#i also love how it was kinda like a neat lil reunion with most of the sumeru cast

[cynyari]

so i just played through Cyno's story quest it was great, just wanted to share some of the Nahida dialogue that i caught

Sethos- after the funeral for his grandfather

I honestly feel like these are really important lines and I'm surprised they are locked behind Nahida

this was just funny to me. some haikavehass behaviour tbh (except they were like so chill in this quest they didn't even argue once)

This is after their final conversation at the very end. Cyrus has taught him well

[queenlua]

Ace Attorney case tier list

so, in the past year, i finished replaying games 1 through 5 for the first time in forever, and also played game 6 for the first time ever

so here’s where i ruthlessly rank each of the cases based on that most scientific metric of all, My Opinions:

OPENING CASES

S-tier: Turnabout Trump (4-1).  I already knew this case, and I still gasped with surprise when Phoenix showed up, and when Kristoph showed his true colors, and when Apollo realized OH SHIT OH FUCK I REALLY AM ACCUSING MY BOSS OF MURDER HUH... what a wonderful, splashy, shockingly concise case to open up the post-O.G. trilogy world.  Marvelous.

A-tier: Turnabout Memories (3-1).  Seeing Mia Fey (finally!) in action is a long-awaited delight; seeing Phoenix being a total dumbass was an unexpected-yet-perfect and fitting delight.

B-tier: The First Turnabout (1-1).  Solid lil’ case with some conventional-but-well-executed humor.  I’ve got a soft spot for Larry Butz.

C-tier: The Lost Turnabout (2-1), The Foreign Turnabout (6-1).  The former’s fine but a little forgettable; the latter has some fun gags (Payne’s ridiculous new outfit, dude absolutely shredding on the mandolin, etc) but is marred by how uh... kinda silly the game’s core conceit is, lol

E-tier: Turnabout Countdown (5-1).  The context surrounding this introduction is just sloppy (badly handled in media res + let’s lowkey retcon game 4 isn’t a great setup), and also the case itself is just. irksome. ted tonate is just fundamentally irritating to look at

FINALE CASES

S-tier: Bridge to the Turnabout (3-5), Turnabout Goodbyes (1-4).  No explanation needed.  God they fuck so hard

A-tier: The Cosmic Turnabout + Turnabout for Tomorrow (5-4 + 5-5), Turnabout Succession (4-4).

The former two cases are what makes AA5 worth it, and they make for a tremendously fun ride.  It fumbles the execution in some notable ways (Apollo’s sudden j’accuse moment feels a little forced/awkward/inadequately foreshadowed, and damn it sure would’ve been nice to know Clay Terran at all before he died, and also The Phantom’s final meltdown could’ve used a bit more emotional heft)... but okay let’s be real, I’m here for Simon Blackquill, and this case gives me so much of him so who gives a shit.  (And Aura!  Condescending obnoxious engineering queen!  I love her!)  

As for Turnabout Succession... while I earnestly wish the game had explored more of Klavier’s feelings about this whole setup, and some more emotional beats for Apollo, the case still makes for such a satisfyingly twisty and fun investigation overall (the poison stamp! what a ridiculous murder method! I love it!) that it’s a more-than-worthy finale.

B-tier: Turnabout Revolution (6-5), Farewell, My Turnabout (2-4).

The former does some cool stuff—I particularly like the opening half, where Apollo’s being real snippy and coping with Frankly Bizarre Dad Feelings, and giving Apollo a chance to finally throw down against Phoenix is a blast.  The latter half of the case starts feeling a little... ridiculous? cramped? idk? like, they didn’t do nearly enough foreshadowing about Nahyuta’s whole deal for me to care about his drama, this justice system is so obviously silly and the manner in which the revolution is playing out strains my already-suspended-sky-high disbelief... fun, and flashy, but more noise than signal in the last part, I guess.

As for Farewell, My Turnabout: of course I love Edgeworth rolling back into court goin’ through SOME kind of bizarre emotional arc of Hey I’m Totally Healed Now and obnoxiously preaching about Truth TM.  And it’s cool that the game set up a case where you want to lose.  But the net result is a bit strange tonally—it’s trying set up some kind of message about It’s Not Just About Winning, It’s About Pursuing The Truth, but it feels really muddled when that’s combined with Okay But Maya’s Literally Being Held Hostage Like Right Now, Surely A Reasonable Justice System Has A Process For Dealing With This Obviously Complicated Situation, Right?

but also Franziska takes a fucking bullet (how did I forget about that) and then gets to roll in like Ms. Save The Day so, really, lots of good shit here

FILLER CASES

S-tier: Reunion, and Turnabout (2-2), Turnabout Beginnings (3-4).  Look, the first one gives me all the Fey family drama a girl could ask for, and the latter gives me young Edgeworth being a total shit in an obnoxiously shimmery outfit.  The whole enchilada is here

A+ tier: The Magical Turnabout (6-2).  DELIGHTFUL!  MAGICIAN!  SHENANIGANS!  Like you get to guess the trick behind a magic act as part of the case, how fucking fun is that, and also the Apollo & Athena duo’s chemistry is perfect, the villain is a FANTASTIC bastard, and even the bit characters you meet during the investigation are total delights... Probably the best “standalone” case in the series, in that it doesn’t rely on any emotional connections to previous cases (unlike 2-2 and 3-4) to still totally and completely rule.

A tier: Turnabout Samurai (1-3), Turnabout Reclaimed (5-DLC).

For Turnabout Samurai, I remembered before this replay how delightful the TV SHOW STUDIO investigation and actor-fandom stuff was; I had TOTALLY forgotten Vasquez calling in her mob connections to try and wreck you.  What a fantastic villain; what a fun case.

Turnabout Reclaimed is just good solid goofy nonsense.  Probably receives a boost for me in particular because, yeah, Simon Blackquill.  But then again who isn’t giving cases a boost on that account; they are MISSING OUT

B tier: The Stolen Turnabout (3-2).  Ron and Desirée are so great sighs into hands

C tier: Listing roughly in order of preference: Turnabout Academy (5-3), Turnabout Serenade (4-3), Turnabout Sisters (1-2), Recipe for a Turnabout (3-3), Rite of the Turnabout (6-3), Rise from the Ashes (1-5).

Four of these (5-3, 4-3, 1-2, 3-3) are perfectly solid cases; I just don’t love them quite as much as “thievery hijinks” or “Hollywood hijinks” or other such particularly delightful flavors.  Everyone has a favorite flavor of Jolly Rancher and all that.

Rite of the Turnabout is interesting and connected with the larger themes of the game in a cool way, and makes good use of the divination mechanic.  However, the last bit gets twisty enough to actually be kind of confusing, and said larger themes of the game are... kinda hard for me to take seriously... which, yeah, leads to it feeling a little stilted when it really should be singing.

Rise from the Ashes landed awkwardly for me.  I know it was added well after the first game’s release, and it does a good job of continuing some of the cool stuff from that game—it’s neat, in isolation, to see Phoenix and Edgeworth working together (while still sniping at each other!), and some of the DS-specific mechanics are neat.  However, I just didn’t feel like I learned quite enough about Ema and Lana to care about them like I should, and retconning “(almost certainly true) rumors that Edgeworth was involved in Shady Shit TM” into “actually Edgeworth was totally ignorant of Shady Shit TM, like at worst his crime was willful ignorance / incuriosity, he was just been manipulated by the Police Chief”... makes Edgeworth less interesting to me!  Like, it’s cool to see Edgeworth caught off-guard and under pressure, but I wish the circumstances had been different?  Also Gant’s theme song is annoying as shit, which is petty but hey this is my blog post so

D tier: Turnabout Storyteller (6-4), Turnabout Corner (4-2), Turnabout Big Top (2-3), The Monstrous Turnabout (5-2).

Turnabout Storyteller has some fun gags with My Dude Simon and also Taka, but was heavily marred by Everyone Talking Down To Athena The Entire Fucking Case Oh My God Can You All Just Shut Up.

Turnabout Corner has... lots of fun elements but... look the fucking stolen-panties setup just grates ok

I don’t think I hate Turnabout Big Top the way most people seem to, but I did find the final murder setup more annoying that I remembered this playthrough—bro you were really sure the dude was going to conveniently stand right there and the heavy statue was definitely going to strike a killing blow and not just give the guy a concussion?  ok lol

The Monstrous Turnabout suffers mostly from poor puzzle/investigation design, being too hand-hold-y, and also having a core gimmick/setting that just wasn’t really my thing.  Alas!

[slashingdisneypasta]

Yandere (Freddy/Beetlejuice) being obsessed with a girl who makes it pretty clear she's far from interested (like "good sir if you come any closer you WILL be struck with a baseball bat").

I hope you like these! They were fun! Heheh, I got a bit dark, so I hope you like that ^^

Warnings: Hah… so… this does get kinda NSFW? Not explicitly or even really descriptively, but it’s worth mentioning. So yeah, sexual harassment, and also talk about reader getting traumatised and twisted.

~~~

Okay so there’s a lot here that we can say for them both BJ and Freddy. Here’s a section for those things:

This, a person not being interested and trying to get away, is of course not new to either of them. In fact, they enjoy it. They’re both nasty lil’ freaks that enjoy seeing you uncomfortable, scared and forcing a translucent brave face on. “That’s my (Insert affectionate nickname like Princess, Pumpkin, Biscuit, etc)’

Nothing is sacred for you. They just love to turn up at the most inconvenient and uncomfortable times (Getting changed, in class / at work, at a family dinner or reunion, on a date, etc) and they absolutely love to twist your most innocent and/or beloved interests into something horrible and gross that will forever remind you of him. They do this by making jokes about it, literally popping out of it, and incorporating it somehow when they’re hurting you. (I’ll elaborate on this more in Freddy’s section- he’s more for the psychological torture then BJ is)

You get many unsolicited compliments.

Hit him with said baseball bat and he’ll:

o   Beetlejuice: Ask you to do it again. If you’re into that kind of kinky stuff, he’s totally on board!

o   Freddy Krueger: Break it and decide he needs to punish you.

Beetlejuice:

BJ doesn’t have a level 0, no. He just blinks right past that, and number 2-99 as well. He’s a hundred, and then possibly a thousand if you get him drinking.

Don’t do that.

The fact that you aren’t interested and keep trying to get away from him (I mean, you do escape him a lot because he’s spacey and frazzly-brained, but never for long. He gets distracted briefly and then when you’ve relaxed with a relaxing book or something else for some lovely, long-awaited non-Beetlejuice related time, he pops up again in place of your chair and its very, very awkward when you slowly notice the warm, sort of damp feeling of his belly, chest and legs and the, seemingly perpetual bulge in his trousers.) isn’t a new concept for him. But he doesn’t take the hint, either. He’s nasty and he likes to be the bane of people’s existences.

Especially you! ~ You’re his fave! Congrats.

Every rebuff and nasty look you give him makes him ‘love’ you even more. Mm, sexy.

Not the type to chain you up anywhere or kidnap you (Except for frequent day trips- he’ll always take you back home though). No, no. He makes your regular, everyday life difficult instead, by popping up at school (And I mean University. Or at the very least year 12) or work, at lunch dates, at the shops (Changing rooms come to mind), etc. You’re the only one who can see him, like Lizzie and Drop Dead Fred, but he can touch things and make a whole mess and you’ve been kicked out of shops, restaurants and classes for, not just being noisy, or disrupting people, no- The words used most often are ‘wreaking havoc’. 

He just pops up, and he doesn’t care at all what you’re doing- he’ll take one look at it and make some ‘fun’ out of it. Steal things (Like lollies, pills, condoms, and smokes and alcohol- yes, he will smash glass and pop behind counters to grab shit) and shove them down your clothes to hide it (Which is loud and obvious and you get caught), massacre a prized garden to get you flowers (Roots, worms and dirt still intact) to serenade you with (song and dance included and, of course, improvised) which distracts you entirely and makes you unresponsive or weird to people who cant see him, flicker the channels on a TV you’re watching with some friends and turn on a porn channel when the remote is in your hands, or just outright try to ravage you right there in the middle of class. What does he care what happens? Getting you frustrated and embarrassed is half the fun.

Freddy is not the only one that has you waking up with markings or changed in some way, nay. BJ changes your clothes in your sleep- usually to his signature black and white stripes.

Your continued braveness and the fact that you refuse to give in to him and just give up entirely… uhh, well, it turns him on. Hence the perpetual bulge in his pants around you.

(And he is around you MUCH. OF THE. TIME.)

Freddy Krueger:

Like said in the first section, this is not a brand new kinda situation for him. In fact, he prefers it, likes it this way. Especially seeing as you’re strong and won’t give up trying to get away. Gives him a chance to use his… you know… whole personality, and full abilities, to break you. And once he has, you’ll be his little pet.

Look, before we get into the nightmare of it all, I’ll say this for you: At least you wake up. For BJ, he can come and get Reader whenever he wants (And he does). Freddy’s at least confined to the dream world.

But, of course, the dream world also does offer its own advantages for your antagonist. Because, as we all well know, Freddy can conjure, be or make up anything he wants. The sky is not the limit- its but a suggestion. Which brings us to this horrendous thing that he loves to do to you.

Beetlejuice takes the place of the chair you’re sitting in- Freddy takes place of your crush. He sets up neat little dreams for you where you’re with your crush (It could be real life, celebrity, or fictional. Whatever. Just someone you’re attracted to and have innocent feelings towards that he can warp, distort and pervert. Nothing is sacred here) and then at the last moment, like a reverse froggy prince kind of deal, your crush turns into Freddy and he has some terrible pun and he kisses you, and it’s all very shocking and unpleasant. And you never see it coming because you’re dreaming. No, it’ll always be just as horrifying.

Its not just people you have warm, fuzzy feelings for that he perverts and distorts, no. Hobbies that make you feel at peace, that he knows make you feel safe and forget about him for a little while. You better hope he doesn’t find out about things like that because if he does discover that, that you’re enjoying a peaceful and hopeful moments, he’ll figure out how to immediately crush that. Conjure up a nightmare for you where all you can paint or draw or write about are horrible memories about him or where you can’t help but obey him and literally destroy the special object that maybe your parents gave you, or you got yourself at a hard time that reminds you that you’ll be okay in any way, with your own two hands. 

Because that’s what Freddy does, its why he’s scary- he takes something so comforting that we know will always be there for us and take us away from the world for a little bit like sleep and our snuggly beds and ruins it.

There aren’t many mornings that you wake up without a new cut or bruise or other kind of mark. He once took a dream permanent marker and wrote his name across your forehead in thick font and that materialised in real life for a whole 3 days.

[tumblunni]

Let’s ramble a bit more about Changeling Sim ideas! This time a bit about the awkward lil royal family and their interlocking relationships~!

Kiddo

It our deuteroganist! Hello! The protagonist’s cute little daughter is actually the next heir to the faerie throne, sent to be raised by her as a challenge to prove that the human world has good in it and is worth saving. And also secretly because Xana Mega is pretty awkward and cute under her scary facade, and was worried she was too distant to make a good mother to her child. In the golden ending you can help patch up their relationship, even though Jackie is still the one Kiddo knows as her true mother, and her biological parent becomes more like the family’s aunt. Kiddo is technically half human, but it’s not because Xana Mega married a human or anything. Fairies don’t follow biological genetics, theyre grown from giant flowers after all! Xana created Kiddo entirely by herself, and she acquired her human side solely from being given to Jackie to raise. Baby fae are more metaphysically squishy than their older counterparts, the classic changeling ploy is simply to replace a human child with a fae baby and it’ll naturally shift into the shape of the human. For a time they’ll be just that- a fairy wearing a disguise. But if they don’t know theyre not human, they’ll grow into what they’re taught and completely transform into a real mortal around puberty. Changelings do tend to retain a heightened sense to the supernatural and occasionally a few odd abilities, but generally they’ll never return to what they once were. Traditionally nobody had a choice in this whole matter, it was a very sketchy and horrid practise of ancient fae who didnt even respect humans as real sentient people. But in this case Kiddo wasn’t replacing an existing human, and she’s being raised knowing of her origins. Eventually she’ll face the question of whether she wants to stay or return to being a fairy, but it’ll be 100% her own choice. Similarly, it’s her own choice whether she wants to take the throne or if she finds a different career choice during her adventures in this other world. Many endings for you, the player!

Xana Mega

The current queen of Mag Mell, an ominous towering figure who rules with strict efficiency and commands the current anti-human war. Everyone’s pretty damn scared of her, and she lives a very lonely life disconnected from her own people. Despite her frightening persona and dedication to all things rational, she’s called for this mysterious truce for the next 18 years, and is permitting certain humans to enter our realm?? Truly the queen works in mysterious ways... but is she going soft...? Deep down she’s really a kind person who feels she has to put up this front deliberately in order to retain order. Its half that and half not really knowing how to function well socially, since she’s been groomed to be a ruler from a young age and had to live with a distant father. Because she was scared she’d repeat his mistakes, she gave her child to somebody else... but ultimately has she just become the same absent parent? It doesnt matter, because at least the kid will have a good mother, even if it isn’t her. But the decision does haunt her, and she’s both excited and terrified of the day she’ll see the child again on her 18th birthday and she won’t recognise her. But hopefully (if the player does well) she’ll be able to see that Kiddo has grown up into a wonderful young woman and had a fullfilling life that makes it all worthwhile ^_^ Ultimately if you’d ever get to know the real Xana beneath the royal role, she’s a slightly adorable awkward dork with a weary sadness yet a childish joy for experiencing new things. When you’d given up hope on this stuff, its hard to restrain yourself! Its possible to get a super secret route where Jackie romances Xana and Kiddo acquires DOUBLEMUMS~! And they’re super cute going out together on Real Authentic Human World Dates while Xana flails happily like this small hotdog stand is disneyland. Who’da thought that after the war ended, the old queen would become a human world weeaboo as soon as she set foot in our dimension? ^_^

Alberich

Xana’s father and previous ruler. Known as the Good King, he was responsible for starting the grand reforms of society that Xana continues nowadays. If peace is ever achieved between humans and fae, he was the one who sewed the first seed even if he didn’t live to see it sprout. Despite his success as a ruler, he was pretty flawed as a father, and passed that on to his daughter. He couldn’t completely escape the trappings of ancient fairy tradition, and his daughter was mostly raised by maids and tutors while he remained just this distant silent figure she could never reach no matter how hard she tried. She never even knew very much about him since he died when she was young. The young queen was just left with a million different opinions everybody else had on him, coalescing into an abstract cluster of an unknowable, empty pillar of ideal regal emotionlessness. .....Of course, the real Alberich was just as far from this as she is! To those who personally knew him, he was a complete softhearted goofball whose overidealistic ramblings would surely doom the whole country. And isn’t that just why he’s so loveable? Ultimately, his failure as a father was just that... a failure. Xana tried to justify it as if he’d made the right decision to be distant, and she should become the same sort of person, and take it further to become distant to even her own citizens. But Alberich never pretended his decision was the right one, he was a good man who despite his best efforts didn’t know how to raise a child. He had no-one to learn from, and his fear of messing up is what caused him to flee from the concept of parenthood entirely. He thought that hiring the best educators and minders would help compensate for the ways he was lacking as a dad, never knowing that all his daughter wanted was the one thing he could give- love. :( In the end he perished sadly to a simple disease that could have been cured if the country’s infrastructure wasn’t so ravaged by the war with the humans. His decision to prioritize the remaining money towards protecting the citizens was what caused him to waste away from a simple fever. While a certain someone raced against the clock to fetch the medicine on foot, arriving just late enough to miss the chance to hold his hand as he passed away...

Rafferty

A simple court jester who was promoted to the king’s butler and eventually promoted/demoted (?) to the finance minister after the new queen took the throne. Why is he even in the royal family section...? He’s always been sort of a stuffy grumpy neat freak, but he used to be a symbol of fun amoungst the court once. Now he’s just become bitter and hateful, leading the anti-human sentiment and questioning the country’s leadership at every turn. He’s globally hated by all of his coworkers and suspected of being corrupt- he was the major scapegoat for the culprit in the king’s death, and never managed to shake the stigma. He’s only really here and has any sort of power because the king’s will secured his position for the foreseeable future. He’s also hated because (GASP!) he’s a disgusting former human turned fairy! In his former life he was a homeless peasant in the 1800s that Alberich brought home one day and hired as a servant. Everyone humoured the king with his new pet, but it started to get ridiculous when he gave the thing legal rights and a career! It’s tradition to just consider a fairy a fairy when they become one, and forget about whoever they were in their past life, but gossipping housewives like to ignore this rule and hold it against him anyway. Its also kinda why Rafferty has such a personal hate of humans, he used to be one and he’s seen nothing but the worst side of them... His role in the current story is really just to be a small obstacle in plotlines, and a possible befriendable character. I’m an optimistic person so I like stories of cliche ‘evil vizier’ type guys having more complex motives and being able to be redeemed in the end. In the end you can discover that the real secret behind him and the king was that they were actually dating, and Rafferty really was loyal to the kingdom all along. And he endured all this hate for so long because he doesn’t want to tarnish Alberich’s memory by letting people know about their affair. Xana is actually his biological daughter from when he was human, making him Kiddo’s grandpa. Neither of them knew this fact though, and in fact Xana was one of the people who hated him the most. She just knew him as her funny friend who kept her company when she was lonely as a child, one of her father’s servants who seemed to care about her more than the rest. So she took it as a personal betrayal when he was suspected of killing the king, and kept believing it well into her adult years. Its gonna be a messy reunion for them when the misunderstanding is all sorted out, but a happy one too, hopefully...

+++

A slightly unrelated side note but I ideally wanna make a full cast of court employees and lesser nobility! At the moment all I have is Rafferty, unnamed scribe dad and kiiiinda a cupid type figure I dont know much about yet? I dunno, I just got that concept in my brain while I was thinking about Raffles and Ritchi’s past back when he was king. I imagined maybe Rafferty did have at least one friend amoung the royal court who knew about his relationship with the king and supported them. And it sorta came together in my brain as some sort of champion of love and justice, and maybe designed around a traditional valentine’s day fairy cliche. But like a world weary chain smoker one? BUT still one that really is a kind loving figure, not a dark subversion or anything. I just feel like they’re someone worn down by seeing injustice in the world, and questioning other people’s definitions of love that’re being forced upon them. Someone who was doubting this country... I get the feeling they’ve left the plot by the time we get to the present, but I don’t know if they died or maybe they just left the country after the king died and they’d lost their last hope the place could change. But I do generally think maybe everyone who was in the fairy court back when Rafferty was jester is now dead and/or gone, he was the youngest member then and he’s the oldest one now. And he was hated by all his former friends, they died, and now he’s left being hated by all new people... But yeah I just have this good image of some broken but kind person finding a tiny bit of happiness realizing grumpy old rafferty found love, and reassuring him that they dont hold the same stupid homophobic ‘no dating humans’ views that everyone else is pushing. A brief bit of calm before the storm, making it even sadder that cupid just wasnt strong enough to keep trying after that hope died, and ran out even on rafferty, their last friend... I guess... a Nanu cupid?