#doesn't feel super good but also like

[acemapleeh]

I posted 2,196 times in 2022

That's 2,001 more posts than 2021!

274 posts created (12%)

1,922 posts reblogged (88%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@kitaychan

@hetaari

@hetagrammy

I tagged 1,909 of my posts in 2022

Only 13% of my posts had no tags

#art - 774 posts

#hws england - 390 posts

#hws america - 346 posts

#hws canada - 325 posts

#hws france - 211 posts

#ace twaddles - 121 posts

#writing - 80 posts

#hws scotland - 75 posts

#hws netherlands - 57 posts

#hws russia - 55 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#changing his knitting from alfred's sweater to matt but i bet even after everything matt will be able to tell it was not meant to be his

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Come Ashore for Rack and Ruin

Summary: In the midst of the Battle of the Somme, an ancient horror has decided to show its ugly face on the battlefield and Matthew is somewhere out in the fog. Alistair goes to find his nephew.

Characters: Scotland, Canada, France, England

Word Count: 5282

Warnings: Temporary Character Death, Graphic Description of Gore

Read on ao3

Late Summer of 1916, North-Central Somme, France

It felt like it didn’t even have to rain for the thick wool of Alistair’s kilt to be absolutely soaked and weigh an extra ton against his reddened, numbed thighs. The mud did a good enough job as well as the rain from days long gone still lingering deeply in the fibers.

It was a rare, silent evening and those were the ones that put Alistair on edge the most. Silent, apart from the moans of the plethora of wounded men, many of whom, Alistair would say have copped a blighty and should be on their way home. Gunfire had been shot earlier that day and the entirety of his Majesty’s empire of scattered corpses stretched across no man’s land and a thick fog was the only grave they were getting for the time being. He peered over the top of the trench, but it was as black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat. No one was certain what the Germans had in mind yet but men needed to be retrieved if any survivors had a chance at being saved. 

Matthew was out there somewhere.

The lad was lucky that he hadn’t been found by Gilbert or his brat of a brother.

Alistair wasn’t entirely sure if that was the case though and his stomach lurched at the thought. Earlier in the evening, he had gotten into a shouting match with his youngest brother. ‘ Matthew’s a grown man and will make his way back if he knows what’s good for him and the Empire . I know him, he wouldn’t allow himself capture. ’ He knew he couldn’t rest until he was certain the boy was brought back to the safety of their hellhole of a home, whether that meant dragging his corpse back or knowing for sure he had to come up with a plan to rescue him from the enemy. The latter would mean having to get Arthur furtherly involved which he wanted to avoid at all costs.

He was going to scout it out alone.

Securing his helmet on his matted red curls and kit firmly to his side, he climbed out of the ditch, his belly and out of regulation beard down in the detritus and rubble. 

Matthew was always hard to find in these situations.

Time and time again, Alistair had memorized how to find his kin. He knew the scent of death they all emitted, what their face-down forms looked like in the dark, and the sounds they made as life rushed suddenly back into their flesh and bone.

His brother’s children though? 

Even though he’d spent the most time with the young Canadian, he had only witnessed his death perhaps once or twice before and he couldn’t recall any useful details of how to go about locating his corpse. 

Arthur smelt of the sea and rain-soaked woodland.

Dylan, a hedgerow in spring and driftwood.

Morgan of seaside morning dew and buttery furze.

Himself, blooming heather and an ocean storm.

Matthew smelt like... he wanted to say evergreen pine. He wanted to say he smelt like winter. But he knew that couldn’t be right. There was a lack of smell in the cold, on those freezing, white mornings before he went hunting or hiking; his eyes felt keener, ears on edge for the slightest of sounds. 

The air felt heavy as he shifted through the scattered remains, feeling uneasy with every step until he eventually had to stop to get back into sorts.

Something was amiss in the deepest parts of the fog.

He spotted a shape in the dark and his grip tightened on the butt of his rifle. He would say the thing was at least fifty meters away if he wagered a guess. Squinting, he vaguely made out something large, something that appeared to be scraping in the mud. Just staring at it made him feel uneasy, and made him want to vomit up his sorry excuse for tea. 

He risked firing a flare into the sky, praying the rest of the world was asleep for just these few moments. He had to know what he was dealing with; what he had to fight if it meant bringing his nephew to safety.

A dim red light briefly lit up the night.

His breath stuck in his throat.

It took every muscle fiber to keep his arm raised, to not drop the flaregun and bolt the other direction.

See the full post

100 notes - Posted July 21, 2022

#4

Arthur Home Headcanons

Minimalism? What’s that? This man has stuff everywhere in his home. Cluttercore

He is entirely guilty of reusing containers that don’t match what’s inside. Have you see English tea tins? He has a cabinet dedicated to them but it’s anyone’s guess as to what’s actually inside. He has a separate cabinet that has actual tea and the works. This tin was the limited edition Christmas English breakfast from 1962, of course I can’t get rid of it. That was a gift from Matthew in 2003, he’d be devastated if I tossed it in the bin. He may not even remember the reason for one but thinks if he holds onto it, it’ll eventually come to him.

I’m not even touching his collection of teacups and mugs.

His house is in good, clean condition. I want to make that clear. He just has trouble when it comes to change. If something breaks, it may stay that way for a while because the manufacturer who made it isn’t around anymore. Arthur will attempt to fix it himself but he’s no expert. He’s ruined things in his attempts so he’ll leave them to gather dust. He’s had a bread cutter from before World War II that’s rusted and the cutting board desperately needs a cleaning but he hasn’t gotten around to it.

If he absolutely must swallow his pride, he’ll ask Alistair to fix something he’s particularly found of.

His home in London isn’t his original one from a few hundred years back. The townhouse that was a relic of the Victorian/ Georgian era was all blown the rubble in the Blitz. He’s moved to East London to try to stay a little in the time capsule that’s formed there.

Really losing his home in the war was something that took years to get past but really, he hasn’t. He had saved what he could but the armchair from 1754 that he’d replaced the cushions of numerous times, the entirety of the library, and things one man alone just couldn’t pull from the flames were all silently mourned for.

The newer residence is honestly far less of a death trap and perhaps losing the old one was a blessing in disguise.

Still very much has the “nice” living room for guests and more formal affairs and the much more lived in one where the clutter really has gotten out of hand. Aside from his study that is.

His main residence is that townhome in Spitalfields.

He hates purging. He’ll constantly say he’s in the process of it whenever company is over to excuse any clutter or mess. Sorting through books, seeing if any the shops or museum will take. Going through clothes again that fill the closet even though he rotates the same handful of things.

Has the same spoon he’s been stirring his tea with for over seventy years. The bottom is completely flat. He’s been gifted a new one but he hasn’t taken it out of the drawer quite yet.

Similarly, he was gifted an electric kettle one year but in a drunken state on pure muscle memory, he put it on the stovetop. He’s been gifted a new one and is much more mindful on where he keeps it.

Please stop giving this man new things for his kitchen.

You want to talk museum, you go to his centuries old countryside manor. The land was gifted to him in the 14th century during the Hundred Years War in Suffolk. Perfectly isolated. He’s owned homes and land before, mind you, but this was his first private manor that he’s built upon and had full control over.

The clutter did get out of control during his early archaeology days and he’s been very carefully going through things so they go to the proper place. He has returned things and is trying to make amends.

Some rooms, not all, have those ugly, Victorian wallpaper ceilings.

It’s a hodgepodge of just, so many different eras.

You never know what you’re going to find when you open just about anything. Books? He uses just about whatever was near him at the time as a bookmark. Drawer? Funeral lockets from his children and lovers. Some things haven’t been touched in ages and look like they’ll fall apart if you do so much as breath on them.

There are a lot of rooms here and each one of them of themed to his design. The rooms his children lived in still very much reflect that they were once a part of his home.

Used to throw very elaborate parties here as well as a funeral or five.

Please be careful because this house is not child friendly. All of his weapons and armor are proudly on display in the halls.

There’s little projects scattered around the house that you’ll find pieces of.

This is the house that has the majority of his more precious items. Between the first Great Fire of London and the Blitz, he moved whatever he could fit in that home.

His third home I’ll mention is a smaller cottage in the North Midlands. It’s simple, really meant for one or two people at the most. This is his get away from it all. 

Stunning garden and his absolute pride and joy. The fae watch over this one since he’s unable to tend to it most of the year. They get to reside in the home and take care of it even when he’s present.

Least modernized than a majority of his homes. Still has electricity and running water but no television for example.

The Victorian era really defined what his home would be like going forward. Of course, things were deadly so in his newer versions of the home, the authentic arsenic soaked wallpaper has been replaced with replicas.

121 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

#3

please enjoy this stupid compilation of instagram memes about our favorite dysfunctional anglo family

148 notes - Posted April 14, 2022

#2

Throughout Victorian England, mourning jewelry was used as a tribute or memento to remind the wearer about their love for the person they had lost. Hair was very commonly used in these pieces as it did not decay and represented a love everlasting.

Though Arthur knew his sons would return from death, there was still deep grief and sadness in times they were lost.

Featured here are two funeral lockets in his possession.

Select here for Charlie’s and Jack’s

The first is inscribed, ‘My dear son’s spirit hath fled the 17th of September 1862. Alfred Fortenay Jones.’

The lock of hair was acquired shortly after the Battle of Antietam in the American Civil War. Though the pair was not on speaking terms at this time, Arthur would still quietly mourn times he knew his eldest son had met with Death. He asked his second son, Matthew, that upon checking his brother, should he have perished in battle, to please bring home a lock of hair with him. Arthur wished for a keepsake of his son, to hold onto a hope he wouldn’t speak aloud for his son to live. But in case the war were to end in disaster, he would have something of Alfred’s he could hold onto if he were to return to the Earth.

The second reads, ‘My dear son fell asleep the 27th of April 1842. Matthew Marc Jean-Luc Williams.’

Disease is never an easy way to die. Arthur held Matthew’s hand as he succumbed to consumption, the first time the young man had a disease take him. Arthur would swear that his son never quite looked the same after this took place. His eyes always tired and sunken, skin pale, and just a little too thin. Perhaps he always looked this way and it wasn’t until after this wasting disease did he notice. He had almost lost his son a handful of times in the past to other illnesses but each time he would recover. Not even Arthur himself could escape this dreadfully romantic plague. How quiet Matthew was when he died, quieter still upon awakening. Arthur knew he would return, despite all the turmoil in Quebec some years ago- he had to believe his son would live to see another day.

171 notes - Posted March 15, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Pls tell me more about your universe where nations are public and are public meanaces to society. I think it would be super funny,

I haven't really incorporated the idea in any fics or anything, but realistically speaking, nations have got to be known in the public eye. I know when I first started writing for the fandom, I read one fic where nations were considered top secret so I sort of followed in suit for the longest time. Now, the idea of them being very well known and figure heads is hilarious. It also makes more sense canon wise (but like who cares about following canon).

See the full post

549 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[shannonsketches]

Why is the anime so weird, it's not even the same series dude?? It's like,

Anime:

GOKU: I have a great idea to bring peace to the universe, and my leadership and compassion alone will unite us all. I have No Flaws and am A True Relatable Everyman :)

VEGETA: NO! I AM THE BEST AND I WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS UNTIL I AM RECOGNIZED AS SUCH!!!!

Manga:

GOKU: Vegeta what's cornmeal made of? I know it's what the corn eats, but what's it made of? VEGETA: Hey Kakarot let's play the quiet game until one of us dies.

[zosanbrainrot]

Hiii - I love ur art sm but have a question

What program do you use to draw and what brushes?

hii, thank you!! <3

I use Photoshop and mainly use just one brush from Marc Brunet's pack and it's the so called Legendary Lineart Brush, but I changed it a bit to suit my needs, so it's not reacting to the pen pressure, it's always even

also I'm using Lazy Nezumi Pro to stabilize the pen better

You can see the end of my brushstroke doesn't do that annoying thing anymore, it just continues smoothly It also comes with lots of other options like rulers for perspective, shapes etc, but I don't really do perspective drawings so I don't use these as much Most of my life I drew without it no problem, but it was installed on my work computer at a studio job and I never looked back lol Thought I'd share more as fun fact, bcs I never would have heard about it if I didn't do studio work

[t-u-i-t-c]

"That's the kinda thing... That I hate."

[personallyfive]

jealous

[queenofmalkier]

I just have to say, there's constructive discussion about what the show isn't getting right and then there's attacking people who are still enjoying it for what it is, more or less labeling them as bad fans or not "true" fans.

(And then getting mad when people call out what you're doing.)

[coquelicoq]

"i already knew that you liked me, but do you know i like you?" she's not actually dead. she's got eyes. and ears. and a brain. i think maybe she figured it out.

[justarandomhelluvablog]

having thoughts about how Husk actually has very little left to redeem bc he started his journey of self-change before even coming to work at the hotel, but at the same time redemption isn't even his goal- he ain't even aiming for heaven, he just wanted to be a better person and maybe now with friends and especially Angel, who he supports so much and wants to see succeed, maybe now he has a reason to be a better person

[angelsdean]

ruthlessly deleting old 2021/2022 posts (not by me) from my dean studies tag like *click* un-incorporating that from my beliefs system! also the way SO many posts have me like ok uh-huh good aaand then say one completely wrong thing that loses me. it's so many posts.

[flugame-mp3]

what do you fucking mean that's how charlie dies. THAT'S HOW CHARLIE DIES??? i mean i know the show has a penchant for killing off every character who's not a winchester brother or an angel of thursday but good god. what the fuck. charlie was such a good and enjoyable recurring character, and she had such a fandom impact that i've seen, and she's only around for THREE SEASONS?? (sidebar: it's amazing she has the presence she does for only being around for a couple episodes in the long run!) but: was this necessary? and she just dies offscreen after her skills are utilized to progress the plot of decoding the book of the damned?? oh my god. what in the actual fuck. i'm finding myself getting genuinely very upset at her death. she did not fucking deserve that. and i can absolutely see why the fan response to her death is what it is now. completely fucking unjustified and throwaway and useless.

[scoliosisgoblin]

Which version of Rick is your fav?

it's so hard for me to choose tbh. HOWEVER, I'd say Evil Rick

then I'd say it's C-137 and Memory Rick

I love how pathetic™ Evil Rick really is tbh. love that he's being controlled by his Morty. can you guess who my favorite Morty is?

[marrfixated]

(More thoughts and drafting! Some weird formatting I know but it was all one block in my notes)

Emma is doing just fine. Average. It’s really not so bad.

She’s just been dealing with a lot of change. And with too many things not changing.

Which is… an odd thing to struggle with.

Because she likes change. Daunting challenges. The unpredictable. Doing new things every day and never being scared of them. And she likes independence.

She had thought so, at least.

After the show, she had been hit in the face with just how… isolated she was. She had only had two friends before the first season, but she had left them behind. Her mother wasn’t doing the best, and she didn’t have any nearby family.

She found herself laying in her bed in the middle of the day most of the time, scrolling through her contacts and old conversations.

Or scrolling through her comments on TikTok.

A few weeks ago, she had tried some stunt involving a motorcycle and an inflatable pool. She probably wouldn’t have messed it up if her hands weren’t trembling.

(She had forgot to check the breaks, and wasn’t sure if they were working.)

(They were.)

The blood dripping down her face and the gash in her lip didn’t sting as much as it did watching the video.

She looked ridiculous, and she probably always did. It was better when she had someone else to do it with. Maybe she was losing her touch.

She didn’t post the video.

She turned back to dancing instead, which did feel less embarassing, despite the constant mocking feedback. Sure, the jokes were “funny”, but she didn’t care about any of it. She didn’t feel the rush, she wasn’t planning every day, and she wasn’t known or loved for anything.

Except for what she lost.

And, the show, to an extent.

-Ugh, she misses the show. She shouldn’t, but as stupid as it sounds, she really did. She missed doing crazy things and talking to people. Having a chance of winning. Beating everyone. Being cheered on. It wasn’t always great, but at least it was something. She misses doing something.

And she really misses Bowie. She missed Bowie, but she knows better than anyone that she can’t go back to that. They just- have better things to do now. He probably does.

He’s got Raj- which is great! And she’s happy for him! She’s happy for everyone. For Wayne, however he’s doing, for Julia, despite everything.

And Caleb. For having Priya.

Emma is jealous that Bowie gets to have someone.

Emma is jealous that everyone else gets to have someone.

Emma is jealous that, unlike everyone else, winning the show probably wouldn’t have made her any happier.

She isn’t sure what would.

[toastsartcornerthesequel]

I think Tim Drake would be the forever DM when it comes to D&D. It's not that his friends force him to constantly be the dungeon master for their campaigns, but it's something he enjoys doing. He actually prefers being a dungeon master more than a player.

While he's not much of a writer, I think he'd love world building. He probably has his world's currency system figured out. He creates his own conlang for it that no one is gonna take time to learn but that's okay because he has fun doing it. He's got spreadsheets and documents filled with lore that he can look back on later. He has his whole campaign figured out from start to finish and all the twists and turns laid out

His friends derail it instantly. Kon hits a nat 20 when seducing the buff orc lady that was suppose to be the big bad. His friends take almost a full session to get out of a room because they thought a tipped over chair was important to solving the puzzle when really it was there for set dressing. Cassie accidentally kills an important plot related NPC. Tim sighs and goes back through his documents to delete what he had planned.

[iridescentoracle]

okay so. potentially controversial opinion i guess but apollo justice (the game, though actually also the character) was kind of a mess. i wanted to like it, there was a ton of potential, but the execution just did not work for me at all. but it’s been haunting me for weeks and (unlike dual destinies, which also didn’t really work for me but i cannot for the life of me figure out why) i know exactly what i didn’t like about apollo justice and how i would fix it if capcom decided remake AA4–AA6 and inexplicably put me in charge. fair warning this is at least 80% complaining by volume about what they didn’t do/what they did do that i hated though.

like, okay, here’s the thing. it’s a new story. phoenix has had his arc, we’re moving on to a new main character, he isn’t the protagonist anymore. it makes sense to move him into a mentor/boss role while our new protagonist takes over as the plucky young newbie who doesn’t really know what he’s doing. the problem is that everything about how the game does that kind of sucks.

like. AJ phoenix gets totally shafted for the sake of not letting him be a good mentor, so that apollo has to figure things out on his own, but apollo isn’t really treated right by the narrative either, because the plot is so much about phoenix that apollo is like. weirdly peripheral to the whole thing even though he’s nominally the protagonist. like it’s super obvious that the whole reason phoenix isn’t an attorney anymore and is all ✨ mysterious✨ and ✨secretive✨ is literally just so that apollo doesn’t actually like. have a good mentor who can teach him things? like the entire plot/backstory is just a post-hoc excuse bc the starting point of the game was clearly someone going “well we’re not allowed to not have phoenix in the game, but we can’t let him be someone apollo can actually rely on, so we have to find some excuse to make him weird and mysterious and uncommunicative and also not a lawyer just for good measure bc otherwise he wouldn’t leave a kid hanging like that” and everything else was built up to justify that.

but as if it’s not bad enough that it all requires shattering phoenix’s perfectly good reasonably-happy-ending from the previous game, by extension everyone else gets screwed over too?? like, maya was very explicitly traumatized by the kurain channeling legacy to the point of briefly not wanting to identify herself as a spirit medium. pearl was sheltered from some of the worst of it but was aware of enough to blame herself for bad things happening to the point of trying to run away. the credits definitely made it seem like they both bounced right back after all but frankly i was not convinced they weren’t going to both collapse as soon as the figurative camera looked away again and the most plausible short-term outcome to me was that they would wind up both moving in with phoenix for a while in the near future like maya all but said she wanted to do!! she called herself “the assistant manager at Wright & Co. Law Offices” and said she “[didn’t] want any more to do with [the Fey clan],” that is IN the TEXT i am not reading too much into things here those are her words! i’m fine with her potentially changing her mind again and resuming her training again and moving back to kurain after all when she’s had some time to recover from everything but like. when she’s had some time. she deserved more than two months and i hate so much that she didn’t get it.

on the flip side, again, i get the choice to deliberately not-include edgeworth in this one but i swear to god it should have taken him and phoenix like. maybe four months to finish getting their act together and that’s being generous and counting the month it takes him to wrap things up in europe and move back to japanifornia. i’m pretty sure edgeworth figured out how he felt when he got the phone call from larry about the bridge if he hadn’t already by then and i think phoenix simultaneously realized and refused to realize how he felt during the year he thought edgeworth is dead, bc neither of them can just be normal about feeling things ever, so give them a second for phoenix to stop repressing shit and also mention that he’s absolutely not going to get back together with iris when she gets out of jail and they Will sort themselves out and they Will kiss and i give it like a year tops before they get married. they have a courthouse wedding obviously and get the judge to officiate. 50/50 chance they wind up proposing in the middle of a trial and get married during the next recess.

and in canon there’s not time for all that to have happened bc the next game requires phoenix to have promptly turned into an arrogant asshole and then gotten royally fucked over by the universe and become a totally different person (again, at that, because he’s already a completely different person in the flashback to his last case, why does he act like the paynes that whole time i hate it), but like. this is what i’m saying. phoenix getting screwed over by the universe/writing also screws all his friends over too.

so i just. this game does such a disservice to phoenix’s entire character, and all of his friends, and also the entire first three games and anyone who loved them. it’s not all bad and the person phoenix has been turned into—“has been turned into,” not “has turned into,” because the hand of the writers is so visible, i can’t engage with this game on a fully watsonian level for the life of me because phoenix’s hoodie might as well say DOYLE CHOSE TO DO THIS TO ME. this is a fictional character being written by real people and the real people wrote him in a manner entirely incompatible with his original characterization and i cannot get past it—is fascinating but it isn’t phoenix. i love the plot but i hate the execution. i like the ingredients but the recipe sucks.

but it could have been so good. and at this point i’ve mostly worked out how.

you have the exact same scenario with the gramarye trial, is the thing, up through the point where phoenix wins the poker game and shadi enigmar/zak gramarye asks him to be his lawyer, and phoenix accepts—and then phoenix, like, gets a phone call from maya or pearl bc it turns out one of them just got hurt, or they’ve both come down with some kind of stomach bug or food poisoning or something, some temporary emergency that’s just severe enough that they need more help/care for a day or two than phoenix could give while also handling a case, but that won’t actually last all that long.

so he turns down the case apologetically bc oh my god i’m so sorry actually, family emergency, i gotta go right now, best of luck, and shadi/zak moves on to defense attorney number three: a different, brand new character, another rising star defense attorney around the same point in their career as phoenix, and that’s who winds up using the forged diary page and getting disbarred and turning into the bitter jaded inscrutable asshole mentor who years later will manipulate apollo into exposing his own boss as a murderer, and then technically hire apollo but not actually, like, teach him anything or help out in any meaningful way, etc.

but meanwhile, three facts about this series of events:

8yo trucy is still the unwitting catalyst for the lawyer defending her father using forged evidence that destroys his career, and her father still vanishes and leaves her behind

within a couple days, pearl and maya are basically fine

phoenix wright’s best friend was once a kid barely older than trucy is now who suddenly found himself with no family, and as a result was taken in by someone who had a deep and abiding grudge against both him and his father because of what they did, through no real fault of their own, to him/his career.

and since phoenix did meet shadi/zak and turned his case down, he has every reason to be curious about how the trial went, and to pick up either from the general news coverage (which, considering what a big deal phoenix’s disbarment in canon was, i assume there is A Lot Of,) or to realize bc his personal curiosity/almost-connection means he actively looks into things, that there is a kid who has been left behind and who currently has no one to take care of her. and you cannot tell me that phoenix would look at this kid whose best-case scenario is currently getting swept into the foster care system bc god forbid she actually winds up getting taken in by the only adult even vaguely associated with her at this point, bc phoenix has seen that story before, and not decide on the spot to adopt her himself

and so just like that, we have

phoenix accidentally escaping the whole gramarye trial entirely unscathed

but still adopting trucy

pearl and maya still living with phoenix a couple months post-T&T instead of immediately getting packed off back to kurain

no changes that actually significantly impact apollo for most of the game bc all that’s really different for him is the name of his inscrutable jerk mentor and the fact that he’s gotta wind up meeting/being-befriended-by trucy a little differently

so by the time the actual present-day plot of the game kicks off, phoenix and company are still out there doing their thing with phoenix getting to be his best self and living his best life. he still gets his adorable adopted daughter who he loves dearly. we still don’t actually see maya or edgeworth or pearl in this version of the game but there’s allusions to them all being very present in his-and-trucy’s lives—trucy brings us over to their apartment at some point and we see a stack of steel samurai dvds in the corner and a laundry basket with unidentifiable clothes in suspiciously familiar shades of purple/pink/magenta, details like that. we only see phoenix himself for like, maybe five minutes total over the course of the first three and a half cases and it’s a little tantalizing but he gets to be the one who bursts into the courthouse with the decisive evidence that lets our protagonist win the last case.

and meanwhile, apollo’s current boss is shady and inscrutable and used to be a lawyer and can even be involved in some ✨ secret mission ✨ that he won’t talk about that turns out to be the jurist system, so we can hypothetically keep whatever the intended message of that whole thing was (which, argh, what do you DO with the jurist system. what is the intended message. i get that it’s satire of a then-contemporary development in japan’s legal system but i can’t figure out for the life of me what the satire is actually meant to say), and then at the end of the game Apollo’s Shitty Mentor is proven to have been innocent and will be allowed to take the bar again if he wants to but he’s not entirely sure bc at this point it’s been so long that he might just prefer to move on entirely now that his actual disbarment/disgrace isn’t hanging over his head bc he honestly did used to be a pretty stand-up guy but the last seven years have been rough and he doesn’t really like the person he’s turned into and maybe it would be healthier to treat this as a fresh start and try something entirely new so he’s going to take some time away from the whole legal system first to clear his head before he figures out whether or not he actually wants to dive back in.

and apollo’s like “well that’s totally understandable and sounds great for you but goddammit do i really have to go back to the endless nightmare that is job applications, i hate this actually” and phoenix (who is also in the defense lobby where this whole conversation is taking place) is like “why don’t you come work for me?”

you could even have it end on a joke where apollo is shocked about the offer bc he applied to work for phoenix six months ago and phoenix is like ???? i never saw that?? and it turns out apollo applied via email but phoenix still sucks at computers and only checks his work email like once a year.

seriously though i do not understand what we’re supposed to think about the jurist system. is it supposed to be that fucked up? i’m not actually sure how we’re supposed to feel abt that tbh but it sounds like maybe it’s not supposed to seem like an actually better alternative? like it felt to me like it was being framed as a triumph for our belovèd hero, isn’t this great that he was able to arrange things so everything would turn out all right after all etc, but it was so obviously fucked up and unethical—like, oh, yeah, having one guy in charge of assigning the defense attorney, the judge, and the jury sounds totally fine and like it’s actually going to be more reliably ethical than the system that’s already in place, for sure, not to mention the possibility that edgeworth was pulling strings to help phoenix make it happen and be involved, because nepotism and people in law enforcement/the justice system pulling strings to put people they like in positions of authority that they probably shouldn’t have specifically so that they can do things like “rig a jury,” on purpose, is fine bc i like these guys who are doing/benefiting from the nepotism so therefore it’s not wildly unethical and an obviously terrible idea, oh my god—that it feels like it has to be on purpose?

and like in practice it just… the jurist system as it’s actually implemented is worse actually. it’s genuinely worse and less ethical than the established system where the judge was about to let kristoph gavin off scot-free for the crimes he wasn’t already convicted of.

that said it’s like. very funny on a conceptual level. yet another thing that makes sense if the games are set in japan bc sure of course fictional kinda goofy japan has a more ridiculous version of the thing that’s being implemented in real-life japan right now, but when localized the implications are buck-fucking-wild

because. okay. japanifornia exclusively has bench trials or whatever they’re called for some reason. i have questions about why that’s legal given the existence of the sixth amendment but sure fine the japanifornian legal system is deeply fucked up in many new and interesting ways and that is clearly just one of them. but you’re telling me that the entire concept of trial by jury is strange and new to a lawyer? like. did the entire country just. ditch the sixth amendment before apollo was born? why is this a brand new concept instead of, you know, how things work in every other state. i have so many questions that do not need answers. thank god these games are old enough to have gotten localized it’s so much funnier this way.

ANYWAY. SO. yeah. make apollo’s inscrutable asshole so-called mentor someone other than phoenix wright, have way less of phoenix in the game actually bc he’s off living his best life and having a thriving career with very little reason to think about how kristoph gavin exists, and meanwhile write apollo with All That Backstory in mind from the start though 95% of the actual info should still be saved for game 6, we’re just trying to write apollo so he’s not completely flat and frankly pretty forgettable at times and also including foreshadowing so the khura’in thing isn’t a very obvious retcon when we get there, and turn klavier into an actual person, and that’s like. 95% of my frustrations with the game fixed right there (the other 5% is “i still can’t tell what we’re actually supposed to think/feel about the jurist system” but like. i can’t tell what we’re supposed to think/feel so i don’t know how to fix it).

well okay also the like, pacing and focus would need to be fixed so apollo’s incrutable jerk mentor isn’t the protagonist for half the last case to the point i forgot apollo existed, etc, but like. that’s the next level down of problems you know?

AND bonus points: splitting “phoenix” and “apollo’s inscrutable jerk mentor” into two separate characters automatically fixes yet another of the worst He Would Not Fucking Do Thats of the game, i.e. phoenix just. not telling trucy and apollo that they’re siblings and their mom is alive. bc apollo’s shitty mentor is the one who actually interacts with lamiroir offscreen, this phoenix never does, so apollo’s mentor is the one who has the opportunity to figure out who she is and that trucy and apollo are half-siblings, and they’re not his kids, apollo doesn’t even work for him anymore by the end of the game so what does he care whether she tells them, and meanwhile phoenix isn’t inexplicably hiding that information because he also doesn’t know. still relies on her continuing to hide her face professionally in the meantime (instead of being deeply stupid about the fact that she is super famous, twice, and if she goes around being Very Famous And Popular Singer Lamiroir someone will notice that she is very much also Very Famous And Popular Believed-Dead Magician Thalassa Gramarye and between the existence of the news and the existence of the internet her kids will inevitably find out, jesus CHRIST parts of this game are so badly written), but that’s a given

i have a whole bunch of other thoughts—mostly about klavier gavin bc he should be such a good character but he just doesn’t work, but also i think the structure of the last case would have to be pretty significantly modified to fix the pacing/structural/focus issues where our nominal protagonist is basically irrelevant for the bulk of the case, even while the plot would remain basically the same, but i haven’t figured out how the structure would be different bc that requires figuring out how to handle the whole jurist system thing—but that’s like. the coherent parts/the bulk of it, you know?

i think (really this is just a detail, not a major plot point, but it would have a pretty major impact thematically so it feels bigger than it is? so) the other main thing i would change—and this part isn’t actually real criticism bc it’s not, like, bad that they didn’t do this, and if they were going to make any changes there are a lot of things that should be higher on the list, but listen. zak and valant should’ve been brothers.

because like, first of all, the extra complexity of the relationship if they’re not just two random guys who met bc they were functionally coworkers/fellow students, and instead you have these two brothers with the same mentor and who are both in love with the same woman, and they both know that one of them is better at magic and their mentor’s favorite, and he’s also the one who the woman they’re both in love with loves back and has a kid with, etc? a favorite/least favorite child dynamic occurring spontaneously, presumably in adulthood, in their professional lives? like. it makes everything about their relationship with each other, and with magnifi, and zak’s relationship with thalassa, and valant’s relationship with trucy, way more complex and interesting without actually having to change anything else.

but then secondly, on top of all that, suddenly this is a game about siblings. zak & valant, apollo & trucy, and kristoph & klavier. suddenly you have these three different sibling relationships that are all very different but two of them actually get to be siblings but are super fucked up, and the last pair meet entirely by chance without any idea who the other person is or should be to them but wind up with the healthiest happiest relationship of the three? like, the tragedy of it, that apollo and trucy were separated by fate and literally no one knew they both existed except their own mother, who thought apollo was dead before trucy was ever born, and if not for whatever series of coincidences resulted in apollo happening to work for the man who ruined trucy’s father’s life and getting roped into that whole mess they might never have met at all, and as it was they lost however many years they could’ve had each other, etc etc, and yet despite it all they’re the ones who actually manage to be happy and, like, unconditionally positive presences in each other’s lives, while valant spends however long resenting zak for being magnifi-and-thalassa’s favorite and more talented and all that which presumably put a strain on their relationship bc being resented that deeply by someone that close to you for things that you don’t even actually control can’t feel good, and kristoph and klavier… [gestures vaguely] idk whatever they would feel about each other if the writers remembered klavier was supposed to be a person. and aside from the klavier bits all of that is in the game already, implicitly or explicitly, just waiting for someone to rewrite like three lines of dialogue so zak and valant aren’t Just Some Guys to each other.

anyway a lot of the other thoughts i have are like. details. it probably never gets established explicitly but phoenix probably never gets to know kristoph gavin that well, and conversely kristoph doesn’t care about phoenix bc he might not even know he would’ve been passed over for phoenix before the other guy. ema is friendlier bc even though she is still upset about being a detective and does still think klavier’s annoying, she doesn’t actively resent him for getting phoenix disbarred. also she’s already good friends with trucy. the biggest plot-difference that isn’t just a natural result of phoenix not getting disbarred is that i think phoenix has to be the one who gets hit by the car in 4-2 instead of that happening to apollo’s jerk mentor bc no other human being on the planet could get thrown thirty feet by a car and hit a telephone pole with his head and still only wind up with a sprained ankle out of the deal.