#but in Ace Attorney that is actually the worst part

[timemachineyeah]

damn it lord van zieks I would find your absurdity so hot if you weren’t a fucking racist

[trlvsn]

turnabout trump and the krisnix dynamics in it are so fucking funny to me and will never stop being funny. phoenix renders kristoph speechless by accusing him of murder, two seconds later testifies about having dinner with him frequently AT THE BORSHT CLUB, how did kristoph even tolerate that place that's so out of character, meanwhile kristoph goes from petty "oh, maybe a fifth person was there? a sixth one, perhaps?" remarks to straight up "get his ass apollo. kill him break every bone in his body" and then they have the funniest kindergarten-level interaction of "you punched me first" "no you did" "no you did!!!" until apollo interrupts them and shit starts getting real. seriously everyone go read turnabout trump transcripts it's better than those jane austen novels with witty insults and dramatic love stories

[aceof-stars]

Currently halfway through Bridge to the Turnabout and no one told me I'd end up feeling bad for Larry. I feel like the developers made it their mission to hate on him specifically. And honestly out of every Ace Attorney character with trauma that gets unaddressed, why does it feel like Larry gets treated the worst by the game.

Everyone thinks he's useless and annoying. But I think the judge was correct when he said Larry has "quite a severe inferiority complex". Larry casually drops that he's been physically abused by two of his ex-girlfriends, but seems to think it's perfectly fine. He seems to believe he's utterly worthless and that he makes people "eternally unhappy". But he never changes because he suppresses his trauma so hard that he forgets about them. He actually feels so bad for screwing up in The Stolen Turnabout but instead of genuinely working on himself, he adopts a new identity because he can't stand himself probably.

But AA1 clearly shows that Larry is not "useless" or a "nuisance". After all Phoenix also wanted to repay Larry for defending him during the class trial. And not to mention Larry saved Edgeworth with his testimony in 1-4. Oh Larry you'll always be a part of the signal samurai trio.

[jamorbital]

Mailbag III ✉️

Wow, there were a bunch this time. Thanks everyone!

@theloramir:

Me! 😷

If that doesn't count… Hmm. Cynthia from Pokémon? Or maybe Tifa?

@scout90-again:

I've been interested in it for as long as I can remember. Even when I was really little, I liked to tie up dolls with string and put pieces of tape on their mouths. A bit more on that in an earlier ask here.

(MORE UNDER THE CUT)

@noteverysaurisadinosaur:

Uhhh... I'm gonna say... Golden Toad. I like Dodos too, but I'm guessing that's the "everything but country and rap" of this question.

@directivexero:

Aw thanks!

Lately I've been slowly making my way through The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles! I play it in bed each night to settle in before I go to sleep. It's like a good book. The fickleness of the jurors always makes me laugh.

Another recent one I liked: Thank Goodness You're Here! It's basically a little interactive animated movie. Matt Berry is in it. I once saw it described as "Untitled Twat Game"

Deadly Premonition is the worst game I've ever played by conventional standards, but I'd still recommend it because it's bad in really fun ways. Bring some friends and a case of beer.

I like games that provoke a strong reaction. I'd rather play something like DP than a "good" big-budget game that's smooth and pleasing but not all that memorable.

Also on the topic of weird games: This is the secret best channel on YouTube. The more you watch, the better it gets. I mean idk, maybe other people don't see it and I'm just deranged. Still though. I've cried laughing at some of these.

@patientbard:

Summer! Lots of happy memories from childhood. I like to swim.

@nixalegos:

I don't often try to go for a specific texture, but when I do it can be tricky. In real life I love soft jersey knit fabric. Despite my best efforts, I haven't been able to nail it in 2D in a way that really scratches that kinky itch.

In general, my drawings rarely come out the way I pictured them in my head. (I think that's how it is for most artists?) If it's looking really off then I might redraw a character or body part from scratch, but for the most part I just go with the flow.

@accretion-disk-anxiety:

To eat, crab; to not eat, turtle.

@damianblack:

I'm not really into furries, but I like furries as people. They seem like fun and I admire how welcoming and liberated their community is.

For a while I've had "draw an anthro character" on my bucket list. I think it'd be a fun challenge and drawing a gag for an anthro snout could be hot tbh.

@onidrills:

What was that thing from Jurassic Park with the big neck thing and the venom? Dilophosaurus?

Aw man...

@goodboynijian:

Thank you!

For proudest: Maybe animation loops?

They're not as elaborate as some other stuff I've done, but seeing an animation come together just feels so satisfying.

For hottest: I gravitate toward a certain weirder type of piece where I draw myself (or "myself") with super-exaggerated proportions and/or humiliating captions:

It feels exciting to just go totally off the wall. I get turned on not just by drawing these, but also posting them. I guess it's kind of a public humiliation/exhibitionism thing. (Actually, that's exactly what it is.)

I used to put them up on Twitter, but it got a little too weird and embarrassing. Now I keep them behind the safety of the paywall.

@t-oppenheimer:

Smash if that counts! I used to attend locals weekly and was decently competitive at my peak. I stopped going in 2020 due to covid and never got back into it after that. I still play with friends here and there though. I'm a Wolf main. 🐺

I've also done a little SF6, but I'm still in The Cursed Zone on that one.

@microfoamgaglover:

Yes

(old pic!)

Thanks again to everyone who sent in questions! I'm feeling better now than I was this morning. If I didn't respond to you, it just means I couldn't think of anything interesting to say. I appreciate it all the same.

[battybiologist]

Despite being my favorite prosecutor of the series in my favorite games of the series, I do have a huge problem with Barok van Zieks' writing, and it's his racism. Not that I mind that character flaw, but rather how it's handled.

In the game, Barok is racist towards Japanese people. Mind you, most of the English characters are too, but Barok is not only openly hostile and contemptuous of Japanese culture, but he's also the only character for whom this is a focus point. Later in the game, he overcomes that racism through his legal battles and budding friendship with Ryunosuke, our Japanese protagonist.

That's not what I have a problem with. That would lie in the origin of this racist behavior.

See, unlike the rest of the racist characters in Great Ace Attorney, Barok is prejudiced against Japanese people because of his tragic backstory (big red flag).

When he was younger, Barok actually liked Japanese people, and was even good friends with one, Genshin Asogi, until Genshin was revealed to be the Professor, a serial killer who murdered several members of the judiciary, including Klint van Zieks, Barok's older brother who he idolized. From that point on, Barok had a deep mistrust and hatred of all Japanese people.

That part sucks ass, because the key to Barok stopping being racist is proving that while Genshin did kill Klint, he did so in an honorable duel which Klint accepted, because he was the real Professor and Genshin knew it was the only way to bring him to justice.

This implies at best that Barok would have never been able to overcome his bigotry without the proof of Genshin's innocence, and at worst that his bigotry would've been justified if Genshin really was the Professor.

But the worst (or best, depending on your relationship with headcanons/mods) is that this is so easily fixed, and in fact, the game almost gives us the answer wholesale:

The reason the Professor's true identity was not found is partly due to the efforts of the villains of the game, but also because the rest of the characters involved in his case, including Barok, put Klint on such a pedestal that they unconsciously rejected any evidence of his guilt.

If we want to highlight that moral (?) by contrasting it with our fix to Barok's racism problem, we can simply answer a question that naturally comes to mind with this set up: Why was the British judiciary, including Barok, so quick to write off Genshin as the Professor? Sure, he killed Klint, but he killed him with a katana, while the rest of the Professor's victims died of bite wounds. The game answers with the same Klint pedestal logic as before, but I think it should be because Barok and the judiciary are racist.

It's such a simple change, and yet it makes Barok's story so much better from a narrative and sociopolitical standpoint. Barok prides himself on seeking the truth, a deeply heroic quality in Ace Attorney. So the fact that his own prejudice, something he didn't even care to question for his great friend Genshin Asogi ("one of the good ones" in this scenario), caused the obfuscation of the truth would be devastating, and that devastation being the end of his bigotry would stay in line with the heavily character-focused writing of Ace Attorney and yield a much better message in addition of "racism is bad": societal biases left unexamined can blind us to reality, leading us to make awful mistakes that go against our core principles.

It also has a bunch of additional perks: Seishiro's anger would become additionally relatable for many POC, it would be a great and honestly ballsy commentary on law enforcement to make for the most popular VN series, it would create a nice parallel with Soseki Natsume's arrest, and it would add an interesting touch to Stronghart's characterization, what with him being racist (and a well-written racist at that) in the games already, but also becoming aware of said racism in others and using that to his benefit in our version.

Anyway, don't let the multiple paragraphs of criticism fool you, I'm making this post because I love these games to death

[atla-confessions]

Hi, it's the Rozin anon. Crawled out from my w40k obsession back into my ATLA phase because of Roku's novel. I love that little twerp, what can I say to justify myself? (Sozin too, mwah *throws him into a blender*)

Came here to complain again. Shocker, I know. And I think I figured out why so little people actually took Rozin seriously and haven't reduced into a fandom joke, like 90% of the fandom did. It's because ATLA fans don't see Roku (and Sozin) as characters of their own too. They don't take them seriously and even had shown their clear dislike for the characters. It's understandable in Sozin's case. A bad guy, an imperialist, a traitor, a closeted bigot. But I, to this day, had never understood the hate surrounding Roku.

Seriously, what did this guy do? Left Sozin alone after threatening him? Killing Sozin would've brought disastrous consequences, because he is a fire lord who, presumably, has already earned nation's loyalty to him. Killing him would've caused so much pain in the ass to the future avatars as well. Besides, this is literally exactly what everyone's beloved Kyoshi did with her fire lord problem. "But Chin the-!" She literally didn't do anything until he came to her land. How many people had Chin's army killed before she stepped in? How many villages and towns had he pillaged before she stepped in? I know the avatar is a human and literally can't be an omnipresent beacon of justice, stopping evil no matter where it is, but... Come on, girl! Also, I don't care what you say, but, that's not murder. I played Ace Attorney, I can prove Kyoshi's innocence whatever she likes it/agrees with me or not.

The volcano death? Volcanoes are fucking terrifying, man! The Yellowstone Volcanoes used to give me NIGHTMARES when I was a kid. Often times, the lava is not even the worst part. The ash fall, which would lead to food shortage and therefore massive famine, the lava coming into contact with water producing toxic gases, the area being a hell on Earth in the foreseeable future, the earthquakes, the tsunamis! And Roku had to keep track of ALL OF THOSE THINGS AT THE SAME TIME. Even if people were already on the boats, they could still had been hit by a massive wave generated by another eruption. "But Aang-!" His volcano was on land and a bit smaller. Also he had to deal with only one. Roku had to deal with two at same time, that were in the close proximity with each other, all on the same small island. No wonder Sozin came to help.

And, okay. All of the points I mentioned had already been brought up by other people when defending Roku. But, now we finally have the Roku centric novels! Yay! Finally, Roku fans won't have to read dumb shit being said about their favorite charact-

Aaaaaand people are now freaking out over the leaks! I'm not going to spoil anything here, but just... Guys... Can we PLEASE not gatekeep fucking BENDING??? Your fave won't die or become irrelevant just because another character can do what they can. Maybe focus on something actually unique and important of theirs, like, idk, their personality??? Their relationship with other characters??? How pretty/sexy they are??

Anyway, I'm pissed off and now I'll go and draw young Roku in a cow print bikini. Femboy Roku agenda, idc anymore, I'm anon, what are you gonna do to me?

X

[jotunvali02]

Playing Ace Attorney, Rise from the Ashes part 3

Hallelujah my brothers & sisters! Feenie is having some empathy again!🥳

"Hey, Gant-jerk! You NEVER hurt my sweet boyfriend again, bitch!"

DON'T remind me of Von Karma, a giant monstrous asshole who hurt my baby Edgey just like you!

My baby did NOTHING wrong, asshole! He's the purest, most righteous and most beautiful angel I know!! 😭👼🏻

"Knock yourself out", huh?

"I'll always believe in Mr Edgeworth! No matter what happens!" Daddy...😭

"Why is the award broken?" Idk, maybe Edgey smashed it?? After seeing VON KARMA name on it????

Daddy is an artist like Fee-Fee.

Noooo… the vase gluing, is that a joke??😩

Wait. Why can't I go see Edgey after talking to Gumshoe like in all the other let's play videos?? What did I miss??? Why am I STUCK??? I'm going fucking crazy!! Why can't I go see my baby????

Gumshoe FUCKS the police too! 🖕🖕

Ugh!! I just had to EXAMINE the blood prints!! God, thank the Lord!

"Who needs enemies when you have friends like Gumshoe?" OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHH!!

Fuck you, Phoenix. He's a waaay better friend than you. 😊

The fuck is HE doing here?? Does Edgey require all the hottest men in town to work for him?🌈

Can't I kiss him to make him less sad??😢

Edgey loves his Daddy so much! 😭

I can't read numbers anymore. Gant, you motherfucking, manipulative son of a sick bitch!!🤬

"You are the man who revived the worst memory of my life."😭💔💔

Nooo… just HOW many fuckers bullied my baby Edgey all this time?? 😭💔💔💔💔

"All along, I've done only what I believe is right. I have nothing to be ashamed of! And yet…" = (do I?) 😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔

Edgey don't give a shit anymore.

"Edgeworth… I'm really--" Really WHAT?? ?? Grateful? Sorry? Worried? In love??

"Why don't you give that to Gumshoe?" Fee-Fee's brains are baaaaack!! Woohoooo!!

Why can't we hug Edgey goodbye before going back to the investigation???😭

"Capital punishment"?? For ONE murder???

Ema, only 16 and complete stranger, figured out Edgey waaaay better than anyone else his trustful Gumshoe or the "only person who really knows him".

"Looks on top of the things while he actually doesn't know what's going on", a way better actor than Feenie himself then.

"And that's supposed to be an admirable trait?" Fuck you, Phoenix! Did you actually quitted arts because you despised everyone in there, like the bitter misanthropic bitch you are??

You'll need this unadmirable trait later, bitch!

"You're not the kind of guy s/o would want to "run into"."

OMG, FUCK YOU Phoenix! You and your high bisexual standards! You're really in good shape today, huh??

Wow, these "security cameras" are so shitty.

Ooooh! Fee-Fee is roasting himself too! He's a competitive bitch!

STOP BULLYING MY SWEET & ALREADY SELF-HATING & HEAVILY TRAUMATIZED BAYBY!!

YOU ALL GOLDFISH-BRAINED FUCKERS!!

[tacobellabeanburrito]

saw your post about the Steel Samurai parallels in fics and was wondering if you had any recommendations :^))

Well Anon, it looks like you’ve come to the right place because have I got the fics for you!

Now, a lot of fics that do this only do this in the sense of “This is a one-off piece of dialogue and a one-off thought about the Steel Samurai being a mirror to Ace Attorney that probably won’t be mentioned again” and only a couple make it a big plot point, so it’s pretty hard to find and remember what fics do this. The ones that I’ve picked for you are the ones that have the most obvious connection with the Steel Samurai and Ace Attorney, I’ll probably update this again if I find more but these are the ones that I can find at the moment.

Sorry if that made no sense, but here you go!

I have organized them into smut/non-smut, multi/one-shot and finished/on-going so you can pick and choose!

(Also, if you need anymore recommendations for Ace Attorney fanfictions, Anon, just ask because I have read MANY and this is only a small-batch)

-

“Written” by Limey

(Smut, Multi-Chapter, Finished)

Was one of the first fanfics I read of Ace Attorney and one of my all-time favorites because of how good it is! It’s about Phoenix accidentally finding Miles’ Steel Samurai fanfiction that’s all based on their dynamics with each other. It’s very popular, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you had read it or heard of it before. But, it does the exact thing I said in my post about having the Steel Samurai be a mirror of Ace Attorney world. Not to mention that it’s just good!

-

“To Dust Or To Gold” by HopeStoryteller

(Non-Smut, Multi-Chapter, Finished)

A fic I have bookmarked and am on chapter 2 of (Mostly because it doesn’t keep my interest long enough) This one is about Miles writing Steel Samurai fanfiction and using his dynamic with Phoenix as a helpful tool to characterize the Steel Samurai and the Evil Magistrate, but it’s written in a way that seems like Miles is actually writing it on A3O (When you click on the link, you’ll see what I mean) the story is told through the comments on the fanfiction he writes, at least from what I can tell. (Again, have not finished it) but it seems very good!

-

“A Beginner’s Guide On How No To Write Steel Samurai Fanfiction” by ChemoeleonWrites

(Non-Smut, Multi-Chaptered, Finished)

A fic about how a court stenographer uses the trials Miles and Phoenix have as inspiration for her Steel Samurai fanfiction and about how Miles reads said fanfiction. This one, personally, was not my cup of tea when I read it. But it is very good. Recommend it fullheartedly!

That’s about all I have for you right now Anon, I’m sorry I can’t help more but it’s very hard to find fics like this (I’ll have to write some myself if more don’t get written) The worst part is that I probably have more fics that do the whole mirror deal thingy but I have so many Ace Attorney bookmarks and I don’t wanna search through all of them at the moment. But I hope I helped anyway!

(You can find a lot though by just looking up “Steel Samurai” On A3O, those were very easy to find so I didn’t put them on here)

Also, here’s a small ficlet that I like, it’s just a one-shot, but I found it cute.

“It’s Three Am And Maya Is Connecting The Dots” by Dumb-Pen-Ren

-> https://archiveofourown.org/works/33148654

[graceful-not]

Turnabout Big Top is unanimously the worst case in the entire series, but you know what REALLY pisses me off about it?

IT COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD.

Like- GOSH, it's just. IT HAD SO MUCH GODDAMN POTENTIAL AND THEY RUINED IT!!! I WANT TO RIP MY HAIR OUT LISTEN;

- Flamboyant famous slightly haughty magician that's secretly Southern Farm Boy? I LIKE THIS. IM MAD THEY DIDNT DO MORE WITH THIS, THIS WAS A GOOD CHARACTER QUIRK!! his stage name being Max Galactica and his actual name being Billy Bob Johns?? NOT THAT BAD!!

- Ventriloquist man who's personality is almost opposite of what his puppet's is, and who Interacts directly with it? I GENUINELY ENJOYED THE BEN-TRILO SCENES! THE DYNAMIC WAS FUN!! (also Ben being unable to function without his puppet what is going on with this man) HE WAS AN INTERESTING CHARACTER!!

- Acro?? Acro. Like. up to this point in the ace attorney series we haven't had a culprit like him, someone who did what they did and SUPREMELY regrets it and understands that it was horrible etc etc and doesn't try to defend their crimes whatsoever because they KNOW it was a horrible thing to do; I THINK ACRO IS INTERESTING!!

- HINTS OF MILES AND WHAT HAPPENED?? PHEONIX+FRANZISKA GRIEF?? tired asf gumshoe?? (we don't talk about his "dead body, stage left" line enough)

BUT THEN THEY TURNED AROUND AND

- The stupid fucking love triangle good god this is the worst part I'm going to vomit Regina is 16 AND IT. EUGHHH. I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THE WRITERS FOR THIS, SERIOUSLY, THEY HAD THESE INTERESTING CHARACTERS AND INSTEAD OF EXPANDING ON THEM they made them fucking predators I just. god.

- REGINA IS A FUCKING CHILD, WHO HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD, AND THE NARRATIVE IS TRYING TO FRAME ACRO KILLING HER AS.. SYMPATHETIC?????? (Imo I think it makes Acro's grief more fascinating, and exploring his mental state is super interesting, but I know a lot of people have qualms with this, which I understand. Like. WTF Acro???)

- the stupid goddamn solution to the case good lord it was so dumb. so.. so fucking CONSEQUENTIAL. like. GOD.

TLDR; I hate Big Top because it could have been a genuinely interesting case, but it was ruined for such SMALL reasons that really had no positive????? like. getting rid of the bad stuff and replacing them w/ other things (Max and Ben could still have a rivalry ffs especially considering how vindictive Trilo is) and like??? HHHH. sorry I just hate how dirty this case was done there's so much good shit but the bad shit is just so... bad..

[zeravmeta]

You know now that you brought it up multiple times: how would FGO work as a console game? You think they would add/change some stuff in the story? And how would they progress along with the events?

My main fear is that, Nasu being Nasu, the moment he tries to or even have inkling of an idea to do a port, he'll rewrite the whole damn thing, dragging Higa and Sakurai with him.

fgo as a console release would be laughably Easy: Bread and butter standard type moon visual novel

Like i feel it bears repeating but for as used to FGOs gameplay loop that we've gotten, would anyone really say its actually... good? fun? maybe sometimes during challenge quests or grail fronts (fgos best gameplay innovation tbh), but overall it's not exactly fulfilling the way other gachas may entice people with their gameplay (see my other two gachas Arknights and Alchemy Stars) A console port of FGO as a proper visual novel would be spectacular, and moreover, your point on rewriting? I would 100% take a remastered streamlined experience. IF and honestly WHEN there are rewrites, Id suspect they would only change out some of the early game stuff (and also agartha) to actually have some substance (see. boudicas interlude voted Worst In Game and Artemis having 3 [count em on your fingers] interludes that are all basically the same interlude). Were there certain advantages to the experience of FGO being a gacha? i would say yeah, I think there are absolutely memorable moments as a community experienced where all players contributing to things like raids or the mad dash of spoilers to parse what the hell happened on a different server were all fun, but an FGO reconceptualized proper vn release would be just that: reconceptualized. it would be done after the fact, a remaster taking the best part of fgo from the past decade

Would there be a non visual novel gameplay element to it? MAYBE, in a game this extensive I would not be surprised if there were equally extensive cuts made to the roster for the conceptualized console release (this is in part what I suspect that FGO arcade may have existed to test), but i dont think it would be impossible, as other visual novel series' like Danganronpa or 999, Ace Attorney and the like all have other gameplay elements integrated as part of their visual novel experiences. for a game with like, what, 400+ playable characters each with their own profiles, event appearances and (mostly) unique interludes per character? YEAH, that would be a truly herculean task to port, so I would not be surprised if there were character cuts or massive downsizing, which would also mean your special scrimblus blimbos doesnt get in. However, I do think it would ultimately be an improvement

Overall. Yes. ive psychically brainwashed nasu with my mystic eyes to give the go ahead on mahoyosweep and tsukihimesweep to bolster the visual novel audience across the globe and prepare the perfect stage for the fgo console release

[ot3]

Could you pls elaborate on why you think 5 and 6 is bad? 🥺 I've been waiting a long time to get to them and was really excited to play them when they drop on the Switch 😭

im in like a constant loop of talking about how much i hate aa5 and 6 but then not tagging those posts because i don't want to be hater in the tags and then people ask me why they're bad so i just have to talk about why they're bad again because i dont know how to find any of my old posts about it

anyway the long in short of it is just. the writing is bad. in all of the ways that writing in an ace attorney game can be bad it's bad. for dual destinies the game has an M rating but despite the fact that a high rating might give them the chance to do a little bit more deeper or complex writing they hard pivot the other way and you get a very surface level conflict with characters and a villain it is almost impossible to get invested in. aa6 suffers from similar stuff. they don't seem to understand what to do with their characters besides inflict more potent drama on them because they believe higher stakes means more interesting situations, which is not true.

phoenix in particular gets absolutely shafted in terms of character writing. the game inability to pick who their actual protagonist is means nobody gets enough screentime and most of the screentime anyone does get in any of these games feels wasted having to trudge through a cast of forgettable gimmicky side characters.

but the worst part of all of it is that the games are terribly, terribly unfunny. i could pretty much forgive anything else if the games had manage to be entertaining but these games just feel so fucking sterile despite how hard theyre trying to be both off the wall and dramatic.

the only way to make these games even somewhat compelling is to imagine what they could have been like if they had actually been good. it really seems like even people who enjoy these games can't enjoy them on their own merit and each person has their own pet interpretation of the canon that makes the games bearable. but i really don't think there are any characters or plot points introduced in 5 or 6 that add literally anything beneficial to the franchise

[pitter-patt-art]

Ace Attorney AU August oops-august-has-been-over-for-a-week Update!!

Hiiiii well okay first and most importantly of all! Happy investigations collection day everyone!!!! My copy is supposed to arrive by 10pm although I'm not sure I'll be playing it right away, but, hey, once it arrives I'll have in my possession at least one physical copy of every game in the series (2 for aai1, woohoo)!!! *Coughs* uh except all of the OG Trilogy which instead I own like 2 times over digitally (3 in T&T's case, thanks Wii) lmao. Ah well.

NOW the actual post. Yeah it's not August anymore but I've been recuperating or w/e so shhh, better late than never!

Overall I wrote over 50k words (actually in August itself) and posted 5 fics (with many more in progress), which is honestly just, wild???? That is so cool. Apparently the way to overcome writer's block is just overcommit to a month-long prompt list, who knew!

Here is my post about the first 17 days/AUs! And over here's my Ao3 series for these! Below the cut I'll wrap up the last 14 days of AUs, some thoughts, etc!

I am setting the goal for myself to actually finish writing these before the end of the year even if they're not technically "AU-gust" qualified anymore by the time I get to them sooo ...wish me luck!! In the meantime I am proud of myself for (tbh completely unnecessarily and to my detriment lmao) coming up with actually a full 31 solid AUs based on the prompts that I feel inspired by.

This post is gonna be a bit more rambly than the last one because I definitely did more of my writing last month the first 2 weeks rather than the last 2, but nevertheless--

Onto the remaining AUs!

18 - Space Travel

So, I actually started a draft at the airport before my vacation where I got wayyyy too sidetracked getting detailed about this one and thus ended up not being able to finish the post before takeoff lmao. I'm not sure whether it's annoying or interesting to include all of that here, but it's my post so fuck it, here's August 21st patt to tell you aaall about it so I don't have to: The Martian AU (I've only seen the movie and not read the book but i *did* literally just re-watch it because this thought crossed my mind lol. (Hello! It's future me popping in to say: fun fact, rewatching this movie literally ended up being the reason I knew a bar trivia answer last week lmao. Huzzah for the powers of Ace Attorney refreshing my movie quote knowledge.) Be glad this one occurred to me because my first inclination was to lean into the dark past of my vld phase (I'm super joking I had a lot of fun with it before the last few seasons haha sorry idk what to tell you friends) and see how much I'd retained if i tried to make that work but the martian sounded more fun in the end). Apparently my Thing™ is a) poisoning Phoenix and b) putting Apollo in an insane situation in which he's completely on his own--which all things considered is probably far meaner lol. I think Phoenix is to blame for creating his own problem here for choosing to eat the stupid necklace but I fully blame Capcom for all the BS Apollo has gone through after AA4 (bc...the stuff IN that game is. coincidentally also Phoenix's blame to claim. lol). That said I'm part of the problem teehee. Apollo can be Some Guy from the real world who gets isekai'ed and he can also be Mark Watney :P (sorry bud I love you but you have just the Worst case of unavoidable main character syndrome). ((Which is QUITE funny actually because I'll never get over Capcom calling 4,5,6 the """"Apollo Justice Trilogy"""" (it's really not and it's frankly insulting they're trying to say it is.) Like he's. Y’know. The main character in exactly one of those games...... so.)) What was I talking about? Lmao oh yeah so Apollo is left on Mars (not sure he actually has much in the way of Botanist™ vibes but the indomitable, never-say-die, highly sarcastic vibes.... ye haha that's my boy right there). Omg wait sorry I'm writing this and realizing this whole thing actually fits the 18th AND yesterday's (the 20th) prompt as well. Whoops.

Clay as the captain (let him do something, says I)

Trucy as I think the pilot ONLY because I am literally constantly on the lookout to make a Wright Flying Brothers joke, sorry

Klavier aaaas. Uh. So the German astronaut in the film is the chemist and navigator and I know Klav's not necessarily supposed to be actually German canonically but there IS something funny about it

Athena as the flight surgeon and EVA specialist (for a couple reasons but mostly so she can be a doctor lol. I imagine she also can be there for psych stuff too, like, it's a long ass space voyage, that does shit to your brain)

Kay as the SysOp and reactor tech, tbh mostly because for some reason i really have a thing for hacker/programmer Kay, i guess?

Ema I want to be there also lol so that would be exceeding the actual number of OG astronauts but eh it's my AU. The rest of these I'm just directly comparing to a crew member from the martian but I think some of the titles and tasks could be redistributed a little to allow an extra person as a treat for me.

Originally i kind of wanted Sebastian (....SIGH. or...Eustace. (I fear even though it's AAIC release day today, I truly may die on this hill forever, falling on my sword of devotion and gratitude to the fan translation team... That said, while I think Eustace is, like, a Deeply Fine name, I have to say that Excelsius is a fucking knockout name lmfao, that one took me out. Anyway, ahem: "I wanted Seb/Eustace...")) to be there too but I think that's getting into too many cooks territory just specifically bc I'd have too many voices to play with lmfao. So instead I think he's the operator who works the satellite and realizes Apollo is alive, I think he'd fit that well. NOT THAT that needs to be. Included. In the AU. I have...so much self control.

Anyway I have too many thoughts about it, it's a problem, ironically I think I would prefer to focus on the crew and not Apollo himself, so that would at least make it more than just a rehashing of the movie/book. (Or, the movie at least. Does the book spend more time with them? I should read the book.) ...I did, Of Course, also came up with a funny, pseudo-future-science-y way to do a Sibling Reveal in this one, so there's that, too, haha. OKAY AND, SCENE. Snatching my mic back from myself. I'm actually so devoted to the Martian AU now hahaha, I really didn't think I'd let that happen to myself but here we are... You'll see in a bit, but I for-better-or-worse do truly have an extended universe going on for it now, eheh... (Help.)

19 - Spies

Franmaya?? Franziska POV??? Here's the deal: I cannot BELIEVE I got this many days into the month and STILL hadn't come up with a franmaya-centric AU, it's terrible. Also I need a Maya POV if I want to hit my self-set, self-indulgent goal of having POV of every "main" character I can (did I exactly accomplish this no but that's perfectly fine obviously haha it was just a side achievement I had my eye on). So to that end, I ended up with something here that I'm not COMPLETELY sure I won't end up changing when I sit down to actually work on it, but in short: semi The Princess Bride vibes but with spies instead of pirates! Or uh! So um okay full disclosure lol I got all excited about an AU of this kind and then like an hour into daydreaming it into existence I realized I was heavily relying on / leaning into ASSASSIN territory rather than SPY. Which are notably different things. (Wait lol should I blame Spy x Family?? Totally Endo-sensei's fault and not at all mine, boom, take that.) ...And not to go even harder into sxf territory, whoops, but my idea was something along the lines of like, since Kurain School Channeling changes spirit mediums' appearance entirely, I was going to have Maya be something of an expert in disguise, and Franziska I was almost more or less going to let retain her actual position of international prosecutor with Interpol, although perhaps I'd lean more into a James Bond-esque intelligence agency sort of thing than what we see them do in-game, I'm not sure. Maya gets "killed" for real in 2-4 except she actually just becomes an international assassin(?) apprentice. Does this make sense? Probably not lol. But is it a little funny and a little sad? Yes, yes it is, and that's always my sweet spot as a writer. The only problem with this premise is I can't stop myself from considering what Phoenix would do / be doing in the background, because the problem with Maya "dying"-only-being-secretly-alive leaves at least twofold problems in justifying why Nick hasn't gone full conspiracy theory board stop-at-nothing-to-find-her, in that a) If she's not dead, Pearl can't channel her, and knowing Pearl I have to imagine that would be her first move to try tbh, and b) even if that weren't an issue, if the police were never able to track down Maya's body at all, I fully believe Nick would still throw himself at the problem until he's able to find answers irregardless, so. This ain't about him though!! So we'll just all have to deal with knowing he's taking reaaally really bad care of himself while he single-mindedly tries to figure out what's going on ahaha...ha. He's most absolutely the drowning child in the facebook post meme. Don't worry about him.

20 - Crossover/Fusion

Soooo. Okay. First may I say, I'm not the most crossover-fic-y person in the world neither as a reader nor writer. HOWEVER. Unfortunately. My one undying weakness has proven to be Ace Attorney x Legally Blonde (and more specifically Legally Blonde the Musical, the best version, though I do love Reese Witherspoon's performance ofc it's iconic but the musical is just MWAH ugh. One of my all-time favorite musicals and definitely the one I've listened to the most esp the past couple years hahaha.) The problem is, I've joked about so many slight variations / one very Long Intensive specific AA/LBtM crossover AU ideas, that trying to limit myself to a one-shot I could conceivably finish within a day proved too much for my decision paralysis and I didn't end up writing any of them lmao. Alas. Mostly, I just think it would be funny to see the characters interact in something of a vacuum just for fun, the problem is just that I happen to be uniquely terrible at not thinking through a Crack AU until I can, ahem, "crack" it, so to speak, to make it actually justifiably function. So in theory all I want to write for this day is some combination of like, Elle and Phoenix interacting and Miles and Emmett interacting, or the four of them having a conversation that goes something like "omg wait me too!! i also went from a creative undergrad degree directly into law to chase after some guy!! what are the odds teehee" while Emmett and Miles watch in horror, and also alternatively Emmett and Phoenix mostly bemusedly watching Elle and Miles geek out over like, fancy ass high class (pink) clothing like "uh yeah i have no idea what any of those words mean. she bought me this suit and i honestly wouldn't even be able to find the store again. oh no way he bought you yours too?? man, wild." Etc. (If anyone's interested in really watching me suffer and spiral: my longer and more intensive idea for an AU with them is to have them be tackling parallel cases where either of them (Elle and Phoenix) has specific knowledge that is helpful to defending the others' client, and they get like place-swapped through dimensional shenanigans somehow also related to the cases. And Phoenix has to abide by, like, nominally-accurate US trial law (I know he wouldn't really be licensed shhhh) -- by which I mean Emmett is sitting as his co-council and exercising the most restraint possible to keep from bashing his head into the table every two seconds. And Elle has to abide by guilty-until-proven-innocent Japanifornia trial law ("wait WHAT omg what do you MEAN the prosecution can just, like, not submit their evidence before the trial???? wait what do you MEAN we should just TAKE THAT that is EVIDENCE AT A CRIME SCENE--"). On the bright side, Elle gets to experience being one of the most normally-dressed people in a courtroom and not at all being looked down upon for her general vibes and wardrobe (like tell me she wouldn't fit right in in the ace attorney universe and seem completely ordinary), and Phoenix gets to experience a real jury (take that jurist system trial that Capcom would like to never ever talk about again) and also the judge going "so, Prospective Juror No. 103, do you understand that the defense in this criminal trial does not need to say a single word in order to be doing their job? the burden of proof lies entirely on the prosecution the entire time and the defense and defendant could choose to remain silent every day of trial and that would be completely within their rights, do you understand that? are you okay with that?" etc etc, shout out to my jury service a couple month ago and the kinds of questions a real life California judge asks jurors that would seriously blow the minds of every single character in Ace Attorney lmfao can you imagine? Anyway.) So yeah idk. Also something something, spirit mediums and the whole Greek Chorus bit from the musical... "School Spirit"... much to think about in crack AU land hahaha.)

21 - Absurd Tragedy

To be honest with you, this is the entire series lmao, so much so that I had trouble even thinking of an AU to be "alternate" in any way here, hahaha. What I sort-of landed on and have vague outline notes about in my doc is (not to make another excellent-musical-adaptation-of-an-already-top-tier-movie-which-is-itself-a-highly-unfaithful-adaptation-of-a-fairly-obscure-book reference) a Shrek the Musical "I Think I Got You Beat"-style debate about whose canonical absurd tragic circumstances are the worst, lmfao. Granted, this then turned into a "wait what if I use said argument as an absurd way in which to make Apollo and Trucy have a siblings realization completely on their own, which both compounds the fact they've both already lived such tragedy to begin with but also could touch on Phoenix knowing about it and not telling them about it", and uhhhhh lmfao a debate specifically between them is OBVIOUSLY not the romantic flirting banter of the song between Shrek and Fiona lmfao but like still, the general premise, just in a sibling bickering coat of paint instead. Also was toying with it being an Athena POV just to sell home / for the additional absurdity of the experience of "you've gone over to your friend's house to hang out and suddenly they're obnoxiously arguing with their sibling and their parents are nowhere to be seen and you're not exactly sure what you're supposed to do with yourself except awkwardly wait for them to be done" lmfao. Which I've most absolutely experienced from both ends multiple times hahaha. The alternative option for this prompt is just for me to write an excessively long essay debating and attempting to personally rank the main cast's level of absurd tragedy compared to each other, lol.

22 - Orphan

I wrote 324 words (slash one physical lined page in my actual notebook) of this while I was on vacation, lol. AU where Miles invites Phoenix to go watch one of Gregory's trials (or Phoenix invites himself, or Gregory invites him while Miles tries to hold the landline phone away from him, lol) and I mean of course the trial he goes to is The Trial (like, Jeffre... AW CRAP wait I don't actually know what Jeff Master's or Kate Hall's official names are lmfao uhhh. Well you know what don't worry about that. Happy AAIC day once again..? Lol. Anyway, the concluding day of Gregory's last trial, obviously, ignore the defendant's name.) Like, basically, here's my thought. AU where Phoenix is also there, and not only does that mean he knows what happened to Miles and Gregory but also, like, it's Phoenix. Tell me even at 9 he wouldn't be insisting on taking care of the poor kid who just lost everything and has nowhere in the world to go. Tell me he's not like, begging his parents they need to help him, lol. I think really this is just sort of an AU to explore one of my several personal headcanons for what Phoenix's parents are like, because I've spent a lot of time on a different version of them (coughs for the last AU on this list...coughs) but I also have a version of them which I find fun / funny where they're like, kinda hippy-dippy and like very hands-off (tbh almost all of my hc's about the Greater Wrights is they're very hands off, just in different ways) but in more of a "we want our child to experience the beauty and wonder of the world on his own time and not influence him or set rigid standards to conform to" kind of philosophy. Anyway my point is they like adopt/foster Miles somehow before Manfred can actually get his hands on him (he's still too busy dealing with the fresh bullet wound I guess?) This is just a gen au of course, not only because they're 9 lol but also the logistics of being adoptive/foster siblings gets weird quick lmao, but mostly I just find it interesting to think about what might have happened if Miles was in an environment where people paid more attention and cared more (and weren't explicitly influencing and manipulating him to exasperate the problem on purpose), because I have to imagine examining his nightmares a little more closely a little more quickly might have led someone (say, Phoenix who was also there in this AU) to find something slightly off about it or like start putting pieces together quicker, idk. I, uh, I'm not gonna lie to you, I don't actually remember how I intended to end this one hahaha ;; I started it but I was on vacation and neglected to outline / summarize the rest of my ideas the day of, so I guess I'll just have to see where my mind takes me when I get back to it.

23 - Musician

So my FIRST thought for this day was to use it as an excuse to finish my First Ever Ace Attorney Fic, which has been in WIP stasis for...uh.... 6. Years. i--SIX????? Shit. lmfao. yeah uh. I guess I created the first version of the doc (on my OneNote, god) back in 2018. So. Yeah. Hm. Omfg. This fic has partially existed since before Phoenix Disbarment Day. That is so. Wow. Damn. Y'all we're so close to aa4 time (2026) what the hell??? Ahem. Pianist Phoenix. That's. My point lmao. I know the original thing that sparked me loving this concept was actually some tumblr post I saw apparently a LONG long time ago, hahaha, and I know there's no way I'll find it with tumblr's abysmal search function, but just know it was not a completely original idea of mine when I say i fucking LOVE the headcanon that, you know what actually Phoenix CAN play the piano, he just chooses to do it as shittily as possible because that's kind of what he's like post-disbarment and he'd absolutely get a kick out of fucking with people like that even if they have no way to know they're being fucked with. It's like, he's no virtuoso or anything, but he can passably play the piano! He's just being an ass on purpose! It kills me every time lol. I won't say I think that's necessarily true in canon so ofc it's not like an end-all-be-all hc for me or anything but it's just sooooo funny to me that I like to break it out any time I possibly can. Look me in the eyes and tell me he wouldn't. Honestly, look me in the eyes and tell me if he actually put his mind to it in any meaningful way he wouldn't be able to get decent quickly regardless, considering the fact he became an accomplished lawyer on more-or-less a total whim. This to say: that was my intention, to finish this fic I've had brewing that was about Phoenix actually being able to play the piano and hiding it for a really long time but eventually being found out by Miles by chance. Except then I sat down on the plane and started writing a Pearl POV instead? In which she finds out about more or less the same exact concept but from Iris--also by chance, but less actually catching him playing and more being asked, "Oh, does he still play? He was always good at that." And then bc it's Pearl (Pearl I love you), of COURSE she goes and confronts him about it. Pearl might be the single most confrontational character in these games tbh which is SO FUNNY to me. Like I'm kind of exaggerating obviously but also am I? I know she has psyche-locks you have to break through multiple times throughout the series but stiiiill. Everyone else is so repressed and weird about anything remotely vulnerable, I stg. Props to Maya for making sure Pearl turned out pretty okay I guess, lmao. Anyhow yeah that's sort of the AU I ended up with. Pearl POV where she and Iris know they're sisters (don't get me started on this I have so many thoughts about the amount of information I'm positive Maya and Pearl are NEVER given skjflj) and Pearl visits Iris in prison regularly and on one such visit maybe she mentions Nick's job at Borscht and Iris makes a totally innocuous comment to the effect that Pearl learns he actually knows how to play the piano and she goes to get mad at him about it because he's definitely been pretending he can't and Pearl's pretty sure he's told neither Maya nor Trucy the truth and that cannot be left to stand.

24 - Pretend Hate

Okay, this exists in a similar realm to the Orphan prompt, except instead of Phoenix being there for the trial or the Wrights taking Miles in before Manfred can, it's more just AU where Miles doesn't actually cut all contact and he and Phoenix successfully end up exchanging correspondence (in semi-secret) during the time they're separated (i.e. they remain friends and close during the 15 years they're separated in canon). "Semi-secret" because they--esp Miles--somehow hide who exactly it is they're talking / writing to all the time but don't necessarily hide the fact they are doing that. Like, a fake cultural / language exchange program or something? I feel like there could be a world where Manfred really doesn't give a shit what Miles is up to as long as he's being molded into "someone Gregory Edgeworth would hate" (I don't think he would lol but that's another AU) and becoming a model von Karma protege prosecutor and such. He obviously goes to lengths to cut Miles off from everything he's familiar with in that he takes him to Germany, but I've always thought it's way more on Miles feeling guilty and blaming himself and thinking he's unworthy / pushing people away being the reason why they never talked before aa1 despite Phoenix's "attempts to contact him," whatever those may be specifically. And, yeah, I've watched that one episode of the anime but tbh I don't really use anime canon for almost anything besides maybe some of the fun visuals, haha, so I'm kind of disregarding that anyway. ANYWAY. My point is. The "pretend hate" part is that--sometime over the course of exchanging correspondence, Phoenix starts thinking something's weird and gets it in his head to "investigate" himself, since he's still in LA / has access to the scene of the crime and stuff, and then as a combo of him just plugging away at it until he has enough (circumstantial) evidence to be like "Miles I think you're wrong about this" and also a younger, slightly less repressed, slightly less in Manfred's pocket Miles actually being somehow willing to consider alternatives a little--they're able to put their heads together and eventually come to the (correct) conclusion ahead of time, before the 15-year statute of limitations, that it was almost certainly Manfred who did it. And then they work together to figure out how they can possibly PROVE that but they haven't thought of anything foolproof by the time aa1 events start rolling around (or at the very least, the 5-years-ago sections of aa3? It might make more sense if it's as soon as Miles returns to Japanifornia, and also I think Phoenix has way less reason to fall for Dahlia/Iris so hard if Miles is around and *coughs* available lmfao. Anyhow). So, in the hopes it'll keep Manfred from getting suspicious of Miles, they publicly pretend to hate each other, putting on a show of more of the canon attitude Miles esp. has before 1-4, but behind the scenes they're actually working together trying to think of a way they can definitely get a conviction to stick that Manfred won't be able to worm out of. And that's the AU! Idk, in terms of additional thoughts, I couldn't decide what to do / what would happen to Mia in this AU either, which doesn't super matter but did give me pause. So she might live, idk, depends the exact timeline. I do also think a scene where--Dahlia still hits on Phoenix in the reading room/courthouse library but he's like, actively there waiting for one of Miles' trials to conclude for a covert meeting, so when Miles gets there and is like "What are you messing with over there?" Phoenix is like "Oh, hey, check out this weird bottle some girl just gave me because apparently she fell in love at first sight, haha, isn't that so funny--" and then Miles recognizes it from the Fawles trial and they catch Dahlia earlier or something, idk. Or alternatively Phoenix was AT that trial so HE recognizes it. Or maybe it's funniest if he was there but doesn't recognize it until Miles does lmao, this is not the point of this AU but I can't stop myself from considering this part of it.

25 - Scientists

So THIS is the day I sort of alluded to earlier, many many words of post ago, where I got so invested in my The Martian AU that I started accidentally worldbuilding about it. What I've started and have about 400 words of (slash one notebook page, again from the plane after my vacation), is like, AU where it's NASA instead of law and I can make Phoenix go "What, like it's hard?" only it's about literally rocket science this time hahaha. Basically for this fic I just thought, well what if Phoenix just shows up as a flight tech or engineer or something (idk I don't really know that much about real life astronautics) as Miles is preparing for some space mission or something and he's just like WHAT are YOU doing HERE. I know I know I made Apollo literally be the titular martian and yes he ALSO has a (or tbh probably has a WORSE) canonical debilitating fear of heights, so, shhh, but I do like the idea that Phoenix is like, oh, who, me? In the flying metal death trap? No fucking thank you, I will be down here watching and talking directly to you through a headset or something. You cannot escape me however i can at least escape the building I'm in. No interest in seeing the Earth from above, thanks. Actually iirc Miles also doesn't love heights but meh whatever I'm fairly certain Phoenix talks about it the earliest in the series so there you go. Anyway, this would all be a mission prior to whatever mission it is that Apollo & Co. go on to Mars for the first part of the AU, so I guess you could consider it a prequel? And probably a fairly shippy one. I have other reasons for which it's fun for me if wrightworth is at least together if not outright married before the events of the "The Martian" part of the AU, so this one would be, like, about how exactly that went down.

26 - Victorian Era

Okay, once again, this just. IS. Literally. Dai Gyakuten Saiban / The Great Ace Attorney. Lol. That said, I've always loved the fanart I've seen of like Ryuunosuke and Phoenix (and respective Co.'s) interacting, or like, one or the other ending up in the other time period somehow, so I thought it'd probably be fun to try my hat at that. I feel like I've neglected the tgaa characters anyway, considering I actually somehow managed to reference PLvPW already, which is obviously significantly more of a spinoff and also just largely non-canonical, lmao. Also tgaa is just SO GOOD, augh. I'd love to have the multi-witness cross examinations from both of those games back sometime again, and I had so much fun with the jury in tgaa too, excellent mechanic. What was I talking about? So, I never completely decided on a concrete direction to take this, but even before AU-gust had started I'd already been toying with the idea of an AU where maybe Maya or Pearl channels a character from tgaa specifically because some documentary or special or something comes out talking about the real-life Herlock Sholmes (as opposed to the Totally Fictional "Sherlock Holmes" who Phoenix references in that one trilogy line, because I really think that's the funniest possible explanation for the discrepancy) and they're arguing over how that cannot possibly be a real person and no one was named that and etc etc and then to prove once and for all one way or the other Hurley is channeled and also for bonus joke content "recognizes" Phoenix at first (idk pretend his eyesight got worse in his older age, I know Phoenix and Ryuunosuke look, tbh, less alike than Ryuu and Apollo do, lmao, but again that's another AU) and then I get to play with Phoenix's mom's maiden name is Naruhodou and his middle name is Ryuuichi or such to that effect, because that is also a favorite headcanon of mine (not in small part because I can project my own life onto him by making him half-Japanese from SoCal, lol). So that's an idea I'd had that was already decently fleshed out and the ONLY problem is that if I'm having characters actually be channeled then there's a very real limiting factor of how many spirit mediums exist, and also that means Maya and/or Pearl don't get to interact with them, which for the sake of not overwriting would be good but for the sake of my love of a chaotic group conversation would be bad. But, uh, hopefully I do manage to hold myself to a less broad cast of characters, ideally, instead of bringing a bunch of them over to the other time period to see how they'd deal with that and interact en masse. Ha. Haha.

27. Younger / De-Aged

So here's another AU I'd already had idle thoughts about before AU-gust had even started! I...will get into this later, TRUST I will, lmfao, but I do have an extremely involved AU already in which Time Travel of the "regression" type is involved, i.e., they have their memories of the "future" but are thrown back into the past including their own younger bodies however-many-years-ago. So I've got that type of thing covered, I promise I do, haha. And additionally, I've actually already written them "younger" for my colorless AU way back on day 2, so I did think perhaps I'd just continue that one and say it was for this prompt (a smart person thing to do. this is the objectively correct option). On the other hand. I find pre-DL6 Phoenix and Miles reacting to how their lives actually turned out in the end HILARIOUS. Tell me it's not funny. And tell me it's not, like, some sort of depressing-yet-ultimately-hopeful for the older/current them to look at their child selves and be like Kid, Oh, You're Going To Go Through Some Shit, but also reflect on how they did make it and things turned out okay and life goes on etc etc. My problem with this kind of thing is that it's hard to come up with a justification for and that's not a problem in itself but it is a problem in me not knowing how i'm going to end a fic, which often gets me decision-paralysis-ed into not being able to start it in the first place, which did in fact happen to me here, haha. I think ideally I'd just do a quick "wait, was that a dream?" kind of thing where they (Miles and Nick) have a short conversation with themselves, but... Uh-oh, what, did you think that was all I had? You clearly don't know me at all. OTHER au option where young Phoenix is in the future/present and rather than himself and Miles it's the Wright Anything Agency who like, idk, find him roaming the streets of LA (fun fact! I actually came up with this AU one day while I was quite literally roaming the streets of LA myself at like 3am-ish. Do with that what you will). He is of course wearing a hat or beanie or something at first because come on, that's way more fun, and no matter how much Trucy, Apollo, and Athena are like "hm idk something about this kid seems familiar" I just don't think my first thought upon seeing some vaguely familiar kid alone on the street would be, like, "Oh, that's obviously a child version of my father/coworker/boss!" So. I'm not really sure that one has an end point either, though, so the same problem still stands, haha. The bad, someone get a spray bottle to spritz me, option of this is, obviously, to combine the two, so it's like the WAA find him first and then are like UHHHHH we need an adult (never mind actual adult-age-ness between them) and somehow end up getting Miles there too, but idk. I... should not. Overcomplicate. I shouldn't. Even, even if...august is over...so theoretically there's no longer any sort of On-Time component since it's late either way........ definitely not.

28 - Caretaker

Here are my exact notes / entire doc for this day. Ahem. And I quote: i brought up the lighthouse keeper thing but i dont know where that would be going exactly maybe this is a thing i could do franmaya for??? since i still havent gotten there? actually lol that as a lighthouse thing is funny. ghost romance? my three tropes rattle End quote. Anyway, shout-out to my friend hailstorm for being the one there to brainstorm "lighthouse keeper" with at the self-same bar trivia that I mentioned previously, lmao. I actually think that was even the same exact day as the The Martian quote was a relevant answer to a question. So yeah, even though I already kind of have franmaya planned for the spies day, that's both kind of sort of a darker AU overall and--WELP well, okay, so, i do, you know, recognize maybe a ghost romance isn't, uh, necessarily the fluffiest kind of AU lmao. Don't mind that. My point is, I love the vibes of a lighthouse keeper AU, and I generally like ghost romance as a trope, so that does feel like a viable option. Honestly, I kind of separately wanted an excuse to practice writing miego also, so maybe the Feys are just all chillin' in this lighthouse for...Some Reason, and that's side-plot relevant somehow, idk. I know Franziska and Godot exist in the same place for a minute in 3-5, but I honestly can't really remember them interacting? I think she'd fucking HATE him though lmfao. He'd think she's funny but I actually think she'd be too reactive for his most preferred teasing/fucking-with-people dynamics, haha. Regardless, if he is there at all, it's a very minor B plot, I think, 'cause this ain't about him, lol.

29 - Forced into Hiding

Achtung, baby, 2566 words of this are written! Lol. So uh, yeah. In short, AU where Klavier gets hounded by fans on the street while he's also having just a bad personal day, and the closest and best place he can think to hide from them is at the WAA. I, um, actually hadn't realized I'd written quite this much of this, haha, it was supposed to be short and fairly silly but then it turned into Klavier having a little bit of a panic attack maybe and getting consoled by Apollo, sure, of course, but then also having to deal with and experience some amount of closure / reach some kind of understanding with the Wrights, also. It's kind of part Klav character study, kind of part complaint against freaking Capcom for neglecting him (boo, I love him, stop ignoring him, or, yknow, worse, whatever the heck turnabout academy was supposed to do for him, which honestly almost felt like a step back to be quite honest). Okay, also, taking a slightly closer look at what I've already written, the REASON I'd thought I'd written way less than this is definitely because he hasn't even GOTTEN to the Agency yet, never mind spoken with any of its members, lmao. That would do it. In any case, I like the idea of Klavier having a bit of a vulnerable moment, and I also like the idea of him and Phoenix actually, like, talking for real, instead of, once again, whatever Turnabout Academy and DD was meant to tell me, which seems to be less than nothing. I kind of like the fact that it gave him a law mentor? I mean, she was very dead, but I have a very meaningful Use for her in later-to-be-announced-AUs-I-keep-teasing, haha. I of course considered other people and times when people in AA might be forced into hiding, but this felt like a silly but also meaningful way to do that without it just being an exploration of Miles and his not-suicide note (which wasn't exactly "forced" anyhow, he did that all on his own) or like, Zak Gramarye (who also completely did that to himself but w/e). Making it about Klavier completely escapes the bounds of canon, because canon is a weenie about talking about any of his actual feelings EVER, so screw you Capcom, I'm doing it for you. Don't worry about it. Trucy commiserating with him about still Loving someone, perhaps the very closest person biologically related to you you've ever known and depended on in your life, who not only did you very big harm personally but explicitly used you in a very real and participatory way to perpetuate the harm elsewhere and all the complexities about Feelings For And About Them Therein, and Phoenix somehow having enough self-awareness to recognize that shutting down completely and isolating yourself away doesn't actually do you any good even when you're at your lowest, and recognizing that Klavier doesn't exactly have a "Trucy" to be a focal point to draw him out of that, and that therefore he needs to be a bit more open to his peers. (Insert joke about "Well, I'm really definitely not suggesting you go adopt an entire child, that's really probably, uh, not the way to go, actually, but, you know. Everyone needs people, that just makes us human." Etc.)

30 - The Beginning of the World

So, hm, as it turns out, I got extremely sidetracked this day thinking about the next day on the docket. Whoops! Unfortunately this ultimately means my ideas for this day as of now are relatively uninspired: I had the thought that I could explore the beginning of Troupe Gramarye, which is its own sort of world, or else, maybe something about the beginning of the series itself but from the somewhat unconventional POV of a one Mr. Larry Butz. Yes, that's a bit self-serving in that it lends toward trying to complete a list of "main, recurring characters' POVs" that I've had as a sidequest all month, but, still. That said, just exploring actual canon through Larry's POV isn't exactly what I'd classify as an "AU" necessarily, so I feel like something would need to be different here. Okay, wait--not to draw inspiration a dang week late to the party, BUT. Now that I'm typing this up, I'm thinking, okay, maybe, what if. The "Beginning" of the series, technically speaking, is basically the fact that Phoenix gets put on (class) trial for stealing Miles' lunch money--which notably only happened because Larry himself picked it up when it fell on the floor. So, perhaps, what about an AU where he doesn't do that? I mean, I guess it would just turn the entire world of AA into something of a terrible series of tragedies with no real closure about them, lol, rip, but it could possibly be interesting? I dunno! (And, yes, I know DL-6 itself is more or less the basis of the series, if we're being ticky-tacky, but Phoenix wouldn't have been involved without meeting Miles, and that somewhat necessitates the class trial, and without him none of canon would get resolved, so. I will say, I do love going back to the earliest points to see how and how much you can make canon deviate or stay the same--reasonably speaking--via minor tweaks and butterfly effect and all that, so this could be interesting, although I once again must say I think it really just means a bunch of innocent people, Miles included, are going to be put away and possibly executed over murders that weren't their faults, lol. Hm. Much to consider.)

31 - Two(+) of the Above:

Beginning of the World + Younger/De-Aged + Canon Divergence (+ Feat. Jokers: Guardian, Everybody Lives)

With all of this, the ONLY prompts I've actually missed on this list become Animagus which I swapped for the Wings joker, and the last joker of the four, Thriller, which was never exactly a priority of mine because I'm not sure I'd write that sort of thing particularly well, so! Wild! Completionists everywhere almost rejoice, haha. SOOOOO. For the eagle-eyed readers out there, I'll bet you're just dying to know what this one AU I've been teasing all post could Possibly be to warrant such a build-up, right? (...Right?) The answer is the at-ow! (Phonetically, lol. I've been calling it that instead of out loud saying all the letters in AATTAU out loud every time.) My friend Ben can attest to the fact that this behemoth AU (her word which I'm stealing) has been in the works for, uhhhh... months?

MONTHS. AHAHA. Ha. That. Sure says March! It sure does! And it is not lying. Lmfao. (Ignore the time, I was working overnight then--my beloved work schedule whomst I miss dearly--so that's a perfectly reasonable discord-ing hour for March-me.) Also, once again, I'm choosing to blame Ben for my extensive AU problems, she sent me a very cute time loop AA fic that utterly destroyed my entire mind because it got the mere idea of "Time-based AU" caught in my endless void-idea-hole. So. Here's the real rub. The literal reason I started doing this AU-gust challenge in the freaking first place was that I was absolutely Desperate to find a way to overcome my writer's block. And one of the (admittedly many) reasons I wanted to do this was because I have been ITCHING to write this stupid behemoth AU for real. I have a massive outline doc already, I have a whole slew of scenes planned, I have lots of character archage, I have sooo many things I want to say and explore about them all you have No Idea. It's extremely self-indulgent and absolutely my personal magnum opus for all my very specific favorite AA headcanons and ideas and thoughts. And obviously, it worked! I did indeed overcome my writer's block! And I had so much fun doing it!! And I'll admit, from the very beginning, I had been eyeing that "Everybody Lives" joker prompt, because...that's it! That's basically the point of the AATTAU (Ace Attorney Time Travel Alternate Universe, if that wasn't clear, haha). I don't want to let myself get TOO into it, because Oh Boy, I sure will! If you let me! Haha. But basically the premise is EXACTLY what I stated in that very first discord message I could find about it. Maybe not so much "time travel" technically speaking than it is "gaining memories of everything that happened in canon right as the DL-6 earthquake happens", so it's more regression than actual time travel since they're in their own younger bodies and everything, but still. It's basically my excuse to treat canon like it did happen and YET allow for everybody to survive and for the very fun cocktail of traumas and joys that come from remembering what happened but having the chance for something different (and all the effort that goes into making something different happen in the first place).

Now, as far as AU-gust goes. I was obviously not about to even pretend I could remotely start this during August itself or justify connecting any of it to the series and the prompts I'd already written for it, lol, but I also couldn't get the idea out of my head, so I got it in my head I really wanted to end the month with SOMETHING that somehow tied into my AATTAU, if only to motivate myself to actually get on it and start writing out instead of solely outlining everything that's been in the works all these months. So to that end, I saw the "Everybody Lives" and the "Beginning of the World" prompts, and an idea came to me. I'd been dancing around the justification aspect of this AU for most of the time I've had it because let's be honest, it's just a very self-indulgent idea and it does not NEED "justification" to serve the purpose I want it to serve and be what I want it to be. But the AU-gust prompts gave me some actual inspiration and an Idea as to a way to solidify my unnecessary "justification" but in a way that it doesn't need to be directly part of the final product of the AATTAU (like, I could make it a separate one-shot and either just link it to and from the AATTAU fic itself, or if it all ends up being a series, then I could just include it in the series but it wouldn't be necessary to read to understand what's going on. And so, I present! The Ami Fey one-shot special I came up with just to fit these prompts :3 ...And by "i present" i mean, uh, I wrote 4k words of it on the 31st and didn't even come close to what I wanted to cover, because I suck at being concise. Lmfao. (Shocker.) Basically, I used Ami Fey as a semi-self-insert kind of godlike figure to reason out a semi-plausible way to make the concept I want to explore happen, happen. And I had a lot of fun, but I do still have a bunch to finish, but either way, I'm very pleased to have a (somewhat silly but ultimately fun for me) reasoning as to the gears ticking behind the scenes of my idea! To be somewhat less vague, the whole AU is predicated on the idea that, Phoenix and/or Miles (who remember from the beginning / from December 28th, 2001) meeting the other characters at-or-after the time they originally met in canon are able to recall their memories of the "original" (i.e. canon) timeline. I've used some magatama shenanigans to have some fun with this, and I'm now using Ami Fey and magatama shenanigans to explain how and why this is A Thing, even if it isn't necessarily the objectively most logically sound argument I've ever made. It's still a good one, in my book, and more importantly I like it, so that's all that really matters.

To briefly explain the "two" (by which I mean 5?) of the "above" I'm using here:

Beginning of the World: This fic specifically would show the beginning of the "world" of this AU specifically! Woohoo! Go Ami Fey, creating a whole new set of problems for our beloved little Guys to go through, hahaha. I think I may have based her character a little too much on Maya mischievousness, but, oh well. Let's just say that's where she gets it from.

Younger/De-Aged: As I've already kind of expressed, the premise of this AU is mostly just them being their own younger selves except they also have the memories of all of canon (and maybe a year or two after the fact, I need to confirm a couple dates).

Canon Divergence: I feel like this is decently self-explanatory, but then again maybe it's a bit cheesy to include this here, since it basically diverges from nearly the first major event of canon (DL-6), but that's not the only time things go almost-canonically but diverge a bit in some way, so I think it really does fit here.

Guardian: This one is a bit multi-fold. It somewhat refers to the way I'm making Gregory Edgeworth the de facto guardian (as in, legal guardian) of mostly everyone I possibly can because I love him and he would be great at it. But also, guardian in that, Mr. Savior Complex Phoenix Wright himself has literally all of the information at his disposal to try to "save" the potential Happy Lives of literally every person he loves, and, well. He does a pretty good job about it; not without cost, haha, but I feel like I can definitely call him a "guardian" of others in this AU. And, as for specifically the one-shot Ami fic, she is essentially the guardian of the entire Fey lineage, in this AU at least, so that also totally fits and is most immediately relevant.

Everybody Lives: I think this one is pretty self-explanatory at this point, lol. But for the one-shot: Ami is essentially trying to secure an "everybody lives" scenario, even if it hasn't been achieved yet, so it's more an aspiration at that point, but ultimately it is indeed successful. Now, "living" does not mean, like, "totally healthy" (mentally or physically), so there's lots more to it, but in short, yes, they live.

And......that's basically a wrap on that!

I mean, it isn't actually at all, since I still have to finish 26/31 fics, lmfao, but as far as the idea generation stage goes, and the use of the AU-gust prompts, that's what's up in my world! Somewhere out there maybe there's an AU of my actual real life where i finished more of these on time, but i'm still pretty pumped by all the work that's already been made on making so many AA fics a reality for me. I've come a long way since starting that first AA fic in 2018...!!

I still have all the aforementioned 26 fics to finish obviously, and I also have AU continuations planned for at the very least, day 2's colorless prompt and day 3's dark academia prompt (let alone day 31's, lol, but that's its own monster entirely), but I'm optimistic!

Thankfully I actually finished using nano to word track for me before they, you know, doubled down on AI and called everyone "abelist" (???) for not supporting it, which, uh. Well. But for my own posterity and if anyone's curious, here's what my word counts looked like throughout the month of AU-gust--admittedly including some planning and outlining:

It ended up being 51,377 words total in August on these AU prompts alone!

I feel like I wanted to say something poignant and meaningful at the end here, but it's almost 9:30 and I work at 4am tomorrow, so I'm going to go ahead and wrap this post up here, haha. If you read all of this, thank you very much for joining me on my little journey!

Once again, here is the Ao3 series where I'll post anything more that gets done, so if you'd like to see how any of these AUs turn out, feel free to keep an eye on that!

And here is the previous post with the 1st half+ of the AUs if you missed it and are interested now!

My copy arrived literally as I was writing this up so I've spent the last several prompts of this post listening to the AAIC soundtrack in the music collection, and, oh man, it's seriously so surreal this exists??? I might be an old fogey who has and will for an indeterminate amount of time continue to have trouble letting go of the fan translation names I've lived with for the past decade or whatever, but it's seriously so awesome the entire series is finally available internationally!! Let's hope for my sake AA7 doesn't come out before I finish any of my AATTAU, because that would really throw a bit of a wrench in my decision-making process, lol.

Bye for now!

[dick-chugger]

Ok, I already said this in the tags of a random post but like, the fact that Florent L'Belle is an actual character is insane. Like he is genuinely the worst case of a queercoded villain I have ever seen.

To quote from the Ace Attorney Wiki: "L'Belle was an incredibly vain, self-centered, and flamboyant individual. Most of his personality revolved around an obsession with external beauty; he wore garish designer clothes, heavy make-up, and dyed his naturally white hair in a variety of different vivid colors. "

Like girl, his defining traits are fucking vain, flamboyant, wears make up and cares too much about fashion 😭😭 Which are like the most common stereotypes about gay people.

And then there's the Oscar Wilde thing. Like in case it's not clear to you, Florent L'Belle is an extremely obvious parody of Oscar Wilde, as in one of the most famous queer people of all time, who also got imprisoned for homosexuality. I'm sure you can see the similarities even from a single picture of each.

And the most insane part in my opinion: The green carnation. As you can see Florent L'Belle has a flower on his lapel. (It's actually the cap of a perfume bottle but whatever.) But not just any flower, a flower that is very obviously supposed to be a green carnation, a flower that Oscar Wilde famously wore often. And, most importantly, has since become a well-known queer symbol. And they just put that on their already incredibly queercoded villain.

But also don't get me wrong, I think it's mostly funny. It's like they would have named a villain some shit like Faggot Gaylord III 😭😭 I can't even take it seriously as homophobia at this point. But yeah I just wanted to like make a post about this 'cause I find it interesting.

[aceof-stars]

Actually, “Feenie” Makes Perfect Sense as a Backstory for Phoenix (+ 3-1 Initial Thoughts)

I've decided to start a series where I record my thoughts and analysis as I play through the Ace Attorney games for the first time. I'll try to post these as soon as I finish a case so that my thoughts are fresh.

Phoenix Wright/"Feenie"

I've noticed critiques in this fandom that "Feenie" from Turnabout Memories is too different from Phoenix in the trilogy or that the backstory is poorly inserted. But, honestly I disagree. It's easy to treat Phoenix and Feenie as different people because of their different outfits and mannerisms, but I think the characterization is consistent (despite "Feenie" being exaggerated sometimes for comedic effect).

I've seen the fandom portray "Feenie" as a sweet pushover. But if anything, his belief is extremely stubborn and strong-willed. Phoenix believed in true love and fate which was why he accepts that necklace in the first place. He also never relents to Dahlia (or should I say Iris) when she asks for the necklace back.

He’s only able to be used and manipulated by Dahlia because his own goals and beliefs aligned with the facade she presented to him.

Phoenix literally shoves a guy so hard that he fell onto his back because he badmouthed Dahlia. I think one constant of Phoenix's character is that he cares too deeply and is protective over the people he loves.

There's also the part where Phoenix mocks Doug for being British? or wearing the British flag (I didn’t take a screenshot of it). “Feenie” is just as sassy and judgmental as Phoenix is. He might be a lot more naive and immature but he's still Phoenix.

Oh Phoenix... back when you believed in people saving you... before you bottled up your problems and refused to let anyone help you...

To be fair he is the defendant here but still. He doesn't ask for support after Edgeworth disappears, he doesn't ask for help at first when Maya is kidnapped.

I think, unfortunately, this incident with Dahlia is what kickstarted a lot of his trust and abandonment issues. His overwhelmingly strong belief and trust in Dahlia backfired in the worst way possible. It’s not a stretch that this made him too terrified of betrayal to open up to anyone in the trilogy.

So I know this is for comedic effect, but it’s also really good proof that Phoenix heavily idealizes the people he gets super attached to.

(Coughs in Edgeworth and Justice for All)

… I mean he’s not wrong! But he’s also being delusional

This is one of the first things Phoenix says after finding out he was betrayed. He doesn't spend much time acknowledging his feelings of hurt. He just goes into denial.

(COUGHS IN EDGEWORTH AND JUSTICE FOR ALL)

This is just further proof for me that Phoenix’s coping mechanisms are suppression and delusion.

And then Phoenix immediately he moves on to saving Edgeworth! He just shoves all that trauma aside to fixate on saving someone else... to cope by giving himself more control. Phoenix's savior complex stems from abandonment issues.

This trial doesn't give Phoenix the idea to save Edgeworth, it solidifies it.

After being reminded by Mia of his belief that a defense attorney saves people, Phoenix firmly sets himself on this path.

There it is. Phoenix says it himself... he suppressed these memories. That's why he never brought it up in the last two games. I know the real reason is because the creators didn’t plan it, but it also makes sense narratively.

I mean, Phoenix hides the class trial story until Turnabout Goodbyes. This man does not like to talk about his problems or trauma.

Mia Fey

Damn Mia is so brutal. Is this where Phoenix gets his sass from?

Mia is also not how I expected her to be. I mean whenever she gets channeled to help Phoenix out, she's in the role of the wise mentor. But here? She's a nervous wreck, cynical of romance, and full of trust issues.

Speaking of trust issues... I unfortunately did not take a screenshot of this but as soon as Mia finds out Phoenix has lying to her, she reacts very strongly with distrust. She also has to convince herself multiple times to trust in him again. Believing in people or trusting them doesn't seem to come easy to Mia. Which is super interesting because her advice is to always believe in your client. Maybe Mia eventually got used to trusting her clients but... she also never tells Phoenix about her investigation in Redd White. I don't think Mia is as trusting as she presents herself as.

[asterrrrion]

I'm french and I'm also an Ace Attorney fan.

The thing is, I have NEVER before today interacted with the french part of this fandom, I've never even seen screenshots of the french translation before today.

And let me tell you, my shock when I learned that they changed the name of Miles Edgeworth to Benjamin Hunter

I-

Benjamin.

I have no idea how that name is perceived in English speaking countries but let me tell you : in french it does NOT send Miles Edgeworth vibes. (Could be worse : his name in Portuguese is Eduardo. I laughed over this for 30 minutes.)

Like there's no way I can buy the Apollo remaster now, how am I supposed to take him even the slightest bit seriously??

Some names are good in french, Larry to Paul is a great transition, Lotta to Eva is good and I approve of Ron being an Henri, Gaspen Payne being named Oscar makes me extremely happy, Simon to Raphaël isn't that bad of a change even if Simon is like also an actually perfectly respectable french name (weirdly enough Raphaël is starting to grow on me, seems like an edgy name now that I've finished reading Balzac).

But Vérité for Trucy ?? (Vérité literally is Truth and has never been a name in any circle ever) mean come on, Trucy sounds at least cute.

DeKiller's John Doe being transformed into Alonso Bistro feels criminal (Alonso Bistro isn't an equivalent to John Doe, it's 1) not an actual name and 2) it's literal translation is Letsgoto Thepub), and in a general way the emphasis on puns way more than in the English version kinda pisses me off. Like Dick Gumshoe is funny while actually suiting the character, Dick Tektiv is funny but less so and also the Dick part is untranslatable.

Another thing that pisses me off !! They don't actually translate names that could be translated easily ! Like Apollo is still Apollo even though he should definitely be called Apollon (to make the ridiculousness of his name actually come across), why bother translating Edgeworth's name at all if it's to give him an english surname ? Why's Pearl still Pearl if she literally could be called Perle ? Why bother translating Joe Darke into Joe Sinister dude you could've just said Joe Sinistre and it would've been ten times funnier. Why ruin April May's name by saying Masha Vril even though Avril is an actual name even if it's rare ?

Worst part is though : they changed Klavier's name to fucking Konrad. That one I'm afraid I can't forgive.

[lumenflowered]

//did you actually play through one of the johto games as maria for this?

//if so, do you have any screenshots you could share on main?

OOC: I did! still am, as a matter of fact! I'm currently playing through refined gold, a romhack of heartgold which supposedly did not change much beyond allowing some pokemon (horsea, murkrow) to be acquired sooner but also I didn't read the documentation as closely as I should have and only discovered that it buffed major story trainers (gym leaders, silver, team rocket, pokemon league) once I got to falkner and he had a hoothoot.

I'm a bit of a pokemon veteran, or at least I'd like to think so... so a "minimal buffs" romhack was honestly a reasonable amount of challenge. I miss not having to deal with hms though. and tms being reusable. and the party-wide exp share. do you realize how much time I spent grinding in victory road and lance STILL clapped my ass.

anyway, let's see what I can dig up...

(putting this below a cut because I dug up a lot of screenshots)

most recent screenshot: that fucking gyarados was the bane of my existence because I don't have any electric-type moves and SOMEONE had the bright idea to give it DRAGON DANCE. which it used. four times.

a choice scarf is not enough to outspeed a 4x dragon dance gyarados. in-character, maria won by the skin of her teeth. out of character, oh goD that took me like three tries because of the dragon dance incident. more like two because I got some really terrible rng on the second try and went "fuck this" like ten seconds in, but still.

anyway I unfortunately did not think to get a screenshot of the hall of fame and I am not fighting lance again specifically for that screenshot, sorry guys, I'm not fucking with that gyarados aGAIN

sassy lost child when did you play ace attorney. (I was. NOT PREPARED for the silver fight. it took me four solid tries to beat him. which was part of my motivation for going "y'know what he can have this win in the blog canon.")

(honestly, if I had too much trouble with lance, I was fully prepared to yeet maria into kanto some other way. but he was beatable. evelyn carried the hell out of that fight. and she is still just a seadra ingame, though I do have a king scale ingame, she'll evolve eventually.)

look how fucking Shaped the honchkrow sprite is, btw. peak birb.

one of these options is really not like the others

[ade voice] call an ambulance... BUT NOT FOR ME

(she was faster)

the team! from back in the ice path I think?

I did, out of character, spend like a week playing voltorb flip to get an ice beam tm for evelyn. saw some REALLY weird rows such as this one with 5 voltorbs and no points, and several rows with a lot of points and no voltorbs. I think the highest I got was like... level 7/8. once. (technically could have cheated using savestates and gotten through it much faster but I feel like maria would be disappointed in me for that one.)

one of the team rocket admins had a really weird smeargle the message I sent this screenshot with was "what the fuck is this smeargle on" and I stand by that tbh

thanks reina.

the power of FLUFFY BOYS compels thee

I spent a bunch of time in the pokeathlon to get a fire stone for molotov (since I couldn't find it in the kimono girls' closet ingame) and. y'all may not know this. but the pokeathlon SUCKS ASS to play on an emulator. in-character I think maria would be best at the skill course due to her bloodborne weapon scaling REALLY WELL with a stat called skill. out of character that was the worst one to do on an emulator by far, I eventually managed to eke out enough victories on the jump course to get that fire stone and I don't plan on going back.

I have a lot of screenshots of Ade at low (but not 0!) hp.

see I remembered this happening but I forgot how you literally just WALK IN THERE AND HE HYPER BEAMS A GUY. (the guy's... maybe not fine but like. he's alive enough to complain about it afterwards. he's fine lance didn't commit a murder.)

lol. lmao even.

the funny thing is that she would have believed him if rotomblr hadn't spilled the beans on "yeah that's a wholeass champion"

this is the Rat, my hm slave.

because I have played bloodborne (kind of currently playing it? don't have access to it most of the time but I'll be able to continue my save in march) and gotten the dialogue of particular characters you meet early on, I feel no guilt in dubbing the rat "gehrman." he is permanently level 20 because that is evolution level and rattata can't learn strength but raticate can.

(youngster joey's rat later got named gehrman because 1) I thought it would be hilarious 2) a bit of a nod to the rat that I wouldn't be able to beat the game without, because hms suck and I hate them.)

live footage of evelyn sweeping the ENTIRETY of jasmine's team on take two of that gym. she's terrifying I love her <3

one of the QOL things that this particular romhack does is allow trade evos to evolve through different requirements. haunter's, for example, is learning shadow ball. which it does naturally at level 36.

I did not realize this until after I used the morty tm. on my gastly.

ade really wanted to evolve twice in one day. I have never b-buttoned a pokemon quite so much before in my life. (also yes I could have grabbed an everstone from professor elm but by the time I thought of that I was midway through the radio tower and could not be assed to go get that yet.)

behold, the Rat. I was fully intending to leave him at level 4 forever before I discovered rattata can't learn strength.

(also, I find it deeply amusing that furret can learn surf.)

one (1) fear: WHITNEY'S MILTANK.

it had a lum berry. and attract. and milk drink. for gameplay purposes, rakuyo is a guy, and at that point I only had rakuyo, hunter, and molotov. so that miltank was. a Nightmare.

youngster joey is the SINGLE opposing trainer who maria actually gave her number to, because I thought it would be funny.

she is less annoyed than I am by his constant calls about the top percentage rat.

baby hunter!

...god I don't think there was a single gym in this romhack where it wasn't at least a little down to the wire. olivine excluded, but that's specifically because jasmine kicked my entire ass the first time around and I trained a bunch more for the second one.

baby rakuyo! they've come so far <3

anyway that's. all the screenshots I can dig up that are fun. hi yes I have so many thoughts about this. come closer. :P