments!) and related videos may have spoilers in them, so just be wary of that if you haven’t played the games I’m talking about.

1 - AAI2: Okay to the surprise of no one I love AAI2. First I have to mention… this isn’t technically a reminiscence theme but it was in the video I watched for most of the reminiscence themes, and that is the Bonds theme, which I ADORE and would absolutely be my favourite if it actually counted. It makes me want to cry thinking about Gregory Edgeworth. It’s pretty much the whole theme of AAI2 summed up in one song. If I listen to it I can kind of picture just random images of the characters spending time with each other, if that makes sense?? The relationships in AAI2 are what makes the game great and this song pretty much encapsulates it.

As for the ACTUAL REMINISCENCE SONGS NOW, I enjoy them! AAI2 has two “big case” reminiscence songs, IS-7 and SS-5, and I like both of them. IS-7 in particular at the faster part I kind of got the sense of something ominous brewing, which is fitting considering IS-7 arguably is what caused the whole series to happen. They also have two songs that are slowed-down, more melancholy versions of Kay’s and Lang’s main themes. I like Lang’s because it still has a bit of a… I want to say jazzy beat to it, even though I’m so unqualified to classify genres of music because I have no innate musical skill, I can’t identify anything? But Lang’s is kind of a “despite being in a low point he’s still determined to follow through with this case” feel which I can appreciate.

2 - AA1: okay so the obvious big Reminiscence song in here is DL-6, which I shouldn’t have to link, we all know it. It’s the song I sometimes hum to myself in elevators when no one’s around because I have a very morbid sense of humour, but if it creeps up on me it gives me instant chills. Like when I was playing the steam port of the trilogy, and it kind of automatically jumps to the next case as soon as you’re done the last one, and I heard the first few notes and yelled and shut my laptop because I wasn’t emotionally prepared for that yet. I can’t judge i objectively, it’s very tied in to Turnabout Goodbyes and Miles’ character arc for me, and that’s my favourite storyline so it goes up here.

AA1 also has the class trial theme, which is a song I actually gasped out loud upon hearing for the first time mostly just because it was something I’d never heard and I was FINALLY GETTING THAT PHOENIX/EDGEWORTH BACKSTORY, which I had been so eager to get to at that time. I really like the whole class trial scene because I love narumitsu, so that definitely helped improve AA1′s rankings here.

3 - DD: so basically there’s a major jump in quality of sound when you get to the DS games, and another when you get to the 3DS games, just because of better technology, so the Dual Destinies songs sound better to me, at least. Wandering Heart is just a genuinely pretty song, Athena’s Trauma Song has a very creepy music-box kind of sound to it which is fitting considering the circumstances, but the third Reminiscence song for the DLC didn’t feel too sad to me? Idk, for some reason I kind of felt like it was something I’d listen to while lounging on a beach. hypothetically. I live in a land-locked area and have never lounged on a private beach but if I could, this would kind of be the thing? But it is pretty, all the songs sound nice.

4- DGS2: I’m not going to spoil anything!! but three of them are pretty standard reminiscence-type songs, with a few notes of leitmotifs of one of the major antagonists in some of them. The last one though, this one, I can’t really talk about for a lot of reasons… but there are a few little details in it nodding to the major antagonist. It has a pretty ominous “all hope is lost” kind of feeling, fitting since the title is “At Ambition’s End”, and idk it kind of encapsulates the feeling I get throughout the entire last case of DGS2?

5- AA4: so the entire AA4 soundtrack kind of has a… different feeling to it in comparison to the other games in the series, and I can’t quite figure out how to put it into words. The entirety of the game actually has a bit of a different vibe in comparison to the others. In this one the reminiscence themes feel more foreboding and ominous to me, as opposed to the just straightforward sad-feeling in lots of the other ones? I can’t quite say what it was, and I don’t feel like listening to everything again, but I liked it. It’s also important to note that the “forgotten legend” reminiscence theme, Phoenix’s, seems to have some piano in it (I think? I am very bad at identifying musical instruments) which, if true, is very funny. because Phoenix can’t play the piano.

6 - T&T: they started putting more effort into the soundtrack starting with this game and it shows. Godot’s Reminiscence theme is the big one, which is appropriately sad for all the Pretty Crappy Stuff That Happened To Godot… and I like the sound of it! Overall T&T had pretty decent Reminiscence songs, but nothing that really stood out to me.

7- SOJ: like DD these songs all sound pretty nice. They sound pretty… but none of them really stood out to me. Although by this point I had been listening for nearly an hour so I might just be burned out?

8- AAI: my main issue with AAI as a game is that a lot of the time I’d think “oh wait why was I supposed to care about this again?” and lots of times I heard the Reminiscence things and didn’t really… feel much. Are these songs, objectively, worse in quality than, say, the DL-6 theme? No. But the DL-6 theme is tied to the DL-6 incident which I have strong feelings about, but the events of AAI I never really connected with. I will give props to the last Reminiscence song, Torn Apart Countries, for properly encapsulating what AAI was trying to go for (”taking down an enemy too big for the law” or something like that) because this song is very foreboding and has the feeling of looming over you, I think?

9 - PLvsAA: again, none of the reminiscence themes stood out to me, except for the Legendary Great Fire which did nice things with volume.

10 - DGS: I don’t have anything AGAINST DGS’s reminiscence themes, not at all, it’s just… nothing really stood out to me in these ones. Also some of them don’t really feel like Reminiscence themes… The first one is Ryuunosuke’s memories which really doesn’t sound like a standard Reminiscence theme at all. I think that much like my rankings for SOJ by this point I was getting tired of hearing Reminiscence themes that didn’t really do anything too remarkable…? This one didn’t have any songs that stood out to me, either.

11 - JFA: much like the game itself it has some really good stuff and some stuff that’s just ridiculous. Mimi Miney’s Reminiscence song is very pretty, but the Reminiscence song they use in Farewell, My Turnabout is called the “Steel Samurai Ballad”, so basically a sadder version of the Steel Samurai theme. Which, okay, valid I guess, except:

a) I’m so used to the upbeat Steel Samurai theme that hearing a sad one feels a little jarring

b) The Steel Samurai has pretty much no link to this case. It’s the Nickel Samurai, which I understand is Discount Steel Samurai, but… the fact that Matt Engarde is the Nickel Samurai has pretty much no bearing on this case aside from some murder details, it has nothing to do with the emotional theme of the story, and trying to put “Sad Steel Samurai” over a woman committing suicide or the Bad Ending just… doesn’t sit right with me, you know?

At a certain point these last few ones on the list kind of blur together, I just put them in places arbitrarily for the most part because nothing really stood out exceptionally about their Reminiscence themes? Anyways, those are my opinions.