#destiny liveblog

[5-pp-man]

Required reading for Penguindrum; Night on the Galactic Railroad, history of a post WW2 Japan, history of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyou (mainly their domestic terrorist attacks on Japan), The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, Adam and Eve (the Bible)

[fukiana]

undefined

not clovis bray suggesting they patch out saint-14 worrying about his husband

[celebsaesthetic-blog]

Ryan Destiny Calvin Klein

[icy-watch]

Just sibling things

[jidem]

Finally started playing dual destinies

[oodlyenough]

oblig dual destinies post

i finished the base game of dual destinies today, as in, everything but the dlc case. but the dlc case i assume is kind of a, er, side adventure that won't change much about my opinion of the main narrative, so here we go. spoilers for the first 5 cases

well that wasn't very good was it

things i did like

number one top spot MVP honourable mention goes to aura blackquill. aura is a great character, extremely my type of character, and her story was pretty interesting. every time aura was on screen i was having a good time. i cannot believe they hid the best, canon ace attorney toxic yuri in its worst game (that i've played so far). obviously wish we saw more of aura, more of aurametis, and more of aura with athena, but what we did get was honestly pretty good and much, much more explicit than i ever expected this franchise to get. i am a dog being tricked into taking a pill because it was hidden in a spoon of peanut butter.

i also liked athena. i was predisposed to like her because all the major female characters in this franchise start with a buff for me, but i did think her over the top exuberant competitive go-getter attitude coupled with the PTSD flashback sprites were a pretty good combo. i think she was unequivocally the star of this game, and i think we should have played her for a lot more of it. her power is goofy as all hell and mood matrix isn't a great minigame, but, well, uh, it's dual destinies i have to adjust my expectations somewhere.

i like that phoenix got his badge back. i can critique all the ways it played out, because you can critique just about everything in this game to the moon(rock) and back, but like. fundamentally. i like this choice and i'm glad it happened. i also like that we got to see edgeworth and pearl and got a letter from maya. it seems obvious this is the franchise trying to course correct after a rough reception to aa4, but frankly i don't really care, because i do think aa4 fucked up there. i liked aa4 and i think it was a better game than this; i also think it's quite a bummer of a game and in many places a middle finger to fans of the trilogy, so, i'll take the olive branches DD is offering me. 🤷🏼‍♀️

fullbright started off annoying to me but i did warm to him. there's one bit in case 3 where he and athena just cheer "in justice we trust!!!" back and forth that made me laugh. i thought the idea of the big bad being the friendly cop was pretty good. more on that later.

turnabout academy was dumb as hell (affectionate) and i liked it and the npcs were mostly really fun and/or funny. i love you aa5 klavier you hot washed up mess. somehow dual destinies made me more invested in klavier than aa4 did.

things i did not like

where do i start

jk, actually, the first place to start is Why The Hell Can't I Play This Game. writing and characterization and everything aside, this game is SO disinterested in being a game. i can't click stuff. characters autonomously solve puzzles on my behalf without even giving me a second to think of them. the minigames are reduced. investigation days are dull because i can't click anything. it weakens the characterization of the player and the companion character because you don't get their inane chatter. characters don't react to evidence being presented in interesting ways.

the attention to detail and love that went in to so many facets of the trilogy that made it so beloved are just not present here. i don't know what the issue was, rushed dev time or what was going on, but the wrong corners were cut. i made a separate post aout this example because it's so galling: in 1-4 if you try to present the photo of gregory's body to edgeworth, you get custom dialogue where maya intervenes and tells phoenix off for trying to show miles his dead dad. in 5-5 if you present photos of aura's murder to athena she reacts with the same generic disinterest dialogue she gives every other piece of evidence.

the characterization of the returning characters, ie not the ones new to dual destinies like athena and co, is at best watered down and one-note, and at worst out of character. i said i was happy to see edgeworth, and i stand by that overall; but his behaviour in the trial in 5-5 is like madlib edgeworth dialogue, half-hearted fanfic rather than anything to convince you it's a character who lived through the trilogy. phoenix is dumbed down and it's particularly noticeable coming off of aa4, where NPC phoenix was a fucking galaxybrained 5D chess puppeteer who was always one step ahead of everyone, and now he's like, incapable of making basic deductions. all dual destinies phoenix knows is eat hot chip be bisexual and bluff. boring, weak writing. he barely even reacts to trucy being kidnapped. perhaps because trucy is no longer a character and instead is just one extended "teen girl says the word panties" joke.

apollo... lmao... i hate to say it but i don't think apollo should've been in this game. i think his fans would be right to say that he deserved a sequel and that was what was set up by aa4, but all he does in this game is compete for the spotlight with athena, and lose. athena's story is the main story of this game and it is hindered by the detours DD has to take to include apollo; apollo, meanwhile, doesn't even really get anything of substance. we see him mourn a friend we never met and go off on a sidequest we don't partake in. the rift between the WAA would be really interesting if they... wrote it better, or let it sit longer, or let any character react to it for longer than ten seconds.

which gets to the most frustrating thing about this game: there are a lot of pretty good ideas here, hidden under layers of uninteractive "gameplay" and clunky writing that misses its emotional beats. the dark age of the law is a hilarious term but the justice system in AA IS super mega fucked up and that's a fine subject for the game to tackle, until they start pretending it's somehow *new* and that for some reason a prosecutor being convicted of murder was the final straw (ignore all the OTHER prosecutors who were convicted of murder in the golden age). the finale case you can practically FEEL capcom breathing down its shoulder, desperate to right the ship of the IP, scrambling to put together pieces that worked in the past.

but despite athena's backstory being probably the most compelling part of the game, it's hard to shake the feeling that we're getting a remix of turnabout goodbyes, except, well, worse. and that feeling is exacerbated by phoenix and edgeworth, who lived that case, never having or expressing any feelings to suggest they ... lived that case. on paper, edgeworth prosecuting a child who killed a parent by mistake is really interesting! but DD doesn't do anything with it. i actually really like fullbright being the phantom, and if i hadn't been spoiled by fandom, i think i would've been surprised. but that twist is undermined by the reveal that actually the character we knew was ... um... an amorphous shapeshifting blob with no independent identity, there's no sense of real betrayal between him and blackquill bc he's not a real person and blackquill was lying about trusting him so like ... who cares...

in conclusion

i see a lot of the shared DNA with investigations 1, and i have a lot of the same complaints. fun new characters, albeit underwritten; disappointing characterization from returning characters; in aai i found the puzzles frustrating, whereas here they felt nonexistent. at least aai1 had really cute pixel art and let me click stuff, though. shrek meme they don't even have investigating.

i am saying aai1, because i haven't played aai2 yet, and fandom swears up and down it's way better. but i have to be honest. what are the odds that of the four ace attorney games this guy wrote, three of them suck and one is a banger... i guess i'll find out in september when the port comes out :P or maybe when i play SOJ next i'll love it too. stay tuned

[stupidapple4]

I didn't know that they were THIS canon

[completeoveranalysis]

[1]

Chapitre 210 - The Words One Would Like To Know

FLASHBACK TO PIFFLE ARE YOU KIDDING ME

PERFECT 10/10 

GIVE ME EVERYTHING I COULD EVER WANT AT THE SADDEST POSSIBLE MOMENT

SYAORAN CONTINUE TO REMINISCE THROUGH HIS HAPPY MEMORIES THROUGH THE VARIOUS ARCS IN TSUBASA

AND HERE WE HAVE HIM BONDING WITH FAI AS THEY SERVE LUNCH

Specifically when they first meet Tomoyo

And SPECIFICALLY AFTER THAT ONE CONVERSATION FAI MENTIONED JUST A FEW CHAPTERS AGO, WHERE FAI HAD A GENTLE TALK WITH HIM ABOUT NOT BLAMING YOURSELF FOR EVERYTHING AND JUST DOING WHAT YOU CAN

HOW I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THE FACT THAT THIS WOULD BE THEIR LAST BIG 1on1 BONDING MOMENT BEFORE SYAORAN’S SOUL WARRANTY RAN OUT

AND FROM THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING THEIR LAST BIG BONDING MOMENT EVER

AHHHHHH I am compacting myself into a cereal box of emotion

OK OK OK LIKE LAST TIME Syaoran’s outfit matches the same colours in the same locations as Fai, and both have matching expressions as they look toward centrepage

Oh the splash text! What’s it say. 

The bitterness, the pain, 

That person changed it all,

Into kindness

YUP SENDING MYSELF IN A CEREAL BOX TO MOON

THE THINGS SYAORAN SAW AS POSITIVE TRAITS IN HIS DADS

THE WAY HE LOOKED UP TO THEM AND LEARNED HOW TO BE LIKE THEM

How Kurogane’s reliance on strength and Fai’s outward positivity were a type of trauma response, a flaw they had to grow around and overcome, BUT THEY WEREN’T NEGATIVE TRAITS TO SYAORAN. HE LIKED THEM AS PEOPLE THE WHOLE TIME.

AND THEY JUST WATCHED HIM GET STABBED. 

[yerekanescio]

Finally liveblogging Dual Destinies <3 gonna do it on this thread.

You can block “#all blue attorney” if you don’t wanna see it 👍

Will also tag spoilers if anything major comes up but also I almost never tag spoilers on anything so that’s your warning

[drfrankensteinvsthequeerborgs]

Chuck: “You guys aren’t supposed to be here. You’re not in this story.”

Cas: “Yeah well, we’re making it up as we go.”

look at his face, this is the exact moment Dean falls in love with Cas

[5-pp-man]

Ikuhara characters will literally say "I am a metaphor" and people still wont get it.

[fukiana]

season of the seraph got me like

[incesthemes]

as i've rewatched seasons 1 and 2 of supernatural i've been pondering and hypothesizing reasons why john was so adamant on not letting sam know about his destiny. why he was so intent on keeping this secret, why he didn't want sam knowing about monsters, why his role in their hunts appeared to be research-oriented and thus away from the action. my perspective on ignorance and censorship is that it enables further harm, so if john were going to effectively protect sam, it would stand to reason that sam should have a comprehensive understanding of his destiny and what he's up against: give him the tools to fight.

this is obviously not the route john went, so then i have to question why that is—what about censorship was so appealing to him that he thought it not only the best way to keep sam safe, but perhaps even the only way to keep him safe, based on how he begged even dean to keep sam's fate a secret from him in his final words?

so i got to thinking. namely, about the fact that azazel wants sam to be hunting: he killed jessica with the intent to drag him back into the life, which implies that if sam is hunting, he is going down the path azazel wants him to go—he's following his destiny. this aligns with the everpresent theme throughout season 1 that hunting is a monstrous lifestyle, that hunting turns people into monsters. if sam is destined to become a monster, then hunting is the most sure-fire way to get him there.

if azazel wants sam to hunt, then john would need to take the logical opposition and keep sam out of hunting—so, he wouldn't tell sam about monsters until he has to, he'd give sam more passive roles once sam is participating in hunts, he'd train sam in self-defense but not explain why. and importantly, he wouldn't talk about mary, who is the root cause of this lifestyle, the impetus for their revenge quest, more than he has to. if the goal is to keep sam as far away from hunting as possible, and if john is someone who thinks ignorance keeps someone safe, then this more or less explains most of how sam was raised: on the fringes of the family, excluded and sheltered.

but weirdly enough, it wasn't until i was reading east of eden the other night that i finally understood the perspective being presented: late in the novel, the character lee says "when the first innocence is gone, you can't stop."

it made me remember that sam picks. he is a character who wants to understand the world around him and his place in it. if something is bothering him, he turns it over in his head until it consumes him. dean places doubt in sam's head in 2x10 and it obliterates him by 2x11. he's convinced he's going to become some horrible monster because he never stops thinking and trying to figure things out. when his memory is wiped in 4x17 and normal guy sam wesson finds out his coworker is the guy from his weird dreams, he pursues him relentlessly until they're back hunting. when he discovers the wall death put in his mind to keep his hell trauma out in season 6, he pushes and can't stop until it starts crumbling around him. he's intelligent and clever and he wants to know everything. and when he doesn't know, he picks.

and the only way to stop a person like that from picking is to not let them know that there's something to pick at in the first place. that's what the quote from east of eden means: once you catch wind of something, you want to pursue it until you're satisfied. curiosity kills the cat.

and what john is up against is fate itself. something that isn't supposed to be messed with, something that's supposed to be unavoidable. so trying to thwart it is tricky business. he has to be careful.

i think working under that logic his response makes sense, even if it wound up being a self-fulfilling prophecy anyway—sam was always going to find out, and sam was always going to pick. there was nothing john could do in the end to stop it, and trying to keep sam ignorant only made him that much more desperate to know. but that's the great tragedy of it all: john was given an impossible choice, and he's a deeply flawed character. he did what he thought was best, and it only made things worse.

i like this interpretation because it ties all of john's choices together really well; it explains a lot about his character and gives a nuanced and rather reasonable explanation for why he did what he did: a dad who wants the best for his kid does what he believes will set him up on the path to success. when the first innocence is gone, you can't stop—so john does his damnedest to keep sam innocent, even to his dying breath.

the problem comes down to that someone's damnedest isn't always good enough, and that sometimes someone's damnedest ends up benefiting the enemy instead.

[icy-watch]

Hi, sweetheart. Did you inherit Morro's Elemental Power?

[jidem]

I strongly dislike fulbright but gotta give it to the man he is UNHINGED this is the most blatant power abuse of the whole serie <3

On turnabout monstrous ATM. I really enjoy blackquill. He's doing a little trolling <3

[raayllum]

Karim can you stop checking off boxes on Viren's list of terrible choices please