#im simply not doing ok!

[narliee]

can you promise to tell me if it ever gets that bad again? (x)

[skrunksthatwunk]

GIRLFRIENDS POST-UHAUL (uhaul the second, i guess)

[birdricks]

i love the stars (j'adore les etoiles)

[sunkissedlouis]

😵‍💫🔥 S⭕️S⚠️

[todayisafridaynight]

journalists underestimate the magnitude of my addiction and how far i'll go for the bit

[bogkeep]

i Love grocery stores that have a little section for discounted items that will hit their expiration date soon. not only because i love the incentive to lessen food waste, but because i really struggle to come up with What specifically to make for dinner every single day and it's a great little gacha game. i will be inspired to try ingredients i haven't used much before or that are usually a little too 'spensive for my usual habits. i just think it's good

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

did you guys think id be normal about this

[kaladinkholins]

BRB thinking thoughts about Taigen's character, the TaiMizu ship, and a big chunk of fandom's perceptions regarding both those things.

(Inspired by @farintonorth's post related to this topic that just got my brain going brrrrr)

OK so let me just... start off by saying that I think that reducing stories to their tropes is seriously detrimental to the way some people are interacting with fiction, and while that honestly warrants its own post about the subject, I wanna talk specifically about how this affects the way some people in the fandom talk about Taigen and TaiMizu.

Because yeah, tropes are useful shorthand to refer to certain dynamics or archetypes etc, and they are indeed the building blocks to any story. But in a well-written story, characters and their relationships, actions, and motivations, are much more complex than just tropes. Because in a story that has characters who are more than just cardboard cutouts, their behaviours, backgrounds, motivations and all of that, are inseparable from the context of the overall story they exist in.

So like, sure, you can say Mizu and Taigen have an enemies-to-lovers or rivals-to-lovers dynamic. I also use those terms because it's easier. But I also think this is where things start to get a bit twisted, especially from an intertextual sense. Because "enemies-to-lovers" is also commonly used to refer to other ships in other media, whereby it tends to be rooted in an imbalanced power dynamic, such as oppressor-oppressed and bully-victim.

And while that's a whole can of worms that I won't be getting into because it can quickly derail into a whole separate sort of fandom discourse, I'd just like to make it clear that Mizu and Taigen, in particular, do not have an imbalanced power dynamic. They are not bully-victim or oppressor-oppressed. The only understandable reason why someone might actually think their relationship is imbalanced is if

A) they only watched the first episode, or

B) they cannot grasp the slightest bit of nuance in a character, or

C) they're being obtuse on purpose simply because the Mizu/Taigen relationship, or Taigen's character in general, just doesn't suit their tastes.

While yes, Taigen, along with his whole gang, had bullied Mizu when they were children, that dynamic does not exist between them whatsoever in adulthood. Whatever imbalanced bully-victim power dynamic that had once existed between them was decisively ripped apart the moment Mizu beat him in that duel in the dojo, and then completely obliterated by the end of the season.

Mizu is not a defenseless victim at Taigen's mercy. Mizu can beat Taigen's ass any time she wants (and she DOES, repeatedly in fact), and could even kill him if she felt like it. She taunts him openly and without fear ("I like your hair"; "I can beat you with any weapon you choose") and all he does is bark back, because that's pretty much all Taigen ever does. Time and time again, he yaps about how much he wants to kill her, but time and time again, his actions prove that all of it is just an empty threat. Because though his words say "I hate you", his actions demonstrate the complete opposite. He's shown how protective he is of Mizu, how unhesitatingly he sacrifices himself up for her, how loyal he is in enduring days-long torture to not give up information about her, how even when near-death and in pain, he's still willing to keep standing back up so he can fight by her side and help her win against her enemies.

And Mizu is not an idiot! She sees that too. She does not see him as a threat, an enemy, or even a bully. Especially not by the end of Episode 3, and definitely not by the end of the season. When she finds him in the dungeon in Episode 6, she smiles from relief, and doesn't think twice to take him with her. Mizu finds him, at best, an annoyance, or at worst, an infuriating hindrance on her quest for vengeance. Which is why, when Taigen is about to say, "It's a shame our duel's set for tomorrow; I have to kill you before you get your revenge," Mizu whacks him on the head without a second thought before he can even finish his sentence, and leaves him lying unconscious, face-down, in the snow.

And this further emphasises how he does not hold any power over her. There is no abusive power dynamic between them. She is more powerful than him, he knows this, and all he's ever done after they've met up again in adulthood is get his ass whooped by her, get mad about it and pester her and follow her around, get his ass whooped by her some more, and put his life on the line to protect her.

"OOoooOOoooH b-but he called her a demon at the end of Episode 7 and threatened to kill her again!!!" Oh my god. He called her that because he's calling her out on her selfishness to stay silent about her knowledge of Fowler's plans to attack Edo. Because to him, loyalty and honour as a samurai is more important than anything. So in his own brash-and-immature Taigen way, he felt betrayed that Mizu did not hold the same principles. That's why he got angry. He wasn't even that mad about letting Akemi get dragged off by the Tokunobu guards. It was about saving the Shogun and the Shogunate as a whole. That's why the first thing he does in Edo is not find Akemi, but try to warn the Shogun about Fowler's attack.

Look, I'm not defending his stupid ass, of course. Because calling her a demon especially after their cute little wrestling time was obviously rude and inappropriate, especially since words like "demon", "monster" and "Onryo" have had such a deep effect on Mizu throughout her life, and continue to contribute to her self-hatred. But like? That's the fun of realistic and flawed characters, and realistic and flawed relationships. They're not perfect, and it's why we as an audience root for them, wanting to see them work through their shit and find a way to prevail despite it all.

Also, him saying that was in the heat of the moment. He was angry, he felt like his initial belief of who Mizu was—a strong and loyal samurai, just like him—was shattered, and so he lashed out. Was it rude? Definitely. Was it immature of him? Yes, incredibly. But it's also very much in line with his character, because even though he's grown a lot over the course of the season, the show isn't over yet, so obviously his character arc is just beginning, as that is also the case for the other three main characters: Mizu is beginning to accept herself, Akemi is beginning to grow into her position of power, Ringo beginning to train under Master Eiji, while Taigen is beginning to simply be a better person.

On that note, when speaking of Taigen's immaturity, I think that's also one of the main things that people tend to gloss over when it comes to his character. Because when you boil everything down to its bare essentials, Taigen is, essentially, a boy. I've talked about this before, but to reiterate, Taigen very much behaves like an unhealed child. Even as an adult, he is insecure, prone to throwing tantrums, and is desperate to latch onto some material goal in hopes that it will make him feel better—initially he was chasing status/glory/greatness, and then when Mizu tells him that "Nothing comes from being a samurai but death," he immediately decides he wants to run away with Akemi in hopes that he will be happy.

And it's a big step, acknowledging that he doesn't truly want greatness, but had always just assumed it was his only path to a good life. But it's clear he still hasn't really figured it out. Because if he did run off with Akemi to get married and live in the countryside, he still wouldn't be happy. Because he still doesn't know who he really is, or what it is he really wants. Marriage at this moment is the last thing he needs, and as he is now, he would be a pretty awful husband. A simple life would be good for him, but would he be good at a simple life, when he still has so much he needs to work through?

So anyway, what I'm getting at here, is that he's trying and he is learning and growing. So yeah, he is flawed, but honestly? So is Mizu. And the funny thing is that they're flawed in very similar ways.

Because Mizu is also an unhealed child. That's why she's so angry all the time. That's why she pushes people away. That's why she, just like Taigen, is so happy when given the chance to playfully wrestle in the forge, laughing and rolling around like children without shame or pretense.

Again, this shows there is no imbalance between them. They had grown up together as peers from the same town. And while Taigen had had the upper hand back then, because he'd had a gang of other kids with him, that is definitely not the case anymore. Today, they are equally flawed, equally strong, equally skilled swordsmen, and equally bull-headed.

However, yes, Mizu is definitely leagues more mature than Taigen. But she still holds a lot of childhood wounds that mirror Taigen's own. And we see this especially in relation to her mother. Similar to Taigen who had an abusive and alcoholic father, Mizu's Mama was an opium addict and had hit her, berated her, had shaved her head without her consent as a child, and as an adult, had constantly emotionally manipulated and guilt-tripped her. Mizu's love for her Mama was what had driven her to a path of vengeance in the very beginning. And when she'd found out Mama was still alive, she had wanted nothing more than her Mama's love, and it was this alone that pushed her to agree to the marriage with Mikio in the first place. And now, knowing from Fowler that her birth mother is someone else entirely, is what makes her agree to keep him alive and haul his ass to London to seek answers.

Thus, integral to Mizu's self-hatred is also Mizu's intense longing for love and family. Just like Taigen, whose pompousness comes from his insecurity about being the son of a poor fisherman, Mizu's goals are also shaped by who her parents are. Remember, her vengeance is not against just anyone who's corrupt or evil, but specifically against the men who she believes had assaulted her mother, the men she believes had made her a monster, the men she believes had abandoned her to die and continue to try to kill her. Her vengeance is against a father, on behalf of a mother. In The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride, Mizu is not merely the Ronin, the Bride, or the Onryo, but also the Child.

This is also why Ringo is so good, not only for Mizu, but for Taigen as well. Ringo is wise and caring and considerate, but above all, he is in tune with his inner child in ways that Mizu and Taigen are not. He is always earnest and positive, he sees the world with childlike wonder, but is not naive or blind to its ugliness. His whole life has been a battle. Ringo brings out the best in Mizu, consistently acting as her moral compass and conscience, and Mizu's choice to save Akemi in the final episode is only because she promised Ringo that she would. Because it's the right thing to do. Ringo inspires her to be a better person, and to think outside of her narrow-minded goal of revenge. At the same time, Ringo also brings out the best in Taigen. While at first Taigen had looked down on both Mizu and Ringo ("Half-limb to a half-wit"), by the end of the season, he's proud to have Ringo as a friend and ally, he listens to Ringo's advice ("What would Master do?"), and asserts to the fucking Shogun that Ringo is a worthy warrior to have by his side.

Okay, I've gone on a bit of a tangent here, but my main point is that Mizu and Taigen are incredibly similar. They are equals. They are both flawed, unhealed children who are chasing some impossible outlandish goal in hopes that it will fill the void in their hearts. They also both have a long way to go in terms of character development if they were to ever build a healthy romantic relationship (either with each other, or even with anyone else). So while I believe things will be rocky (because duh, it's a story, we all live for the drama, etc), I think with Ringo's help, they'll get there eventually.

[trainingdummyrabbit]

theres something about the temporary nature of death and general impermanence in the pmoonverse thats driving me fucking crazy but i dont know if i have the mind to dissect it

like... in lobcorp, death just happens. its background noise. its sad, sure, but you get used to it. you dont really get anything from caring about it other than being a little sadder than usual. if your favorite guy dies, you can just try the day again. and repeat, over and over, until you get what you want this time. its easy to fuck up, but its easy to fix, if you have the mind for it. textually, nobody Really dies there, though; given the records team's deal. everyone is always recorded, retrieved, removed at a whims notice. if you miss someone, you can put them back. or not. it doesnt really matter. its a face to a function, mostly.

and similar goes for ruina-- though theres less of an ability to truly "lose" someone. the library holds tight to those in its wings, as anyone can simply be put back together if something were to happen to them. and if things dont go right, you can simply try again. and again, and again, and again; you have all the time in the world, really, and the patience to wait for them to inevitably come back. decay doesnt really exist in a place like that, does it? even those that became books were simply put back somewhere-- Somewhere, but as they were. the library appears and then disappears just as quickly; leaving a mark intangible, not unlike a dream, but a mark nonetheless.

and with limbus, turning back the clock is the entire name of the game. you can fuck up however you want to, react however you want to, and well. if you die, dante will just put you back. easy peasy. theres caveats this time, but more or less, death is pretty much just a smack on the wrist at this point. a little more than that for dante, but well, theyre fine, so. whatever, right? of course. i cant speak for them as much as i can the others, but its very much there. look at it, its on the ceiling, and all.

and like, its. well its obvious from a gameplay standpoint, it makes the whole thing Work. but due to the diegetic nature of the whole thing, it weaves a strange sort of sensation. doesnt matter what happened, doesnt matter what mark it leaves-- youre fine. get up. again. especially with the framing character-- dante is the only one who kinda has to deal with the direct fallout of these actions (though, the narrative seems to stop looking at it after a point, which is understandable, but also still paints a picture.) x and angela mostly tend to overlook the whole process, directing rather than personally experiencing the whole thing.

idunno. these concies sure dont quence, or something

[dizzybevvie]

just whiteboard boys doing what whiteboard boys do....

[theriverdraws]

Asriel & Toriel | Chara & Asgore

So, we all know the Dreemurr family loved each other very much.

However, parents and kids can have favorites, and I believe that Asriel and Toriel / Chara and Asgore were specially close. 

Here’s proof for each duo (that I got from memory):

Asriel & Toriel:

- Asriel/Flowey, even after trying really hard and failing every time, really believed that being with TORIEL would make him feel love again, feel like himself again. And I think that says a lot.

To be honest while I searched through screenshots, Toriel seems to love her children pretty equally (she is THE goat mom so I get it). But Asriel definitely seems to have been closer to her than his father (not that he doesn’t love him as well of course).

- Toriel obviously still misses Asriel deeply, and has a lot of regrets. She is a bit too drunk in this scene but I like to think she managed to recognize Asriel in flowey somewhat. But that’s more like self indulgence on my part.

-  Asriel/Flowey still loves Toriel very much. Even before Frisk fell into the underground and he still had his view of “kill or be killed” - he still was empathetic enough to give her a glass of water everytime she passed out. So he cares, always have, just doesnt want to admit it. 

(I would also mention how Flowey still hanged around in the ruins all the time. Some would say he was just waiting for humans to fall down or something, but I say he just liked to be around Toriel and I will die on this hill).

- I always found it interesting how Asriel hesitates before saying Toriel’s name here. Of course, he didn’t mention Asgore because Frisk didn’t spend that much time with him but considering previous proof, I’d like to include this here anyway.

Annnnd that’s all I could find (from memory) for them! Feel free to add to this!

Chara & Asgore:

Surprisingly for me, I found a lot! Really thought it was gonna be the other way around here.

- They both seem to have a great love for flowers and gardening! They probably bonded a lot through it.

- Asgore specifically recalling the “feeling of hope” in Chara’s eyes. I thought it was sweet :)!

- It’s heavily implied that Chara was the one that made the sweater. Asriel could have helped, but considering that in the No-Mercy run, Chara doesn’t have a special comment towards the macaroni art that was also made for Asgore - you could safely assume that Asriel made the macaroni art and Chara made the sweater. It was also probably very big and a lot of work, Asgore is a very big monster after all.

- Flowey being extremely sure that Asgore would show the souls to Chara, even after not showing it to Asriel (since that was probably one of the ways Flowey tried to get to them). You can argue it would be because Chara/Frisk would be the last human and Asgore would show it when fighting them..but it doesn’t really fit with the way Flowey says it I think, it was very specifically Chara.

- Chara and Asgore shared love for tea... and how Asgore’s favorite tea is the golden flower tea. Since golden flowers only bloomed in the underground after Asriel and Chara died, and it was Chara’s favorite flower, They probably told Asgore about how you can make tea with them and reccomended it to him. I wish they could have enjoyed it together.

- And also how Chara’s favorite flower is literally everywhere in new home.

Aaaand that’s it from them as well! Feel free to add more if you find it also!

Now that you have seen the ultimate proof for both cases, do you see it nowdo you see thevdo you see the vision--

[creekfiend]

look not to be a Jew about this but actually I do not like this at all and I feel pretty strongly that it is buying into some truly weird shit about Judaism, Yom Kippur, cultural ideas of sin & repentance, and also missing some big things about the inherent and unexamined cultural Christian-ness of this genre of gothic horror to begin with

as Kuzu said: "Heine would be appropriate for the 19th century gothic mood PRECISELY BECAUSE he lived in such an antisemitic artistic context that he converted to LUTHERANISM" lol

tbh it's giving Tracate Middoth vibes which is never a good thing

my view: Literally the ONLY possible way this could work without being an antisemitic film would be if it was about some hapless Jew who somehow wandered into a world where his own religious practices for some reason keep getting transformed into shit that reflects Christian understandings of sin and repentance and he keeps trying to be normal about making amends and reflecting on having wronged people but everything keeps getting warped and twisted into This Bullshit and he's like BRO I AM. I AM LITERALLY JUST TRYING TO DROP MY PEBBLES IN THE RIVER WHY IS EVERYTHING BLEEDING

this would of course be a horror comedy though.

[lorillee]

alright everybody. its finally time for my ace attorney investigations 2 retrospective/excuse to talk about the von karma-edgeworth family soap opera for a few thousand words. ive never been good at intro paragraphs so we're just gonna get right into it. this is gonna get long probably so be warned - i was originally going to put it under a cut but unfortunately doing that breaks the image format for some reason so uhhhh we're both just gonna have to live with it 😔 obviously this post is going to have major unmarked spoilers so if you havent played this game for some reason yet you should definitely get on that. anyways. without further ado:

investigations 2 is kind of ultimately about who edgeworth was and who edgeworth is and who edgeworth wants to be, explored via the lens of the nature of parent-child relationships and how parents' legacies impact the decisions their children make and the people they become.

at the end of aa1 (+rfta), edgeworth is confronted with the harsh reality that his mentor/adopted father & the man who taught him everything he knows about prosecuting is 1) a terrible person and 2) did actually have a habit of using forged evidence to keep his 40 year streak going. after being accused of corruption for having used fake evidence himself (unknowingly, but still), edgeworth goes on his whole journey of "what does being a prosecutor even mean, anyways" by means of worlds most melodramatic fake suicide. the answer he ends up arriving at is that defense lawyers and prosecutors, when they have relatively upstanding morals and are given the tools to actually do their jobs, serve as vehicles for the truth, and cannot reliably fulfill this duty without each other. however, the question has always kind of lingered - "well, what about being a defense attorney like gregory?"

phoenix routinely brings up the class trial as like the most formative memory of his own childhood - that experience is inherently tied to who phoenix is as a person - but that trial literally only exists because edgeworth was imitating his father in being a defense attorney. the main character of the main series' inspiration for becoming a defense attorney is intrinsically tied to "back when edgeworth was "good", before manfred "corrupted" him". its because edgeworth becomes a corrupt prosecutor that phoenix chases after him into law school - this apparent complete and entire betrayal of phoenix's whole understanding of him as a person.

so then, now that edgeworth is "good" again, why doesnt he quit the whole prosecutor thing and go back to his childhood dream of becoming like his father?

this question is kind of just left up in the air until investigations 2. with the prosecutor investigation committee being completely corrupted, they make it abundantly clear they dont appreciate edgeworth sticking out of line in an attempt to do his literal job, and try to control him by threatening to take away his badge. furthermore, shields, gregory's old companion, shows back up and works with edgeworth to find the the truth of a handful of incidents that would've otherwise been covered up by the p.i.c. - including gregory's last case, in which he proved that manfred, who prosecuted that same case, did indeed forge evidence.

after relinquishing his badge in a protest against what is clearly an injustice, manfred's old habits being dredged back up, and the extended hand of the man in charge of his father's old law firm, edgeworth is getting pulled in a number of different directions - will he capitulate, give up on prosecuting entirely, run away from his past, and become a defender of the people and an attorney like his father? or will he reject manfred's terrible methods while working to rectify his mentor/adopted father's wrongdoings, face his past head-on, and seek the truth as a prosecutor, regardless of his mentor's legacy and reputation?

both of the paths offered to edgeworth hinge on who he used to be - a boy who wanted nothing more than to be like his father, a phenomenal defense attorney who stood up for those who had nobody to stand up for them, and a young adult who saw the injustice in the world and wanted to punish it in the best way he could think of - becoming like his adopted father who never failed to put a (seemingly) guilty person behind bars.

investigations 2 gives us..... a whole slew of parent-child relationships. like what can only be described as truly an impressive amount: gregory & miles & manfred, master & katherine, sebastian & debeste, gustavia & simon, dover & knightley, blaise & sebastian, courtney & john, lang's dad & lang, and more tangentially manfred & franziska and byrne & kay. for our purposes, though, we're going to focus on the most immediately relevant ones to edgeworth's development specifically - sebastian & blaise and gustavia & simon.

for starters, i think it would probably be best to get the von karma-edgeworth family soap opera soapboxing out of the way.

edgeworth's arc in this game primarily revolves around what he wants to do with his life - he talks a whole lot about his "path", but doesnt really know what that means outside of seeking the truth at all costs. the people around him like to slot him into either "defense attorney" or "prosecutor" for a variety of reasons, but more often than not it ends up boiling down to his fathers in at least some capacity.

franziska is personally betrayed and frankly disgusted by edgeworth giving up his badge (which makes plenty of sense, particularly after their conversation at the end of aa2 and which i have talked about here), and a notable portion of that does have to do with her & manfred's relationship to edgeworth. manfred's influence was a huge factor in miles' decision to become a prosecutor, and they both know it. of course, the more pressing issue for her is the fact that miles is abandoning her again - but the point remains that had it not been for manfred, the likelihood of miles becoming a prosecutor would be, frankly, much lower.

shields, on the other hand, spends a whole lot of the game projecting gregory onto miles. he wants edgeworth to follow in his fathers footsteps and play the role of the returning prodigal son, because he misses gregory and sees a lot of his influence and mannerisms in miles. actually, something i kind of found particularly interesting is that at one point, shields remarks that edgeworth's trademark glare was the same as that of gregory's. theres a whole lot of remarks made on that glare, actually, particularly in combination with edgeworths furrowed brow.

but... shields himself is the one who says this

about - would you guess it - a certain manfred von karma. its no secret that miles has picked up a whole number of manfred's mannerisms and attitudes, even as he's unlearning some of the more harmful ones, but what i found particularly fascinating is that shields saw something that miles picked up from manfred and saw gregory in it instead. while part of it certainly could be that miles did pick part of it up from gregory (which is something that has a basis in the sprites - something i may actually get into a little bit later), its also very possible that this is shields projecting what he wants to see onto miles as opposed to what's actually there. its even more interesting though, because when they first meet, shields actually mistakes edgeworth for manfred because of that glare

shields is so caught up in wanting gregory back from the dead that he occasionally blinds himself from acknowledging that miles is an entirely different person.

and, of course, throughout both this game and the previous investigations game, there's more than a few moments in which edgeworth personally accused of using falsified evidence to convict people - specifically harkening back to our good friend manfred von karma, posterchild of world's most corrupt prosecutors and edgeworth's adopted father/mentor. shields even expresses immense distrust of miles at first simply on this fact, acknowledging that miles was indeed like a son to manfred (..... for whatever that's worth)

actually. while we're here on this point i want to speak briefly about sprite similarities

this game does a whole lot of calling attention to the influence manfred & gregory have had on miles - obviously theres the furrowed brow & piercing gaze and terrible people skills that miles got from manfred, but he also has gregory's affinity for tea and dorky camera face. the sprites also do a great job in visually establishing his inherited mannerisms though - while manfred's influence has done a lot, gregory's habits still peek through the cracks.

ive talked about this a little bit on another post, but i feel like it warrants repeating here anyways. the sprite animations in ace attorney are great for a lot of reasons, but one of the most interesting ones is how they're frequently used to imply connections between characters and the influence of certain relationships.

we know that miles definitely did not get his bowing from manfred, but with gregory's sprites in this game it becomes abundantly clear where they originated from (of course, with the over-the-top melodrama of the von karmas added on top). similarly with miles' hand bounding sprite, its a pointed finger (giving it an accusatory tint, definitely coming from manfred), while gregory's is an open hand (much more inviting), but the bounce nonetheless remains. the sprite similarities between miles & manfred are a bit more straightforward, but something i find tremendously interesting is how the mannerisms miles picked up from his father have the von karma influence absorbed into them - it really is a brilliant visual indicator of the impact both his fathers have had on his character.

i've talked about this general topic semi-extensively on this blog simply because i am truly a bit obsessed with the von karma-edgeworth family soap opera, but i feel like it warrants repeating here anyways since it comes up in this came so often. miles' relationship with gregory is... honestly not really explored terribly much? like shields will reference him a lot and both him and the game itself absolutely loves comparing the two, but as far as edgeworth's personal feelings on gregory go... we. honestly don't get much, either directly or indirectly. which makes sense, obviously - edgeworth was like 9 when he died - but its still interesting. we obviously know that gregory loved edgeworth a lot (see: him thinking about miles periodically throughout the investigation . which is. for the record. absolutely adorable)

but miles doesn't get much of anything at all in terms of internal or external dialogue about gregory. his relationship with manfred, however, is... a lot more messy, but also explored a fair bit through implications.

mr von karma gets brought up a lot in both investigations 1 & 2, and miles' reaction is largely the same - he'll comment on objective facts (usually ones that were brought up in the first by the people around him) whether its manfred's skill in prosecuting or his tendency towards forgery, but blatantly refuses to ever give any sort of subjective opinion on him (franziska is, for the record, the exact same way). theyll dance around the topic, sure, but never genuinely engage with it - as much can be seen if you make edgeworth present his badge to amano in investigations 1.

while franziska's feelings on her father are a lot more obscured, miles' are a little more openly messy - after all, he still keeps his prosecutors badge in his pocket all these years after manfred told him prosecutors who wore their badges are tacky. he still wears the jabot, an integral and iconic bit of manfreds attire (and another thing that made shields briefly think he was manfred). he still has no problem connecting with and helping manfred's old friends (amano, for example). and, mostly damning of all, he still keeps his old prosecutors outfit - the outfit manfred gave him based off of his own suit - plastered to his office wall. its clear that he doesnt approve of manfred's methods of prosecution and recognizes that he was definitely corrupt, but even with all the murder and framing and so on and so forth... manfred was still his dad. even if its not logical for miles to still hold on to that filial love, you cant really argue your emotions into changing into something rational.

with the repeated importance being placed on the influence of gregory and manfred on miles' life, their relationship to him, and other people's expectations for miles based on their legacies established, i think we can probably try to get into sebastian now. gonna be copy-pasting most of my sebastian vs miles & franziska mini-essay here because i dont want to retype it.

sebastian is actually a kind of interesting foil for franziska and miles - its pretty clear that franziska didnt become a prosecutor specifically for manfreds approval (see: miles’ comment on her always having been a prosecutor) and likewise with edgeworth (see: his statement on his motivation for becoming a prosecutor having been to chase down criminals after what happened to gregory), but throughout the flashback case in investigations 1 it is so obvious that both of them desperately crave manfred’s approval even to the point of competing over it.

while this competition follows the usual format of franziska insisting on something and miles passively going along with it as opposed to actively engaging, he spends the entire case literally trying to be a mini-manfred (its very sad and also kind of cute), and its made pretty clear that at the very least he would not be the prosecutor he is without manfred’s influence. furthermore, at the end of aa2, franziska also comments on the pressures and expectations being placed on her by virtue of being manfred’s daughter - she felt that she was obligated to become a genius prosecutor simply because of her birth. while the wording indicated to me outside pressure rather than manfred specifically, the point remains that manfred, while not the sole driving reason, did have a significant impact on their career choice.

sebastian, however, specifically says he became a prosecutor for the purpose of getting his dad's approval. blaise routinely speaks ill of sebastian, calling him stupid and an idiot and embarrassing and so on and so forth, but its incredibly clear that sebastian is genuinely desperate for any sort of positive affirmation from his father. he unknowingly cheated his way through law school, graduating at the top of his class purely through blaise's connections, and is genuinely distraught when he finds out that everything he built his adult life on was a lie. the game spends a fair amount of time showing you how wildly terrible sebastian is at being a prosecutor, only to reveal that the reason he's like this is, like, 80% his dad's fault.

unlike sebastian, however, franziska and miles are both quite competent at their jobs and manfred, unlike blaise, actually has confidence in their ability to perform to his expectations (see: him bullying badd into letting them try to solve the case in the investigations 1 flashback case). sebastian & blaise are like a worse and caricatured version of the von karma family soap - basically, they're what would happen if miles & franziska 1) were absolutely dependent on manfreds approval and 2) weren't terribly good at prosecuting, and if manfred was 1) prone to coddling and 2) actively verbally abusive.

theres also the added parallel of “oops! my dad actually really sucks as a person” and the ensuing Complicated Feelings On Dad after this. franziska expresses an egregious amount of disdain for sebastian before we really get into the blaise debacle because she doesnt respect him as a person at all, but is honestly surprisingly sympathetic when it turns out his dad is a criminal. futhermore, she willingly relinquishes her place at the prosecutor's bench for him when its clear he's ready to stand up to blaise, even if hes crying and sobbing the whole way through. its this shared experience and his subsequent growing of a spine that earns her respect.

edgeworth, for his part, also doesnt seem to respect sebastian much at all before the kidnapping incident. however, upon trying to prod him into telling what happened, edgeworth recognizes a part of his old self in sebastian, as well as sebastians willingness to grow up and move past his desperation for his father's approval.

more than just being a funhouse mirror version of the von karmas, blaise and sebastians relationship highlights the dangers of blindly chasing after your parents, critical thinking long forgotten, which has a twofold meaning in regards to miles. obviously, theres the pretty straightforward parallel to his blatant idolization of manfred as a young prosecutor - while the situation wasnt necessarily the same, it still possesses those echoes of a desperate need for acknowledgement/approval, to the point of following their fathers' examples even in the worst ways. @/pkducklett left some really great tags on one of my posts which hits the nail on the head:

but it also begs the question: is blindly chasing after his childhood dream of being like gregory really what miles wants to do with his life? a point we'll loop back around to in a bit, but important to keep in mind for edgeworth's overall arc.

so onto simon & gustavia! simon's relationship with his murderous father gustavia also serves as a foil to miles and one of his dads like sebastian & blaise - however, instead of our notoriously trigger happy friend manfred von karma, it's actually.... gregory! which is, for the record, tremendously fun. simon & miles both became orphans at a young age - which is a notable part of the reason edgeworth agrees to take his case in the jail episode, even. the camaraderie between two people who have shared in the same traumatizing experience and so on and so forth - but instead of being taken from his son like gregory was, gustavia purposely abandons simon once he's deemed him worthless.

post-orphaning, both miles & sebastian are taken under the wing of men of questionable character - miles is adopted by manfred von karma, gregory's rival, murderer, and the anti-thesis of everything he stood for, and sebastian becomes the apprentice to dogen, a ruthless assassin. interestingly enough, though, this parallel diverges in the end - manfred throws miles under the bus and backs up over him like three separate times, metaphorically speaking, while dogen actively puts his life on the line to save sebastian.

miles & simon both experienced the injustice of the law system - miles in the absolute failure of the courts to find his father's true murderer, and simon in his personal experience in its utter corruption. their reactions to this injustice leads them both to commit further injustices - miles in uncritically adopting manfred's ideals and teachings, and in this process definitely sending innocent people to jail at some point or another, and simon in his attempt at semi-vigilante justice via manipulating all the people who ruined his life into either ending or ruining each others', regardless of anybody innocent who got caught in the crossfire.

of course, the narrative purpose of making simon a foil to miles is the final confrontation on three main points - 1) what does miles fight for? why is he a prosecutor? 2) how do you deal with the absolutely rotten law system in japanifornia? 3) are we simply doomed to become our parents, or can we become more than just their continued legacies? which naturally leads us to the final question posed in the thesis - the heart of the game - who does miles want to be?

shields spends a lot of time trying to convince miles to pick up gregory's mantle and join him back at the law offices, but the problem is that miles simply isn't the starry-eyed child who would do anything to be like his father anymore (growing up under the roof of one of the greatest prosecutors of one's time will do that to you). he's no longer the sebastian to blaise for either of his fathers - he cannot simply throw everything he's learned and experienced away in an attempt to imitate gregory, but also has soundly rejected many of manfred's most staunchly held ideals. while not all of them remain, a major part of the reasons he became a prosecutor still hold - even as he's abandoned his badge.

simon was what edgeworth could have become under slightly different circumstances, and he says as much himself. he recognizes that the law isn't perfect and more often than not is wildly abused by everybody in power to subject everybody else to their whims - and that, no matter how hard a defense attorney tries.... if the courts are inherently stacked against them, a corrupt prosecutor will inevitably win. at the end of aa2, edgeworth returns from his wildly melodramatic sabbatical with the answer that the prosecution and the defense need to work hand in hand to reveal the truth - which is, obviously, a correct statement - but there's more to it than that.

there's more than just the defendant at stake in trial - the protection of the victims (whether recognized as the victim by the law or not) are why the laws exist in the first place - this is the reason that edgeworth arrives at for his reason for being a prosecutor. its simon who reminds him of why he started down this path in the first place - the visceral pain edgeworth felt at his father's death and the desire for justice to be done for gregory and himself mirroring simon's feelings after being abandoned by his father and his flight after being the witness to a crime wildly corrupt people in power committed. to be what phoenix was for him in turnabout goodbyes - to be a beacon of hope and justice for the wronged - that is miles' duty.

edgeworth speaks a lot about following "his path" to truth, wherever that might lead, but at the beginning of the game doesnt seem to have a clear idea of what he actually wants to do. he stalls out on shields' many wink wink nudge nudge offers to join the defense attorney firm and be like his dad and continues acting like a prosecutor (indicting people, investigating, the likes) even while being stripped of his authority as one (by his own choice!).

ultimately it all boils back down to these three questions miles asks sebastian in the logic chess game post kidnapping - "what are you going to do now? will you walk the same path as your father? will you continue to be a prosecutor?"

much, much earlier in the game, shields says to edgeworth, "to fight crime as a prosecutor, or to save people as a defense attorney. i want you to think carefully about how you want to live your life from now on." - which, taken with the context of the game as an essay on parents and inheritance and manfred & gregory's influence on miles, is... pretty much the game in a nutshell, actually.

miles spends the entire time playing both defense attorney and prosecutor, indicting certain people and defending others throughout. this is arguably most notable in the flashback/flashforward case where all the members of the original is-7 investigation are there, except for manfred and gregory, who are both being stood in for by - would you guess it - our very own miles edgeworth. he is their legacy, their successor, and their inheritor. in the end, he takes the skills they taught him and the values they imbued him with and the lessons he learned from them to forge his own path - it really is just his final answer to shields' question in the finale of the game: "i want to save people as a prosecutor."

[azaracyy]

one of my finished ych commissions. other finished artwork can be found here. the tailmon is based on the twitter meme / trend of tailmon with pikachu build

[adhdandcomics]

adding to my tags because i’ve been thinkin a lot about the post i just reblogged and have more thoughts:

i’ll be real, the more i saw ‘hey adhd influencers are so annoying’ the more i worried that i was unconsciously contributing to the spreading reputation of adhd folks as annoying and over-pathologizing every symptom they experience

and then i realized. i am not a goddam influencer or life coach or representative. obviously i have some obligation as someone who cares about myself and the people that like my comics to not spread harmful ideology or blatant misinformation but i never intended myself to be a “’increase your productivity!!’ blog OR a ‘if you have XYZ you have adhd!’ blog. and i do this for fun, and originally started this blog bc i had a lot of internalized shame and self loathing about my adhd and thought if i could make it funny i might have less of that. let’s get real! and it worked!

i’ve obviously done this kind of thing— (hey these symptoms might be adhd!) a lot before in my life & on this blog, but there’s more to it than trying to be an “influencer” or whatever. a term that didn’t even exist when i started this blog!

i felt very isolated trying to find out if i had any mental problems & what have you originally because of large advice (etc) blogs with staunchly anti self Dx views at the time

so i overcorrected when i DID get dxed and tried to validate everyone who was like me. and of course. not the best course of action always for the ol mental health. tried to be the source of positivity and jokes that i didn’t see because the online adhd presence was near non-existent.

and anyway. i make a lot of fun of myself & the way m brain works in my comics obviously but it is not my obligation to... how do you say.... not be annoying online.

because if folks interpret MY little jokes as a strict guide to diagnosis. that’s on them, really, not me. i also believe “making adhd your entire personality” is a non-issue. so what if people find out they have it and get over excited with identifying as adhd. saying this as someone who DID do it. criticism of this gives the same vibes as people being annoyed that young queers make “being queer” their whole personality. im very obviously more than a guy with adhd, and id reckon other adhd comic artists are too. (im friends with a lot of them!) it’s fine to post about it online.

anyway. i just don’t take myself too seriously and i’m a comic artist for myself first! and you know what, i’ve been considered annoying my entire life. what do i care if a few more folks think i’m annoying. neurotypical or not

[hellishboots]

Gender iz a buffet and im sampling everything on the menu. Fuck staying in the 'right line,' we r commiting gender gluttony 2night boiz