#so i think it would have had to been before jfa or during jfa if at all which is why i said would've been nice

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

We won't ever get it, but I think it would've been cool to see an antagonist/client who hates Edgeworth specifically because of what he did as von Karma's student. Like someone whose loved one -- I want to say 'sister' because AA, but I think it'd be pretty cool if it was their father -- was wrongly convicted and given the death sentence because he silenced witnesses or presented faulty evidence or something similar, and there's no fix to it. The case ends with the truth being revealed and ringing hollow, because they don't want revenge, not really; maybe they just want the verdict overturned, but even that doesn't change anything, because the person is gone, and whatever damage could have been done has been done, and they just have to live with it, all of them. I think it'd be interesting to see how Edgeworth and the people around him handle that confrontation -- the idea that you can change and try to fix your mistakes the best you can, but there are some things you'll never be able to atone for. Not really. And you just have to keep living.

[ryotan]

Sae Itoshi x gn!reader x Rin Itoshi ; cw: suggestive ★°~

You played with the hem of your shirt nervously as cold turquoise eyes stared at you condescendingly, it was suffocating and you wanted to run away. That was the weight of the mere gaze of the genius footballer, Sae Itoshi.

~•°★°•★•°~

Your uncle, Ego Jinpachi, an excentric weirdo like no other had decided to make you the manager of Blue Lock Eleven, a team with the purpose of beating the Japan U-20 team and proving to the JFA that Project Blue Lock was a succes.

You've always been close to your uncle, due to your passion for football. Even if his football carrer ended after that accident, he still was the player you looked up to the most and the man who started your obsession for the sport. Despite that, you weren't kin on getting involved with that "Blue Lock Project" of his. Even if he's the one who thought you football and you partially shared his view about egotism, football was a team sport and you couldn't agree with the premise of the training camp.

That's why you rejected his suggestion, that and the fact that there was no need for a manager for a team who would only play one match. Ego, however, was insistent. He claimed that this match would be critical for the future of Blue Lock and that he wanted your input into making the best team possible with the 35 players who made it so far. Ultimately, you gave in.

And to be fair, you didn't regret it. Within the 3 weeks of training for the U-20 match, most of the boys grew on you. In fact, you could even say you were on friendly terms with some.

However, the one you were the most fond of was Itoshi Rin. He probably was the only one who didn't even bother remembering your name, but still you admired his work ethic and zeal for football. Besides, as embarrassed as you were to admit it, his looks were breath-taking. His tall, muscular build was attractive, but nothing out of the ordinary at a football training facility like Blue Lock. What really pulled you in were his eyes.

That ocean hue that sometimes shimmered with something dark, animalistic, almost as if a beast was let loose, made you shiver. Not because that frigid gaze scared you. If anything it was the opposite, you loved it, how cold it was.

~•°★°•★•°~

And that's why when you first met the older Itoshi at the end of the U-20 match, you were completely mesmerized by his stone-cold turquoise eyes. That's why you dumbly asked him for some of his time if he was planning on staying on Japan for a bit more. To talk about football, of course.

He was about to reject your request, when Shidou and Rin approached you.

"Hey, genius, you still didn't give me your number! But to think you would be chatting with the little mouse, maybe you two are up for a threesome~?" Shidou grinned wildly. You were appalled, but not surprised. The striker loved to tease you and had apparently taken a liking to the genius midfielder as well judging by his easy to misinterpret words on the field.

However, you were worried about Rin's reaction. He told you, just a day before the match, about how his main goal was to crush his brother. Besides, considering his state during the end of the game, their relationship was clearly worse than you thought. And yet, despite finally being able to make some progress in befriending Rin whom you like, you went and asked Sae to hang out. Just because he had the same eyes.

Rin said nothing, he only scowled.

And then, unexpectedly, he put an arm around your shoulder, pulling you towards him. You could guess you were as red as a tomato, but you didn't care. You only wanted to savour the moment, the chances of being this close to Rin again were slim, after all. But, sadly, you were snapped out of your blissful state by Sae's voice.

"I'll be going back to Europe tomorrow in the afternoon, so I have time to entertain you."

You blinked once, twice. Was this for real? You must be hallucinating, right? There was no way someone ordinary like you could get this much attention from the unreachable Itoshi siblings. And yet, here you were.

You looked at Sae and then back at Rin, they were both glaring at each other with pure unfiltered disgust. And then you had a moment of lucidity. The attention accorded to you was merely the product of their conflict. Rin would see it as another lost battle if you were to look at Sae the same way you look at him. And Sae simply wanted to beat his younger brother.

But it didn't matter. A pro-footballer is not someone you'd want to pursue a relationship with, a partner with such career would be far apart from you for periods of time that were way too long.

Therefore, since you'll likely never see those eyes that you loved so much anymore after today, might as well go with Sae.

~•°★°•★•°~

And yet, it wasn't the last day you had the chance to get lost in those icy eyes.

5 years had passed, Rin moved to France to play as a forward for PGX. And you decided to move in with him so Sae could visit you more often.

Your relationship with the Itoshi brothers was ... complicated. Rin was just your friend and Sae was just your friend's brother whom you saw once in a blue moon. Yet, Rin always touched you in ways that made you seem more than just friends. A gentle caress to your cheek that felt too intimate, a light kiss to the corner of your mouth, a hand resting on your thigh and then moving higher, fingers stroking places they shouldn't.

And maybe this wasn't just carnal, maybe he really liked you, maybe you should feel guilty about the way your mouth melted into Sae's whenever he stopped by your apartment, guilty about what you let him do to you in Rin's apartment when the latter hated his brother so much. But you couldn't help it.

Ever since that day, after the U-20 match, you became addicted to Sae Itoshi. You couldn't explain why though.

The "date" you had was awkward and for the first time, you felt intimidated by the characteristic icy eyes of the Itoshi brothers. Rin's stare had something brutal about it, but still you could find some resemblance of warmth in it. Sae's gaze, though, was devoid of anything warm.

You remembered how you played with the hem of your shirt, flustered, as he stared at you coldly. The horrible feeling of nausea that took over you whenever you'd make eye contact. He made you feel as though you'll never amount to anything in your life just by looking into your eyes. And yet, there was something enchanting about that awful sensation.

~•°★°•★•°~

Simply put, Sae was like a drug. You knew he wasn't good for you, but you couldn't give up on him. You barely met and everytime you did, he made you feel like shit. And yet, he also made you feel better than anyone else ever could, than Rin ever could. His skills surely weren't world-class only when it came to football.

The thin line between misery and ecstasy, that's what you've learned from the older Itoshi and what made you come back to him again and again like a fool.

[cabbagedkappa]

To my fellow Ace Attorney fans out there, I have a really, really important question. This is kind of lengthy, so buckle up- I tried to keep it as brief as possible. This is about Bridge to a Turnabout (Trials and Tribulations chapter 5), so please don't look if you haven't finished the entire case and don't want spoilers. If you know someone who has, do me a favor and share this with them.

Have you guys ever sat and thought about how Godot is entirely responsible for the events of that case, going back a year in advance? And I mean ENTIRELY. Quick recap, just in case- I need you to think back to Reunion and Turnabout from Justice For All (chapter 2). Morgan Fey was arrested for being an accomplice to murder.

We find out in T&T-5 that, during a visitation period shortly after JFA-2, Pearl told her about the special reservations she had placed a year in advance. Morgan took this information, knowing Dahlia would have been executed by then and that Maya would be in a compromising position at Hazakura Temple, and wrote Pearl the letter detailing her murder plot. Of course, Pearl can't understand the letter at all, so the plan goes off the rails very quickly.

But I feel like not a lot of people remember that the letter was given to Pearl sealed. It's probably a little easy to miss- Pearl mentions that she had stashed it away when she got home, but when she came back to read it later, she was surprised to see that the seal was broken.

Godot had overheard the plans and gone to Kurain Village to inspect the letter himself. Sometime between reading the letter and the events of T&T-5, he enlisted Iris and Misty's help to put a stop to it.

......He put the letter back. Before Pearl even had a chance to read it at all.

You could argue that this was accidental, but he had a FULL YEAR to correct his mistake. Even if Pearl had already read it by the time he got back, it's not like a nine year old is going to remember what it said word-for-word, especially not in a year's time.

Unfortunately, it's hard for me to believe he didn't leave it there on purpose. Quoted from the wiki, "seeing as his chance to save [Maya], as he projected his feeling that he failed to save his girlfriend Mia..."

He willingly endangered the safety of a small child and allowed a threat to be made on the life of Mia's beloved sister just so he could look like a hero and "redeem" himself. And he killed Maya's mother in the process- right in front of her.

Godot subjected the Fey girls to so much unnecessary hurt and trauma just for the sake of stroking his own ego. If his goal was really to do whatever it took to protect his girlfriend's remaining family, he did a piss-poor job of it.

All the art I see of this man- Mia's spirit lovingly by his side. Babysitting the girls and getting into weird uncle hijinks. Would they really have forgiven him so easily? All it would've taken to prevent it all was just to get rid of the letter. He had an entire year to do it. He had multiple chances to fess up and apologize.

Sorry for the rant. It was driving me crazy that nobody seems to acknowledge anything about the letter. I was starting to think that surely, the ENTIRE fandom can't have missed this detail, and that maybe some sort of elaborate prank was being played on me.

Please, share your ideas with me. I want to know how many people have thoughts on this. It'd be an understatement to say that it's been driving me crazy.

[characteroulette]

well all rightie then, it’s time to analyse how DGS1 handles grief really well in my opinion

(once again, spoilers for all of DGS1)

(also some spoilers for the original trilogy games) (and a little of DGS2)

okay So my thesis statement here is that Asougi’s character in DGS1 is the vessel through which Ryuunosuke and Susato’s grief is explained. Everything about how they relate to Asougi is their dealing with their grief in a simple message: Loss hits hard, but you have to continue to live and love. Life Goes On, shaping that grief into yourself if you allow it.

We start off with Case 1 as our baseline. The set-up. It’s a routine to show what life is like for Ryuunosuke before tragedy. (Fitting for an AA protagonist to have their baseline of normal being accused of murder.) This case does a really, really good job of setting up Asougi as our friend, our partner, whom we might spend the rest of the game with.

(I mean, the death flag’s kinda obvious if you’re genre-savvy; the mentor must die so that the student may grow into their own. But Asougi’s so likeable! He’s confident, genuine with Ryuunosuke, comfortably teasing, and looks at you with the same eyes as Klavier. What’s not to love? Also that small hint of something deeper is so tantalising that for it to go unresolved is pretty unthinkable.)

It’s important for us to see how much Asougi means to Ryuunosuke, how much the two really are best friends. This set-up is pivotal to what happens next in Case 2: the drop.

The way Ryuunosuke reacts to learning about Asougi’s death is real. He tries to deny it at first, can’t bring himself to believe it. Especially since he’s been accused of the crime! But the moment he sees that photo of Asougi that Sherlock took, that’s where the truth of it hits and he can’t run from it anymore. All he can do is try to push past that biting grief to at least solve his friend’s murder and set things right.

Susato’s own grief is portrayed really well here, too. She’s so angered and clouded by it that she totally ignores the fact that Asougi and Ryuunosuke are best friends and believes Ryuunosuke to be the murderer. Really, she just blames Ryuunosuke because it’s easier that way, since the wound cuts just as deep for her.

What really strikes me, though, is how the whole case isn’t just a one-note misery. Like real life, the two slip into sadness when they remember their dear friend, but they’re still able to joke around. They still get upset or sarcastic or excited. Because, though their grief affects them immensely, the message is that life continues. It can’t just stop for them like it did for their friend; life goes on. Not out of malice, but out of necessity.

Also, the way Sherlock acknowledges their grief is pretty great. That felt hugely validating to me, how he tells them that their mourning is important and how his jovial, joking tone was never properly taking that into account. The way he continues breaking in at the end to lighten the mood, too, is his own genuine way of trying to help, exhausting though he may be. It’s appreciated, at the least, to keep us the players from breaking down into tears as the conclusion rolls with no real satisfaction at the mystery being solved.

That final conversation between Susato and Ryuunosuke, at least, is hugely cathartic to make up for that. It sounds like it should feel rushed, honestly, dealing with the majority of the grieving process in just Case 2, but it doesn’t at all. It seems properly healthy, like the two are doing their best by confiding and taking comfort in one another in order to celebrate Asougi’s goals, to keep going where he can’t. Ryuunosuke and Susato both form their resolve here to continue to live, not just for Asougi, but for themselves as well. For life’s sake.

Because, again, life goes on.

(A brief tangent: Seeing the contrast of this story versus the original trilogy is also a really neat sort of view into Shu Takumi’s growth as a writer. Or the AA series’ growth as a whole. How Edgeworth handled his grief by never really acknowledging it in AA1, how he basically ran away from it by refusing to live as a sort of punishment against himself, is really sad. Then Phoenix handling his grief in JFA by turning to anger and resentment is just as heartbreaking. Phoenix disavows himself from it, trying to spare himself the pain by denying it, which only hurt him more and he had to have everyone around him break him out of that awful mindset. Then in T&T it’s Godot’s grief which drives the plot, as he turns his anger on Phoenix unjustly. He blames Phoenix for Mia’s death and lashes out at everyone instead of allowing himself the time to properly grieve.

And then DGS1 comes along to say that maybe the answer is just that life goes on and we have healthier ways to reconcile with our grief and it’s just real neat to see!)

In Case 3 and 4, we can see through Ryuunosuke’s discussion with Lord Vortex (/Stronghart) the continuation of his handling this grief. It’s a burden, one Ryuunosuke doesn’t fully understand, but he fervently takes upon himself because we want to live for those we’ve lost. (It is the Wright way, the Naruhodou way, to take on the aspirations of the friends you’ve lost. To mimic their mannerisms, their ambitions, in order to keep them close to your heart.)

(That’s a whole other can of worms I could dive into, honestly, how their decision to give Ryuunosuke all of Phoenix’s poses for the whole ancestor vibe while ALSO making it clear that Ryuunosuke took them from Asougi to begin with, it’s just. It’s good, it’s perfect, it’s the same brand of gay the series is known for and I’m love it.)

You also see, as the trial of Case 3 progresses, how Ryuunosuke is basically just living off of ‘what would Asougi do?’ as Susato coaches him along and it’s fun and bittersweet all the way through. Case 4 is where he gains more confidence in himself, but he still defaults to thinking of Asougi’s unwavering trust in him to help him and every time it’s handled with tenderness and shows just how much Ryuunosuke loved his friend.

And, if you’re like me and take every opportunity to examine Asougi’s badge and present it to Susato (/others), you see how they continue to grow with their grief. It starts off with both of them being unable to say much, still weighed down heavily by Asougi’s loss. Though they are continuing and life goes on, it’s still a wound too fresh to approach and hard for them to properly explain.

By Case 5, though, the two of them are more conversational. They’ve found their words, they’ve mended that wound as much as possible so that life won’t leave without them. It still hurts, of course, but it’s easier to think about. It’s easier to reconcile when they’ve been working hard and making friends and continuing to live. It’s small, but the progression is there and I really appreciate it.

Speaking of Case 5, though, everything about this one, in regards to Asougi, is pure catharsis. It really is like they’re looking their grief right in the face and accepting it as a part of themselves. Ryuunosuke looks back on his friend not just with fondness, but with gratefulness that Asougi could make such a big impact on his life.

(This is similar to the whole Phoenix and Mia thing, I feel, since Phoenix often thought of his mentor with the same sort of tone. At least, I think so. Remarkable how Phoenix’s grief can mirror the finalised version of Ryuunosuke’s with the help of spirit channeling! /joke)

Ryuunosuke and Susato have etched Asougi into their hearts and their persons and it’s just really, very good I like it a lot.

(okay time for a few paragraphs on DGS2 and Asougi)

Case 1 one DGS2 is a neat look into Susato’s mind and thought process. You can definitely tell she’s still just a 16-year-old with the mistakes she makes and how she tries to handle her own arguments, which is very cute. We also get to see her actually talking to Asougi’s grave and then see how her own relationship with Asougi has influenced her style (/poses) and aspirations. (Ryuunosuke, too. It’s cute to see how she’s ended up a mixture of both of them.) And it’s a great rug pull moment for the player, since the way that the grief is handled in DGS1 is so good and (almost) final that hearing Asougi might not actually be dead is a bit like digging up old wounds. I mean, we went the entirety of the first game coming to terms with his death, what do you mean his body went missing??

(Case 2 serves as a reminder. Like haha remember how Susato and Ryuunosuke both love Asougi and are sad about his death? Here’s the baseline again, get ready to have it wrecked!)

And Case 3 is phenomenal, too. The way Van Zieks is so understanding in his response to showing him Asougi’s badge is just. It’s perfect, he’s so gentle and empathetic that it shocks Ryuunosuke (even though Ryuunosuke did the same understanding and concern for Van Ziek’s situation Ryuunosuke please). Then the way that Ryuunosuke sees Asougi, disguised in a cloak and mask, and immediately recognises him. To me, that really shows how much he loved his friend. He knew Asougi for about a year and it’s been about nine months since Asougi’s death, yet Ryuunosuke recognises him just by the way he carries himself.

But, to him, Asougi is dead. He’s made peace with that. So, even if it plays on his mind, he can’t allow himself to think that. He puts it out of his mind completely and doesn’t think on it again.

At least, until Susato (who reacted very realistically by shutting down the possibility that Asougi might still be alive because that means Sherlock lied and she couldn’t take having that hope break her worse than before) sees the exact same thing just as immediately and shouts after him. The fact that they both see this disguised man and know it can be no one besides Asougi is insane. It’s love. It makes me cry, I wish they could’ve hugged him during the big reveal (though I know Japanese culture’s just not like that).

Anyway, DGS2 diatribe over. Back to the conclusion.

The whole of DGS1 is just a masterful example of how grief doesn’t have to destroy you, of how life can go on and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and how channeling that grief into motivation to keep their memories alive can be powerful. That it’s okay to still feel grief even as you heal, that it’s okay to have fun and keep living even as you mourn. Life is a mixture of levity and tragedy and, to me, DGS1 nails that mixture with perfection.

Absolutely legendary. Join me next time when I dive into the main theme of DGS2, which is literally ‘the dead will come back to life to haunt you’ thanks for coming to my essay talk

[gamer2002]

Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - Review2002

Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is a sequel to Danganronpa that focuses on a new cast that, this time around, is trapped on a tropical island. The game is an improvement when it comes to writing, mechanics (mostly), characters, and executing own premise. It’s pretty much a perfect sequel that is a genuinely good game.

Like in the first game, we have a set of cases where one of participants of the killing game commits murder and tries to frame somebody else for their crime. This time around, our main character is Hajime Hinata, who doesn’t remember his own Ultimate Talent. Hajime is much better main character than Makoto, not just because of an intriguing mystery about him, but also because of being a better character with a better story. Sure, since Makoto was a painfully generic goodie-goodie, it isn’t saying much. And, Hajime isn’t really an outstanding character. But he is relatable, sympathetic, and funny, as the only sane man in the cast. He does a good job as a protagonist, while going through his own journey. He actually experiences far more hardship and Despair™ than Makoto did in his game. Which is why, at the end, you really want the guy to overcome it.

The gameplay also has improved, mostly. I like new blue statements in the Nonstop Debate. I like new trial minigames, though Rebuttal Showdown is more a neat idea than a good execution (you can’t really focus on what the characters are saying). I like that now, from the start, there is some logic element in the rhythm minigame. The so-called Improved Hangman’s Gambit is an overcomplex crap, though.

Outside of trials, the game also has improved acquiring new skills. Now you gather skill points from Free Time events, and you can spend them on buying available skills from a list. You can also unlock characters’ skills, by maxing out their Free Time events. It’s a much better system that gives you more control over gaining new skills. And you also have more control when it comes to getting presents, as you can buy few from a vendor machine, or spend coins on rolling random ones. Acquiring coins is also improved. Now you don’t need to examine same locations all over again, you just hunt hidden Monokumas. You can also get coins from taking care of Tamagotchi.

Music is pretty much the same, with just few new tracks. Island is much more interesting environment than the school. Direction is also more interesting during the trials. And also, we have better characters, but I will elaborate on that later on. There is still meme writing with hope and despair, but it is twisted into something far more interesting.

There are flaws, tho. I say that finale, while it had great last third, was exposition-heavy and also was relying on pretty heavy retcons. The world lore is expanded on, but is pretty unimpressive. But I still say - it’s a good game. A ridiculously animu edgy shonen that relies on selling underage waifus and a shock value, which can be not to your tastes, but a good one. The previous game was just fun, which means that you could enjoy it despite its flaws. The sequel fixes quite a lot of flaws, and also improves its strengths. And one of such strengths is its set up that allows to experience brutal treatment of likable kids. Yeah, the kids actually earn that they can be called likable, this time around.

It is an 8/10 game, even though I maybe should have given it a half point lower. I enjoyed it a lot more than the original, and also was more moved by it. I think that sequels that strive to improve the series deserve recognition.

But now, to expand on my review, I’m going to tell more why Danganronpa 2 gives us better cast than the first game, and why it is such a good sequel. In the spoiler section, I’ll be focusing on the new, much better, villain, and expand my thoughts on the game’s finale. So, let’s start with the characters…

Prepare them likable before the slaughter

In this game Danganronpa finds its strength as a series, which lies in its set up that allows building up likable characters, before brutally killing them off. While the new cast is still is mostly a bunch of two dimensional ridiculous stereotypes, they are more likable and useful to the player. Because they actually try to be.

The first cast wasn’t really good at giving us reasons to like or respect them, with two or three exceptions. Especially if you didn’t happen to make free time events with them. Most treated Makoto like a pushover (albeit deservingly), or plainly neutral at best. The motives, while understandable, were just realistically understandable, not sympathetic. Most of those that didn’t end up being killers still mostly focused on self-survival than improving anybody’s else situation. It wasn’t a group of people you’d be happy to live with, let alone be locked with. It wasn’t even much of a group. Even in the final case, after everything that survivors went through, Monokuma still could make them turn against one another with a rather unimpressive trick. While it’s realistic that kids in such situation would be self-centered, even if they didn’t end up becoming killers, such characters’ deaths rather can’t make you feel devastated. Not you can feel glad over their survival. Even if you happened to like their personalities, which is subjective anyway.

Hajime has better relationships with his cast. Only Fuyuhiko and Hiyoko (after her personality has shifted from killer of little animals into a foulmouthed shortie) ever treated him like crap, but they were like that towards everyone. And one of them had proper character development. Everyone else was neutral towards Hajime at worst, not best. One character has noticed Hajime’s reliability, and asked him for help with keeping security of others. Other character wanted to watch girls on the beach with him. I also don’t remember the first cast to mourn the deceased ones as much as the second cast does. Neither I remember them trying much to be supportive to those that were feeling down. The motives that are meant to be understandable are also more sympathetic, so even the killers are more likable.

And the usefulness? Let’s do a spoiler-free comparison of both first cases. In the first game, everyone, but one person, falls for the set up that framed Makoto. During the investigation, aside from the most reliable person in the cast, nobody really was much of any help, excluding one person witnessing something helpful. During the trial, Makoto had just one ally to count on, until he managed to clear himself from wrongful suspicion. But even afterwards, the trial was still carried by just two people. It doesn’t help the mystery wasn’t really complex.

The second game? The situation isn’t better just because nobody is wrongfully accusing Hajime. Excluding the two smartest characters in the cast, three Ultimates use their talents during the investigation, and each provides us with useful information. There are also two others that were screwing around, but still accidentally allowed us to learn something of use. During the trial, everyone tried to be involved, and just one character was briefly idiotic about it. Other than that, mistakes happened, but they were understandable due to the crime’s complexity.

The difference in the first impression is pretty self-evident, and that was just the start. Needless to say, 2nd game’s emotional peak is higher than the 1st game’s. Actually, more disturbing and sad things are happening in the 2nd game. And that’s where Danganronpa can shine. While this game can turn people off for being a ridiculous animu nonsense, when you get past that, you do get likable and pretty useful characters that experience terrible things. This is what this series has to offer, with the writers realizing that in their second game. Because, let’s face it, most of the first game’s cast were either caricatures, or had no proper chance to shine. 

But this game isn’t just what the first game should have been. It is also what its sequel should be.

How to sequel

There are three kinds of sequel: betrayals, cash-ins, and genuinely good ones. Danganronpa 2 is the last one. An example of a cash-in sequel is second Ace Attorney game, Ace Attorney: Justice For All, which is my least favorite game in the series.

JFA is pretty much everything you’d expect from an Ace Attorney sequel, and that’s simply not good enough. While it’s always nice to be able to follow the story further, long-runners are popular for a reason, good sequels are more than that. They are supposed to do more than just deliver another set of cases that are rather similar to the previous game. They are supposed to give us a better rival than just watered down amalgam of previous ones, but with boobs and a whip. Expansions are more of the same, sequels are meant to have a game-changing aspect to them. And it’s not supposed to be only used as the final case’s main gimmick. An example of good sequel is Virtue Last Reward, because it uses the concept introduced as a final twist of 999, as the core element of the game. Even Zero Time Dilemma, the disappointing finale of the trilogy, does add an interesting twist to said concept.

Danganronpa 2 is a good sequel because it improves a lot from the previous entry. The main character actually has an interesting story that isn’t just “an optimistic guy tries to remain optimistic, so he does”. A new setting allows for more different murder mystery set-ups. Ultimate Talents are frequently used during crimes and investigations. And, like I’ve said earlier, many game mechanics are improved. And there is also a game-changer.

Years before Among Us becoming popular, I was playing with my friends Battlestar Galactica board game, which is also about managing a space ship with a traitor, known as Cylon, among us (hah). In a way, Danganronpa series is similar to those games, with a killer being a hidden withing the group traitor, that will doom everyone, if remains undetected. Anyway, an expansion to Battlestar added new characters, new environment, and also a game-changer – Cylon Leader, a character that is a known Cylon, but at the same time may be not, due to own mysterious agenda. While regular Cylon players wins when Battlestar Galactica is destroyed, and human players win when they reach their destination, Cylon Leader player was a wild card. At the start of the game, Cylon Leader randomly draws its own secret victory condition. And it not only could go either way, but also had special requirements. A Cylon Leader could want Cylons to win, but only after specific game phase. A Cylon Leader could want humans to win, but only after specific losses of resources. Other players didn’t know Cylon Leader’s exact agenda, only that he could shift sides depending on situation.

That being said, Cylon Leader was a controversial addition to the game, and not every fan liked it. But regardless, it was a game-changer. Which is what Danganronpa 2 offer, by quickly introducing its own Cylon Leader. But that’s for the spoiler section.

The superiority of Hope Man over Despair Thot

Nagito Komaeda is a superior villain to Junko, and this is simply an objective fact. Like you could tell from previous paragraph, he is this game’s Cylon Leader.

When I started the sequel, I’ve already been spoiled that Nagito is a psycho. What I expected was him being the sequel’s hidden in the plain sight Junko, a nice guy that befriends us just to be revealed as the mastermind in the finale. Well, I was wrong about that. In the very first case, Nagito tries to kill somebody, but this is all part of his plan to drive somebody else to murder, because he has no interest in his own survival. The killer was executed, but Nagito remained, declaring own readiness to aid anybody who wants to kill him and escape, at the cost of everyone else. And this put the new cast in a situation the old cast never was.

Some people say that Nagito has Byakuya‘s role from the previous game. But Byakuya was just openly outspoken about wanting to accomplish what every other killer wanted, until he was hit with character development, before delivering anything as an antagonist. Fuyuhiko is more similar to Byakuya. Meanwhile, Nagito delivers, first early, and then later on, after his character development goes wrong, orchestrating the most twisted and personally devastating crime in both games. He successfully forces us to sacrifice the Ultimate Gamer Waifu, how can you get more personal than that?!

But doing twisted and devastating stuff is what Junko is all about, so what makes Nagito better? First of all, even though he has literal good luck superpower, he doesn’t pull things out of his ass. Nagito doesn’t have Junko’s unexplained endless resources, he just finds opportunities in what is available to everyone. Even in case 5, where he has ton of crazy tools, we know that he obtained them during case 4.

Nagito also does have his twisted philosophy. For Pate’s sake, Junko herself admits that causing despair is nothing more than main characteristic of her one-dimensional character. He also does have a past (if you complete his Free Time event), even if it is the Joker-style multiple choices of past. Maybe he lied to Hajime about being terminally ill. Maybe he lied about lying, to motivate Hajime into killing him and escaping. The game never tell us, and this makes it more fascinating.

There are also opinions that Nagito ultimately plays into hand of Junko, nearly delivering her 15 bodies to control. I don’t agree with that. In the event of Chiaki being the sole survivor of her trial, she wouldn’t have a reason nor intention to graduate and allow Junko to take over bodies of the deceased. Neither Makoto and co. would have a reason anymore to risk themselves getting trapped in virtual world. Wrong and twisted as it was, Nagito plan would’ve neutralized Junko, forever trapping her with Chiaki in her virtual prison.

In the end, Nagito is a highly dangerous enemy, a highly useful ally, and a highly unpredictable wild card. He is an interesting character and he actively makes the game more interesting. Did I mention the sequel has Junko again and it is same old, same old? Ok, Junko/Monokum is slightly better now, but she still has many of her old issues.

The good and bad things about the finale

Overall, I liked the finale better than the first game’s, but it had some issues. One problem is that the investigation is an lazy exposition dumb. The first game was better at handling its revelations during its final investigation, as we were receiving more vague clues, not fucking walls of text. Not to mention, there were emotional moments, like Kyoko visiting her father’s office. Here, we are hit with a wall of text after wall of text, and there isn’t any meaningful scene. The only exception was meeting Alter Ego and receiving message from Makoto, but that was it. And those weren’t really strong scenes. The final investigation of the first game did much better job at handling its reveals. Even the final trial was better in the original, until the confrontation with Junko.

Also, retcons. The sequel wants us to believe that Junko, who was easily defeated, was constantly screwing herself over, and whose successes at driving people to murder were more attributed to weak opposition than anything, was the one responsible for the world’s collapse. When I played the first game, I saw Junko as a part of Ultimate Despair, whose task was to infiltrate Hope Peak Academy and broadcast a killing game to lure the groups’ opposition. A high and mighty Doctor No that only works for SPECTRE. But her being a manipulative genius that has turned the entire cast into her devotes? Have you seen her doing that in the first game? Where she could left Aoi devastated and resentful towards everyone, after the 4th trial, but she blew it so hard that fucking Byakuya had a change of heart? Where she was ultimately beaten by Makoto like it was nothing? Please.

That being said, Junko/Monokuma are better in this. Because the game is set in simulation, there is no problem with Junko being able to do whatever. Because the cast has stronger morality than the previous one, she does have to be more cunning with driving them to murder. Junko also sticks better to the rules, even if she is forced to. Her plan and the final dilemma she has for the cast is also actually a good one. But that actually wasn’t Junko anyway, just Junko-based Alter Ego. If I was writing this, I wouldn’t try to retcon a turd villain into something she never had been, I’d just state that Hajime/Izuru was behind everything in the first game and he has used Alter Ego to recreate Junko and lure Makoto and co.

One last complaint about the finale I have is that they retcon Kyoko’s father into a doctor Mengele, without her even reacting to it. The twist itself with the Academy fucking over Hajime was good, but they shouldn’t just carelessly (and without noticing it) turn a character that wasn’t evil, but good-intentional albeit flawed, into a monster that was experimenting on children. Or, at best, a detective family’s failure that had no idea what was happening in the Academy he was running.

After all that complaining, what is good about the finale? Well, things have slowly picked up since it was revealed that Monokuma/Junko wanted the cast to graduate. Everything related to Hajime was also good. The dude really went through a lot, starting from doubts about his lost talent and Nagito’s betrayal, through the revelation that he never had any talent and the loss of Chiaki, up to learning that the Academy has altered his very identity. The idea of everyone from the cast being part of Ultimate Despair was also a good twist, a much better one than “lol, the world is already destroyed”.

Besides that, the last moments of the game have masterfully used gameplay for storytelling. Movies and books can make us feel two things – pain or pleasure. Alternating between those is how stories have impactful twist and turns, causing them to be engaging. But in video games, we can experience a spectrum of feelings that other mediums cannot provide. In games, we can also feel power or powerlessness. And the game’s final gameplay segments put us at start in a state of powerlessness, in form of a choice between bad and worse, then letting us slowly regain power, culminating in a satisfying beat-down of helpless Junko. The point of that section of the game was death and rebirth of Hajime into SSJ Chadiyan, and the game makes you experience all of it.

Also, unlike the previous game, this one makes a proper statement. In the bad and worse situation, where you can either allow the devil to triumph at cost of other people, or become a martyr to stop the devil, what you say is “screw the devil, there’s a chance we will still survive, and we are risk takers!”. This is exactly the statement that the first game should have made. You can’t fall into despair and give up in face of overwhelming hardship. But you can also be betrayed by a false hope of everything working out. But not much can be accomplished without facing the risk and taking your chances, even if you odds are desperately small.

Overall, the finale did drag and relied on retcons, but its climax was truly enjoyable and worthwhile.  

[rivalsforlife]

i'm holding myself back from asking commentary on almost every scene from the catch up game bc i love so much how you wrote phoenix in that fic!! that said, could u do commentary on the last 2 scenes from the first chapter (party + gumshoe), if that's not too long or on parts of it if it's too much?

Sure thing!! The scenes on their own are already over 2000 words so I’ll put them under a keep reading for everyone’s peace of mind.

Alright let’s start then...

The bachelor party was beyond Phoenix’s expectations. He’d been expecting Edgeworth to be much stingier with the spending, considering his general attitude towards Gumshoe’s salary. But he’d agreed to rent the bar out and pay for one drink for everyone, plus transportation home for those who couldn’t do it themselves. Phoenix… was surprised, actually. He’d known for a long time now that Edgeworth appreciated Gumshoe much more than he let anyone know about, but it was still surprising to see in action.

this paragraph brought to you by My AAI2 Feelings, particularly the parts where Gumshoe really does come through in the investigations, so much that Miles actually gives him a salary raise at the end... it did a great job developing their friendship, I loved it a lot.

(Also I headcanon that after aai2 but possibly before that... every “I’m going to cut your salary!!” that Miles says does not actually result in a salary cut. poor gumshoe can barely feed himself as it is. but Miles can’t be, like... Nice about it so he’s just going to pretend. Gumshoe understands. it’s like an inside joke now.)

And honestly figuring out this whole party scene was such a pain. I still feel like it could be better but I’m not sure how? I just had the goal of “get someone to let it slip that Miles is in love with Phoenix” but then there was the issue of a) who knew Miles well enough to know this, and b) who knew Phoenix well enough to talk about it, and c) what circumstances would let them slip up and say it. The answer was Gumshoe because he can’t resist leaking information to the defense... even when it’s information about his boss’s personal life. oops.

Athena dropped by for a movie night, since Pearls was too young to attend. Phoenix wasn’t worried about them; he was sure they wouldn’t get into any more trouble than he and Maya could at the party.

OOF AWKWARD PARAGRAPH this is a remnant from when I shifted a lot of scenes around in this chapter. I thought it would be cute if Athena and Pearl were friends. And I think there was more to this but then it was distracting from the overall topic so I cut it out... resulting in this.

“Pals!” a familiar voice boomed at the entrance to the bar, and Phoenix soon found himself and Maya swept up in a bone-crushing hug. “I’m so glad you both could make it!”

“Gumshoe!” Maya returned the hug enthusiastically. “It’s been forever, man!”

“Sure has!” Gumshoe released them, allowing Phoenix the opportunity to wheeze and clutch at his ribs, while Gumshoe ruffled Maya’s hair. “Been keeping yourself out of trouble?”

“You know it!”

“Uh, I had several sleepless nights last year suggesting otherwise,” said Phoenix.

“Shut it, Nick.” Maya elbowed him, not helping with the situation with his ribs, and beamed.

a little bit of banter that really just serves as a transition thing. most of the party is actually both “transition scene to indicate that the party did, in fact, happen before I get to the important stuff” and “introduce some important character stuff while I have time to fill”. 

and of course these sleepless nights are in reference to pretty much the whole plot of SOJ... 

One last note that I think Gumshoe probably gives great hugs, if you can survive your ribs potentially being crushed in the process. he doesn’t mean anything by it. he’s big and strong and likes hugs so much he forgets how big and strong he is.

... ps I love Gumshoe

“But congrats, Gumshoe! Seems like just last decade Nick and I were wandering around trying to pass your lunches over to Maggey.”

“God, it’s been that long, hasn’t it?” Phoenix reminisced. It was odd, thinking back on cases he took before he was disbarred, before he became a father to a daughter who wasn’t even with him today.

Gumshoe chuckled. “Guess so, pals. You two’ve really been there since the beginning, huh? Maggey and I wouldn’t be here today without you.”

Phoenix smiled. “Aww, Gumshoe…”

“And that’s why I get to be maid of honor, huh?” asked Maya with a sly grin.

“Maid of honor?!” Phoenix looked to Gumshoe, who didn’t object, before rounding back on his best friend. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“You didn’t ask!” Maya sighed. “If it weren’t for me eating Gumshoe’s beloved bento box in front of Maggey, who knows if we’d be here today?”

“I don’t think that was a deciding factor at any point…”

Gumshoe clapped Phoenix on the shoulder. “Sorry, pal. Would’ve made you the best man, but, y’know… Mr. Edgeworth.”

“Yeah, of course, no hard feelings, pal.”

“What’d I tell you about stealing my trademark, huh, pal?” Gumshoe laughed before stepping back into the bar. “C’mon in, you two.”

REALLY just more awkward transition scenes haha. Maya is the maid of honor in this fic mostly because I went to Maggey’s profile page and she was the only woman listed under the “friends” list... and we don’t know much about Maggey’s personal life. plus more “Miles and Gumshoe friendship” agenda pushing in here!

There were more people there than Phoenix was expecting, and many of them he hadn’t met. Edgeworth had mentioned that he would let Gumshoe select the guest list, but he’d kind of expected this to be people the two of them knew. Or, at least, that Phoenix knew — Edgeworth seemed to recognize more, which was rare, and was currently speaking with someone Phoenix vaguely recognized as an Interpol agent he’d worked with on a few cases back when Phoenix would help him out in Europe.

Ema ran up to them and made small talk before she and Maya got caught up in discussion about some show Phoenix had never heard of, so he wandered off to find someone else to talk with.

And there was… no one, really. Gumshoe and Edgeworth were talking with strangers, and Phoenix didn’t want to butt in on that conversation — he thought he saw Larry lurking about but couldn’t find him right now — and anyone else Phoenix recognized he either hadn’t talked to in years or was sure didn’t recognize him.

Phoenix hadn’t realized just how much his disbarment affected him, in these little ways. He looked out over the crowd of people Gumshoe or Edgeworth spoke to and had no idea who they were. It had been eight years out of touch with the rest of the legal world — eight years to fall behind.

It was… oddly lonely. Eventually it was just Phoenix standing there at the bar with a glass of grape juice in his hand. He was beginning to wish he’d ordered some more euphemistic “grape juice” instead.

You know that feeling when you go to a party and your one (1) friend leaves you and then you have no one to talk to and don’t know what to do -- maybe? That’s kind of the thing. slight Lang cameo in there.

ORIGINALLY Ema and Maya were going to talk about Lana and Mia and kind of hint at some Lanamia stuff in there, but then I thought about it and really why would Phoenix pass up an opportunity to gossip about his boss’s past relationships. 

And this also tries to kind of go for one of the general... “themes” of the fic? More of an exploration into Phoenix’s loneliness/how he copes with not having people around him. RFTA and JFA in particular kind of really entrenched that he Does Not Do Well without people to take care of -- which comes up a lot during this fic. And part of getting to explore those issues is essentially me trying to make Phoenix as alone as possible. ... sorry Phoenix! 

Also in here is a lot of “disbarment should have messed up Phoenix more than DD and SOJ would lead you to believe” -- he essentially spent seven years completely disgraced, it’s unlikely he made a lot of notable legal connections, aside from maybe Miles and Miles’ social circle. He probably missed out on a lot.

The last paragraph there is just referencing the “grape juice” thing - I do believe it is literal grape juice and not an alcohol euphemism, and I believe it was also literal grape juice in the original, so that’s what it ends up being.

“Hey, Niiiick…”

… But Phoenix supposed that just when you’re feeling down, the Butz arrives to drag you down further. “Hey there, Larry.”

Larry slumped against the bar beside him with a sigh, a glass of what definitely wasn’t grape juice in his hand. “Y’know Franzy didn’t even show up to this?”

“I’m not surprised. Being whipped half to death during your own bachelor party isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, y’know?” In truth, he knew Franziska couldn’t make it down until just a few days before the wedding because of work — or so Edgeworth had told him — though he couldn’t help but wonder if Gumshoe was grateful for it.

Larry muttered something under his breath that sounded like it might’ve been contradicting Phoenix’s last statement, which Phoenix decided he was certainly not going to press further on, before Larry cleared his throat and continued. “But why’re you out here by yourself, Nick? Maya ditched you?”

“No, not at all,” Phoenix lied. “Just… taking in the scenery.”

“... Huh. Never took you for the wallflower type.” Larry frowned. “I mean, we did use to spend school dances in the corner by ourselves… guess some things never change.”

“Please don’t remind me of middle school ever again.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Larry, who then did. “But I get it, dude. I was kinda hoping for some more excitement here… more ladies…”

“Don’t worry Larry, I’m sure you’ll find someone else to pester tonight,” Phoenix commented dryly.

... enter Larry Butz.

I really did try to explore the relationships of all the important people in Phoenix’s life... Larry though is so insufferable in canon I didn’t really have the heart to fit him in, so he falls out. (Apollo also doesn’t show up much, aside from the bit in chapter 5, that’s because he’s in a different country and I couldn’t come up with much of a role for him.)

And I also do believe that Larry and Phoenix were super unpopular in school. Larry was... Larry, and Phoenix was probably very sensitive up until the Dahlia Incident, and together they had enough unlikable traits that anyone who could spend time with one wouldn’t want to hang out with the other, but the two of them were loyal to each other. It’s my headcanon that Phoenix’s only real close friends throughout his childhood were Larry and Miles, which is part of why he got so attached to Miles to change his career for him.

“Yeah.” Larry’s eyes scanned the crowd before landing on a woman with dark hair in a high ponytail, and his face brightened. Phoenix cringed preemptively.

“Little miss Kay!” Larry called out, as the woman looked their way. “Looking as cute as ever! And more grown up, too…”

Phoenix tensed, suddenly feeling the wrath of hell creeping up behind them.

“Larry Butz,” a deadly voice boomed, “if you go anywhere near her, I will sue you for everything you are worth, little though it may be.”

Larry jumped and spilled half his drink over his jacket. “Geez, Edgey,” he grumbled, scuttling off to find a napkin. Phoenix, hoping it was safe now with the target gone, turned back around to meet the glare of his other childhood friend. “Hey, Edgeworth.”

Larry being gross but more importantly: me pushing the Dadworth agenda! 

“You didn’t have to do that, Mr. Edgeworth,” said the woman with a laugh. “I’m an adult. I know how to effectively break someone’s kneecaps if they bug me.”

Edgeworth raised an eyebrow. “Though I don’t necessarily disapprove, do we need to talk about avoiding criminal records again, young lady?”

“Sheesh, you’re still treating me like a kid,” she huffed, before noticing Phoenix and extending a hand. “Sorry about that! Kay Faraday. I’m Mr. Edgeworth’s assistant.”

Edgeworth gave an exasperated sigh, though Phoenix could detect a note of fondness to it. “You haven’t been my assistant for over ten years, Kay.”

“So you finally admit I was your assistant at some point!”

“Ngrk…”

Phoenix laughed and took her hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Phoenix Wright, attorney at law.”

Kay grinned. “Oh, I know! Gummy debriefed me on you, Mr. That Man.”

“Kay,” Edgeworth warned.

“Plus I kept up with the news,” Kay continued, before Phoenix could say anything. “I’m a big fan of your work! Anyone who can take Mr. High-and-Mighty over there down a notch or two is a hero in my book.”

“Ha, I appreciate that.” Usually the first thing people said to Phoenix after saying they saw him on the news was much more negative.

I really still can’t believe Kay would be 27 here. that’s just so weird. she’s permanently seventeen in my mind. --- said by miles, probably

Even though this was supposed to be a fic about Phoenix’s important canon relationships Kay just wormed her way in here. I love her so I didn’t make any particular effort to take her out of this. Plus it gives me the opportunity to write my favourite things: Dadworth, and also Kay bullying Miles.

And yeah the part about people seeing Phoenix on the news is a reference to disbarment... can’t imagine anyone would have had anything particularly nice to say to him, especially those first few years.

“Kay has been assisting some of the prosecutors and myself through some tricky crime scenes lately,” Edgeworth informed him.

“Technically I’m a P.I., but Mr. Edgeworth said they’re really short-staffed these days, so I thought I’d lend him a hand,” Kay elaborated.

“Oh, so I might be running into you at the crime scene someday.”

“Probably!” She grinned. “Though I’m not gonna go easy on you just ‘cause Mr. Edgeworth likes you.”

“Kay.”

“Oh is that Ema over there?” Kay said loudly. “I’ve gotta run, see you around!”

She dashed off. Edgeworth sighed.

At first I made Kay just a straightforward detective, but I changed it pretty last minute. I feel like she’d want to do her own thing, plus this way she can assist from the outside when dealing with Dark Age of the Law Corruption-type stuff. Miles hires her because canon says he was left pretty short-staffed in SOJ. I’m not... totally sure what the laws are regarding private investigators working with police, but this is a fictional universe with fictional laws so I will do what I want.

Aside from that... more Kay making fun of Miles.

“She seems energetic,” Phoenix commented.

“Indeed she is.”

“... Why did she call me ‘Mr. That Man’?”

Edgeworth coughed. “I’ve not the slightest idea,” he said, turning his head to the side. “That aside, this whole affair is going much smoother than I expected, aside from that slight mishap.”

“Yeah, murder’s not really the best way to kick off a bachelor party, huh? Even if it is Larry. But I think we did alright.”

“Indeed.”

As if on cue, a loud cheer rose up from the crowd at the far corner of the bar.

“... Do you smell something?” Phoenix asked, and true to form, the swaying form of Larry crawled on top of a table.

People making fun of That Man is one of my favourite tropes regarding the AAI characters.

I don’t actually know how bachelor parties work, but if anyone can make them into an overly dramatized super wild party... it’s Larry.

Edgeworth groaned and began to storm off, but Phoenix grabbed him by the hand to hold him back. “Edgeworth, it’s a party, let them have their fun.”

“I… suppose so,” Edgeworth relented, but his hand was still tense in Phoenix’s.

Phoenix released him. “C’mon, we can chaperone from a safe distance.”

Edgeworth nodded wordlessly, but Phoenix could sense that same feeling of unease from him again. He opened his mouth to ask about it but a loud shout took up his attention — this was something that could be dealt with later, he thought, as he and Edgeworth rushed over to the scene.

Miles internal monologue: Wright is holding my hand. Wright is holding my hand. Wright is holding my hand writgh is holding my hand wright is holdin g my ha--

Phoenix: uh. edgeworth?

So in this fic... Miles is gradually working up the courage to confess to Phoenix. He finally worked out his own feelings at some point prior to this fic starting but can’t quite admit them yet, so every time Phoenix does anything that can be remotely construed as romantic he just goes “!!!” and it’s probably all he can think about for a week. Poor guy! I’m sure that when he finally confesses all will be well.

Hours later, as the party wound down and various taxis came to take people home, Phoenix found himself crowded in a booth with a tipsy Maya and a drunk, gushing Gumshoe.

“... and I know she’s gonna just be so beautiful, pals, and what if it’s too much?” Gumshoe asked, lying sideways against the table. “What if they don’t let me see her and then the day of the wedding I look’t her and… I die?”

“People have gotten married without dying, Gumshoe,” Phoenix consoled him.

“But they don’t marry Maggey, pal…”

Maya snorted. “With her luck, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that happened.”

“Hey, don’t tell him that!” Phoenix hissed.

really this wedding should have had way more disaster than I wrote about... probably at least one murder.

“No, no, don’t mention her luck, she’s already so worried,” said Gumshoe. “We’ve checked off every good-luck wedding charm in th’ book… but she still thinks somethin’s gonna go wrong. I love her, I really, really love her, pals…” A far off look crossed his face, and Phoenix wondered if anyone would ever speak of him like that, “... but she worries so much…”

“What’s she worried about?” Maya asked, slumping over against Phoenix’s shoulder.

“Ceremony, reception, if people’re gonna show up, if we’re gonna lose somethin’ important… even ‘s far as the bouquet toss. I told her, if you’re not sure, just toss it in th’ direction of you,” he pointed at Phoenix, “or at Mr. Edgeworth, and maybe it’ll work.”

Phoenix frowned. “Why me?”

Gumshoe let out a burst of hearty laughter. “I’m thinkin’ if you or Mr. Edgeworth catches it, it’ll give ‘im the courage to finally ask you out, pal.”

Maya shot straight up. Phoenix froze. “... What?”

probably not the smoothest way to get to the entire reason why this bachelor party exists, BUT. 

Also it’s implied that Miles DID actually talk to Gumshoe about this at some point. probably Gumshoe caught him pining at a bad time haha.

“Y’know the old tradition, whoever catches it is the next to get married and all…” Gumshoe stared at them for a moment, before his eyes widened and a look of absolute horror crossed his face. “O-Oh! Crap! Pal!”

“Edgeworth wants to ask Nick out?!” Maya shrieked.

“FINALLY! IT’S ABOUT FREAKING TIME!”

originally Gumshoe used a much stronger word than “crap” but idk Gummy doesn’t seem like the type to curse much...? Maybe it’s a stretch haha. also “pal” as an exclamation is my favourite little Gumshoe speech tic

“Shh, shh!” Gumshoe reached over to clamp a hand over her mouth but fell, collapsing on the table. “You heard nothin’ from me, pals, got it? Mr. Edgeworth’s gonna kill me if he finds out… worse, stop funding the wedding…”

Death is one thing but the WEDDING...

And I can’t remember if I mentioned at any point that Miles was also funding the wedding haha but it’s probably also something he wouldn’t want to tell anyone. Gumshoe with his perpetually terrible salary (which is also Miles’ fault) plus Maggey with her inability to hold down a job before being fired in a murder-related incident probably means they don’t have a lot for a nice wedding so Miles offered. secretly and evasively. because he’s a nice person but also doesn’t want anyone to know that.

Maya stared at Phoenix, her mouth agape, as Gumshoe continued mumbling to himself under his breath about the various consequences of Edgeworth’s hypothetical wrath. Phoenix, meanwhile, felt like his brain had short-circuited.

That wasn’t possible. He must have heard Gumshoe wrong. Edgeworth didn’t think of him that way. Edgeworth didn’t think about anyone that way, Phoenix had thought, for the longest time.

Little do you know, Phoenix! 

Touching on the aroace Miles headcanon here because it’s a very valid interpretation of his actions even if it’s not my own...

… Even if Edgeworth had been acting strange lately, even if something in his expression softened when he looked at Phoenix, even if…

No. Phoenix quickly shoved that thought to the back of his mind. There were many things he knew about Edgeworth, and one of those was that Edgeworth saw him as a part-time friend and part-time annoyance, but never a romantic interest of any kind. The thought of it was just… just unbelievable.

Phoenix craned his head around, catching sight of a familiar pink jacket across the room and watched Edgeworth in the middle of some phone call. He would know if Edgeworth was interested in him that way… wouldn’t he?

At first “the back of his mind” was “the overflowing mental trunk of repression” but that seemed a little too on the nose. Just know that’s essentially what he’s doing.

Another thing I wanted to establish throughout the fic was how close Phoenix and Miles are now -- they essentially know each other really well. And thinking about that part in Turnabout Goodbyes where Phoenix declares that “I’m the only one who knows the real Edgeworth”, I kind of interpreted that Phoenix Knowing Things About Edgeworth is an important part of their relationship to him. And the occasions where Miles did surprise him (with some aspect of his personality) weren’t always very good things... realizing he’d turned into a “demon prosecutor”, then the “choosing death” part... it’s a lot of my headcanons running away from me haha. Basically in this fic, Phoenix thinks he knows Edgeworth so well because he’s so close with him so an indication that there’s something about Edgeworth he doesn’t know or has completely wrong kind of... connects to him /not/ being as close to Edgeworth as he thinks he is? Maybe? And being close to him is something very important to Phoenix.

(This is not my personal opinion though haha, people can and will surprise you no matter how well you know them... but this fic is Phoenix’s Relationship Issues: The Fic, so.)

And no one else has mentioned the scenes where it comes up yet so I’ll talk about it here -- a lot of my editing process involved going through the fic and cutting out every instance of Phoenix either talking about him hypothetically being in love with Miles, or of Miles being in love with him. I just ctrl+f “love” and cut out whatever fit the criteria. Phoenix’s interpretation of Miles’ actions up until the end of chapter 5 isn’t exactly that Miles is Capital-L In Love with him, more that it’s like... a little crush? Mayyybe some physical attraction. Misconstrued admiration. Not anything so severe that Miles would willingly initiate a conversation about Feelings. so “He would know if Edgeworth was in love with him” changed to “He would know if Edgeworth was interested in him that way” because part of Phoenix’s issue here is that he can’t actually directly acknowledge the possibility that he’s in love with Miles or that Miles is in love with him. It’s a whole complicated thing I’ll probably talk about in the next commentary I do?

This got long but there’s the end of the chapter! I’ll answer more later...? These take up a lot of time haha.

[hotel-japanifornia]

Like, I love Miles Edgeworth, but he's overshadowing literally everyone else. Like he's not overrated since he actual holds up to his love, but damn, there are so many fics on him and his story from the og trilogy only. Miles has grown up beyond it and I love him for it since it makes him three dimensional.

Ok, you wanna know what greatly amuses me about you mentioning how people only pay attention to him and his story from the og trilogy only?

Edgeworth plays an important role in 4 of the 5 cases in the original game (3 of 4 if you really hate RFTA and want to exclude it from your mind. Feel free to do so but you’ll be hella frustrated when you play AJ. Unless you liked Ema.)

He only appears in 1 of the four cases in JFA and is mentioned in 2 and cameos in 1. If you don’t count the cameo, which I do, that only adds up to 1 case. Comparatively a small role, but he has a big impact on Franziska’s motivations and is the reason she wants to crush Phoenix so badly. Points to Takumi for not doing a generic “avenge my father” plot. Respect him (and Franziska) for that. He does play an extremely important role in the one case he appears in, so don’t think I’m trying to downplay him or anything.

Edgeworth is majorly absent in the third game. He prosecutes in only one case and that’s his annoying 20 year old self. He comes back in the fifth case to fill in for the defense and does play a hand in Iris and Dahlia switching places. Had it not been for that earthquake, he wouldn’t have freaked out and lost sight of Iris in the first place. He doesn’t do a whole lot else after that though. 

I say this because if you think about it, Edgeworth is only in 7 of the original 14 cases if you count physical appearances only (6 out of 13 in the OG trilogy). While I won’t argue that Edgeworth isn’t important in the cases he’s in because he is totally, I will argue that it does feel odd how the focus is on him so much of the time.

And the thing is, I can see how people would argue how Edgeworth is the central character in the first game. Edgeworth is the character we see grow throughout the course of the game. We learn the most about him than any other character and the events of the game revolve around him (Turnabout Goodbyes, the DL-6 incident, etc) more than other characters besides Maya who shares a connection with him as they both lost parents to the DL-6 incident (how have those two not had more interactions, honestly?) and loses her sister in the second case.

I would argue however, that Edgeworth isn’t the character at the center of the second game although we do see him mentioned in conversations by Franziska and Phoenix. I don’t know why people will acknowledge his “Miles Edgeworth chooses death” note but absolutely refuse to acknowledge how awful of a move that was. The reason being is that it was cryptically worded and anybody reading it would think he killed himself which Franziska and Phoenix did, while Gumshoe was the only one who knew what really happened. I know what the note actually meant (i.e. the death of the prosecutor Edgeworth once was) but still, it was poorly worded. 

In actuality, Phoenix is the protagonist and central character of the second game. He’s the one who goes through the most growth as we see him face a huge moral dilemma in the fourth case where he has to choose between saving his friend or sending a truly guilty man to prison. It’s absolutely interesting to see him in conflict with the character he was up to that point (someone who believed his client was genuinely innocent) and it’s something I think needs to happen more often. By that I mean, defending truly guilty defendants. While I don’t think they should be like Matt Engarde necessarily, it would be interesting to see more truly guilty defendants. (I know there’s one in DGS but not everyone has played that one so I won’t spoil.)

As for the third game, it’s pretty obvious who the main protagonist in that game is. It’s the Fey Clan obviously. Specifically, we learn more about Mia Fey, Phoenix’s mentor, through getting to play as her during the tutorial case and the other tutorial case both of which are short but help us get to know Phoenix’s wise and calm mentor. We see her during her first two cases and even get to witness her taking down Dahlia Hawthorne in an amazingly cool manner (by asking her to prove her innocence by taking Phoenix’s cold medicine which she poisoned). We also see her during her first case which was mentioned in Turnabout Memories and was said to traumatize her so badly that she felt like she was never going to step into court again. Since her opponent, Bratworth, had never lost a case before Turnabout Sisters, we know that the case won’t end well. But even so, it’s what actually happens that makes the case so gutwrenching. Seeing Terry Fawles kill himself on the stand to protect his former girlfriend who was the true killer makes for a saddening end. Regardless of what you think of him as a character, seeing Mia so distraught over not being able to prevent Fawles’ death tugs at your heartstrings. 

What’s even worse is that six months later, she loses her boyfriend when he gets poisoned by Dahlia. Which does raise an interesting question: did she see the case against Wright and take it because she saw Dahlia mentioned in the case files and thought she might be connected to it? It’s likely, seeing as she brought the article talking about Diego’s poisoning with her but who knows? Either way, seeing her so determined to take Dahlia down that she’s willing to have her badge revoked is sincerely cool to watch.

And even in the present day case that Dahlia appears in, Bridge to the Turnabout, Mia doesn’t stop being rivals with Dahlia. When Maya channels Mia to ask her what she should do after Dahlia attacks her, Mia advises her to lock herself up in the Sacred Cavern in the Inner Temple and channel Dahlia in order to protect herself. It’s an extremely risky move on Mia’s part and had Dahlia not been so stubborn in seeing Maya’s corpse for herself without considering that she might be channeling her, Maya could have died of hypothermia in there (which isn’t something I had considered until the last year or so). Still, it works out in the end and Iris and Dahlia-in-Maya’s-body switch places during the second investigation period. Mia then proceeds to exorcise Dahlia out of Maya’s body with Phoenix’s help:

Dahlia: …Grr…Mmm…Nnnn… Grrr… Ahh! M… M… Mia F… F… Fey Mia Fey! Mia Fey! MIA FEEEEY! You… You… spinster!! I was supposed to kill Maya Fey like I swore I would! And if only you had gotten this spiky-haired jerk the guilty verdict… …I wouldn’t have been hanged to death!

Mia: …… True.

Dahlia: …!

Mia: But I think you finally understand, Dahlia Hawthorne. …You will never defeat me.

Dahlia: Wh-What…!? What did you say!?

Mia: Whether you’re alive, dead, or somewhere in between, you will never defeat me. As long as I’m around, you’re destined to lose for all of eternity!

Dahlia: Grrr… Grrrr… Grrrrr…

Phoenix: …I remember what you said earlier in the trial. You said there was no way we could punish you… …because you were already dead.

Dahlia: What about it!?

Phoenix: Then you said… “Even when the body dies, the spirit, the ego, it lives on… forever.”

Mia: …That’s very true, Dahlia. And that’s exactly the punishment you’ll never be able to escape from.

Dahlia: …!

Mia: For all of eternity, you’ll have to remain as Dahlia Hawthorne. A miserable, pathetic, weak creature who can never win at anything… And for you, there is no escape from that. No hope of freedom. Since the day you were executed… …the narrow bridge that once stretched out in front of you has burnt to a crisp!

This causes Dahlia to freak out and pop out of Maya’s body with a extremely loud scream. It’s extremely chilling and awesome at the same time. 

One thing that stands out though, is that defeating Dahlia never stops being Mia’s personal victory as Godot mentions later on.

Godot: The woman who had spiked my scalding hot coffee… Dahlia Hawthorne! Ha…! Good ol’ Mia. She didn’t let me down. She got her revenge before she checked out. In the end… There wasn’t anyone waiting for me when I woke up.

In a way, the way that Mia Fey and Diego Armando go about taking revenge against Dahlia serves an interesting contrast to each other. Mia, although angry at Dahlia for sure, never let her anger consume her when trying to take her revenge on Dahlia. The only thing that Mia sought out to do was to make sure that she received justice for her crimes and upon finally getting Dahlia convicted of murder, moved on with her life. Mia even took Phoenix under her wing, despite his past connection to Dahlia. Even though he really had nothing to do with her crimes and even was supposed to be one of her victims, you can’t help but admire her for that.

On the other hand, Diego Armando never let his hatred of Dahlia Hawthorne go. Even after waking up from his coma and realizing that Mia had gotten revenge for him and got her sentenced to death. He was so blinded by hatred that upon encountering her at the Inner Temple Garden, he stabbed her with the cane sword, killing Misty Fey in the process. And unlike Mia, Diego hated Phoenix and even blamed him for Mia’s death. There’s also a line that suggests that he knew that Phoenix was the one that inadvertently helped Dahlia hide the bottle necklace containing the poison:

Godot: …… I never liked you. Six years ago… …you helped the woman who put me to sleep by hiding her bottle of poison. 

It’s an interesting line, indeed, and implies that Diego’s hatred of Phoenix went beyond Mia’s murder. Because Phoenix “hid” the bottle of poison, Dahlia was never able to be caught for Diego’s poisoning and thus escaped justice. In summary, Mia was able to move on with her life after Dahlia got caught while Diego wasn’t which ended up being his downfall.

I can also see how some people might make a case for Maya going through development of her own throughout Trials and Tribulations. During the second and third case, we see her express doubts about her own abilities as a spirit medium and it’s implied that she’s still shaken up by the murder in Kurain Village to the point that she hasn’t even returned to the village in a while:

Maya: Well, I’m kind of taking a break… I’m having a bit of trouble right now, you know?

Phoenix: (Last year’s incident must still be on her mind… I haven’t seen Maya train at all since then. I think Mia said it’s because Maya’s “at a loss these days”…)

It’s an interesting line, and is definitely one that people seem to overlook while playing through the game. Despite her lack of training however, Maya is still able to channel Mia during the last portion of the Stolen Turnabout. The conversation the two of them have reveals that Maya is going through a dilemma currently.

Mia: I’m just joking, Phoenix. Don’t take everything so seriously. But on the other hand, Maya… She seems kind of lost these days.

Phoenix: You mean about becoming the Master of the Kurain Channeling School?

Mia: Becoming the Master… means saying goodbye to our mother.

Phoenix: You mean Misty Fey…?

Mia: …Watch over her, will you Phoenix?

One thing I find interesting though, is that Maya’s dilemma about becoming the Master isn’t overly prevalent in dialogue. Sure it’s a part of what she goes through over the course of the game but it doesn’t take a huge focus. It’s certainly unique. Here’s one such example in Recipe for Turnabout 

Armstrong: You ‘ave la perfect face for a waitress, you know.

Maya: Um, thanks. I guess if things don’t work out someday, then maybe I’ll be back.

Phoenix: (What things? Is she talking about her being a spirit medium…?)

I honestly appreciate it for it’s subtlety; little character moments like this one, is what adds to the replay value of the games. True, you can just breeze through them, but taking the time to present random things to people can also reveal tons of interesting dialogue that can reveal more about the characters than if you were to do a regular playthrough and do what you need to do to progress further through the case.

All of this culminates in the last case when Maya goes to Hazakura Temple with Pearl and Phoenix to do some training which as mentioned before, she hasn’t really done much of since the Kurain Channeling incident. And unfortunately for her, it ends in disaster with her nearly being murdered by the ghost of her cousin, Dahlia and also witnessing Godot stab the spirit to death which kills her mother in the process.

When we first see Maya in the last trial portion of Bridge to the Turnabout, she’s more traumatized than we’ve ever seen her. And through this line, we get to see how she feels about the Kurain Channeling Technique in her current situation:

Maya: … I… I’m frightened. The Fey clan… I don’t want any more to do with it.

Now, let’s think about what this line means. Maya has dealt with a horrible amount of tragedy in her young life due to her heritage. She lost her mother, her sister left the village partly because she didn’t want to feud with Maya over the title of Master; her aunt plotted to have her convicted for murder and later tried to murder her through her beloved cousin, Pearl; and the one time that she decides to start training again, another tragedy occurs. Her mother was killed right in front of her by a man who was blinded by hatred towards the spirit possessing her body. It’s hard not to see why Maya would not want anything to do with her heritage after all the grief it caused her, so then, why does Maya decide to inherit the title of Master anyway?

Well, here’s the deal: The Fey Clan is extremely screwed up and has caused many of its members grief over the past two years. It’s no secret that the branch family has plotted against the main family before and has done so throughout its history:

Bikini: There is only one heir to the title of “Master” at any time, and it’s usually the eldest. That child becomes the new Master of Kurain, and her daughters, the main family. All other mediums become branch family members, with no hope of controlling the clan. That’s why nothing has changed throughout the history of the clan… Branch families always have and always will plot to erase those of the main family line.

However, Pearl doesn’t hold any sort of resentment towards Maya despite her being the heir to the title of Master. In fact, Pearl adores Maya and vice versa. The only reason she ever went with Morgan’s plan was because she thought by “It’s for the good of the Fey Clan” that her mother meant that her plan would benefit Maya and Pearl both. Maya similarly doesn’t hold any resentment towards Pearl  when she tries to blame herself for the death of Maya’s mother.

If you think about it, the fact that Maya stays and decides to become Master could also considered to be not only a result of her strength but a result of her deciding to fix the screwed up legacy of the Fey clan. As two of the people hurt most by the rivalry between the main family and the branch family, Maya and Pearl could work together to fix their family’s screwed up background and restore the Fey clan to its former glory. That’s the way I see it anyway.

Sorry for my long rant there, the Fey clan is very interesting to me. Honestly though, I’d argue that Edgeworth is more like a tritagonist. He’s extremely important at first but he becomes relatively less important over the course of the trilogy to the point that he’s only ever in one case in his present day form in the last part.

Maya is more or less the deutragonist of the games. She’s in 10 of the 14 cases in the trilogy and 6 of those cases (1-2, 1-4, 2-2, 2-4, 3-2, and 3-5) have her involved majorly in the plot whether it be her being accused of murder, dealing with her and her family history, or kidnapped (in which we get to control her too!). While she isn’t involved in the plots of 1-3 or 2-3 directly, she is the person who convinces Phoenix to take both cases and she even helps Phoenix out in the latter by raising the question of where Max’s bust is located which helps him catch Acro as the true murderer.

However, despite Maya’s overall importance to the trilogy, what stops her from being the main protagonist like Phoenix is that we don’t get to go into her head very often. We see Phoenix react to the situations around him, we get to see his thoughts while dealing with crazy witnesses and when he’s having a difficult time trying to prove something in court. Through this, we get to know Phoenix and in a sense, feel like we can connect with him. Even Edgeworth gets to be played during the first investigation and trial day of Bridge to the Turnabout where like Phoenix, we get to go inside his head and see how he thinks and how he feels about what’s going on around him.

With Maya, the time that we do get to control her in 2-4 is extremely short and doesn’t exactly allow us to get into her head. That’s not a point against her however as we do see her react to what’s going on when we aren’t in control of her. It makes sense that it would be extremely short though, as Maya is currently kidnapped when we do control her and the areas you can have her go aren’t very numerous. 

Still as much as I argue that Phoenix fits the central character and protagonist mold more than Edgeworth and Maya do, I believe that all three characters are important in their own unique ways.

[themxtleycrew]

What's your opinion on the headcanon going around that Pearl is Mia and Diego’s daughter?

(this gif is the only appropriate response I have xD)

I actually have not heard of that headcanon, can’t really say I’d get behind it either.

For one thing, Pearl would be a LOT younger in the Ace Attorney games if she really was Mia’s daughter. (I think she’s 8 in JFA?). Turnabout Beginnings takes place in 2013, and Diego and Mia aren’t ‘together’ at that point yet. They don’t really come together until after the trial and they begin investigating Dahlia. In Reunion and Turnabout, according to the case data, the year is 2017. So four years at least, Pearl would be a lot younger than she is in that case (she’s 8 during her debut in that case, if she WAS Mia and Diego’s kid, she’d have been 4 at this point).

Additionally, since Mia had left Kurain village, I doubt Morgan would have done something like kidnap her daughter as part of some revenge plot. She wouldn’t even be bothering with Pearl (unless she somehow found out about her spiritual power, but its likely Morgan and Mia never stayed in contact after she left Kurain to become a Lawyer).

I mean... I don’t doubt that Mia and Diego probably had sex at least once while they were dating and before Diego went under because of Dahlia’s poison, but if Mia DID have a kid, I think Phoenix would have been aware of her child, but also that she would only be 3-4 by the start of the first turnabout.

It’s a headcanon that just doesn’t make a whole lotta sense to me, given the facts.

[scarlettlawyer]

Next attempt: Shelly de Killer and Pearl Fey!

Shelly de Killer:

- I hate them / I don’t like them / I’m neutral / I’m ok with them / I like them / I love them / I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

- favorite thing about them: THE PERFECT COMBINATION OF ELEGANCE AND MURDER. HE’S JUST SO GREAT!!! I love the aura of absolute calm and aesthetic interlaced with imminent threat. Well, not absolute calm. He can certainly lose his patience. But he's not really one to raise his voice. It’s a quiet and terrifying anger if invoked. The veneer of calm is part of the gentleman aesthetic; the hint of anger is the imminent threat. Outside of his being angry, however, it’s still the same: even if he’s not angry at you, his mere job makes him intimidating. That’s inescapable. But his polite demeanour is still there. The combination of those things is fantastic. He will kill you if he must but damn if he isn’t going to do it in style.

- least favorite thing about them: I actually did have a reply to this come to mind, possibly connected to AAI2, and yet it slipped away shortly thereafter and now I cannot recall it, and after losing the actual reply I had I’ve honestly sat here struggling to come up with something. Like there were moments when I enjoyed his character a bit less, but... Hard to just list off a least favourite thing from that.

- ship(s): ...Oldbag. You have done this; you have planted this idea in the mind of my friend and I. Like okay I don’t actually ship it in canon OR in your fic, but the thought of it is so out there, and therefore amusing. And then my friend came up with this amazing JFA au running with the idea so, I do “ship” it specifically in the context of her au ahahaha. I love my friend’s idea of... him liking her and her not really being aware of it? Because it’s a reversal of what’s usually the case in canon. Let a guy be interested in her for once and have her be unaware of it. XD

Also just gonna tack this fic-related message(s) on randomly too but FOR CONTEXT TO BE FAIR THIS WAS before I read the ending which actually does address the death of Wendy’s husband and before the actual dynamic between Oldbag, Shelly and Benny had been elaborated on by the story:

(I ACTUALLY MEANT IN THE SENSE OF HAVING BEEN HIRED BY SOMEONE TO KILL MR OLDBAG BUT THEN MY FRIEND WAS LIKE “HOW DO I MAKE THIS ABOUT THE SHIP” LOL). Okay but maybe Mr Oldbag could have been an important figure in an au that someone would have reason to assassinate 🤔 :P

- BROTP(s): I guess Sirhan Dogen is the main candidate for this, although I haven’t thought about their interactions too much!

- NOTP(s): I don’t think I’ve really seen any Shelly shipping haha...

- Game/case where I like them more: Gonna go with standard JFA case for this one, but AAI2 case 1 is also just really awesome. Particularly the whole hostage thing to help Edgeworth’s investigation out.

- Random headcanon: Not headcanons about the character himself but rather in relation to him; I like to imagine how scandalised Phoenix would be if he heard that yes, Shelly de Killer, that guy Edgeworth and law enforcement at large are so intent on apprehending? The guy who kidnapped Maya? Edgeworth totally spoke kinda casually with the guy a bunch of times, and was even assisted by Shelly (you could even stretch this to perhaps argue that he COOPERATED with Shelly). Even saw Shelly face to face during AAI2 and had a chat with him. Well, yes, context, but... :P Especially without context, Phoenix would not be pleased. Not that Edgeworth would readily offer up this information to him. I think Edgeworth is in a slightly awkward position with regards to Shelly post-AAI2, at least slightly more than before, given how much help Shelly was and now having actually interacted with him in person.

Another thing I was thinking of recently is that... I think that there could be a very secretive and select group of individuals working for law enforcement SPECIFICALLY dedicated to trying to arrest Shelly and gathering as much info as possible. A highly skilled and dedicated team of say 5-10 people, and all of the information they deal with, and about them, is absolutely top secret. The group itself is secret, even, because this is dangerous work. They’re all about trying to track him down, analysing all the data they’ve gathered, you name it. Not that they have much success. But they would also over time probably veer more towards less conventional methods. Delving deeper into the criminal underworld for information, going undercover... Honestly? The closest they might come to actually getting a hold of the guy in person... is to go undercover as a client. Finding out how to hire him. It’s an awfully dangerous game they would be playing and their covers would have to be airtight.

- Unpopular opinion: I wasn’t sure how I felt about him sparing Simon. I really gotta replay AAI2, get my thoughts in order. This ties in with the “least favourite” question but I wasn’t too sure about the whole thing where Simon was considered to have broken the bond of trust for not saying it was a double and yeah I just gotta, replay the game haha. But... if a client normally recounts the ENTIRETY of the circumstances to him, expected not to leave anything out, as opposed to a simple “I want this person dead”, then I suppose that makes sense....Actually, wrong question for this but I’ll add it as a headcanon anyway: when Shelly meets with a client, part of establishing that bond of trust is kind of like the client “confiding” everything thoroughly to him, like telling a story of everything connected to, and culminating in the assassination request. He wants to know not only the who, but the why. What’s the client’s connection to and history with the target? Was there a time when they got along, were they always enemies? Is it just a political or corporate matter? It’s not about justification - Shelly doesn’t care how “justified” a client is and he certainly doesn’t judge. He just listens. None of the added information is necessary to complete the job, but divulging so much information is a demonstration of trust and helps make it clear this person is real with motivations and not an undercover person trying to arrest him or something like that. It’s also kind of an added bonus to get to hear some of the tales of intrigue that result from such meetings with clients. In the context of something like this, omitting the fact that the “president” was a double is a very serious offense.

I was gonna go on another tangent but this is already long enough lol.

----

Pearl Fey

- I hate them / I don’t like them / I’m neutral / I’m ok with them / I like them / I love them / I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

(I do love her! Just not with as much intensity as some of the other characters this series has).

- favorite thing about them: She is adorable incarnate, she is strong, and very cute

- least favorite thing about them: The fact that she was not allowed to grow as a character at all post-timeskip. I have so many complaints about older!Pearl. They took a ~17 year old character and forced her into the exact same role and characterisation as a ~nine year old! She is restricted and kept the same, and it feels deeply unnatural and kind of uncomfortable to me. The whole thing around her height too, like... why did they go out of their way to make her so short and tiny? To reinforce that we are still supposed to see her as a 9 year old? I love trilogy Pearl, I love her so much, but I find older Pearl so boring and so uninspired on top of that undercurrent of discomfort. They did nothing new with her, but in a uniquely and unnaturally limiting way in the sense that she is trapped as her trilogy self. After the timeskip the games appear to have a weird preoccupation with infantilising her because I guess they think connecting back to the trilogy (instead of doing something new) is the only way to keep us caring about her??

And like... Yes, Pearl embodies and encapsulates the cuteness and innocence of children. That’s a big part of her character and I love her for it, and I would therefore be reluctant to let that go. There’s nothing wrong with preserving stuff like that when she’s older. All I’m asking is for the games to actually put at least one new spin on her; SOMETHING that can distinguish her from her younger self so I’m not left feeling like she did not change at all in nearly ten years. A slightly different design, one (1) distinct new and different thing that sets her apart from (and potentially at odds with) her younger self, and I’d probably be happy. I don’t like what they did with her hair either. It sucks. Should’ve gone with the gorgeous inverted pretzel style.

Anyway I want to be given a reason to care about and be invested in older Pearl, an older Pearl trait that I can love older Pearl for...

- ship(s): Trupearl can be cute, but I don’t think about shipping much at all seeing as I vastly prefer her younger self, haha.

- BROTP(s): General “Pearl getting along with the gang” type dynamics haha.

- NOTP(s): Well, I do not like any implication that she has a crush on Marlon or vice versa. I really don’t like that.

- Game/case where I like them more: I’m not sure ahah. Good thing I’m trying to work through the games in Chinese on youtube so maybe I can brush up on my AA knowledge a bit.

- Random headcanon: Ok made this one up just now: When she’s slightly older she adopts the term “Narumayo” for her shipping of Phoenix and Maya. At least, the Japanese version of her where the characters have their Japanese names... lol. I guess her English-speaking self tried but failed to come up with a good name as the counterpart headcanon. Mayanix?

Actually, I guess another headcanon would be her being a hardcore shipper for any media she’s invested in. She moves away from shipping real people and onto characters, channelling all that energy elsewhere.

Or honestly, she could stick with real people and either become an Ace Matchmaker or overall consistently terrible matchmaker. Either’s good. If you combine the two, she could try to matchmake what seems to be an absolutely horrendous pair/combination of people, only for it to actually work.

- Unpopular opinion: Well, I think I already got quite opinionated above, and nothing really comes to mind to reply to this with. I might have been too harsh on older Pearl, but everything I wrote is what I genuinely felt and the impression that I was left with. That impression may be false, I’m not sure, but yeah.

[dornishsphinx]

T, U, and Y!

T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

Hmmm hard and fast headcanons that I’d die defending

From SOV, Conrad’s mother was a lady-in-waiting and close friend to Berkut’s mother who came with her to the capital when she married into the royal family. Lima was invited to the capital during the famine because the Rigelians were desperate. He saw her there and demanded she come with him in exchange for aid. (I may also be writing a fic on Conrad’s mother, watch this space ^_^)

Wrt Tellius, the United Bird Tribes eventually fall apart, the specific breaking point coming about due to arguments about over succession. The ravens end up putting forward Naesala and Leanne’s raven son and the hawk population are adamant that he not be considered (some going as far as to say that ravens in general shouldn’t be considered) due to lingering anger, the ravens getting angry in turn and moving to once again declare the independence of Kilvas (and taking a bit more territory with them this time since they’re in a stronger position.)

When it comes to Naesala and Leanne’s kids, the heron girl mostly takes after Naesala in personality, though the raven boy is more similar to Reyson than either of his parents (both also have traits from Leanne, but they’re less noticeable on first impression.) Both can sing galdr due to their mother but, especially for the raven boy, its effects are far weaker. (Maybe let’s say in gameplay terms that raven boy can buff and not actually refresh.) 

Their heron daughter on one occasion also accompanies Naesala on a diplomatic mission to Begnion, where she decides to learn beorc magic—with Sanaki’s blessing and occasional direct tutelage—as a way to bypass herons’ inability to fight the laguz way, even staying there for a while when he leaves for his next destination. This is a major scandal in the laguz world.

U: Three favourite characters from three different fandoms and why they’re your favourites.

Oh man, it took me a while to settle on who to talk about, but:

Jason Todd (DC Comics)

Jason is the reason I got into DC generally, so I was already biased, but Jason is interesting because he’s a counterpoint to the idea that Batman knows Gotham City better than anyone, as someone who actively grew up on its streets rather than in the safety of a mansion, and someone who came to a vastly different conclusion on what had to be done to make it safer without being painted (mostly) as a clear-cut villain. Also, he’s a literary nerd and it’s such a cute little detail which is never really brought up explicitly on page but is a recurring thing in the background. The antique book collection in UTRH, reading Pride and Prejudice while in jail, really liking school as Robin, and in other bits I can’t remember the context of. 

Where he gets fascinating is on a meta level though. We have the juxtaposition between what modern writers want Jason’s Robin to have been (I really love his run as Robin too, he’s such a cutie in comparison to what he becomes later) and how he actually was written, which kinda comes off as the characters themselves trying to convince themselves of something that isn’t true. And I’ve seen complaints about how people treat his death as being so much more important than others’ deaths when he’d hardly the only DC character to die, but it’s precisely because of real-world circumstances that it’s such a big deal–killed off by poll, left untouched for decades, his costume an ever-present ghost in the Batcave and for the Batfamily–it’s one of those things that can only happen in a big shared comicsverse medium.

I’ll never forgive the New 52 for being the reason we never saw, and can never see now, the Batfamily and Red Hood’s relationship develop.

He just became an ally again randomly in a way that screams editorial mandating “make them get along now, we don’t care how.” They just made everyone do a 180 without bothering to explain why or how and I hate it.

(Also, imo, grey morality Red Hood>outright villain Red Hood AND outright hero Red Hood.)

Laurent (Captive Prince)

Man, I know Captive Prince is controversial, but the story is just so good and even though it’s been a while since I read them, Laurent as a character has stuck with me. (I mean, I adore Damen too, but so many of the character concepts

I’ve come up with since reading the books have been Machiavellian princes shutting themselves off from their emotions, I’m pretty sure Laurent is the source.)

He’s had to adapt to survive the personal hell his uncle transformed the Veretian court into when he (and Damen) got the rest of their family killed—and, at the same time, anyone with the power or desire to protect Laurent from him—when he was just a little kid, and has just built up all the walls around himself. Seeing them slowly peel back and reveal the other sides to him he’s been forced to keep hidden for so long is one of the great things about the series. He’s such a well-realised character, and as you read along, you get to the point where you just need to see him succeed in taking Vere back from his uncle.

He always has the best comebacks too. Nearly everything he says when he’s not awkwardly trying to work his way around emotions he can’t properly express, usually when around Damen, is just pitch-perfect sarcasm even in dire circumstances.

Just a great character overall.

Franziska von Karma (Ace Attorney)

Last time I talked about a favourite Ace Attorney character it ended up being Ema, but I did say she only just beat out Franziska, so it’s her turn now. I’m so sad she’s not reappeared in any of the main games since the original trilogy, though at least we have Investigations. She still has to give Phoenix that card back!

But yes, I just love Franziska. She is very much part of the running theme of legacy families in Ace Attorney with her need to attain perfection and measure up to the Von Karma name, and her relationship with Edgeworth is sweet in a super competitive way. When she comes back later and spends the night trying to solve the puzzle locks to save Maya, you can also see that she has gone through a lot of development over the course of JFA and T&T.

(I maintain that 6-5 would have been vastly improved if she’d taken Edgeworth’s place, and am not entirely convinced it wasn’t originally written with her in mind. I mean, last time she appeared she was undergoing character development and trying to save Maya in a spirit medium-related setting, and this time had Maya being in a perilous situation in a spirit medium-related setting in a foreign country AND she has a history of working with Interpol. It would have actually made sense for her to show up as opposed to the Chief Prosecutor of a foreign country.)

(Also her design is amazing)

(Foolish fool)

Y: What are your second-hand fandoms (i.e. fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

Dragon Age is the big one I can think of. I played a little of Dragon Age Origins before Redcliffe became a never-ending zombie nightmare and I wasn’t able to progress, so I don’t count myself as having really played, but I pretty much know all the spoilers. And have even plotted out who I’m gonna romance when I finally do get around to it. Current plan: Alistair (while pouring one out for the F/F romance with Morrigan that could never be), Fenris and Josephine.

Also Marvel, kinda? I don’t really buy or keep up with Marvel comics anymore aside from going to see the movies. I’ll check it out, but usually it’s only on a whim. (If Agent of Asgard/JiM Loki ever get a run again, you can count on me jumping back in.)

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

You know, when Franziska came into this case, I expected that she would end up heckling Miles something awful when she found out that he was in trouble with the PIC and basically about to lose his badge. I figured she’d react with scorn, and derision, “ha ha look what a fucking mess you are, compared to me, who is perfect, and would never end up in this kind of trouble.”

But when Judge Courtney threatens Miles’ badge, her first reaction is to demand “What has the PIC come to?” for threatening a prosecutor with loss of their badge to make them stop investigating a case. And then when Miles up and says “fuck it” and hands in his badge, she’s absolutely shocked, horrified:

Miles responds:

“My only mission is to bring the truth to light. If it’s the prosecutors’ path to turn a blind eye to the truth... then that title is worth nothing to me!”

Miles: “No matter what you say, I don’t intend to go back on my decision.”

so who’s ready for a fucking disjointed incoherent discussion of their relationship in regards to this moment but also a lot of past events.

I feel like Franziska, back during JFA, would have been thrilled to see Miles in such deep shit that he gave up his badge because he was going to have it taken away anyway. That means he’s failed, which mean’s she’s better than him! She spends all of JFA hellbent on beating him by proxy - Phoenix beat him, so if she can beat Phoenix, she’s won against Miles as well - and then returns in T&T because Miles has given her the opportunity to go directly head-to-head with him.

But she’s not thrilled, she doesn’t comment on him having gotten into deep shit - she’s just furious that he’s giving up being a prosecutor. “You’re running away from Von Karma... from me?!”

When Miles first comes back in JFA, his first action is to berate Franziska for being dense and a perfectionist so in denial of being anything less than perfect that she blames every failure on someone else, rather than seeing if she may play a part in her own mistakes. Which, ouch, Miles, but there’s definitely an element of he’s trying to correct her where he too has already failed - he’s trying to teach her so that she won’t have the absolute life crisis and breakdown that he went through when he failed for the first few times. She doesn’t listen, but as a little sister I can’t fault her for that. Listening to your older brother try to give you advice is like, shut the fuck up I’m fine on my own.

Franziska in turn berates Miles over having failed, over not being perfect, over no longer being worthy of the von Karma name. In the end, she tells him “You are not worthy - and neither am I!” before she abandons her whip and runs off.

Miles and Fran are a lot alike. Fran gives off the impression that she’s spent her entire life competing with him - they became prosecutors at the same time but she was seven years younger than him, she was thirteen. How much do you think Von Karma set them against each other, made them compete for everything, made them feel like only one of them could be perfect, only one of them was the true heir? And Franziska is the one who is actually his daughter, actually has the von Karma name, but she was... two? when Von Karma took Miles as his protege. She’s spent her entire life with Miles around, older than her, and she’s trying to stay caught up with every accomplishment he makes. 

Their conversation at the airport at the end of JFA is really enlightening - she tells him she “won’t be in [his] shadow forever” and “you were always leaving me behind!” (which ties to above the screencap of her accusing him of leaving her behind again). She’s trying to beat him, certainly, but she also very much strikes me as just wanting to be his equal. To me she gives the impression that she wants him to respect her, admire her, be proud of her, notice her.

Because in the end, Franziska has nobody else. Miles was someone before he was Von Karma’s student. He had a different goal, he had a father he admired, he had friends. When he failed, when he started falling apart, realizing he couldn’t be who he thought he was, realizing he didn’t want to be who he thought he was, when the cracks started showing in the philosophy he tried to live with, he had something to fall back on. He didn’t do that very well, still - he faked his death and disappeared from everyone who knew him for a year. But he had something to return to - he can’t ever go back to who he was before DL-6, the person Phoenix remembers him as obviously isn’t a person that Miles can ever really be again, but that’s still more than Franziska has. Franziska has just been a Von Karma all her life, has been chasing after Miles all her life, has no one from the past to come to her and tell her she can be someone else. When she breaks down she hits the ground hard.

And it’s interesting, when they have that conversation at the airport - Miles had to come chasing after her. He, for once, followed her. And she’s still mad at him, still berating him for everything, but he gives her the whip back and that kind of tells her: you don’t need to cut ties with everyone and everything and vanish to resolve your crisis of identity like I did. There’s another way to solve that, and you don’t have to abandon everything that you were. You can figure out who you are, like I did. 

And they seem to be on slightly more even footing, have a more balanced dynamic, when they meet again in T&T. She’s still totally ready to kick his ass, totally wants to, but she doesn’t manage. And when she is along with Phoenix for their investigation, she seems on more even ground, too. She’s starting to figure out who she is. By the time we get to Investigations, her relationship with Miles feels a lot like it’s smoothed over. They’re both still stubborn, arrogant, self-righteous people who don’t do feelings well, who have a hell of a lot of baggage with their family, with their training and legacy as prosecutors, but they really do feel like an even functioning duo who work well together. Franziska has found her place working with Interpol, and Miles can do whatever, though she’s absolutely gleeful when Miles has to be her subordinate. Can’t blame her. It’s kind of the same thing like the way she referred to him as “little” brother.

But then we get here and there’s this sudden backslide. Miles giving up being a prosecutor is Miles abandoning her. And she’s still got no one else. She’s a Von Karma, and she’s a prosecutor, and Miles is her lifelong rival/fellow prosecutor. This is what their lives have always been. And he’s able, and willing, to give it all up. And she doesn’t know what the hell to do with that.

I don’t have a solid conclusion to this, or a solid point, but their relationship dynamic is fascinating to me and this moment kind of solidified for me a reading of them that I hadn’t realized I was thinking: she wants him to notice her, to respect her work, she seems to want a functioning friendship but they’re both such people that there’s no way either of them could manage to say that or admit that, so for all of the progress she’s made, and they’ve made, she still takes it personally when he walks away from the path that they’ve shared.

[takaraphoenix]

I have a mighty need for new Jalec fics but I can't find any hitting all the right buttons :( hurt/comfort, mutual pining, our favorite pair of parabatai taking care of their bruised, bloody selves... (Jace cleaning up Alec's fingers after he made himself bleed from firing too many arrows, like in 2x05)... bed sharing... shower sharing... (or like, having to clean themselves in a river or something like that...) I want those things and I can't find them... JFA (sounds like JFK. Eh.)

(You’re lucky I have this important exam coming up and am literally doing anything to procrastinate the studying I have to do…)

Jace knew Alec wasn‘t doing well with the pressure. Well, with this particular kind of pressure at least.

Imogen Herondale was due for a visit to the New York Institute, to personally congratulate them to their victory over the Circle.

Alec was, to put it bluntly, scared shitless. Not that he showed it. But Jace could feel it through the bond. He could feel how much Alec was wrecking himself about this.

Jace knew why.

Somehow the Clave, in their unfathomable wisdom, had decided to change heads for their Institute a lot in the past half year. Robert and Maryse, Lydia, Aldertree, Imogen, Jace, Alec. Honestly, part of Jace marveled at the fact that the Institute hadn’t come apart by the seams with how unstable their leadership had been.

And while they had won under Alec’s leadership, Jace knew that if not for Robert putting pressure on them, they would have switched leaders again already during the war. So a part of Alec was nervous that a personal visit from the Inquisitor would mean another change in leadership. After all, the way Alec had become leader had been a bit… Grandma hadn’t been happy about it, so to speak. She had picked Jace to be the leader and he had stepped down the second he got the job to instead appoint someone she explicitely had not wanted as head.

(Part of Jace still wondered why she hadn’t just stepped in and undone the decision. Part of that part of Jace hoped it was due to a minimum of trust he might have already earned from his grandmother.)

Alec had been harrassing everyone into cleaning every last inch of the Institute, having everything be top notch. Everything needed to be perfect, not a weapon out of place.

But there was more.

And Jace knew it.

It was actually less about the Inquisitor coming over, it was more about Imogen Herondale coming over.

Jace bit his lips to hide the tiny grin.

Alec was nervous about Jace’s grandma. And that was partially cute. That part being where Alec wanted to earn her approval and respect, because she was Jace’s only biological family left alive.

The other part made the tiny grin on Jace’s lips die. Because Alec had the very, very reasonable fear that she might find out that Jace and Alec were more than just parabatai. That they were lovers. That they were breaking the Law.

It was still incredibly fresh. Well, them being together. Them being in love with each other…?

Jace hadn’t noticed at first. He had absolutely no concept of love. Love meant pain and fear to him, but the Lightwoods were so different and so confusing. He had nothing to go with what he was feeling for Robert, Maryse, Isabelle, Alec and Max. He could only label the feelings according to what he was told they ought to be. It became increasingly confusing when, as a young teenager, he noticed that his feelings for Alec wildly differed from his feelings for Isabelle.

So he had suggested for them to become parabatai. Because surely that might explain it? That the two of them were closer than brothers, it was a sign that they should become parabatai.

And there was not a doubt in Jace’s mind that this was what it had to be. After all, Alec looked at him the very same way, with the same level of adoration and importance that Jace assigned to Alec.

Magnus Bane had made Jace realize that maybe he had misplaced and mislabeled his feelings, because suddenly things shifted. Priorities shifted. Gazes shifted. And for the first time, Jace saw Alec look at someone else with the gazes that were his. And when the two got together, two things happened.

Jace realized that the feelings he had deemed to be special and overwhelmingly intense and possessive due to them being parabatai… well, those feelings were actually romantic love.

The other thing that happened was that Jace truly understood the pain of love, because seeing Alec happy with someone else broke his heart into a million pieces.

That they had a war going on and his family tree seemed to be changing by the minute was not helping his emotional turmoil any either.

Clary had been a wonderful distraction, at first. But it had also made everything worse, because for the first time, Jace had felt like he was losing Alec.

Little did he know that all of that had only happened because Alec was feeling the very same. Alec had hated seeing Jace look at Clary with the looks that should be reserved to Alec. Alec had hated feeling like losing Jace to Clary.

Months and a war passed and their relationship and bond took a hiccuping journey to a better place. Avoiding the main problem had not exactly helped in healing their bond though.

It all came crashing down on them hard when Jace had died and the bond had been fully severed.

It had broken something very delicate in both of them, even more so than the bond. For the very first time, losing the other had become something tangible. They could assign attributes to it now. The bitter, metallic taste, the smell of misery and burned flesh, the tight grip on their hearts, the emptiness in their chests.

They could lose each other.

And neither of them was even remotely okay with that. And as Alec, Magnus and Isabelle came stumbling toward him and Clary at the lake, something happened within the both of them. The bond snapped back into place, but somehow too tight, pulling them closer and closer and without even realizing, without being able to tell who moved first, they were in each other’s arms and doing the one thing both of them had longed for for so long - they kissed.

Retrospectively speaking, they could be lucky that only people they trusted had been present, but neither of them had half a mind to think about consequences in that moment, because the person they loved more than anything else on this planet, their other half, was standing right there, alive, breathing and within reach.

So yes, Jace’s and Alec’s relationship had shifted significantly and into dangerous territory. But neither regretted it. They loved it, every stolen second, every lingering glance, every shared kiss, brief hug. It was easily chalked up to them being parabatai that they were so physically affectionate with each other.

But Imogen Herondale was not just Jace’s grandmother, she was also the Inquisitor. She was going to spend a lot of time with Jace and with Alec, in both of her functions, and if she deemed their physical affections too close for comfort, if she saw something no one was supposed to see, then the two of them could very well lose far more than just Alec’s positon as head of the Institute.

They could lose each other.

And that? That was what truly scared Alec. Scared Alec to the bone and made him harrass everyone into being on their best behavior, made him lose sleep and instead train at odd hours, train to the point of collapsing.

“Alec. Alec, stop it.”

Jace glared as he caught his parabatai’s arm. Alec halted, muscles locking. His knuckles were bruised and bloodied where he had been hitting the punching back for the past two hours now. Jace’s glare darkened and Alec averted his eyes. Alec knew exactly what he was doing and he knew exactly that his lover was not approving of this self-destructive streak.

Hah. Talk about irony.

“Normally, I’m the self-destructive one in this relationship and you’re the reasonable one”, stated Jace softly, jockingly.

Jace tilted his head up to lock eyes with Alec and just as the archer was about to say something, his words were caught in his throat. Alec stared wide-eyed into the liquid gold of Jace’s eyes. A small smirk played on Jace’s lips as he activated an iratze rune for Alec. Yes, Jace had been training to focus his angelic powers. Because he needed to be able to use them beyond life-or-death situations. And he was getting pretty good at it.

“You look like an angel when you glow like that”, whispered Alec in awe.

Jace glared, trying to mask the blush on his cheeks. It didn’t work. Alec stared at him longingly. Sighing, Jace went to get a towel and wet it some so he could gently remove the crusted blood from Alec‘s hands.

“You’re an archer. You need those. Try not destroying them”, grunted Jace pointedly. “Also, I’m quite fond of them myself.”

He leered up at Alec playfully, this time around managing to make Alec blush. It was good that it was ass o’clock in the morning and they were literally the only people awake at the Institute.

Without another word did the two of them make their way to Jace’s bedroom. Even as he opened the door, Jace turned around to face his parabatai and before the door was fully closed - risky, they knew, but there were no cameras here and no one was awake - they were kissing. They stumbled toward the bed together and collapsed on it once the back of Jace’s knees hit the bed. He laughed softly as Alec landed on top of him.

“I love you”, stated Jace evenly, grasping Alec’s face. “And everything will be alright. Even if she notices, even if she puts us both on trial, even if they derune us, I will always be at your side.”

“I love you”, whispered Alec back. “Always.”

Jace smiled pleased. The two lazily adjusted to get comfortable on the bed while kissing, curling together around each other. By the time they fell asleep, Jace was pressed up against Alec’s chest, his parabatai’s arms wrapped tightly around him, holding him close. They had perfected the art of sharing a bed and then being ready and leaving the room casually together, as though one had woken the other up to discuss business.

Whatever would happen tomorrow, they knew they had each other.

[rivalsforlife]

For the fanfic ask: F, K, S, X, Y (whichever ones you feel like answering) <3 Love your work!

Alright, thank you!!

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

oh no. Uhhh I’m probably going to think of something else like five seconds after posting it haha, but at the moment one of the dialogue scenes I really like is the dinner scene near the end of chapter 4 of The Catch-Up Game (linked here for easy reference). The... whole thing is pretty long and I like a lot of it, so I’ll just share a (relatively?) short snippet form it here:

“You did more than enough, Edgeworth,” Phoenix insisted. “If it weren’t for the Jurist System — founded upon your research — I would’ve never been able to clear up my scandal. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have gotten my badge back at all.”

“The badge wasn’t all there was to it.”

“... Maybe not,” Phoenix admitted. “It’s not like we can change that. And it’s not like I would’ve wanted you to do more. It was difficult enough to accept help as it was. Besides, you’re — you’re here now, aren’t you?”

“Phoenix,” said Edgeworth.

It’s not like it was unheard of for Edgeworth to say his first name. It just… happened so rarely, Phoenix could count on one hand the times he’s heard it since grade school. Only when it was just the two of them, never when they were in some sort of public place.

But… Phoenix really liked the way Edgeworth said his name. It wasn’t like he pronounced it differently, or anything. There was just a sense of hesitance to it, like it was something precious he was holding in his mouth, and speaking it too forcefully would cause it to shatter. His name was all soft syllables, in Edgeworth’s voice which rarely softened anything, and it made Phoenix feel like he fell back into deep water after he’d just regained his footing.

“So much has changed,” said Edgeworth. “Hasn’t it?”

“Mhm, tell me about it,” said Phoenix, sinking back into his chair, trying to stay afloat. “Maya’s the Master of her village, Pearls is looking into college, Apollo’s running his own firm while Athena’s taking on more cases by herself, Trucy’s off on tour… and you, Chief Prosecutor.” He let out a faint, self-deprecating laugh. “Meanwhile it feels like I’m stuck in place. Still the same attorney I was when I started out.”

“I don’t think that’s true, but even if it were, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?” Edgeworth asked. “I hastened towards my position, as it was the best vantage point from which to eliminate corruption. I know I’ve made great changes. I don’t regret my choices, and wouldn’t choose differently, if I had the chance to do them over. But…” He gazed at Phoenix for a long time. “There are things I missed,” he continued, barely audible. “In some ways I’m still stuck, as well, and the thought of moving forward… terrifies me.”

“... I think I know what you mean.”

“Do you?”

Phoenix didn’t answer, lowering his gaze to where Edgeworth’s hand rested almost halfway across the table. If he wanted to, he could reach out to hold it. Broad hands that he would trust the world in. But he still didn’t know what it would feel like in his, or what expression would cross Edgeworth’s face if he had the courage to take it.

Edgeworth stared at him with an unreadable expression, almost curious. “Well, you don’t have to say anything,” he said. “What matters most is that I can be here with you now.”

“... Yeah,” said Phoenix. “I agree.”

One of the major difficulties I have in writing, especially writing dialogue, is being Even Remotely Subtle at any given point, because I am an extremely unsubtle person who does not pick up on social cues! This scene though, actually most of this chapter, has to sort of subtly set up the big event at the end of chapter 5, as well as make all of Phoenix’s motivations seem sort of plausible before he actually gives the explanation a little later. Reading it over it wasn’t actually very subtle but for me I think it was a huge step in the right direction haha. 

Mainly: Phoenix fears that Miles is going to leave him again, along with everyone else he loves in his life, since everyone is starting to move on ahead without him. He’s only just gotten Miles in his life in a semi-permanent way and is terrified of losing that. Miles, meanwhile, has been so focused on his career his whole life and is just now starting to realize the other aspects of life he’d been missing out on, namely developing his relationship with Phoenix, which he’s slowly starting to work up the courage to make a move on. And they’re both aware now that they love each other (even if Phoenix can’t fully admit it to himself yet), but scared to actually take that step forward, so they tiptoe around the subject even though they both know they’re discussing it... and end up taking wildly different conclusions away from the conversation as a result, which leads to the disaster at the end of chapter 5.

Also I just kind of like how pretty some of it managed to sound, somehow. The description of how Miles says Phoenix’s name is probably one of my favourite lines in the fic haha. Overall, I feel proud of myself any time I think I can pull off a dialogue scene where people don’t say what they mean haha.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Hmm prooooobably the Iris Wright Ace Attorney AU which is the one where Phoenix ends up killed by Dahlia, and to atone, Iris helps put her in jail and then takes on Phoenix’s path as an attorney... which I haven’t really written much for yet, but talked about here a little while ago. 

It’s fun and angsty because Iris has to deal with a lot of guilt of pretty much being the downfall of the two people she cared about the most, but you’ve also got Miles, who has his realization that maybe what he’s doing isn’t great so much harder and faster because the realization comes with “when you ignored the truth, it set off a chain of events that caused the death of your childhood friend.” 

Phoenix and Miles don’t end up as close in this AU by virtue of Phoenix being dead before they even meet, but Miles learns Phoenix became an attorney to save him -- and was in the courthouse when he met Dahlia because he was studying to become an attorney -- and even though Miles hadn’t spoken to Phoenix in ages, he was still Miles’ first friend and someone he held dear to his heart all those years they were separate (which I do think is true in canon too, but seeing him as an opponent made that less apparent in AA1-Miles), so news of his death indirectly because of Miles hits him pretty badly.

I did write a fic about Miles responding to Phoenix’s letters in this AU during the events of JFA as a way of trying to work through his grief. I was going to post it during the AU day for narumitsu week this year but ended up not doing that since The Catch-Up Game was stressful enough for people haha.

... I can probably come up with angstier stuff if pressed but AA isn’t one of the fandoms I crave a lot of angst for. 

OH WAIT NO I looked through my fic ideas doc and saw one that’s basically a DL-6 But Worse AU where Miles dies instead of Gregory -- kind of like The Illusion of Control, which broke me, but plot-related stuff would probably be different. A key part is them somehow managing to solve DL-6 in seven years, so that there’s the thematic parallel of Gregory then taking in Franziska (and raising her well!)

(S I already answered here!)

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

... Apparently Miles Edgeworth? I don’t necessarily like making him suffer, I just think that you can explore many interesting aspects of his character... through his suffering... and given my fics, he’s the one I make suffer the most, so. Does it count as making him suffer if it’s canon that did it first?

Y: A character you want to protect.

Mostly the kid characters who have suffered so much more than they deserve: namely, Pearl and Trucy. Especially Trucy at the moment considering the repulsive stuff people have been writing about her in the aa ao3 tag recently.