attorneyologies

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"he would not fucking say that" but about injuries. he would not fucking recover that quickly. those scars would not fucking heal like that. he would not be fucking able bodied after that. he would not be fully lucid after that.

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I can only imagine how much panic Gumshoe must've been in the moment his communication line with Miles cut out and they couldn't find him anymore. Not only does that mean he very likely was kidnapped too and is now in the hands of (probably) a bunch of violent criminals but that Gumshoe blames himself for Miles ending up in this situation in the first place because he wasn't vigilant enough. If his behaviour during 1-4 is any indication, Gumshoe probably spent a lot of time screaming at other people until Miles was found and rescued doing everything in his power to save him but being unable to do so or even confirm that he's not hurt. Poor Gumshoe...

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Found in my Steam screenshots

"Not after you became a lawyer because of me... And saved me..."

"I'll leave the rest in your hands... partner."

"Edgeworth (in this translation he's actually calling him by his assigned first name, 'Edward', always)... I'll be waiting for you. In court."

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Klavier and Apollo fit so well into the "oblivious pining idiots" trope I love so much tbh. I genuinely think these two could have mutual romantic feelings for each other, refer to each other using terms usually reserved for romantic partners, say I love you to each other, and still be completely oblivious. They would have to properly confess to realize the full extent of their own feelings and that those feelings are mutual. This is one of my favorite tropes ever and I've noticed I tend to gravitate towards ships where "oblivious pining idiots" can or does apply. Apollo's obliviousness coming from active denial and trying to convince himself he just finds Klavier annoying just adds to it. Like comically exaggerated oblivious pining is possibly my favorite trope ever, it's so funny to me. How do you get oblivious to the point everyone else genuinely thinks you're dating someone and you act like you are when you haven't even realized your feelings for that other person, it's hilarious and has a healthy dose of angst potential too.

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ace attorney and narumitsu trending is a sign of christ's second coming. 2025 is the year of the yaoi and we will soon be saved

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I just remembered Larry spent 2 years on Tibet either stalking or consensually following a woman he was in love with

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Yes!! Athena vs. a robot prosecutor would be so awesome!! Here’s my version: Turnabout Algorithm (featuring Cody Hackins as Athena’s assistant)

I found this AA7 prosecutor concept I really like If we got an Athena-centered game, her prosecutor should be a robot. : r/AceAttorney

[attorneyologies]

HOLD IT!

Do you like Ace Attorney? Are you a fanartist or a fanfiction writer? In that case, the Ace Attorney spring swap is just the event for you! This is a fandom gift exchange that absolutely anyone can join.

The interest check runs until the 10th of February, so be sure to fill it out before then!

☞ INTEREST CHECK

☞ INFO DOC

[attorneyologies]

I just realised that to me, Narumitsu is a sun/moon dynamic and I cannot see it as anything different. It just feels so engraved into their very beings…

Though honestly, it’s the first time I’ve been so positive about a sun/moon dynamic, usually I’m quite conflicted on the topic. It’s mostly because many people view it as an unhealthy dynamic, based on the fact that moon has no light of its own, it shines only with what sun provides. After all, everyone knows the song “The Moon Will Sing” by The Crane Wives.

And obviously, this is such an amazing comparison and it hits in so many places… but to be fair? I think that in narumitsu’s case it’s not on the basis of “I shine only with the light you gave me” but “I managed to find the power to finally shine brightly because of the light that beams from you, no matter how far you are or how hopeless I feel”.

It’s actually based on the way the sun and moon work together to steadily turn the day into night, and the night into day again. On the basis that the moon doesn’t suffer from the light its given, it thrives on it because it’s warm, bright and real and because of it, it can help others see when the night is dark and cold.

That’s how I see narumitsu as the sun and moon, and honestly, I’ll never be able to view them differently.

Also — this song as narumitsu first dance song.

This song is just so painfully them; the vibe, the lyrics, the energy… I love it, and I can totally see them dance around their living room and kitchen to it, singing and laughing, kissing…

And because they’re an extremely sentimental pair of fools, and saps, they would definitely choose that song as their wedding’s first dance.

Thank you for listening to my yapping.

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idk anything outside of my own experience and am always curious as to how people got into these games... and if you havent played them yet!!! please do!!!!!!!!!!!!

[attorneyologies]

Every Ace Attorney is the Dark Age of the Law.

In the first game, we learn of the Initial Trial System, a 3 day limit in trials in order to get more of them through the system. It has been in place for a single year and yet it feels as if it is the only trial system to ever have been in place for this world. Corruption runs rampant, to the point where whispers of back alley deals and forged evidence do not mean a Prosecutor is taken out of running and allowed just as much access and clout as they had before. It means 40 year win streaks of Guilty verdicts only aren't even given a second thought; they are respected and feared and never questioned. It means an inherent knowledge of some level of collusion between the Chief Prosecutor and Chief of Police and yet finding no problems in that.

Even when we dethrone the Prosecutor with his 40 year win streak, even when we pull back the curtains to reveal that corruption of the Chief of Police, there's no sense that things will change. This system is in place and is the only one that exists. We fight an uphill battle against it, always. It is just how this works works in this dark age of the law.

In Justice for All, we learn that trials with even a regular police officer as a victim are treated with a higher level of scrutiny than others. That the police are venerated despite knowing they're not as just as they present themselves as. We see firsthand that Prosecutors are given much more leeway when it comes to offenses than we the defence are. Franziska all but submits illegal evidence to the court, ends her first trial against us by whipping Phoenix into unconsciousness. Even we don't get away unscathed, blackmailed into defending a guilty man through our assistant being kidnapped.

We are the ones colluding with the prosecution for a single goal, despite our reasons. This dark age of the law infects even us, no matter our attempts to do things right.

In Trials and Tribulations, we see that a prosecutor with no standing can hold immense sway just by virtue of his job. All we see of him are his losses, and yet his unconstrained loathing is treated with less severity than Franziska's whip, despite being just as much of a sting. He's touted as cool, even, despite assaulting Phoenix just the same. We see once again how a pretty face and a damsel in seeming distress can sway an entire courtroom despite all the evidence stacked against them. The fact that the Fey clan's drama is so intertwined with the courtroom's failings, from DL-6 all the way to Bridge to the Turnabout, is a testament to how deeply scarred the whole system has become.

There is hope, however. Even if we know the system isn't about to be changed, we have hope that old curses have been laid to rest and the prosecutors we trust are stepping out of that darkness.

(This is what makes this dark age of the law not feel oppressive or pronounced, I think. The most important part: there is hope and light. By our hand, the light of the truth will shine down and expose what lies live in that darkness.)

In Apollo Justice, we are hit with that oppressive darkness right out the gate. Our previous shining beacon has been disbarred and disgraced, accused of forging evidence. An accusation he seems to prove right by the end. Our mentor figure turns out to be the true murderer, leaving us to question everything he said to us over the course of the trial. A 14 year old foreigner is accused of not only killing a man with a hand cannon, but also moving his dead body across the venue all on his own, with the only reasoning being that he was the only one who could use the vent to escape. You cannot convict the true murderer with evidence alone; it takes pressing him until he breaks, it takes changing the entire legal system to catch a snake in that snare. It takes a 7 year long trap to finally snap down on that darkness and reveal the truth.

At the end, our voice is even speechless. Apollo has nothing to say about this dark age of the law and how to move past it. Despite how he should have so many thoughts on how Defence Attorneys are wrongfully vilified for forged evidence specifically, how he should have thoughts on treating Prosecutors like snakes who need to be beheaded to cut out the rot, he isn't able to say a thing. He wasn't really our guide through this showcasing of corruption, and so he is a look towards the future instead of any extra comment on the system.

In Dual Destinies, we are hit over the head with it so much. To rehabilitate the court's image to the public, they've created mascots. We witness an entire school dripping in its own sort of corruption, a war between seeking out the truth and winning at all costs. If the ends justifies the means, then it makes sense how the Prosecution and Defence Attorneys can justify forging evidence for the sake of their client, for the sake of their win record.

It is mostly lip service, however. The court proceedings have been so normalised to us that we instead find ourselves wondering about the change introduced at the end of Apollo Justice. We are forced to confront how that was, in effect, a trap for a single wicked man instead of any substantial restructuring to this corrupt system.

In Spirit of Justice, we see a true layer of darkness seeping into every facet of the system. We witness an entire country where defending someone on trial is almost unheard of, is all but outlawed. We hear the chants of the gallery, the voice of the layman screaming out for our deaths, calling for the sentencing of our clients with no regard for their lives. It is normalised in this world to see those suspected of guilt as inhuman, as demons filled with malice who need to be cleansed. It is so normalised that state-sanctioned murder is overlooked by the populace, that fear and paranoia must be so commonplace that it explains the ardent devotion of the gallery to this bloody system. Even back in our home country, things aren't much better. The crowds are still too easily swayed to see the defendant as irredeemable, the speed at which a man can enforce a contract (giving us no time to contend or even put into play any sort of payment plan) are near dystopian levels of absurdity.

All of this in favour of a revolution we cannot be sure will take. All in favour of a populace we cannot fully trust to accept the change we bring once we dethrone the royals who brought this darkness down upon this country in the first place.

There is hope, but we cannot fully believe in it when it is hasty and stuttering. When there is ample evidence that things cannot so easily be flipped, when we have been beaten down again and again with the thought of how much darkness is rooted in this system.

I do find it so fascinating that Dual Destinies, despite being the loudest about it, has the least amount of evidence to support its own claims. Every Ace Attorney is the Dark Age of the Law. Yet we only have it shoved in our face by one of them. (And what atmosphere they forgot to place in there they shoved all of and more into Spirit of Justice.)

[attorneyologies]

Veteran Attorney Phoenix Wright

Finally sharing the design for my no-disbarment au. Ten years working in the justice system has still left him jaded and cynical, but he also plays it up a lot so people have a hard time reading him. He's the legendary Turnabout Terror after all, he needs to keep people on their toes.

featuring:

nick being scruffy on purpose so people underestimate him

wearing the same jacket ten years. he literally had to add the elbow patches because he'd worn through the fabric

sweater vest knit with love by trucy

no tie but his locket works great in its place

magatama visibly glowing in his pocket when he's lied to

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thought the name sounded familiar and found this lovely piece of trivia

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i'm aware of how passionate the AA fandom is but people really need to cool it when they hop into a streamer's chat or LP's comment section, ESPECIALLY if the streamer is playing blind. i've observed that for any given AA playthrough, it feels like half the participating chat (if not the total viewers) is people who have already played the game themselves. they are not actually being considerate of spoilers just because they merely allude to future plot points rather than discussing them plainly. i know folks wanna talk really badly about which plot points and arcs and characters they love/hate with other fans, but someone else's stream is not always the most appropriate place to do that, when the person isn't even finished with the game and doesn't have the full context. we're all entitled to our opinions and it's not like we can't express them ever, but we should practice a little restraint because the streamer's experience is the priority. it's just polite

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Doing my first playthrough of these games, would highly recommend

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My hottest take is that while Trials and Tribulations as a whole is a more enjoyable game to play. I prefer the plot to Justice for All.

Aa2 doesn't exactly have the best case lineup in the series. Arguably having 2 of the worst cases of all time. But is an Ace Attorney game the sum of its cases? Does 2-1 and 2-3 negate the existence of 2-2 and 2-4? I don't think so personally.

Edgeworths disappearance, Franziska and Phoenix dealing with grief, Maya's feelings of immaturity, and the examination of what it means to be a defense attorney are all great storylines. I love them all to bits.

I think more people should look at Aa2 as a whole, more critically. Many get lost in the circus, and miss the story that is being told. I too, used to be on the Aa2 hate train. But a recent replay changed my opinion greatly.

This is not to say Aa3 is bad. It has a great case lineup, and I don't loathe playing a single case. The plot to Trials and Tribulations is great too. But when it comes to what games story occupies my brain the most consistently, it's Justice for All.

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I'm tired and aroace, so here's a reading from that perspective on Klavier's character arc in Apollo Justice

Something that's really interesting to me is that it's actually really easy to read Klavier as experiencing internalized homophobia. I'm not even just saying this to say it. It's not really obvious but I think it is a valid reading of Klav's character. Adding to this, I think you could read Guilty Love/Love Love Guilty as a representation of compulsory heterosexuality or even amatonormativity. To be clear this doesn't make the reading of him being bisexual or pansexual or anything else any more or less valid, but I do think reading Klavier as experiencing internalized homophobia and Guilty Love/Love Love Guilty being a song about compulsory heterosexuality and/or amatonormativity adds a lot to his character.

I don't even know how to explain my thinking here. Klavier's preference for prosecuting over music could be thought of as an allegory for being aroace. Like absolutely maybe I'm high off of sleep deprivation but consider it for a second. We know Klavier wrote 13 Years Hard Time For Love when he was 17. 13 Years Hard Time For Love, like Guilty Love, has official lyrics (Klav, buddy, you are fucking ridiculous). Neither 13 Years Hard Time For Love nor Guilty Love come off as Klavier being happy about his situation (obviously I might just be misreading the translated lyrics or projecting my own interpretation but regardless). Even ignoring potential readings of the two official lyrical versions of the Gavinners' music we have, let's go back to that "Klavier's preference for prosecuting over music could be an allegory for being aroace" thing.

Aside from the obvious, that being Klavier's music is mostly if not all love songs regarding crime in one way or another (13 Years Hard Time For Love treats the love itself as a crime, while Guilty Love is basically Klavier singing to a hypothetical girlfriend about having a preference for prosecution and even romanticizing a crime scene), when you consider what a rockstar's life is like, it's really easy to read Klavier breaking up the Gavinners and focusing on prosecution as embracing aromanticism/asexuality.

To be clear, I'm not saying you can't be aroace and a rockstar. You absolutely can. In Klavier's case specifically however, he had a history of writing love songs. How he handles it in Guilty Love feels like he's forcing it, and how he handles it in 13 Years Hard Time For Love feels off in a way I can't really place? It's not quite like he's forcing it, but it still feels off. It's almost like at the age of 17 he'd never dated anyone before, or if he had, the relationship sucked, and he took that as what relationships were supposed to be like. Guilty Love feels like a traditional breakup song with the added twist that the songwriter is a prosecutor and injects that into everything he fucking does (but also has the added twist that he improvises a line that would imply part of the reason for the breakup is because he'd rather be spending time with Apollo, which is where my thought that Klavier could be experiencing internalized homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality comes from).

"But Jinx, didn't he write a song called My Boyfriend Is The Prosecution's Witness?" Yeah, but we don't know exactly when he wrote it or what the lyrics are. For all we know, it could continue with the vibe I get of "I don't think this man has a healthy relationship with romance" from Guilty Love and 13 Years Hard Time For Love. The fact that Klavier injects crime into his songs further stands out to me because that just. Doesn't seem healthy? Like yes, we only have the lyrics to two of the Gavinners' songs, but on the other end of that, associating romance with crime in the way Klavier does in Guilty Love and 13 Years Hard Time For Love is weird. In Guilty Love he breaks up with someone because he prefers prosecution and he romanticizes crime scenes (the two aren't related I just worded it weird sorry lol), and in 13 Years Hard Time For Love it feels like he's flip-flopping between "this is a relationship I'm enjoying" and "I would really rather not be in this relationship" which is really obvious when that relationship is compared to a prison, specifically a "prison of love where the key never opens" which. Is a line. And also implies that he sees the relationship as akin to a prison (and let's also acknowledge that Klavier is singing 13 Years Hard Time For Love from the perspective opposite his own; that being, someone being prosecuted instead of the prosecutor). I also want to point out that if we decide to just go off of song titles, it's certainly something. Aside from Guilty Love and 13 Years Hard Time For Love, we have:

Love With No Chance Of Parole

My Boyfriend Is The Prosecution's Witness

Atroquinine, My Love

Sir are you okay? what is your experience with romance and why does it seem like none of it is good

Anyway, I don't think Klavier has a healthy relationship with romance and I'd honestly be surprised if this doesn't also extend to sex. Even if he's not aroace-spec, there's something there that seems to just give him a not great perspective on romance. This could be a lot of things obviously. Negative experiences, a bitter breakup, lack of experience, it could be a lot of things.

"But he flirts with Ema and Apollo, so he must have some experience with romance." Not necessarily. I've never been in a proper relationship in my life and am also aroace-spec and still sometimes flirt with people when the impulse hits. I'm not exactly flirtatious like Klavier is, but I'll still flirt with or tease people if the opportunity presents itself. No relationship experience and being aroace doesn't immediately mean you can't flirt successfully lol. This also brings me back to the topic of amatonormativity and Klavier experiencing compulsory heterosexuality.

Personally I think an argument could be made for Klavier being polyamorous. I promise this is relevant but let me explain why I say this first. The entire conversation about Klavier's guitars during Turnabout Serenade when you run into him in his office is what I'll be referencing here. It's not a long conversation, but it's still relevant.

Apollo: Look at all the guitars! Why so many? Klavier: You can never have too many guitars. They are like… my lovers. Apollo: (I didn't just hear him say that.) Trucy: They're backup guitars, Apollo. Don't you know anything? Rock 'n' rollers always smash their guitars at the end of a show! Apollo: No wonder it's so hard to make it as a musician. Trucy: You know what, you should try rocking a little, Apollo. Apollo: And breaking his guitars while he watches? That might be a little too rocking. Klavier: Ah ha ha ha. Of course, I would never do such a thing. Did I not say, they are like my lovers? Do I seem like the kind of man who would do such a thing to ones he loves? Trucy: No, no! Not at all! I mean, you're Mr. Gavin, upstanding prosecutor!

That first line from Klavier, to me at least, feels like he's basically saying "You can never have too many lovers!" Why is this relevant to this post? Because amatonormativity generally includes monogamy. Even if Klavier is just polyamorous and not aroace (although I 100% think he's both poly and aroace-spec), he'd still be affected by amatonormativity.

This brings me to another thing. Klavier feels most like he's being himself around Apollo and Ema (and Trucy and Athena by extension since they're always investigating with Apollo in AJ:AA and Dual Destinies respectively but that's beside the point. Klavier feels most like he's being himself when he's interacting with Apollo and Ema specifically). It's worth noting that Apollo and Ema, much like Klavier, work in law, which means they end up in court a lot. This further means that if he started a relationship with either or both of them, he wouldn't have to worry about his job getting in the way of a relationship. He trusts both of them (which seems to be the only point in AJ:AA where his willingness to trust people didn't come back to bite him in the ass but I digress) and they seem to trust him, even if they do find him obnoxious. He wouldn't have any reason to not be himself around them, and I think that mutual trust would give Klavier a relationship (or relationships) that he doesn't feel like he has to force to work. He probably wouldn't feel like he's abandoning them every time he prosecutes a case (which is how it's implied he feels in Guilty Love) because there's a non-zero chance that they're also going to be working on that case, and they wouldn't have to worry about his attention being on his work too much because let's be honest, they're all workaholics and would probably be working on the same case.

So basically, I think at the very least it's easy to read Klavier as experiencing a bunch of negativity in regards to his sexual orientation, however you imagine it, and I think reading him breaking up the Gavinners as an aroace coming out metaphor is a 10/10 reading. I might make a better version of this post because I doubt it's very coherent but I'm too tired for that right now lol. This barely makes sense to me, and I wrote it. So I won't judge anyone for saying this is barely comprehensible. Anyway I'm gonna go eat some breakfast then get some sleep