#i find it funny that i have never played aa6

[foolishlyfoolishfools]

i fucking love patches' shocked sprite, so here's something akin to that

[silverjojo08]

I'm Sorry Women (an Ace Attorney retrospective)

Don't worry, this is going to be much shorter than my FE Engage essay. Also this is more of a personal piece than anything else.

With the upcoming release of the Apollo Justice trilogy (AA456 collection) I've started going through my old tweets to reminiscence about me playing those games. This will be spoilery for some aspects all three of those games I think, so this is your warning to turn back if you haven't played through Spirit of Justice.

Eat Your Hamburgers, Apollo

Ok this part might be obvious, but because I am an American gamer who played the US localization I will be using those names, locations, etc in this discussion.

If you are at all generally curious about localization and Ace Attorney, Janet Hsu has been one of the main localizers on the franchise and has spoken about some of the process (this interview is about DGS/GAA but there's tidbits on their work in general) here: https://www.polygon.com/interviews/22519215/great-ace-attorney-chronicles-interview-translator-localization-japanese-western-audience

Update: AA456 specific interview with Hsu as well: https://kotaku.com/ace-attorney-apollo-justice-janet-hsu-interview-1851226695

Other Preliminary Info

So unlike my Engage essay which was set in a more fantasy world, I do feel the need to state that I'm not an expert on the subjects of: adoption, teen pregnancy, teen marriage, cross-cultural adoption, political strife?, etc.

I haven't done any reading in prep for writing this. I'm not trying to present myself as any type of authority. I'm not calling out anyone specific in the fandom besides myself. This is meant to be an analysis of me and my previous beliefs with maybe a little commentary on how the fandom at the time may have shaped those thoughts (but the only examples I will provide will be my posts and screenshots from the series).

And as like in my Engage essay, I'm not a professional story analyst or anything and this is not meant to be a literary criticism. I'm not even using fully proper grammar or anything. Sorry if it's unreadable lmao.

The Essay

I was going through my old tweets to see my old thoughts as I was playing through Ace Attorney games 5 and 6 in particular. I don't believe I livetweeted AA4, but if I did I can't find my hashtag for it. I went back mainly to see the funny and dumb things I posted when I was younger and to relive some moments from the games to hype for the new release of the Apollo Justice Triology as I had not played them in a while. There's some funny stuff in there, especially the AA6 one where I predicted at least one thing accurately.

In my reminiscing, I came across this one in particular which immediately gave me pause:

I understand why I said that. But still I couldn't get it out of my mind. "Why did I say that? What led to me holding this type of honestly heartless belief? Why was I like this?"

Thalassa married Jove when she was 18 and had Apollo when she was 18-19. Yes, at the time I typed that I believed she gave Apollo up willingly, which turned out to not be the case as later revealed in AA6.

But looking at it even from that lens now, even if she had given him up herself, so what? No decision she could have made at that time could have been wrong. It's insane that I thought otherwise. That was an impossible situation for her.

And yes, the specific scene is from Apollo's perspective. He doesn't know the context of him becoming an orphan. Even as of AA6 (which goes into his early childhood) he only knows the circumstances of how he lost Jove and why he ended up in the US, but not all that happened with his mother.

He is not wrong to feel as he does. And there are people irl who have been adopted and spoken on their experiences and all. I'm never going to tell anyone how they should or shouldn't feel about that because I've not been on either side of that situation.

But I completely misunderstood even just the basic context of the scene. This was a flashback scene where he was a young child (stated to be about middle school age) trying to give advice to help his friend.

I went back to the scene to get screenshots for this. And it wasn't even about him as much as it was about him helping Clay in the only way that he could, as one little kid to another:

This is a cute scene about two kids in an orphanage working through their emotions and bonding while also dropping lore on where Apollo's catchphrase comes from.

There was no need for me to take this opportunity to speak on Thalassa at all. Especially when she literally did nothing wrong at all.

I do generally remember back in the early 2010s at least in AA fandom there was a bit of an angsty thing regarding how he may have felt towards her not raising him especially after she went on to get married again and have Trucy. I cannot remember all the details, but I assume some of that rubbed off on me. But even if that's the case, I still should have known better. A lot of stuff that happens in fandoms shouldn't be internalized.

In Conclusion

TL;DR I was a dumbass using a touching scene to slander a girl put in an unimaginable situation, and they should revoke my feminism card.

Less flippantly: It's always worth revisiting old opinions to challenge your past assumptions. Everyone grows and changes over time. And even people who believe themselves to be well-meaning have some rotten stuff to worth through. It takes work to become a better person.

[whats-a-reading]

Ace Attorney Prosecutor Tier list

Except I rate them based on themes. Note that some plot points may factor into my decisions, but I’m not going to be judging their arcs or anything. This is also completely subjective. (My rambling gets longer as we go up the tiers. Minor swearing, if you care about that sort of thing.)

The prosecutors that count are the ones we’ve seen prosecuting, and it’s only their main theme (no reminiscences or other themes they may have).

Spoilers for all ace attorney games except for the Layton crossover. You have been warned.

From worst to best, we have:

DQ

The Auchi/Payne clan gets no theme, so.

Manfred von Karma, get your own theme.

F

F is for Franziska because why does she not have her own theme? This is unfair, and I think that her journey isn’t a copy-paste of Edgeworth’s, so why is her theme Edgeworth’s with a different intro?

D

Now we have actual themes to judge. Whoop.

I haven’t played SOJ, but I did watch the 169Tom prosecutor theme compilation, which is why I know that Ga’ran eventually stands at the prosecutor’s bench. It’s a nice enough theme, and I’ll admit this one mostly suffered from the fact that I played DGS (and thus never finished AA5 nor started AA6) because... under-exposure.

Now, here’s something I might get crucified for, part one. I think I just like the anime theme for Edgeworth more, because that one is more like boss fight music. It encapsulates him without needing to be changed. Edgeworth doesn’t stop being a force to be reckoned with just because he’s on your side now. In fact, he’s better now. (Rip to AA1 Edgeworth, themeless behavior.) I’ll admit I just don’t care for Great Revival. It’s probably the melody. It has some nice percussion going for it, but if I hate the melody, that’s going to take it nowhere. (All of his other themes are so much better... like the DL-6 theme music, and his Objection/Pursuit themes, but alas.)

C

At the very least, I like the opening strains of Nayhuta’s theme, which is a step up from D tier (I can’t remember Ga’ran’s enough to still like it after I stop listening to it, and I don’t like Edgeworth’s). I think that the instrumentation’s good. Some choir thing going on there in some sections. It falls off the wagon because I can’t remember the B section.

B

I like Blackquill’s for the same reasons I like Nahyuta’s (good instruments and opener), but it made a bigger first impression on me, which means it was more memorable from the outset. Nahyuta’s theme had to grow on me. This one captured me. I also appreciate the punch of the very first note and the rising tension of the opening strains. It’s a contrast from Mr Klavier “My theme is my rock song” Gavin, with this one saying he’s all business. All in all, good theme for this sad weeb man.

(Where I get crucified part two.) Ah, Godot. Iconic. It fits him perfectly. It sounds like music a coffee shop would play, and it's kind of sad and wistful and bitter, like him and his favorite brews. Truth be told, the main reason he isn’t higher is because I like energy and complexity. It’s not bad, it’s personal preference. His theme can be summed up to the ringtone version, and I don’t see the B or C section as something that re-contextualizes or adds anything to the main melody/motif. He gets to stay here due to memorability.

A

Klavier is here due to the power of rock. It’s also here because it exists in-universe. I also find it funny how his name is piano but this is led by a guitar. (No, that has no bearing on this theme's ranking.) Anyway, the B section or the bridge or something shows off said guitar (and is also a frustrating part of Turnabout Serenade but anyway), and helps characterize him. I just think it’s neat.

Sebastian’s theme (First Class Farewell, not the other one) is a classy call-and-response between two different kinds of instruments. It also opens like a marching band, which I think is neat since that evokes graduation. I also like the way it’s stereo. Anyway, I like it as a demonstration of how far he’s come (First Class Reasoning is very good at its goal, which is to be annoying and juvenile), yet the call-and-response nature shows that he’s still following someone’s lead. However, the lower instrument is not always the dominant one, showing that he can think for himself. Also, it’s orchestral, which fits his gimmick of being a conductor. The fact that there are multiple elements in this theme also shows that he can handle more complexity now.

S

Yo, Asogi, why do you have a bajillion epic themes? A Prosecutor, Reborn is the absolute best for me though. (And it’s the only theme of Asogi as a prosecutor and so is the only one I can judge. Luckily I like it the most.) There’s so much shit going on, and it shows how intertwined “the old Asogi” and “the new Asogi” are. This is the same guy, he’s just in pain. It’s a fusion of East and West, it’s aggressive, it makes liberal use of good leitmotifs... what’s not to love? The Western theme is in a minor key and is carried by some fairly aggressive strings, with piano/harpsichord in the background, reminiscent of both his mentor and just... the general British setting. The steady beat and rhythm of the Western motif reminds me of a clock (Hi Stronghart). It goes back and forth repeatedly and smoothly, which I think adds to it as well. Also just... the introduction of that second leitmotif, it’s like it just asserted itself into what would otherwise have been Samurai on a Mission: TGAA2 Edition. The bridge (towards the end of the song where it's stripped down a bit before the final refrain), the emotional point of the song is from Samurai on a Mission, showing what truly drives him and who he is, but then the Western theme starts up again. This whole song shows how he started in Japan and ended up in Britain, in fact. It’s so good, I love it, I can’t believe it’s over when it ends.

This theme just refused to let me go, send help. Reaper of the Bailey’s my favorite because it sets up the... everything of van Zieks. From the bang that hits your ears as hard as his boot hits the desk, to the oppressive, gothic tone of this waltz, what you hear from his theme is what you get out of the guy: he’s a noble, he’s graceful, he has the vampire aesthetic, and he’s scary. This song takes Blackquill’s “start with a bang” technique and takes it even further by regularly using a singular heavy percussive note for transition and repetition of sections. The harpsichord adds to it because honestly, I think his theme could and should be played on a church organ. (Also haha his name is Barok, Baroque.) The prolonged notes and pedal usage in some instances just add to the atmosphere, adding even more weight to everything. All of these elements make the theme heavy with no reprieve, which fits perfectly.

Also, the strings-led section shows up when he stoically watches a man burn to death. Buckwild. (I am not over that cut scene by the way.) It’s the best. The part near the ending with the high pitched refrain that sounds kind of like a music box is just tragic. His theme is a dance with death. It’s a steady thing that doesn’t lose energy even as it becomes miserable. If that was it, it would already be in B tier. And then everything gets re-contextualized. The plot and the music make you rethink what the hell was he thinking during that scene where he watched a man burn to death when you were pretty convinced the guy was involved in his death. It’s about the layers. You thought it was you who was dancing with death and the peril of everything being over. Nope. It’s him. He’s the one having a bad time here. He’s the one being dragged along by the steady Reaper. Epic. My favorite.

[ronsenburg]

Hi! I wanted to ask you something about Klapollo. What topic/argument do you think could possibly cause them to break up or take a break from the relationship? I live for the drama and was thinking about maybe writing a fic but like I dont want to make either of them assholes, like Apollo bringing Kristoph up to hurt Klavier, for example. I don't think he would do that but I struggle to come up with something else.

Oh boy, I hope you’re not upset about this, but I wrote you an essay. I’m sorry.

Overall, I really like the klapollo relationship timeline because, compared to, say, narumi/su they have a much more normal, organic story. They meet, flirt, share a mutual trauma, get together! Totally normal! But I also think that they would have a much harder time than narumi/su finding the balance you need in a serious relationship and I can see them calling it quits for perfectly practical reasons that aren’t really anything to do with one being a jerk, you know? Here are my top things that I think they would have to navigate and maybe struggle with before a real happily ever after:

1. Money. You’ve probably seen my post where I talk about Apollo feeling uncomfortable with displays of affluence. I don’t think that this is an easy one to get past. AA6 Spoilers, but Dhurke and Datz literally raised them in hiding on the run in the mountainous jungles of Khura’in. They sent Apollo to the states as a nine year old. We don’t know what he did when he got here, but my money’s always been on the foster system. That doesn’t typically breed a sense of stability, financial or otherwise. 

From my experience (so take it with a grain of salt), children who grow up with very little tend to behave in one of two ways when they reach financial stability and/or achieve wealth: first option, they’re really bad with it. They spend it nearly as fast as they make it on things they didn’t get to have or experience when they were growing up. Second option, they never spend it. They know what it’s like to be without, so they save as much of it as they can so they have the security of knowing, if something happens, they won’t have to go back to the way it was before. I will always put Apollo in the latter category. He works hard for what he has and what he gets and, I think, things that signify extravagance make him uncomfortable. On the other hand, I think that the Gavin’s have always had some sort of wealth. Klavier and Kristoph have very different aesthetics to their spaces that we get to experience (Klavier’s office and Kristoph’s cell) but they’re both pretty lavish. Now, we can assume they each made their money individually in their respective careers but, honestly, Kristoph’s cell is so gaudy. To me, it screams “this is what I’m used to and I refuse to accept any less” which is an attitude that I feel comes more from a lifetime of that treatment. 

So if we accept everything that I’ve said above as true, trying to put a person who saves every penny they get and feels bad treating themselves with a person who spends money freely because it’s been a constant throughout their life? It can go poorly. Casually dating, maybe it’s not such an issue once Apollo says “please no more presents and can we just get takeout for once?” but if you’re talking about something more serious, where you have to live in the same space and pay joint bills and be confronted with the other person’s spending habits constantly, it’s a whole other thing. Please take it from me as a person in a long term relationship who loves their partner tremendously—everyone fights about money. Everyone. It would be very difficult for Apollo to feel comfortable, even if he knew that finances were in good shape and there was savings, etc. Things happen, people leave. Nothing gold can stay. Changing that line of thinking takes work. It would also be easier said than done for Klavier to just do an about face on his own habits for Apollo’s comfort. Being a celebrity makes money, but it costs money, too. There is a certain amount of lushness that people expect. That can’t just go away. These are things that become bigger problems overtime, no matter how much you love each other. 

Anyway, I would be really surprised if—even if you’re writing them as really happily married—Apollo doesn’t have a ‘emergency fund’ that even Klavier doesn’t know about. It’s a ‘just in case’. Just in case Klavier leaves him. Just in case he needs to get away fast. Just in case the world ends. It’s not a logical thing, something that he sat down and rationalized doing, it’s just there because it feels better to have it than to not. But that can be kind of hurtful if the other person finds out about it, so. There you go, a whole minefield of money related drama.

2. Apollo’s Abandonment Issues. He’s got them! What do you call and orphan twice over who also lost his very best friend? I don’t know, but if capcom doesn’t stop picking on my boy I’m going to kick them in the teeth. I will still never get over AA6 for telling us that Dhurke took Apollo in when he was orphaned as a baby, then abandoned him in the USA, then came back for him and got his hopes up, and then was actually dead the whole time! Hahahaha! What a trip! 

Anyway, you don’t come back from that super easy. People who suffer this kind of trauma usually have a really hard time trusting others, which is understandable. They also can have unrealistic needs from their partners, become codependent, or even just self-sabotage their relationships, pulling away first to try and avoid the pain because they think the other person will leave them. I think that last one is most likely for Apollo, especially given the disparity in circumstances I mentioned above. If Apollo can’t trust that Klavier actually loves him, can’t trust that he won’t leave him like EVERYONE ELSE HAS, then they can’t have a healthy relationship. Drama.

3. Klavier’s Emotional Trauma. Kristoph is a pretty big jerk to Klavier in the last case of AA4. He criticizes and undermines Klavier, threatens and admits to manipulating him. In the anthology, Klavier shares an “lol so funny!” story about Kristoph accidentally breaking a window while he and Klavier are playing ball. In it, he convinces Klavier that it was his fault and that he should take the blame and apologize for breaking the window! And Klavier does! That’s gaslighting, baby, and since the Anthology is supposed to be canon, we can take that to mean it’s been happening since Klavier was a kid. Think about that. An entire life of gaslighting and manipulative behavior! You don’t come back from that easily, either. 

People who experience emotional abuse can, among other things, suffer from depression and low-self esteem. They need affirmation from their partners and can have a hard time with letting people in or being honest (though not from a malicious mindset—more a “I’m going to say what I think you want to hear because if you’re happy, bad things won’t happen!”). They can also always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. Sure things are good, but when will that end and the bad time start? It’s a self fulfilling prophecy: if all you can do is worry about things going wrong, then you aren’t actually enjoying when things are going right and you will cause the issues you’re so worried about. Drama.

4. Fame. Klavier has been in the spotlight since he was a literal child. If the Gavinners were already hits when Klavier was 17, they likely formed and starred their rise some time before then. A year, maybe two? Klavier spent his formative years in the spotlight. He quite literally doesn’t know any other way. Apollo, on the other hand, has never experienced the kind of scrutiny he’d be subject to when dating someone like Klavier. It can be really stressful and hurtful and just overall not a good time. And I’m not saying that Klavier wouldn’t be sympathetic, but I don’t think he would really understand how difficult it could be to have been thrust into that position out of nowhere, because he’s had years of dealing with it and was in a completely different place in life when it began for him. It’s not unreasonable to think that Apollo might not be able to take it. You can love someone and want to be with them but if you can’t adapt to their lifestyle, it’s not going to work. They could walk away rather than risk what might happen to Apollo if they kept it up. Drama.

5. Careers. They both have very demanding jobs. While sharing a similar profession can mean there’s a mutual understanding, it can also cause issues if you... never get to see each other? Schedules can be out of alignment (which could easily happen; their cases can’t always line up and they seem to require a lot of time investment outside of just normal hours). If Klavier goes back into music, that’s an additional time constraint. Why be in a relationship when you can only see the other person for moments here and there? What about the stress that comes with those jobs? That can cause drama.

6. Klavier looks like Kristoph. They are very different people, yes, but similar enough in some ways that it could cause tension. Maybe Klavier is tired and stressed and snaps at Apollo, and suddenly, all Apollo can see is Kristoph and all he can feel is the uncomfortable churning in his stomach that goes along with the memories of him. Someone he trusted, someone who let him down. That’s a difficult subject to broach, and it can fester like an infected wound if left intended. 

But Apollo sounds like Kristoph sometimes. We saw it in AA5, which is, of course, an extreme circumstance. But it can come out from time to time in other ways. A phrase that slips out, the way he intones certain words, the way he signs off in his emails—little things that are harmless, but can still act as triggers. 

Sometimes you need to get away from things that can remind you of your past in order to work on getting over them. If you are in love with someone who shares a similar trauma, who brings those issues from the past to light frequently just by being themselves, it might not be a healthy situation. I don’t think they would need to throw it in each other’s faces for it to become an issue. Drama.

There are more, but I probably took this more seriously than you intended. Whoops! Anyway, I hope that helps??? Maybe???? I hope you get them back together in the end because they deserve to be happy though!!!!!!!

[scarlettlawyer]

Part 4 of my commentary of @renegadewangs‘ fanfic series Phantoms and Mirages.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Now, onto Haunted Specters! God, I love Haunted Specters.

It’s such a pivotal and crucial stepping stone. Just about all the major actors on the playing board, and in fact, the playing board itself all get rearranged in a careful balancing act that sets the scene anew.

It is, or at least it was, SUCH an incredible struggle for me to reconcile the phantom from the previous fic with the phantom we see in this one (and subsequent instalments, even) upon taking a step back, and with good reason, although for me the divide ran a little deeper, as it completely boggled my mind how this was somehow the same character being written by the same author, let alone belonging to the same fic series that somehow had a line of continuity where it made sense for these characters to end up in these situations – this situation.

I don’t merely refer to the phantom’s characterisation – what’s so great is that you can totally get away with writing him in this manner and have the audience accept it, seeing as he’s suffered a traumatic brain injury from the fall. It allows for a great amount of freedom for what direction to take the character in that would have been absent before.

No, I also refer here to (of course) the dynamic he shares with the other characters, the way he is portrayed and positioned by the narrative, and lastly, my own personal approach to reading and my feelings towards – level of investment in the character as he is in this series. As I’ve rehashed many times, I wasn’t very absorbed in or on board with this series’ version of the phantom for a lot of the previous fic when I first read it, at least until the end. But now, going into this fic, I was fully invested in especially seeing and learning what changes and impact the fall had made on him, and there was a new, thrilling level of unpredictability attached not only to the character, but to the plot itself.

By all accounts, the series so far had set me up to want to see how Blackquill and Bobby were finally going to take down the Big, Bad, Evil Phantom once and for all. How they would, against the odds, track him down and apprehend him against his will in what was bound to be an epic showdown. I was ready for that. It’s what I wanted to see. When I previously mentioned wanting – yearning for a “slightly lighter take” in my first post? That was gone now. I was ready for some pizza, at last. It’s what I had been conditioned to expect so far, so I was like, why not? I was like, heck yeah, let’s do this.

And yet, the narrative didn’t hesitate to seem to want to throw all of this out the window altogether. My expectations completely and utterly thwarted, I found myself realising I really had no idea what direction this could possibly be going in (or why my expectations had been thwarted so thoroughly like this). I well and truly had no idea what would happen next most of the time, because I couldn’t fathom where things could possibly go, and that had me hooked to reading, so eager to know what would happen next since it was such a mystery.

Rereading Chasing Phantoms as I have done for these commentary posts was helpful in truly establishing in my mind that yes, that was the same phantom, the same phantom, the same man that is present continuously within this series. That needed to be reconciled not just with regards to portrayal, but also my own misconceptions outside of that about how the story and character were constructed back then.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, so let’s start off with looking at the first few chapters.

Haunted Specters, Chapter 1

…You know, right off the bat, I know/figure this series was mostly (if not wholly) written prior to the release of SOJ, and yet. I could be wrong but it looks like all of the provided dates still seem to match up in order to make it remain fully compliant to ace attorney canon. As in, there’s nothing directly contradicting it. And if that really is the case, well that’s just pretty damn awesome all around. AA7 will surely come along in future and ruin the fun of that I’m guessing, but for the time being, you can’t tell me all of this stuff wasn’t happening in the background even as AA6 was going on. AA6 all seems to take place prior to chapter 1, anyway. God bless timeskips!

...Wait, wait, coming back to edit this much later: scrap that. Apollo’s presence throws a spanner in the works. Ah, well. We can work around that, I’m sure. I’m gonna play around with it in my mind until it fits, somehow. :P Even later edit: Oh also Gaspen.

When Simon left the office, he couldn’t quite keep the broad grin from his face, nor the light skip from his stride.

This is so cute oh gosh happy Simon!

Save it for a more appropriate time- that was what his therapist had taught him.

Oh? Oh really? Is that so? Who might that be? No one important? Oh you mean? You mean the courtroom sniper? Is that right? You mean the phantom’s future

Boyfriend?

Nah, that can’t be right. Carry on then.

Hah, don’t worry, I’m not complaining. Lang Zi says: A man who cannot keep his own affairs in order lacks the competence to be having affairs.” “… No offense, Lang-dono, but at times the suspicion dawns on me that perhaps you’re making some of these sayings up as you go.” “This coming from the man who has a thousand and one prison anecdotes to share?” Lang paused for a moment, then his voice took on a much more serious note. “Anyway, I’m not calling for idle banter.”

“Haha, yeah, good one, so anyway, there’s a good chance your boyfriend might be dead.”

Haunted Specters, Chapter 2

“No! Hold it! Mr. Butz had no reason to kill anyone!”

I WAS WONDERING IF THE DEFENDANT WAS SOMEONE WE KNEW SKNJSDNKJ

“So tell him to hold off on ordering another useless gravestone with my name on it. In fact, tell him to stop looking for me while you’re at it.”

ANOTHER- god I love how completely wack some of these characters’ lives are/have been.

“… I gave him your regards. I gave him your regards, and then some.”

Me, known phantom fangirl trash: OH GOSH IS HE OKAY???

Me, knowing full-well that Bobby would be 100% justified acting in self-defense against a known emotionless killer, therefore also with somewhat mock concern: OH BOBBY PLEASE TELL ME YOU DIDN’T HURT HIM

(Oh, but he didn’t. I needn’t have worried.)

Ah, I’ve been sitting here, wondering what I can say to this. How his assessment is completely aligned with reader expectations and further sets them up only to be subverted, how far off his guesses are… I just… “even the tiniest glimpse of him” they’re… they’re sharing an apartment… Yeah. We’ll get there. I couldn’t find an appropriate reaction image to the above block of text, really.

Haunted Specters, Chapter 3

Okay this is extremely pernickety, and I apologise, but…

And, mind you, I usually pay no attention whatsoever to these things, and it honest to goodness makes no difference at all in the end – if the narrative says it’s Tuesday, then it’s Tuesday. Simple as that. I merely looked it up out of curiosity and because I’ve annoyingly taken it upon myself to micro-analyse everything in this fanfiction series like a little pest. I also kinda figured because you are picking out the dates and actively calling attention to the day of the week, that you would have some kind of system that you are sticking to for it (and the vast majority of details added into your fic was done so meticulously). And maybe Google is off on the calculation and you got it right, heh. But yeah, I definitely paid no real mind to this at all when reading it the first time around.

But then… Even if Fulbright was now avoiding help from the people close to him, that didn’t mean there weren’t any people close to him. Similarly, the Phantom could never quite work alone.

Okay, okay. I know this is a direct lead-in to re-introducing Domestique into the mix, but… oh my gosh. You really just went right ahead and… Hm! The phantom can never quite work alone. He is working with Bobby right now, as a matter of speaking.

Also. I really like Domestique’s dialogue when he’s forced to face Simon, gosh. Just so unabashedly in-your-face, so dotted with swears, it’s kinda great, really.

I ESPECIALLY LOVE THIS LINE FROM HIM:

Because honest-to-goodness, it’s kinda funny how direct it is (and the “THAT’S TWO DIFFERENT COUNTRIES” asdgd), but also rings really true in a “this is exactly what someone like this would say in this situation” way – exactly how they’d phrase it.

…

Oh, I love. This meeting between Bobby and the phantom at the end of the chapter. It’s – aaah. Very good. With the way it’s set out, you’re somewhat kinda like, oh, huh, is it really him though? Could it really be him? But the narrative goes right ahead and keeps dropping explicit hints. It still doesn’t outright confirm it, leaving the slightest hint of plausible deniability that perhaps this is a New Character we’re being introduced to, but… :D

Haunted Specters, Chapter 4

Even the revelation that the Chief Prosecutor had helped uncover a mole who’d been hiding right by Lang’s side was a story that’d spread through hearsay only.

Second reference to the Her 👀 (yes, I’ve been paying attention to that on this readthrough).

“Coupons. Ambassador Palaeno sends me a considerable package of these things every year, yet I find no use for them. They’re redeemable only in Cohdopia itself, so I’m sure you see my problem.”

Bro. Bro you keep making vague references to characters only for them to actually become super important and plot-relevant later on. I’m blindsided every time.

Me, reading this for the first time: Haha nice reference to a minor ace attorney character, yes, Edgey would totally still receive coupons from him. I can see that. He’s totally unrelated to this story though.

Me later: THIS SUCKER WAS ALREADY BEING REFERENCED AT THE BEGINNING OF FIC 2.

The Chief Prosecutor received gifts from the Cohdopian ambassador? Honestly, everyone was intertwined in one way or the other, weren’t they?

Good work. This is very true of the ace attorney universe and it’s cool that Simon takes note of it here like this. But it’s also very true of this fic series as well, helping reiterate that fact. Oh, Simon, you don’t even know yet how intertwined everyone even is…

You set the scene so well upon Simon arriving in Cohdopia. Really depict the atmosphere and everything super well!

So then, Simon arrives at the address, and he finds… Bobby? And it’s like, wait, wasn’t that supposed to be the phantom’s address? Why’s Bobby here? Aint that hugely coincidental…? How did Bobby find… Well, he did cross paths with the phantom, so I guess he also managed to track him down to this place somehow and he just so happens to be arriving at the same time as Simon (?!) and then some other stranger that Bobby seems to know arrives and…

…

…What?!

I love how there was still plausible deniability up until the very moment Bobby says it outright. Like, the phantom’s apartment might have been abandoned years ago, and this “stranger” is completely unrelated, and took up residence there some time after it was abandoned. Yeah – a stranger that will be an important ally and help them on their quest to bring the phantom down! Right? But Bobby’s behaviour, and then he… that’s… that stranger is no stranger at all…

Simon waited, all sorts of hypotheses dawning on him, each more ludicrous than the next. As it turned out, one of the theories he’d dismissed almost immediately on grounds of being too farfetched turned out to be truth.

LITERALLY ME

Haunted Specters, Chapter 5

“I warned you, Simon. Now back away,” Bobby hissed, grabbing him by the arm to pull him away from the faux Cohdopian.

“Faux Cohdopian”… Well,

Anyway. Well. Wow. What can I even say about this chapter? Most of it’s all contained in Simon’s POV narrative itself.

First off, you have the obvious, “whoa, this is how the phantom is being formally re-introduced to the narrative? I really don’t know what I expected but it sure as hell wasn’t this.”

This chapter, this situation, the characters, are all so incredibly volatile and it plays out, it really plays out with that constant volatility.

I, kinda immediately suspected that something was off in that the fall had done some damage to the phantom’s mind in an important, meaningful way.

Bobby’s behaviour is so surreal. Just like it is to Simon. There’s so much going on, so much to process all at once.

“I think that even you, Phantom, would agree this is nothing short of folly.”  A moment of silence followed. Sam didn’t so much as blink at the question. He merely downed the pill he’d been given by draining the water in one go. “… Sam doesn’t speak English,” was all Bobby said.

Now THINGS LIKE THIS, are what made me think, well, the narrative seemed to be encouraging this viewpoint that maybe, at this point the phantom doesn’t actually remember being the phantom. Maybe he lost all his memories, and he’s just wandering around as some poor confused amnesiac who genuinely thinks he’s Sam Specter. (That doesn’t explain a couple of things, but it was only a temporary thought of mine as I read through). But this viewpoint allowed Bobby’s behaviour to make sense in my eyes. It raises a very interesting dilemma. That the phantom is still despicable and needs to be brought to justice and what have you, but how? The phantom is completely absent now, if this man has no memories of any of that. If he genuinely thinks he’s Sam Specter, an innocent civilian who has done no wrong, and for all intents and purposes is trying to live his life as such, reacts as such? Then Bobby would probably bear no ill will against “Sam Specter”. That perhaps, well and truly up until a certain point, “Sam’s” act was not an act. Or it, at the very least, was much less of an act than it would usually be. It’s… quite convincing. In which case, Bobby wouldn’t want harm to come to innocent civilian “Sam Specter”, even if he used to be the phantom. But now? Now he’s just some weak, frail man with a serious mental condition.

The attempts to affirm the personhood, to what extent there is one, of “Sam Specter” is a very interesting point of contention.

With this in mind, as Simon went after the phantom trying to get him to come out, I kind of expected it to consistently not work. That Simon would just keep pushing and pushing to be faced with that murderer once more, only for “Sam Specter” to never break character, perhaps because there is no real character to break from at that point, so caught in a delusion. For Bobby to want him to stop because at that point he’d just be needlessly harassing “Sam Specter”.

But then he does break character, so that theory kind of goes out the window.

He’d been cornered, faced with the truth and forced to drop the charade.

But. It’s still not revealed to what extent the phantom was impacted by the fall. And I kind of got the impression that the phantom was “holding onto” the act… more than usual. More than he usually would. He only broke character under duress, so there are still a whole bunch of questions raised here about just how much he was immersed and caught up in the role of Sam, exactly. Also. Yes. On a second readthrough he reacts fiercely and breaks character specifically after the asylum comment and I just – oh my GOSH.

Also: Peacekeeper Bobby…

Bobby’s gaze moved from the broken glass to Sam Specter, who was once again cradling his head with both hands. Who was rocking back and forth on the couch, muttering to himself. Obviously not listening to a word they were saying.

Oh gosh, he really… Yeah. A fall from an apartment building can certainly do that to you.

Haunted Specters, Chapter 6

What if… What if this was a mistake? What if he’d just freed a common criminal?

Well, UM.

“Oh. Oh, right. That makes sense.” A moment’s pause. “…Wait, wouldn’t I be walking backwards then, making your six my twelve?” “…” “Or uh… I’ll just turn the clock around and make my twelve six so it’ll still be right side up for you.” “… I doubt this conversation would be any different if I were having it with a young child.”

Oh my gooosh. He’s really like this huh. He’s really just Like This.

“Oh. … Well, that’s good! That nobody else is stuck here, I mean, not the… the selling.” “Stop wasting time on such trivial sentiments and prepare yourself.”

“Trivial sentiments”… I just… He’s really always Like This. Your version of the phantom is so talkative, something I noticed pretty early on, but I love it, honestly. He could have easily just ignored the statement and continued to tend to the task at hand here, not saying anything, and Bobby would have easily taken that cue and also started to focus more and not really said anything further, but oh, no, the phantom just had to throw in some kind of remark. Not replying would have conveyed the same meaning, but this guy? He’s absolutely gonna say something. He didn’t have to equate Bobby to a child either, easily could have chosen to say nothing. BUT HERE WE ARE. I love it.

Two strangers, guarding each other with their lives on the gamble they’d both make it out in one piece.

Incredible. Incredible!

“What…? Friendship?” For the first time since they’d met, the man’s voice showed more than a stoic nature. Some sort of subdued confusion. “… Wasn’t it… justice?”

THIS MOMENT IS GOLDEN. Yes, YES.

And, you know, his brain’s all muddled, he’s missing huge chunks of his memory… And he really is kind of blurting this out at this point? Like a knee-jerk reaction. He’s reaching for a – for a memory that just comes to him even if he can’t quite put it in full context, or even if he CAN, he really says this without thinking. Because even if he was suffering from this confusion, I am very certain that he would not just blurt it out like that under normal circumstances. No. This man is half out of his mind! He must know that Bobby doesn’t recognise him and he has no real reason to tip him off otherwise right now (because it could backfire very easily if Bobby freezes up or freaks out as a result!), to ask him like that... Haaah. I’m so here for really-not-all-there phantom.

Still, even through their little exchange, Sam looked blissfully lost. As if he truly didn’t understand what they were discussing about the Phantom. About him. What a pathetic little farce.

This really did have me genuinely uncertain what to think. Like, how much of “Sam Specter” is a farce? How invested was the phantom into that role? The phantom understands English perfectly, but because Sam supposedly doesn’t… Was it possible at all that selective hearing was truly at play? That the phantom gets so deep into the role that he tricks himself, his brain, into not really understanding English properly – refusing to process it? At least, that’s what I thought at the time. Bobby makes the requests for the phantom in Cohdopian, after all. He doesn’t just casually sit there and say “hey phantom, come out” in English. Switching between “Sam” and “the phantom” evidently takes… some effort for him. And mind you, I was putting all of this (selective hearing etc.) down to the results of the fall as well. I mean, if the phantom was “Sam” under normal circumstances before the fall he’d be able to understand English perfectly well, he’d just pretend he couldn’t, and also that he’d be able to switch in and out and between personas quite easily. But that the fall did things to his mind to make it all more difficult, for him to now be able to engage in this selective understanding, is what I figured.

But… maybe Simon’s right. Maybe he still really does understand everything they say, and is just faking it. He’s such a good actor that it really is hard to tell.

And maybe the simple fact is that it’s still easy for the phantom to switch between personas, it’s just difficult to switch out of them since he has so little sense of self. And maybe that’s just the way it always has been and the fall didn’t actually change that.

Sam’s personhood hinges on how “conscious” the phantom is while Sam is in place. The less the phantom is actually present (selective hearing etc), the more “Sam” is just Sam. But it’s later implied (more than once I think) that the phantom really is just, conscious while he is Sam, and that being “brought out” is not such an immense struggle as it otherwise could be. And yet, at the same time, the narrative seems to want to tilt us in favour of acknowledging Sam as a… a person, his own person. Of sorts. And… I guess it makes sense(?). During the whole of Dual Destinies, even if every action taken by “Bobby” was consciously chosen by the phantom… Those actions were all taken for a reason, all matching up to the consistent persona “Bobby Fulbright”. Both “Bobby” and the phantom would make a choice or engage in a behaviour for the most part, even if the reasoning was different at times they were united on the action itself. Sam is… kind of the same? He is the spitting image of what used to be a real human being, all of his outward actions and behaviours (are intended to) replicate that human being. By cobbling together some approximation of a real person like this, it is perhaps easier to treat them like a real person if they behave in all intents and purposes as such. Especially considering the circumstances. There’s a constant duality going on which I guess is what we’re supposed to settle on? The phantom never really goes away, he’s always there behind the scenes. But Sam’s there too, and we gotta treat him as real or things kinda just fall apart, really. There’s also much to be said for how Sam’s personhood is as much constituted to the extent that it’s acknowledged by those around him, too. We can’t just look at it on its own. It’s also something that’s made more “real” by others treating it and to an extent acknowledging it as real. Even if, in the very end, there might be nothing truly behind it.

THERE IT IS. Right off the bat, I just gotta say: the phantom is really channelling his inner Franziska. XD. Addressing characters by their FULL NAMES. I noticed it quite a bit in the sense that it is, very consistent within his speech pattern, almost making it a kind of “character trait” of a man who himself claims to have no real character. But of course – it makes it stand out all the more when switching to “Prosecutor Blackquill” instead.

”If you attempt to lay a hand on Sam Specter a second time, I will not hesitate to interfere and protect him.”

Here it is, the phantom himself almost treating Sam like a completely separate person… I… don’t think he would have taken this approach before the fall. Hmm. BUT ALSO. Here he’s also implying that he is conscious enough while behaving as Sam to be able to “not hesitate to interfere and protect him”. Hmm!

“Watch your tongue before I cut it off,” he hissed. “I would never lay a hand on Fulbright.” “… See that you don’t.”

Me: I WELL AND TRULY DO NOT UNDERSTAND AT ALL, WHAT IS GOING ON, the phantom is protective of Bobby, well and truly his brain was influenced by that fall.

Simon really is/was in the exact same boat, honestly.

Now we have the smuggling ring brought up, the March 2019 exposure referenced, another reference to how there was a mole in interpol before… And I was kind of like, “hm! You know! There’s a certain character this brings to mind, yet unfortunately they’re nowhere in sight. Kinda really sucks they’re not a character in this fic series, honestly!” Yes, such a shame, really.

”[…] That’s why we need to expose the involvement of Lex Luster […]”

Me, reading this for the first time: Wait. Lex… Le…x. Huh. That’s… for some reason, that name rings a bell. Ah – that’s right. This “Lex”, he’s quite an important character, isn’t he? From what tiny random scraps of information I’ve seen about this fic series (from years ago!)… Yes. I’m pretty sure that this “Lex” character will be showing up quite a lot going forward.

...Well, I wasn’t wrong.

[ladyloveandjustice]

The Great Ace Attorney Replay: Apollo Justice finale

I pretty much plowed through the non-Phoenix-Wright-Depression-Power-Hour and Phoenix-and-Trucy-being-cute parts of the last case without bothering to livechat it or anything, but now that I’ve finished I will collect my thoughts on it and on the game in general.

I think I definitely enjoyed it more than I did my first playthrough because I knew how “eh” the plot was going to be and just paid attention to little character moments and ignored it. Also I wasn’t tormented by the “WHERE THE FUCK ARE MAYA AND MILES” question since AA5 and AA6 mostly answered that. I could also appreciate it was a very nice game visually and the mechanics were pretty good. 

But I do have to stand by my assessment of it as being very lacking in several ways. Like, Klavier for instance, had potential to be a way better character than he was. He was pretty amusing/ridiculous and it’s novel to have the prosecutor be pretty friendly and actually constantly blatantly flirt with you, but wow, they dropped the ball SO HARD on the storyline with Kristoph for both him and Apollo. And what’s too bad is there were hints of it’s potential to be a WAY better storyline. 

Like. Klavier was the prosecutor for the trial where his own brother was convicted for murder, and also discovered that his brother manipulated him into ruining innocent people’s lives. That is a BIG deal. 

The dialogue between Kristoph and Klavier during that trial was genuinely a little unsettling at first too- Kristoph saying stuff like “sorry, it looks like my brother’s lost the ability to behave rationally” and Klavier kind of freaking out sort of gave the impression Kristoph manipulating and seemingly gaslighting his brother wasn’t a new thing- but then all that tension is completely ruined by how easily Klavier is able to get over it. There wasn’t really enough build-up to make the turnaround where he asks Apollo to prove bro guilty meaningful. We didn’t get enough of a sense of their relationship or what this meant for Klavier for it to matter.

It was the same for Apollo- there was like, a single moment where he felt kind of intimidated by Kristoph and like he was still his boss, but then it was gone with the wind. They really could have gotten something more out of the dramatics of the situation- like how the hell did Apollo end up working for Kristoph in the first place? Why did he choose his company? Why did Kristoph hire him? How did they meet? What did he think of him before all this? The game wasn’t really interested in developing Apollo to make any of this matter for him or by extension, the player. It was way more interested in what it meant for Phoenix. (AA6 cared about exploring Apollo waaaay more than this game did, so it’s so weird for me his fans still don’t feel it did him “justice”)

This also extends to Klavier and Apollo’s relationship- like they do have a pretty fun dynamic- Klavier basically hitting on Apollo 24/7 and Apollo not really noticing/mostly being kind of annoyed/intimidated and like “UGH COULD U STOP BEING SO COOL AND PRETTY” is a goldmine for funny shippy fic and I can see why fandom runs so hard with it, but the reason I could never really get into it is there’s not much beneath the surface- and there really COULD have been a lot more of an interesting story between the two of them. Apollo was present for the part of Klavier’s life where he discovered everything he did was wrong and even was the one who finally exposed that to him- that’s a HUGE thing and a similar thing happened with Miles and Nick and is a huge lynchpin for their relationship- but it was just not at all treated with that level here.

 The one single moment where they seem to connect on something deeper is Apollo going “omg he’s being consumed by darkness i’ll pull that darkness out of him” but like with all the other examples, it’s just a single moment that isn’t supported by the rest of the text. I saw no other indication that Apollo was the only one who could pull the darkness out or even that it actually was in any way a big deal for Klavier. There honestly doesn’t feel like much of a connection between them and anything that could potentially be meaningful is glossed over. 

(I could grumble a lot about how fandom seems to be willing to do the extra work for these two and fill in the holes for that characterization and doesn’t at all do the same for female characters who have as much or more going for them and are even more neglected but i’ll spare you that rant.)

 (like i see tons of post lamenting Klavier disappearing from the games and it’s hard for me to care even though i don’t dislike him, because 1. he did not, he still shows up in both of them even if one was only an au ep in 6 that’s more than other missing characters have gotten. like yeah they didn’t bother to develop him with those appearances??? but they NEVER developed him IN THE FIRST PLACE, THIS IS NOT NEW??? and 2. meanwhile Franziska and Kay have legit vanished from the games why don’t i see 20 billion posts about them. They both genuinely have unresolved character arcs that were in progress and demand a conclusion, unlike Klavier, who just didn’t really have one in the first place because he instantly got over his problems, yet somehow they’re not getting stanned and lamented in the same way)

(ok so i guess i didn’t spare you) (but god I want to see if Franziska was able to become a prosecutor free from her dad’s shadow, if she was able to stop feeling inferior to Miles! I want to see if Kay was able to find her own path and what she chose to do with her life! these were legit goals they had and were striving for!)

This game had a lot of fun parts- Ema in particular was a highlight I forgot how much I love her in this game- and it excelled in giving us stuff that’s interesting the play with if you cared to- the seven year gap where Phoenix was a depressed hobo is angst central and there’s SO much you can play with there, from the twisted relationship he seemed to have with Kristoph to adjusting to being a parent to the idea of him even pushing Miles and Maya away since that’s the only explanation for them not being there- the fact that the stuff it didn’t bother to explain is the most interesting aspect of the game and not anything to do with the title character or what we saw onscreen is kind of sad, though.

One thing on screen that was interesting about the game I would have liked to see develop more was the jurist system, especially knowing this was meant to reflect the jury system returning to Japan irl and was meant to be a commentary on that. It’s weird how that was just dropped. I know it would be a hard mechanic to incorporate, but you could do SOMETHING with it. I wish it had been built up to and explored a little more in this game proper, and also stuck around for later games. 

Anyway, yeah. Apollo Justice: full of gaping holes, but at least there’s some fun stuff to play with if you so chose. I’ll be looking forward to see how I weigh DD and Investigations against it upon replay. Investigations is next! Then DD! Then I play the Professor Layton crossover for the first time! Look forward to it! Or don’t! I don’t run yer life!

also i do love these characters so ima gonna do an apollo justice mini-spam today in honor of my finished replay.