#Also Phoenix Wright references cause why not? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sillybillyanon · 7 months ago

Note

-odot (pronounced GOD-oh, gə-DOH, or go-doh; see Name) was the mysterious coffee-loving prosecutor for Phoenix Wright's cases from October 2018 until February 2019. He held an open grudge against Wright (although it would be some time until Wright would find out why), intentionally mispronouncing his name as "Trite" to show his contempt. Godot was originally Diego Armando, a senior defense lawyer working at Grossberg Law Offices.

Armando was Mia Fey's aide when she took on her first case, giving her advice as she went through and urging her to continue on the attack. Near the end of the trial, their client, Terry Fawles, died on the stand as a result of drinking poison given to him by the real killer, Dahlia Hawthorne. Angered by the outcome, Armando crushed his mug of coffee in his hand, which subsequently began bleeding. Soon afterward, the two lawyers started dating, with their boss Marvin Grossberg referring to them as such.

On August 27, 2013, Armando sat with Hawthorne to question her. Fearing that the lawyer was on to her, Hawthorne slipped a special poison into his cup of coffee. The poison from the cup severely damaged his internal organs, particularly his central nervous system and his eyes, and turned the hair on his head white. Medical intervention saved his life, but the damage already done was severe, and he remained in a comatose state.

Five years later, Armando miraculously woke up to the smell of coffee. Upon awakening, however, he learned that Mia Fey had been murdered two years prior by Redd White, CEO of the blackmailing company Bluecorp. Furthermore, Dahlia Hawthorne had already been brought to justice. Armando blamed Fey's understudy, Phoenix Wright, for her death, and resolved to protect her sister Maya. Armando became a prosecutor to test Wright's worthiness to succeed Mia, as well as to gain privileges to spy on Morgan Fey, whom he knew had tried to frame Maya for murder before and perhaps would attempt to kill or otherwise harm her again. Although he was able to compensate for his damaged vision by wearing a special visor over his eyes that enabled him to see, it was limited in that he could not see red on a white background, and he still required regular visits to the hospital. Considering his old self to have "died," he took on the new name "Godot".

Godot made his debut as a prosecutor in the Mask☆DeMasque trials. Sly, sarcastic, and intolerant, he began to put pressure on Wright. Despite being his first time prosecuting, Godot was levelheaded and cool, displaying unnatural finesse with the law, prompting Wright to ask Detective Gumshoe about his background. When the defendant, Ron DeLite, was declared not guilty of theft, Godot prosecuted the subsequent murder case to challenge Wright again. Nonetheless, Wright managed to prove a private detective named Luke Atmey had created an alibi of larceny to prevent murder charges against himself. Near the end of the murder trial, Godot saw Maya channel Mia so that she could help Wright.

Godot challenged Wright again in another trial. He could not see the ketchup stains on the defendant's white apron, hinting at his vision problems. He also demonstrated his remarkable ability to keep his cool even when faced with fearsome characters like Furio Tigre. Nonetheless, Wright bested him again, and Tigre let out a final roar, causing a short blackout. During the blackout, everybody noticed that Godot's visor glowed in the dark.

One day, he overheard Morgan telling her daughter Pearl about a letter she had hidden, which would give her instructions for killing Maya Fey. Oblivious to the letter's purpose and unable to understand some of the words, Pearl attempted to carry through with the plan, telling Phoenix Wright and Maya about Hazakura Temple. Godot contacted Iris, a nun at the temple, and Misty Fey, Maya's mother, telling them about the plan and asking for their assistance. Misty had by then taken on the new identity of children's book author Elise Deauxnim, as she had left her hometown after being humiliated during the DL-6 Incident.

Misty attempted to keep Pearl from carrying through with the plan by inviting her to read some books, but Pearl went anyway. She crossed a bridge to the Inner Temple, where Maya was training. Following her mother's instructions, she attempted to channel Dahlia Hawthorne, who had been executed a month before. Godot was already near the temple, prepared for the worst. When Pearl did not show up, Misty became worried and also crossed to the island, channeling Hawthorne to prevent Pearl from doing so.

Hawthorne, in Misty's body, found Maya in the temple's garden and attempted to kill her, cornering her on a lantern in the temple garden. Godot witnessed this, though he was unaware of who was channeling Hawthorne at the time. He found himself possessed by an intense hatred for the woman who had ruined his life, picking up Misty's sword-cane and stabbing Hawthorne with it, only to be attacked by her one final time, causing his visor to fly off his face and leaving a wound. Maya fainted after the visor flew off, and Hawthorne left Misty's body as she died.

Godot put on his visor again, which concealed his wound. He then carried Maya into the temple and cleaned up the bloodied snow. Unable to see the blood, he was forced to shovel a large rectangular area around the lantern. This also meant that he missed the bloody writing that read "Maya", which Hawthorne had written on the lantern before Misty died. Godot tried to carry Misty's body over the bridge, but it had burnt down, so he attached the corpse to a loose cable and swung it across the river for Iris to receive on the other side. Iris then stabbed the corpse in the Hazakura Temple courtyard with the Shichishito sword to make it look as if the crime scene had been on that side. Meanwhile, Maya woke up and wrote a letter to Mia for advice, and then channeled her. Following the advice that Mia subsequently wrote, Maya locked herself in the Inner Temple's channeling chamber and channeled Hawthorne to protect herself.

The destruction of Dusky Bridge left the Inner Temple isolated from the rest of the area, trapping the people there, including Godot, for three days. Iris was arrested and tried for the murder during that time, prosecuted by Franziska von Karma. The bridge was eventually repaired from the fire, allowing Wright, von Karma, and Iris to reach the Sacred Cavern to undo the locks, hoping to save Maya. Godot coldly dismissed von Karma as prosecutor for the case, and managed to convince them that he had been at a doctor's appointment. Although Wright at this point only suspected that Godot was Armando, the latter laid into him, blaming him for Mia's death. Iris later managed to undo the lock, and Hawthorne proceeded to switch places with her, masquerading as her dark-haired sister and locking the real Iris in the channeling chamber.

During the trial of Misty's murder, Hawthorne, pretending to be Iris, testified that Maya committed the crime. However, Wright eventually uncovered her identity and, with the help of Godot and Mia, was able to come to the conclusion that Maya was channeling Hawthorne. Hawthorne, condemned to eternal failure at the hands of Mia, fled from Maya's body. Iris was about to be pronounced innocent, but Godot then challenged Wright to try and find the true killer, without the help and support of the Fey sisters.

Maya later testified as well. Filled with gratitude for Godot, she attempted to cover for him. Godot taunted Wright, asserting that he would "never be half the lawyer [Mia] was", but Wright, fulfilling his mentor's legacy, persevered and proved that Godot was the killer. Realizing this, and seeing Mia's spirit in Wright, Godot finally admitted his mistakes, accepting that he had only been angry at "Trite" because he had needed someone to blame for Mia's death. He further added that he had been at least partly motivated by a chance at revenge. If he had really only wanted to save Maya, he would have talked to Wright about the plan.

He again stated that his name was Diego Armando. Maya responded that she believed that Armando really had been trying to save her. As he thanked her for her remark, his eye wound from the knife stab began to bleed through the visor. When told about it, he said simply that red does not exist in his world, and that they were in fact his tears. He gave Maya the same advice he had given Mia on her first day in court: "The only time a lawyer can cry is when it's all over".

His soul in peace at last, he shared one last cup of coffee with Wright in the courtroom, and they agreed that it was the best coffee they had ever tasted. In addition, Armando pronounced Wright's name correctly for the first time. Wright was upset that he had been unable to save Armando, but Mia assured him that he had saved Armando in a way that had nothing to do with living or dying.

#silly billy moment #ace attorney spoilers

2 notes · View notes

frogs-in3-hills · 2 years ago

Text

Day 3 of the @domaystic prompt challenge: "List"

Ace Attorney | Gen | SFW | 1,382 words

Relationships: Kay Faraday & Trucy Wright, Athena Cykes & Apollo Justice & Phoenix Wright & Trucy Wright

POV Kay Faraday

Summary: The unofficial rules of the Wright Anything Agency.

“Okay, one more paper to sign, and we’re all done, Kay,” Trucy says, bouncing on her toes with a little tilt to her head.

“Awesome! Bring it on, kiddo.”

Trucy says it like she feels bad about it, but really, Kay’s barely even been here for fifteen minutes, and that’s only because her instincts simply won’t allow her to sign any papers she hasn’t gone over with a fine-toothed comb—yes, even when it’s coming from your friend’s “friend’s” weird little daughter. Becoming an official member of the Wright Anything Agency has been an absolute breeze.

Of course, it’s only a temporary contract. Kay just needs some specific credentials for the job she’s about to go on, and that includes being employed by a legal office like the WAA. Which, surprisingly, is actually considered to be a legal office in the eyes of, well, the law.

After three months, she’ll be out again. She’s done this once or twice with Mr. Edgeworth before, getting him to sign her on as a legal assistant so that she can gain better access to things she’s not supposed to have access to. He justifies it to himself by saying that the only way to stop Kay from breaking the law is to make the things she’s doing less illegal. This is, of course, correct.

This time, though, she can’t go to Mr. Edgeworth, because the legality of her current mission is slightly more dubious. Bless his heart, but Mr. Edgeworth is so rigid, it’s best to just let him turn a blind eye sometimes for his own mental well-being. So here she is, speaking to Trucy, because Kay knows that Trucy knows that “legality” is less of a boolean yes-or-no and more of a sliding scale.

Trucy hands her the last sheet, and the first thing Kay notices about it is that it’s not actually a printed document—it’s a photocopy of a printed document. The text is straight, but the margins are slightly offset. As a Great Thief (and a paralegal), obviously it’s her job to notice this kind of thing.

Across the top, in big bold letters, it reads:

Unofficial Rules of the Wright Anything Agency

“Hey Trucy,” Kay starts. “Why do I have to sign this if it’s unofficial?”

“Oh, it’s not legally binding or anything,” Trucy says flippantly. “It’s more like, um… a petition, I guess? You’re just kind of stating your support or your intent. That’s what Daddy said, anyways, when I tried to make it actually legally binding.”

“Oh, okay,” she replies. Kay isn’t in the habit of signing things she doesn’t totally need to, but she also likes to think of herself as a very generous person, so she gives the document a look.

It’s just an ordered list, reading:

1. If Athena is in the kitchenette, then everyone else has to leave.

“Off to an understandable start,” Kay comments.

“Yeah, we made Athena write the first rule because the whole thing was her idea. She said she was confused by our workplace dynamic and we needed to lay out some proper guidelines.”

Kay thinks it’s a good thing Athena doesn’t visit the Prosecutor’s Office very often, then.

2. There is no toilet cleaning schedule and there never will be. We acknowledge the inconvenience this may cause, and subsequently ignore it. 3. Trucy’s glitter gel pens are off-limits. 4. Apollo and Athena must refer to Charley as ‘Mr. Charley’, as he is senior staff. 5. Mr. Wright may redirect all odd jobs and requests towards their legal branch members. 6. Chess.com is banned until further notice. 7. All HR complaints go to Trucy. 8. Personal note: Don’t get into bets with Trucy. 9. Personal note: No matter what Trucy says, it is NOT Talk Like A Pirate Day. Do not believe her.

Kay flashes a side-long glance at the young girl sitting before her.

“You aren’t terrorizing your employees too much, are you?”

Trucy pouts. “If I tell you the truth, are you going to publish an expose about it?”

“Not if I sign this paper, I won’t!”

10. Personal note: Do not share existential fun facts with Apollo, it scares him.

Kay puts the paper down for a second. “So, just to clarify…”

“Uh-huh?”

“Regarding these personal notes, am I specifically agreeing that Athena should follow these rules, or am I agreeing to keep these notes in mind for personal endeavors?”

“Uh…” Trucy frowns. “Well, I dunno, I’m not the lawyer around here!”

Kay blinks. Honestly, she kind of doubts the whole clueless act—after all, Trucy is apparently responsible for putting together all the other employee forms, and that requires at least a little bit of business awareness—and she’s also grinning really wide, with that innocent look in her eyes, and it reminds her so much of Phoenix’s bluffing face that it honestly makes Kay a little sick to her stomach. In an awwe kind of way, not an eww kind of way.

“Yeah, okay,” she cedes.

11. Any changes to file organization standards MUST be fielded by Apollo before being applied to every document in the agency. 12. Trucy may request the magical assistance of any employee. All employees, regardless of specialization, are additionally listed as magician’s assistants on the WAA website. 13. Non-negotiable: When in the office, Athena’s lunch break starts at 1:00 PM, no matter what “important investigation” she may be busy with at the time. She is expected to plan her schedule accordingly. -Phoenix

Ooh, scary Mr. Wright. Kay supposes having a kid will do that to you.

14. Anyone is allowed to drink Mr. Wright’s grape juice, because it really is just grape juice? 15. Whoever won the case must pay for Eldoon’s, regardless of whether they’ve received compensation yet. 16. Trucy may not provide Evidence Disappearing Services unless specifically requested. 17. Nobody is allowed to actually make fun of Apollo’s forehead. 18. The protein bars stationed at multiple points around the office are for ATHENA ONLY. Do not eat. 19. All pranks are permitted, provided they are not cruel or unusual in any way. Dangerous pranks are okay. 20. Addendum: Dangerous pranks are NOT okay?? -Apollo 21. Addendum: Dangerous pranks are okay. -Phoenix 22. Addendum: Dangerous pranks are okay. -Trucy 23. I’m staying out of this one. -Athena 24. No alliances. 25. Most importantly, if the opportunity arises to gently bully Apollo, it is your duty to seize this opportunity and “yes, and” it into oblivion.

And… huh.

“Y’know, these are actually surprisingly tame,” Kay says finally.

Trucy gasps. “Oh, right, you go to the prosecutor’s office kind of a lot, don’t you? All of this must just be chump change to you!”

“You bet! It’s seriously lucky they’ve got Mr. Edgeworth around to keep everything in check, otherwise it’d become a hostile workplace environment in two seconds.”

“So… does that mean you’ll be signing, Auntie Kay?”

Ooh, pulling out the big guns, huh? Lucky for her, Kay’s got a strong mind, and recovers from the Auntie Card fairly quickly.

“Tell me again what happens if I don’t sign it?”

To be clear, all of the terms seem pretty reasonable to Kay—she just wants to know what Trucy will say.

“Well, legally, I don’t do anything to you if you don’t,” Trucy says thoughtfully.

Kay grins. “And what about illegally?”

“Kay!” Trucy cries. “You think I would do something illegal? That’s totally crazy-talk! My dad’s a lawyer, you know.”

Ooh, good answer. Nice and dodgey.

“That’s totally exactly what I would say, kiddo. Get me a pen, pretty please?”

Trucy brightens at that, running off to grab one of her oh-so-sacred glitter gel pens.

Sitting there for just a moment in the silence, Kay thinks about this weird, wonderful little family that she’s found, and how it all comes back to that day in the courthouse when she first met Mr. Edgeworth. It’s been so long since then, it’s kind of crazy to think about how intertwined Kay has been with these people, albeit unknowingly, for so much of her life. Patting the old, faded cravat in her pocket, she thinks about how lucky she is to have made so many amazing friends.

When Trucy comes back, Kay signs the list with a flair befitting a Great Thief.

#domaystic2023 #aa fanfic #kay faraday #wright anything agency #aa #frogs.fic

17 notes · View notes

isakthedragon · 7 years ago

Text

Super Sonic Thieves Chapter 3

Chapter 3- The Case of Thieves and ‘Killers’

Intro Cutscene:

Sly: “Another look into the Thievius Raccoonus led us to visit England during the Victorian Era. Our family had an ancestor during that time, Thaddeus WInslow Cooper III, that was known as one of the richest families at the time. Besides being known as a wondrous mechanic, building one of the earliest flying machines, he was also a well-known detective from Scotland Yard as well. There was something very worrisome about it though; not only is that information missing, but it seems he was arrested for committing attempted murder he was investigating! Looks like we’ll have to put on our thinking caps and grab the magnifying glasses to solve what has happened to my ancestor.”

Sly Cooper and the Gang in…

*An old timey book opens up to an empty page and a raccoon hand comes in with a red-inked quill and writes: ‘ The Case Of Thieves and ‘Killers’ ’. The ink slides down off the letters a bit, looking like blood.*

-----

Hub Layout:

The gang has their hideout just outside of London to the West in an abandoned farm (so they can hide the van since they don’t exist yet) during the winter, so not many people are outside as well, along with a covering of snow everywhere. The police department, and the jail as well, are in the center of the city, just West of the River Thames. Nearby is Big Ben, chiming on the hours. Since this is the 1800s, the city is much smaller, and is more filled with houses. The map ends on the River Thames though, so you can’t go any farther. The north side of London is the home of a huge manor and in the air is one of Eggman’s airships floating about, creating all the badniks.

Enemies

Crows: Black crows that flutter about the roofs in search of thieves, or anyone breaking the law for that matter. They will caw for other guards if provoked. Carries/drops 5-7 coins to pickpocket has 10% chance of treasure.

‘Werewolves’: Wolves that walk around, patrolling the streets with their heightened sense of smell for blood (Wolves in Sly’s world are anthropomorphic already, but they are ‘werewolves’ for being more fluffy and having longer claws, seemingly being transformed by the London moon.) They will counterattack with their claws with a nasty claw swipe that is almost unavoidable. Carries/drops 7-9 coins to pickpocket has 25% chance of treasure.

Horses: Brown-colored stallions that search the streets with their flashlights for anyone where they aren’t. Attacking these guys will make them retaliate with a hoof kick, but it does take them a bit to charge up. Despite what you’d think, it’s best to stay real close in front of their face if there is no alert about as they can’t see in front of their own head for a few feet. Carries/drops 7-12 coins to pickpocket has 50% chance of treasure.

Bobbie Pawns: Egg Pawns acting as the actual police force of London, but will club at anyone with their oversized clubs and will whistle for other enemies if left alone. Don’t attack their head as their have a spike on their cap that is NOT for show and WILL hurt. Drops 6 rings when smashed.

Egg Fighter Knights: Also wearing a police uniform, these guys opt for a sword and shield instead (But forgot their spike caps). Either hit them from the top or from the back to destroy them. Drops 8 rings when smashed.

Egg Gunners: Eggman’s blatant disregard for time has had him send his futuristic (And humanoid looking) badniks to fight Sonic and co. They can float in the air and fire at you with their vulcan cannons. Sonic and the others can handle them, but the Sly characters may need to get creative to smash these things. Drops 10 rings when smashed.

Nebula: Helicopter like badniks that drop spike balls on you if you pass underneath them. Better destroy them before that happens. Drops 4 rings.

Balkiry: Fast bird baniks that jet towards you. Better smash them when you see them. Drops 5 rings.

Turtloid: A small turtle badnik that controls a bigger turtle badnik that fires small missiles at you. Destroy the smaller one to make the bigger one useless. Drops 6 rings.

Treasures:

From Guards:

Bronze Quill: Worth 40 coins and 20 rings.

Silver Quill: Worth 60 coins and 30 rings.

Gold Quill: Worth 80 coins and 40 rings.

From Pedestals:

Pearl Necklace: No bobby trap. Worth 400 coins and 200 rings. Found around Annis Fox's home.

Gold Crown: Bomb booby trap, with 2:00 timer. Worth 450 coins and 225 rings. Found near the courthouse.

Silver Clock Hands: Bomb bobby trap, with 1:00 timer. Worth 500 coins and 250 rings. Found on Big Ben’s roof.

Golden Magnifying Glass: Fall Damage Sensor booby trap. Worth 600 coins and 300 rings. Found near Thaddeus’s home

The coins here have an old Victorian England Coat of Arms on them.

Secret Sighting of Clockwerk: Acting as a gargoyle statue in a park. Maybe he’s a Weeping Angel? :P

-----Jobs-----

Another London ‘Murder’ Mystery

Find a disguise for Sly

Go talk to Thaddeus

Steal the case info

Head off to the manor and take recon.

Sly: “It feels weird that I am going to a police station voluntary again.”

Carmelita, through the radio: “Giving you bad memories? Preferably in shocks!” *She chuckles.*

Sly: “Huh, so that’s why my tail has a tingling sensation near you.” *He chuckles back.*

Bentley: “GUYS! PAY ATTENTION!!”

Sly: “Buzzkill.”

Carmelita: “Indeed.”

Bentley: “We don’t got time! We need to hurry in and find Thaddeus! His trial is tomorrow, and we need to figure out to save him before then, but first we need to talk to him!”

Sly: “Alright, Bentley, don’t get your shell cracked. We’ll talk to him, although I wonder if they might arrest me for looking like him…”

Espio: “Don’t worry, I’ll distract them, but perhaps you might need a disguise…”

Bentley: “I would guess the evidence locker for clothes might have something you can use. Now come on!”

*Sly and Espio head into the Police Station. The player has them sneak around, avoiding and distracting police officers with various things to get their attention as they make their way to the evidence locker where they store clothes. There are waypoints in the room for things to collect.*

Sly: “Alright.” *He puts them on.* “Heh, should fool them enough. Now to find Thaddeus.”

*The player continues sneaking on, making their way to Thaddeus’ cell. Once there…*

Thaddeus was sitting, looking away from the bars. “Huh? Who goes there? Another annoying bobby making fun of a ‘lost’ detective?”

Sly: “Quite the opposite really. I want to help restore your reputation.”

It peaked Thaddeus’s interest, with his ears twitching and tilting his head a bit. “Oh, really? And who might you be?”

Sly: “Well, it’s a long story, but I am an ancestor of yours. My name is Sly Cooper.”

Thaddeus turns and walks up to the bars to look at Sly. “Hmmm… it appears you are a Cooper alright. But what are you doing here?”

Sly: “Well, it seems obvious you aren’t meant to be in prison. I know you are a great detective, but someone has altered history to put you in here.

Thaddeus: “Is that so? How? And why? You didn’t have something to do with this, did you?”

Sly: No! ...Well, I hope. Anyway, I’m afraid I can’t explain right now. Can’t risk overstaying my welcome here. But what can you tell about what’s going on. How’d you get arrested?

Thaddeus: “Ah, it is the most infuriating thing! I was framed for attempting to murder Lady Fox, a fox of extraordinary wealth.”

Sly: “WHAT?!”

Thaddeus: “Yes! Even though I’ve never been nor had any reason to ever visit her place, the law found my items in her living room where she laid comatose, and her own valuables were missing! Being from a family of master thieves, I was of course accused of the crime despite none of those valuables being in my possession.”

Sly: Blamed for a thieving you didn’t even commit. Unbelievable…

Thaddeus: Oh, I shudder to think of how tarnished my legacy has become with this unfortunate event...

Sly: Hey, don’t worry! Me and my gang are going to do everything we can to clear your name! I’m not going to let one of my favorite ancestors go down like this!

Thaddeus: A thousand thank yous, my dear descendant. I bet if you want to know anymore of the case, they probably have the information handy, since my trial, which is gonna be more of a death sentence than anything, is soon.”

Sly: “We’ll figure out some way-”

Espio interjects quickly. “Someone’s coming! And we can’t hide you!”

Sly: “Don’t worry, I got this.”

Police Officer: “Hey?! Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Sly (In his favorite accent, Italian :P ): “Oh? A-me? I’m-a the defense lawyer sent to defend Thaddeus. It’s-a my first case.”

Police Officer: “Hah! I see they found a sucker to defend Thaddeus! No one wants to touch that! Good luck, buddy, his case is a lock! Better be prepared to lose!” *The thought was apparently funny enough that the officer leaves.*

Espio: “That was close.”

Sly: “Guess I’m gonna defend you then, Thaddeus.”

Thaddeus: “Knowing you’re doing it, I feel relieved. I wish you luck.”

Sly: “Thanks.”

*The player now makes their way back out, taking the case info someone left out along the way.*

*Outside…*

Bentley: “So you had to tangle yourself with the case huh?”

Sly: “Well, someone has to defend Thaddeus! Besides, it might help with whatever plan we come up with later.”

Bentley: “True. Well, I guess you should make your way to the manor then. See what the crime scene suggests.”

*The player heads off to the manor and in disguise, enters it. They make their way to the master bedroom, where the crime occurred.*

Sly: “Hmmm… quite a mess in here…”

*The player takes recon photos of the broken window, hole in the wall, the neat bed, and the trail of loot leading out of the open empty safe.*

Bentley, on the broken window. “It seems to be where the criminal entered, considering the glass on the inside floor.”

Bentley, on the hole in the wall. “That shape seems quite odd. Maybe we need to ask Sonic and his friends on that.”

Bentley, on the neat bed. “Hmmm, for the mess in the room, the bed looks oddly neat. This Ms. Fox must have been put to sleep before she could even react.”

Bentley, on the trail of loot. “Whoever did this seems to have dropped a money trail, literally. I think we should check where it goes.”

Sly: “That seems to be everything interesting we can find here.”

Bentley: “Alright, come back to the hideout so we can read the case info and we’ll go on from there.”

JOB COMPLETE

-----

Bentley: “Alright. Here seems to be their case for the prosecution: Yesterday morning, nearby neighbors awoke to the sound of glass breaking from the manor. Worried for Ms. Fox, they immediately went to get the police. They came quick and found her comatose on the bed and her safe open and completely empty of money and valuables. Finding what was a calling card for Thaddeus, they immediately arrested him and took his cane along with them. Oddly, the cane is missing from the evidence log, so it can be assumed it was lost on the way to the station. They threw him in jail, and now it’s just waiting for the case to finish to kill him.”

Vector: “Seems like they have a really good case against him, especially with the calling card.”

Charmy: ♪ “Heh, maybe we should take it back so they have no case!” ♫

Bentley: “That’s what we were thinking. We need to steal it so they will have a harder time prosecuting him. And it might also free Thaddeus for the time being.”

Charmy: ♪ “Sweet! So who gets to go?” ♫

Bentley: “We’re gonna have Espio and Carmelita go in to find the evidence. It’s too dangerous for anyone else.”

Charmy: ♪ “AW! I wanted a mission!” ♫

Bentley: “Don’t worry, you got a mission with Vector. You guys will follow the money trail to see where it ends.”

Charmy: ♪ “YAY!” ♫

Vector: “We won’t let you down!”

-----

Follow the Green

Follow the trail of money to its end

Vector: “Alright, we’re under the broken window that the trail of cash leads to, but it seems the snow is covering more it.”

Bentley: “Darn, I see the snowfall has been heavy recently. How are we going to find it?”

Charmy: ♪ “OH! Oh! Vector can find it! He can find the trail, no problem!” ♫

Bentley: “Really? How?”

Vector: “Heh, well, I have somewhat of a sense of money. I can smell it from a distance.”

Bentley: “Great! Go on, then! Follow the trail!”

Vector: “Got it.”

*The player has to hold down a certain button to make Vector sniff the ground, which makes green clouds float above the ground, showing the money trail. The player has Vector and Charmy follow it among the streets, alleys, and roofs throughout town, until they reach Big Ben.*

Charmy notices them stop. “What is it?”

Vector: “For some reason, the trail stops here in front of Big Ben. It might continue, but we can’t get up there.”

Bentley: “It’s alright, guys. Come back to the safehouse. We’ll find a way up there.”

JOB COMPLETE

-----

Freeing the Innocent

Enter the evidence locker and steal back the evidence leading to Thaddeus

Save Carmelita from the police officers.

Carmelita, wearing a period accurate police uniform stolen earlier by Sly. “I wonder if they will believe me in this get-up.”

Espio: “Well, I just need you to convince them long enough so I can get through the evidence locker for Thaddeus’ stuff.”

Carmelita: “Hmmm, if they are like present day evidence holding rooms, it should be alphabetized. So look under ‘C’ .”

Espio: “Got it.”

*The player enters and takes control of Espio as Carmelita grabs the attention of the police around. The player makes their way to the evidence locker and enters it.*

Espio: “Oh my!”

Bentley: “What is it?”

Espio: “For being the 1800s, the place sure has modern-day lasers.”

Bentley: “Hmmm… I wonder if Eggman has messed around in here?”

Espio: “Well, it’s not going to stop me. I got this.”

*The player makes their way through the evidence locker, avoiding the lasers and other modern-day traps to reach Thaddeus’ evidence, which Espio grabs.*

Espio: “Alright. Time to get out of here.”

Bentley: “You better hurry. Carmelita seems to be having trouble keeping up out there. She sounds mad.”

Espio: “Got it.”

*The player now has to make their way out, noticing Carmelita is overwhelmed. The player has Espio make some noises and distractions to help Carmelita escape. Once it works, they leave to finish the mission.*

JOB COMPLETE

-----

Bentley: “Alright. I got good news and bad news.”

Sly: “I’m guessing the good news is Thaddeus is now free from jail?”

Bentley: “Yes.”

Sonic: “That seemed too easy.”

Bentley: “Well, that’s the bad news.”

Thaddeus: “Apparently, someone claims they saw me putting Ms. Fox to sleep and stealing her money, and they are testifying in court tomorrow. I’m free to move around the city, but I can’t leave.”

Charmy: ♪ “Darn! All that for nothing!” ♫

Thaddeus: “Well, I’m here now, and I want to help you find the real criminal!”

Sly: “So what are our plans on doing that?”

Bentley: “Well, Silver and I will be entering Big Ben to continue on the trail of the money. I have a feeling it will lead us to who did all this. Also during this time, Murray and Vector will check on Ms. Fox.”

Vector: “I think what has made her comatose is an Egg Flapper badnik. The hole in the wall matches up to one.”

Bentley: “Besides, she could be useful in solving the case. Finally, Thaddeus, Sly, and Sonic are going to take Thaddeus’ plane into the air. I think that airship is producing all the badniks down here and it might make our plan harder if we don’t take it down.”

Sonic: “Sweet! Some air time!”

Sly: “Huh, flying with my ancestor. Never thought I’d see the day.”

-----

Going Cuckoo

Make your way through Big Ben

Steal the cane back from Bark the Polar Bear

Tails: “I can see you guys are at Big Ben. Now how to help you guys get up on the roofs.”

Bentley: “Hmmm… nothing seems obvious…”

Silver: “Can I try something?”

*The player has Silver telekinetically grab Bentley…*

Bentley: “WHOA!”

*... And place him on the roof nearby before telekinetically floating Silver there too.*

Tails: “Well, that worked.”

Bentley: “I flew! But please warn me next time you do that!”

Silver: “Heh, sorry, and alright.”

*The player makes their way across the roofs of Big Ben tower, following the money trail as it takes them into the belfry's. It’s a bit of a dangerous trek, avoiding various swinging parts and for some reason, lasers again and being spun around on gears and destroying junk and walls with Bentley’s bombs. The money trail ends at an ajar door that they enter. Inside they find the vault contents and something more…*

Silver: “Look! The money!”

Bentley: “Shhh… that’s not all.”

*We pan to see Bark the Polar Bear sitting in a lounge chair, talking to Eggman.*

Bark: “Well, it’s a bit unconventional, but I’m going to be testifying to get Thaddeus executed.”

Eggman: “I can only guess that pesky hedgehog is the reason why you have to.”

Bark: “Sorry.”

Eggman:”It’s fine. I’m used to failure. Just make sure your case is solid!”

Bark: “It is, I promise! It can’t be disproven otherwise!”

Eggman: “You better hope so!”

Bark: “Well, if it’s any consolation, I have the info for Thaddeus’ cane and moves and stuff.”

Eggman: “Good. Send it over.”

Silver: “I think I can grab the cane, but we need to distract Bark first.”

Bentley: “I think if I hit the various bells and stuff above him, it should annoy him enough! I’ll use my darts to work them.”

*The player has Bentley shoot darts at various gears and bells, making them work to make a big cacophony that makes Bark cover his ears.*

Bark: “AH!!! The noise! So deafening!”

*The player has Silver take the distraction and telekinetically get the cane over to Silver.*

SIlver grabs them once they are close. “YES! I got them!”

Bentley: “Let’s get out of here before he notices.”

JOB COMPLETE

-----

Grey’s Robo-Anatomy

Defeat the enemies in the hospital

Save Carmelita’s ancestor from the Egg Flapper

Vector: “Alright, Tails. We have made it to the hospital… although it looks quiet.”

Murray: “Too quiet. The hospital looks dark.”

Tails: “That doesn’t sound good. You guys better check it out and find out what’s happening.”

*They enter and find the place swarming with badniks and guards chasing the hospital staff.*

Tails: “Oh my! They seems to be attacking the staff and patients! You guys better stop them before anyone gets hurt!”

*The player goes on a protection mission, finding hospital staff and protecting them from the badniks and guards.*

*Once everyone is saved:*

Vector “Alrighty, we saved everyone.”

Murray: “But still no sign of Ms Fox.”

Tails: “Hmmm… I’m seeing a strange mechanical reading from one of the rooms that’s covering up someone’s signature. I’ll put a waypoint. See what’s in there.”

*The player goes to find the waypoint and enters the room to find…*

Murray: “ *GASP* Sly’s not going to believe this, but it appears Ms. Fox is actually Carmelita’s ancestor!”

Vector points out the badnik next to her. “Looks like she’s being held asleep by that Egg Flapper!”

*The robot wises up and flies out of the room.*

Vector: “After that badnik!”

*The player know has to chase after the Egg Flapper, throwing things at it to make it crash onto the ground so it can be attacked. Once destroyed, the player returns to Ms. Fox’s room to find her slowly awaking.*

Ms. Fox: “Oooh… what happened… feels like I’m drunk…”

Vector: “Hello, Ms. Fox. You were in a comatose state, but we found a way to wake you again.”

Annis Fox: “Mmm… please, call me Annis. And thanks. But why was I in one, and why am I in a hospital.”

Murray: “We can explain, but it might be safer to do it someplace else.”

Vector: “Is that alright, Ms?”

Annis: “Mmm, anything better than this hospital seems good at the moment.”

JOB COMPLETE

-----

Robots in the Sky with Coopers

Survive the flying badniks

Take down the airship

Thaddeus: “Ah, home sweet home. I was worried I wouldn’t make it back.”

Sonic: “Why have you taken us here again?”

Thaddeus: “I’m your way of getting into the sky!” *The doors to the shed open, revealing a plane belonging to Thaddeus.*

Sly: “Wow! I saw it in the Cooper Vault, but seeing it here makes it look that much more awesome!”

Thaddeus: “It should work, but this will be my first time flying it, so I’d like apologize if things go south.”

Sonic: “Heh, it wouldn’t be my first crash landing.”

Sly: “Mine neither.”

Thaddeus: “Good. Your friend Bentley seemed adamant on taking out those robots flying up there. I guess you guys can balance on the wings to attack them. I’ll do my best to keep steady.”

*The trio get on the plane and Thaddeus takes off. The camera goes to 2D as a level like Sky Chase Zone starts.*

*The player is zoomed on forward, attacking badniks as they pass by. Sly is useful for close combat while Sonic can hit the more distant (floaty) badniks more safely.*

*Once that is all done, the airship closes in on them and cannon shells whiz by.*

Sly: “WHOA! What was that?”

Sonic: “Cannon shells. Eggman always outfits his airships with cannons. We better get off and destroy that airship as we are still close.”

Thaddeus: “I’ll distract them, but please hurry and destroy them first! I can’t save you guys otherwise!”

*Sly and Sonic jump off. The player now has them destroy the cannons on top of the ship then go into the interior and destroy the computers and other guidance systems to force the airship to crash. The player must then get out and get onto Thaddeus’ plane.*

*Getting on will let a cutscene play of the airship crashing into the River Thames.*

Sonic: “You keep building them and we keep knocking them down, Eggman!”

Sly: “Guess I can check that off on things our gang has destroyed. Let’s go return to Bentley with the news.”

JOB COMPLETE

-----

Bentley: “Alright, Thaddeus’ trial is today and we need to get him found innocent. I got… no plan.” *He sounded sad.*

Sly: “Well, I am acting as Thaddeus’ defense attorney. (In his Italian accent.) “I shall-a find-a my client not-a guilty!”

Bentley can be heard slapping his face. “We’re doomed.”

Sly: “The only thing I need to do is just convince the judge Thaddeus didn’t do it by countering Bark’s testimony. Is there evidence I can use?”

Charmy: ♪ “Well, we do have the money trail leading out of the manor and to Bark and the valuables!” ♫

Sly: “That’s a good start, but I worry they might think I planted it then.”

Vector: “Well then, how about Ms. Fox’s testimony.”

Sly: “Sure, that would- wait, what?!” *He notices Annis.* “Carmelita?!”

Annis: “No, I’m Annis. I was told already and she knows about me being her ancestor around this time.”

Sly: “I… I see.”

Carmelita: “Don’t get any ideas, Cooper!”

Sly: “I’m not! I’m still surprised to see an ancestor of yours.”

Bentley: “I’ve made some calculations. Using her will most certainly free Thaddeus and implicate Bark! But we have to make sure she can survive a trip to the courthouse.”

Carmelita: “Blaze and I will do it. We’ll get her there safe. Just don’t mess it up Sly.”

Sly: “Heh, knowing I’m at the end of that barrel will keep me from messing up.”

-----

Operation Turnabout

Get Sly and Thaddeus to the courtroom

Protect Annis Fox

Stall the Courtroom

Defeat Bark

*The player controls Sly and Thaddeus, helping them make their way to the courthouse. But thanks to a heavy guard presence along the ground since the airship crashed, the duo have to stay among the rooftops to avoid being shot at.*

Sly: “We need to make it to the courthouse in one piece.”

Thaddeus: “Being eviscerated is for court.”

*Once they get there, the camera returns to the safehouse, everyone leaving ahead save for Carmelita, Annis, and Blaze*

Bentley: “We’ll scout ahead to make a path, but you guys will have to deal with any stragglers.”

Carmelita: “I’ll make sure they don’t lay a hand on my ancestor at all.”

Blaze: “I’ll make sure of that.”

*The player now has to escort Annis to the courtroom, taking down any guards and badniks along the way. Annis is not much of a fighter, but can dodge somewhat. Just make sure to not let any enemy get close to her and you’ll be fine. Once at the courthouse, they immediately enter...*

*The Judge snaps his gavel to quiet the gallery.*

Judge (He’s an owl): “Order, people! The attempted murder trial of Ms. Annis Fox is to begin now. Is the defense ready?”

Sly: “As-a ready as we can-a be, ‘Udgy!”

Judge: “And the prosecution, Mr ‘Wolf?”

Prosecutor Edge-Were-Wolf: “Despite some setbacks, yes.”

Judge: “Setbacks?”

Prosecution: “Someone… stole some evidence…”

Judge: “But that means there’s no case from what I read.”

Sly: “Then-a my client should-a go free!”

Prosecution: “HOLD IT! We may not have evidence, but we have the next best thing! Testimony from someone who witnessed the crime and certainly put Thaddeus as the killer!”

*The gallery murmurs.*

Judge: “Then bring him out! We got executions and cases to get to!”

Prosecution: “The prosecution calls Bark the Polar Bear to the stand.”

Sly whispers to Thaddeus: “Alright, you ready?”

Thaddeus: “I am used to this, but are you?”

Sly: “Yeah, if it means I save you.”

*Bark takes the stand*

Judge: “Please state your name and occupation for the court. Not that it matters.”

Bark (Having a British accent): “My name’s Bark and I’m Annis’ butler. I know what I saw when I walked in! Thaddeus was there!”

-WItness Testimony-

Bark: “I had finished my work for the day and left, but I forgot something and went back in. There, I saw Annis’ bedroom in ruin and Lady Fox on the bed motionless. And I saw Thaddeus, that very raccoon, pilfering her most treasured items with an evil grin!”

Judge: “Well, that seems to wrap this case up quite nicely! Be the quickest conviction ever! I find Thaddeus-”

Sly interrupted: “OB-JECTION, ‘Udgy, but did-a you forget I’m here to counter?!”

Judge: “Why should you?! Seems pretty open and shut, honestly.”

Sly: “I can find some-a holes, trust-a me.”

Judge: “Fine, but don’t waste our time.”

-Counter Argument (The player decides if Sly presses, objects, moves on, or moves back a statement with dialogue trees from Sly 3. Wrong objections empty the penalty bar, doing it twice gets a guilty verdict and must start over from the beginning.)-

Bark: “I had finished my work for the day and left, but I forgot something and went back in.”

Sly- Do I press him for more info, object to the statement with evidence, or move on to a new statement?

-*If Press is chosen: (CORRECT OPTION)*

Sly: “HOLD IT! What is it you forgot-a to do that required returning back to the manor bedroom?”

Prosecutor: “OBJECTION! Does it really matter?”

Sly: “I-a think so! It might be-a important!”

Judge: “I’ll allow it. Witness?”

Bark laughs nervously: “I… uh… forgot to lock the safe.”

Prosecutor: “WHAT?! You didn’t tell me that?!”

Bark: “It didn’t seem relevant… you’d have to be a part of her staff to even know if the safe was locked.”

Sly: “See! I-a told you it was important!”

Prosecutor: “Ob… Objection! As he said, it’s not relevant totally”

Sly: “Is it? The crime occurred-a when the safe was-a unlocked! Smells of an inside job if you ask-a me!””

Judge: “I have to side with the Defense. Witness, amend your testimony.”

Bark: “I had stupidly forgotten to lock the safe.”

Sly: “Do I press him for more info, object to the statement with evidence, move on, or go back a statement?

*If Sly presses*

Sly: “Hold it! Why did you forget to lock the safe?”

Bark: “I was… busy… Annis had pushed me around a lot that day. It slipped my mind.”

Prosecutor: “I don’t see a problem here, honestly.”

Sly: *Is there?*

YES (Incorrect)-

Sly: “I… I think?”

Judge: “Allow me to decide: No!”

Sly: “D’oh!”

NO (Correct)-

Sly: *Mmm, he is right… if I was busy, I could forget something important.* “Fine, move on.”

Bark: “There, I saw Annis’ bedroom in ruin and Lady Fox on the bed motionless”

*If pressed*

Sly: “Hold it! How did you know the bedroom was in ruin?!”

Bark: “Well, the safe was ajar and the bed was a mess, like with a struggle!”

Prosecutor: “Is there a point?”

YES (Correct)

Sly: “Yes! I took a photo of the scene and found the bed to be neat and tidy, as though she never got out of bed in the first place!” *Shows a period accurate picture of the bedroom for the court.*

Bark: “Oh… darn...”

Prosecution: “Damn it…”

Judge: “The witness will refrain from lying on the stand.”

Bark: “Sorry… I just forgot…”

NO (Incorrect, but just does nothing, as it requires a revisit)

Sly: “No… not that I can see…”

Judge: “Please continue.”

Bark: “And I saw Thaddeus, that very raccoon, pilfering her most treasured items with an evil grin!””

*If pressed.*

Sly: “Hold it! How do you know it was Thaddeus?”

Bark: “It was him for sure! I saw his cane!”

*The prosecutor slaps his face.* “Damn it!”

Judge: “HUH?! Why the outburst, Prosecution?”

The prosecution seethes. “That… was the missing evidence.”

Sly: “Perhaps we can-a help?”

Prosecutor and Judge: “What?!”

Sly: “We found the cane.” *He shows it to the court.*

Judge accepts it as evidence. “Where was it?”

Sly: “Well, it might-a not help the prosecution. But we found it in Bark’s possession. He-a dropped it.”

Bark starts to look worried.

Sly: “And while we are-a on the subject, I think the police should-a visit Big Ben! We did some detective work and found a money trail leading for Annis’ home to his secret hideout in Big Ben. And we found the lost valuables!”

Bark now looks angry.

The judge is surprised. “You found the money and valuables?!”

Sly: “Yeah, and Bark’s testimony seems to neglect the hole in the manor wall and the glass on the inside of the window on top of the hole!”

Judge: “How about you tell us your theory, Defense.”

Sly: “I-a think Bark doesn’t work-a for Annis, and was actually planning on-a robbing her! He-a knocked her out beforehand with one of-a those weird things flying around outside, creating the hole and making her comatose!”

Judge: “So weird things outside belong to him?”

Sly: “Yes! Then he crashed in-a through the window and then robbed her of-a her stuff, leaving a trail to-a his place! Thaddeus is wrongly implicated here!”

The prosecutor smiles: “And can you prove this?”

*A voice can be heard in Sly’s ear at this time.*

Bentley: “Sly! We’re here! We can hear you! Finish it off!”

Sly: “Yes!”

The prosecutor loses his smile fast. “Wait, what?”

Sly: “Why-a don’t you ask Annis Fox yourself?!”

Judge: “But she’s comatose!”

Sly: “We-a found a way to revive her! Just ask her! I call Annis Fox to the stand!”

*The court doors open and Annis walks in.*

The prosecutor: “A-a-a-a ANNIS FOX?!”

Bark: “Damn it…”

Annis: “I heard the defense, and he is right! I believe I saw a bear outside a few times beforehand, and Bark looks just like him! I feel confident that he robbed me!”

The prosecution is speechless.

Judge: “I guess that wraps this up nicely. I find Thaddeus -”

Bark: “NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

-*If Object is chosen at a wrong time.*

Sly: “I-a Ob-ject!”

Prosecutor: “On what grounds? Even a fool could tell nothing is wrong there!”

Judge: “Sorry, but I’m with the prosecution. Penalty for the defence”

Sly: “D’oh!”

-*If penalty bar is empty*

Judge: “I’m sorry, but I must stop the defense from making a fool of himself. I find Thaddeus: G U I L T Y.”

Sly: “Sorry Thaddeus…”

*In a fit of anger from losing, Bark pulls out a button switch*

Sly: “What’s that?”

Bark: “I WILL NOT LOSE TO YOU FOOLS!!! DIE!!!!”

*He presses the button, and sounds can be heard outside…*

Sly: “Everyone! Get out now!”

*One of the crashed airship’s last cannons, still operational apparently, aims itself at the courthouse and fires a powerful shot. Everyone scrambles to get out of the courtroom before the shot collides. Once the shot hits, the roof collapses and the debris wreck the courtroom with only Carmelita and Knuckles remaining inside, the rest of the team unable to get back in due to the debris blocking them.*

Knuckles: “Ugh… Oh thank the heavens, we’re alive.”

Carmelita: “Urk, yeah… Unfortunately, we’re alone with him now.”

Bark: “Dammit! How did that not kill anyone?! No matter! I’ll take you both down and then kill that brood like I was supposed to!”

Carmelita: “HA! Good luck with that! I’ll have you know I’m Interpol’s top detective and I’ve taken down criminals far stronger than you! And if you think I’ll let you kill my ancestor this easily, you’re very mistaken!”

Knuckles: “Yeah! And my strength easily outmatches yours! You have no chance, Polar Bear!”

Bark: “We’ll see about that, you echidna lastling!”

*Carmelita fires an electric blast from her Shock Pistol at Bark. Right when the shot was about to hit Bark, it disappears and the polar bear is not affected*

Carmelita: “What the-?!”

Bark: “Hehehe, my boss prepared for your arrival and gave me a device to activate an Electric Shield! It protects me from electricity and gives me a shocking punch!”

*Carmelita growls and jumps at Bark, intending to deliver a powerful kick to his head, but he catches her foot and tosses her into one of the rubble*

*And so the boss fight against Bark begins. Thanks to his Electric Shield, Bark is completely invulnerable to Carmelita’s shots. Thankfully the Electric Shield will disappear should Bark suffer a powerful enough hit but he is tough as bricks, so only Knuckles can do anything about this. The first part of the fight has Knuckles and Bark duking it out like boxers. In other words, this part of the fight plays like a simplified fighting game; the controls have you punch, block, dodge, and move, with the objective being to deplete the Electric Shield’s “HP” to zero. Once it’s gone, you can switch to Carmelita and start unloading her Shock Pistol at Bark and whittle away at his health. Once his health goes down 25%, Bark will bring up another Electric Shield and the process begins again. While fighting against Knuckles, he’ll start off with just punching, then jabbing quickly (75%), throwing uppercuts (50%), and finally fake-outs (25%). And while fighting against Carmelita, he hide more often and throw stuff at you the more health he loses.

*Once Bark is defeated*

Bark: “I may have lost… but Eggman is still winning…”

-----

Outro Cutscene:

Sly: “After knocking out Bark, the court deemed Thaddeus as not guilty for the crime and arrested that polar bear on the spot. For both the crime and destroying the courthouse, Bark was to be sentenced to death! But we couldn’t let that happen, both to keep the timestream stable and because we can’t allow anyone from Sonic’s universe to die in our world, so we managed to convince the law to let us apprehend Bark and then toss him back into Sonic’s world. After having to solve that whole mystery, we all decided to stick around with Thaddeus for a bit and get some downtime. With the way Eggman and his goons operated so far, we need all the energy we can get. Besides, with time travel, it’s never too late to do anything.

Sly: “Heh, Thaddius sure is spending quite a bit of time with Annis, talking about cases and the like. Guess he must of convinced the Fox family to go into law enforcement.”

Next Time: Sly and Sonic batten down the hatches in the 17th Century Caribbean.

#Isakthedragon's fanfiction #Super Sonic Thieves #SST #Super Sonic Thieves: Chapter 3 #SST: Chapter 3 #Featuring an ancestor to Carmelita... Annis Fox!#I wonder if people will like her... and Thaddeus.#Also Phoenix Wright references cause why not?

2 notes · View notes

96percentdone · 3 years ago

Text

You're Wrong About Justice for All

So, recently I replayed the Ace Attorney trilogy, including the oft maligned Justice for All, and realized a few things. The first is that Justice for All slaps so fucking hard, and the second is that most people do not understand the overarching plot of Justice for All, and so they don't get why it's the best actually.

It's a common belief that Justice for All is the game where Miles Edgeworth faked his own death, and in grief from his loss, Franziska von Karma goes on a revenge quest against Phoenix Wright for soiling Edgeworth's perfect trial record and thus causing his demise, all while Wright himself mourns the loss of his friend. Which is a spicy narrative, I'll give you that, it's just not true.

My opening statement is as follows: While Justice for All does use language of death and grief in this storyline, the actual events are not about a man who literally faked his death, but about how two people who have placed impossible expectations on one man contend with when he fails them, and how when said man returned changed once more he forces them to confront this fact and become better people. Furthermore, I maintain that this storyline is fucking baller as hell and works better with the message and themes of JFA than the common belief.

Let's put Justice for All on trial, shall we? Under the cut!

Part One: "Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death"

Now, since you're still here and haven't just clicked off under the assumption I'm a disconnected weirdo who doesn't know how to read, you're probably thinking "uh, what about Edgeworth's note? What about 'Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death?' Isn't that pretty good evidence for faking his death?" To which I say... yeah, I guess if you ignore the weirdly specific phrasing and also everything else that happens. Like. I'm sorry, this is a note that specifically mentions his job? He leaves the note in his office too (or at least the anime indicates as much), and doesn't that look more like a weirdly dramatic resignation letter?

But okay none of that probably sounds very convincing right now. After all, Miles had just gone through some of the most harrowing trials in his life. He was put on trial twice, had his entire worldview and belief about himself upended, and then just to hammer it in was confronted by a murderer who believes Edgeworth will one day be like him. It would be completely understandable for him to be in utter emotional turmoil. Indeed, Nick alludes to as much when he finally talks about what happens in Turnabout Big Top, more on that later. Furthermore, in Farewell My Turnabout, he uses the specific phrase "choosing death" when confronting Adrian Andrews on the witness stand about her history of mental illness as a euphemism for suicide, so it's not out of the question he was suicidal. I'm not going to argue he was or wasn't. Frankly, there’s a few hints to suggest he was, but it’s hard to wholly prove because you don't see him during the time he wrote it, or what he's thinking.

No, in fact, I'm going to argue that nobody else truly thought he killed himself, and thus render it irrelevant whether he was suicidal or not! Let's start with that exchange from Turnabout Big Top with Franziska I just mentioned. This is the first time it is ever explicitly discussed aloud what happened to Miles, taking it out of a vague mystery and bringing it into the spotlight. It goes like this (thank you AA wiki for mostly complete transcripts):

Phoenix: !! Then... Then what's this "revenge" thing you're talking about? von Karma: You wouldn't understand, Mr. Phoenix Wright. I have to see "him" again, one more time. Phoenix: "Him"? von Karma: I'm sure you know to whom I refer... Miles Edgeworth!! Maya: What!? Edgeworth!? Mr... EDGEWORTH!? Phoenix: M-M-Mi-Miles E-Ed-Edg-Edgeworth!! Miles Edgeworth... Why would you even bring him up!? von Karma: You haven't forgotten, have you? Do you know who it was that trained the gifted prosecutor, Miles Edgeworth? Maya: !! Manfred... von... Karma... von Karma: Exactly right. It was my papa. Maya: That means that Edgeworth was... von Karma: Right again. Miles was like a little brother to me. Maya: Huh? Little brother? Edgeworth and Nick are the same age... Phoenix: (Edgeworth... The man who inspired me to become an attorney. I fought against him in a few cases... But after "that" case was over... He "vanished"...) von Karma: It's your fault he is gone. Maya: HUH!? von Karma: It's the truth, isn't it Mr. Phoenix Wright? Phoenix: I... I... Maya: Nick! What does she mean!? Phoenix: After that case, Edgeworth was in a peculiar state, and he got worse everyday. He never set foot into court again... And then one day, he just vanished. All he left was a simple note at the prosecutor's office. von Karma: "Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death." Phoenix: That was one year ago. It was right after you left to go back home. Maya: Mr. Edgeworth... He's dead? von Karma: I don't believe it. He's still alive. I'm sure of it... Somewhere in this world, he's still alive. "Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death?" Of course he did! You ruined his reputation as a Prosecutor! You effectively killed the Prosecutor in him. Just like your victory muddied the honorable name Von Karma! I'm going to find him... Then I'm going to teach him the difference between right and wrong with my own hands! Maya: N-N-Nick! Umm... About Edgeworth? Phoenix: Maya, I already told you this once. Don't make me do it again. Don't bring up his name in front of me again, OK? Maya: N-Nick...? Phoenix: Von Karma? von Karma: What? Phoenix: I don't know if you are god's gift to prosecutors or not, but I've had about enough of you!! Him too! Maya: Wha... What happened? von Karma: Hmph. This dog is all bark and no bite. He's already been defeated... Regardless, I have nothing to inform you two of today. Tomorrow will be the greatest courtroom battle this country has ever seen!! Maya: Nick? Phoenix: Let's go. We need to talk with the performer on the third floor. Maya: I'm sorry I brought it up, Nick...

Boy that was a long chunk huh? Lot to unpack here, some of which I'll return to more than once, but still it's quite lengthy. Let's start with the obvious: Franziska says point blank she doesn't think Miles died. She believes he is still alive, and that he just left because of his reputation as a perfect prosecutor being completely shattered. Her desire for revenge is, in part, born to crush the man who made him quit, in her view. So okay that's one party easily taken out of the way. I mean ya girl literally says it straight up, but Fran isn't going to be the sticking point. The sticking point is Nick.

To talk about Nick, I also have to talk about Maya, because Maya in this scene, is a stand in for the players. She reacts like we would to this bombshell, in shock that Edgeworth has apparently committed suicide. Up until this point, Nick has been really cagey and unwilling to tell her about Miles, and consistently tells her not to talk about him anymore whenever she tries, and here she's finally told what happened. We as players are inclined to take her perspective since we are as in the dark as she is. So naturally, Maya reads Nick's bitterness and reticence as his grief, and apologizes for treading on his feelings when he's clearly going through loss. It's not an unreasonable hypothesis, because Nick hasn't been forthcoming.

And he still isn't being forthcoming either. You'll notice that in this exchange he never actually confirms that Miles died. He uses words like vanished, and when asked 'He's dead?' doesn't even say a word before Franziska monologues her opinion. His response to that speech isn't to tell her she's wrong; it's to tell Maya not to bring him up again. He is still steadfastly avoiding the subject, unwilling to confront the truth of it.

But is that truth that he believes Miles Edgeworth died? As far as evidence goes, this is pretty circumstantial. With the perspective of an unknowing audience member, it is easy to read that as the truth, but it lacks backing. We need more information. One exchange is not enough to make a case, let's skip ahead to Farewell my Turnabout!

Part Two: "I...I never wanted to see you again!"

These are the words Phoenix Wright utters when Miles Edgeworth shows up in criminal affairs, just to call Fran and Nick lost lambs who need his guidance. Now let's put this quote in context, so that I do not distort the facts. We'll start from after Franziska leaves, after all, I really don't need to prove her thoughts more, right?

Phoenix: I thought you, the Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, had gone and died! Pearl: Mr. Nick! Phoenix: I...I never wanted to see you again! Edgeworth: I think that's enough of a "warm welcome" for someone you haven't seen in a year. Phoenix: Are you going to run tomorrow's trial...? Edgeworth: ...You heard her, right? That wild mare hasn't given in yet, it seems. So, no, I don't think I'll be making an appearance. Pearl: ... Edgeworth: Your hatred for me is quite unhealthy. Not to mention one-sided. But I will say one thing... Phoenix: ... Edgeworth: You can't win on your own at the trial tomorrow. Phoenix: (What is that supposed to mean...?) Edgeworth: I have something definitive that you lack. And working together is the definition of teamwork. It's the power to find the truth. Phoenix: "The truth"...? Edgeworth: In order to understand this case, you have to understand a certain "truth". ...Well if you ever feel the need for my assistance, it is available to you. I'm not in charge of this case, so I can be a bit more generous with information. Phoenix: (Just what is going on inside his head...?) Edgeworth: A lot of things have happened, however Manfred von Karma was still my mentor. And a "perfect win record" is proof of a von Karma. Phoenix: ...One year ago, you could not establish guilt in a few cases...Are those losses the reason you suddenly disappeared from the Prosecutor's Office? Did you leave because you had lost your "perfect win record"...? Edgeworth: ... Phoenix: To think your motivation for prosecuting trials was so selfish...It'd have been better for everyone if you never came back from the dead, Edgeworth! Edgeworth: ... I see. Then let me ask you something. Why do YOU stand in the courtroom? What is your reason? Phoenix: Well, with Franziska, she almost always says, "I will defeat you this time!" the instant she sees me. But...The courtroom is not a personal battlefield for Prosecutor's and lawyers. I stand in the courtroom to defend my client. ...To save their lives. Edgeworth: To save your client, you say? Phoenix: Those who think only of their ego driven goals...Those kind of prosecutors are reprehensible to me. Even if you're a "prodigy"...Or someone like you, Edgeworth... Edgeworth: ...It looks like there is still a lot you have yet to learn.

Another long boi. I'd apologise but some of this also comes back later and I won't have to give you context ever again when it does! You'll thank me for that!

Let's get into it, shall we? Right off the bat Phoenix says point blank he thought the prosecutor Miles Edgeworth had gone and died. He even says "returned from the dead" later So I guess I lose, right? Well, hold off on that for now. There's that weird sticking point with the his title again like there was with the note, but I'm sure some of you are already thinking "he's just throwing his words back at him!" And maybe that's true, I just don't think it's that simple.

"I never wanted to see you again" are not the words of a man who believed up until now that the person he was talking to died. I mean, think about it: if you think someone died, are you going to be thinking about how you don't want to see them anymore? Even if you hate them, even if they're your least favorite person in the whole world, is that what will cross your mind? Sure, you might be relieved, maybe even happy, but you're not going to be thinking in terms of whether you want to see them again or not, because you never will. They're dead. You can't even say he's speaking for how he feels for right now exclusively, because he says never, indicating this was a long term thought he had well before Miles showed his pretty face again. In my view, he’s slipping up here.

But enough semantics, let's talk information. Here we get a lot more insight into what Phoenix Wright thinks about Miles' disappearance, something he refused to speak about in depth before. He states that he believes Miles left because he could not cope with his failure, so he ran, much like Franziska did, but it has a different edge. While Franziska's words are the ones of someone set to avenge his reputation, who clearly placed great stock in it, Phoenix views it with contempt. He sees it as cowardly, and even as a betrayal for what he should be in the courtroom based on his own statement about how a courtroom isn’t for egos. This very clearly explains why he’s been so unwilling to talk about it up until now, because it’s something that makes him angry, something Miles even recognizes as hate before Phoenix explains himself further. It’s valuable perspective, one we’ll have to get into more later, but it’s not quite enough.

Yet again I have to ask a question: does this prove one way or the other that Phoenix Wright believed Miles Edgeworth died? It’s still not looking great for me, to be honest. I feel like Phoenix Wright, scrambling to maintain my argument in the face of mounting suspicion. But like Phoenix, I’ve got my hands on one piece of decisive evidence, one that will turn everything thus far on its head, and prove that I was right!

Part Three: “At least, that’s what I told myself.”

I’ll cut straight to it. No preamble, no excessive length. These are words Nick says after Miles finishes explaining his reason for his journey of self-discovery, what he learned about his role as a prosecutor, and Nick’s importance in helping him understand that role: to find the truth.

Pearl: The "truth"... Edgeworth: Yes. That's the reason why prosecutors and defense lawyers exist. But I'm sure you knew that already, didn't you Wright? Phoenix: ... Edgeworth: That's why you couldn't forgive me; this man who went into hiding. Isn't that right? This man who only had his sights set on "victory", who ran away into the night... Pearl: Ah! Is... Is Mr. Edgeworth right, Mr. Nick...!? Phoenix: (You really let me down...) When you disappeared, I felt... betrayed. The reason I decided to become a lawyer to begin with... Was because I believed in the things you said to me, all those years ago... And you... You betrayed your own words. That's why... one year ago, I made up my mind. I decided that the Miles Edgeworth I knew had died... ...At least, that's what I told myself.

There you have it folks! Here it is! Phoenix Wright has admitted the truth! He decided that Miles Edgeworth had died! The death of Miles Edgeworth has been a false narrative that Phoenix had been telling himself this past year to cope with his feelings of personal betrayal that Miles Edgeworth left. He knew, or at least realized, that Miles was alive somewhere, and actively chose to believe the contrary because he could not accept that Miles had left and betrayed what Phoenix believed him to be.

And this explains so many of the odd points we’ve seen this whole time. For example: why didn’t Maya know anything until Turnabout Big Top? Surely if you believed your friend who you based your whole career on kicked it you would tell the people close to you, right? You wouldn’t choose to actively keep that a secret, right? Why wouldn’t he tell her? Because it wasn’t true. Yet it still obviously bothered him, so much he refused to talk about it, and got testy at even the slightest mention. He refused to frame it as beyond a vanishing, except when it would hurt Miles more (as demonstrated by him throwing his words back at him), but he still was distraught enough to mourn a death that he knew was not real. Phoenix Wright was still hurt by this, he still grieved, but it wasn’t at a real death: it was at the death of his own dream.

But what does this mean for Justice for All? How does the fact that neither Phoenix nor Franziska believe Miles is dead affect the story being told, or the themes? If he is still grieving, and Franziska is still avenging, is it not the same with only a caveat of distinction? Well…no. I would argue that this distinction plays into our themes.

Part Four: "The courtroom is not a personal battlefield for prosecutors and lawyers.”

Or so Phoenix Wright says when he’s dressing down Miles for leaving. Now obviously, this line brings to mind Franziska, a fact that’s extremely obvious when you remember he was talking about her just as he said this, so let’s talk about Franziska von Karma, the rival prosecutor of the game, who plays a pivotal role in the narrative.

As Franziska said back in part one, she did not believe Miles died, and believed that he vanished on her because his record was ruined. She believes this is a source of great shame for him, and she cannot fathom a reason beyond that for his disappearance, and this shame irritates her. Though she would never say so upfront, it’s apparent she cares greatly for her ‘little brother’ if she feels the need to avenge him. However, Franziska hasn’t given us enough information about her motivations in this scene, and to really understand them the final scene of Justice for All must be examined.

Edgeworth: ... What are you going to do now? von Karma: ... That's none of your business. Edgeworth: Are you running away? von Karma: Shut up! You don't understand a thing! You can't possibly understand what it means to be "Manfred von Karma's daughter"! Edgeworth: Franziska... von Karma: So many expectations from everyone around me... Expectations I must fulfill! I'm expected to win no matter what. And failure? Such a thing is not an option for me! My father was a genius. There's no doubt about that! But... But me... I'm no genius. I've always known that. Edgeworth: ... von Karma: But I... I had to be one. I had to. Edgeworth: ... You may not be a genius like your father... But... You are a prosecutor. You have been and always will be. von Karma:...! No, I'm not... Not anymore. I've even thrown my whip away. Edgeworth: Speaking of that... Wright gave me this to hold onto. (Wright... You knew something like this would happen, didn't you...?) von Karma: ... Edgeworth: I'm going to say this again. We prosecutors do not fight for personal honor or pride. I hope you will think deeply... About what you should be striking down with that whip. von Karma: ... You haven't changed a bit... You've always... You've always left me alone and walked on ahead without me. Miles Edgeworth... I've always hated you. Edgeworth: ... von Karma: And then... Finally, my chance to take my revenge on you arrived. If I could win against that man... If I could make Phoenix Wright bow down in defeat... Then this "girl" you left behind would have risen higher than you! That was supposed to be my "revenge"... Edgeworth: I see... von Karma: ... You know, I can't do it... I can't change who I am. I can't throw away everything I've been until today. Edgeworth: I believe you can. Just like how Adrian Andrews did. von Karma: Adrian Andrews...? Edgeworth: You were going to use her during the trial, right? But you... You were "dependant" on your father by using his tactics. Isn't that right? von Karma: Hmph! Edgeworth: Today, you chased after me, after I had left you behind all these years. And that's why we're standing here now, side by side. von Karma: ...! Edgeworth: But I have no intention of stopping. If you say you are going to quit your walk down the prosecutor's path... ... Then, this is where we part ways, Franziska von Karma. von Karma: ... I... I... I am Franziska von Karma. Don't think I'm going to walk in your shadow forever... Our battle... begins now... so you had better prepare yourself, Miles Edgeworth!

There are three key points to this scene, in regards to Franziska’s motivations. The first is as the daughter of Manfred von Karma, she feels as though she must succeed him perfectly whether it is within her capacity or not. The legacy of her family is a burden she is compelled to live up to. Manfred von Karma, shitty scumbag that he was, still has 40 years of perfect trials under his belt, and this is something she would be expected to emulate, baggage of what that entails and all. It is a fair bit of pressure, especially when you remember she became a prosecutor as a middle schooler, and is still only a teenager.

The second, which is informed by the first, is that she believes she has always been inferior to Miles, and thus in order to earn her legacy, she must surpass him. This makes sense if you remember that Manfred von Karma spent 15 years meticulously grooming Miles to be just like him just so he could spite the ghost of Gregory Edgeworth, and act that to a young child can feel like your father believes his adopted son is more capable than you are. As she said, she will not walk in his shadow forever. She will be considered his equal, and worthy.

And the third, which is informed by the second, is that she doesn’t want to be left behind by Miles again. This is both in terms of being in his shadow, like mentioned previously, but also quite literally, when he completely vanished, or even when he left to prosecute in America while she was still in Germany. As she said back in Turnabout Big Top, “I have to see ‘him’ again, one more time.” She wants to understand why he keeps leaving her behind, and thinks she will only ever get that chance if she proves herself to be above him.

And this is something she cannot do. In her own trials, with her own methods, she does not beat Phoenix Wright, and it feels obvious why she can’t, right? Because she’s behaving too much like Miles did, before Phoenix Wright taught him otherwise. She cares too much about a legacy built on perfection, with all the harm it might entail, even if she has other more sympathetic motives for her actions in this game. She’s still dependent on her father’s name, and his ideas. She can’t win if she’s still clinging onto an old, broken story, but it’s one she’s reluctant to let go. As she says, she doesn’t think she can turn from being the person she has been up until now.

It’s a narrative; one she projects onto Miles in an attempt to maintain it, even as it’s falling apart. Miles Edgeworth is not a person so much as an idea she must trounce to assert her own identity and personhood. Before the events of the first game, he represented her own failure, and the pressure to exist as a von Karma. And after it’s events, when Miles leaves to become a different man, Franziska sees this as an opportunity to finally surpass that image of him. She can’t see that maybe he’s outgrown the legacy she clings to, and doesn’t want to, because to confront that would mean having to face truths about herself. No, she must surpass him perfectly, regardless of whether the man himself even cares for perfection anymore, which he doesn’t. He doesn’t care about perfect trials and win records, only the truth, and he challenges her to follow him. Not the ideas about herself she decided he stands for, but the man he is right now, the real Miles Edgeworth.

Do you see how this relates to the thesis? Is it starting to come together? Good. Now let’s talk about Phoenix Wright.

Part Five: "We aren't some sort of heroes.”

I want to open with a short exchange I missed during Farewell my Turnabout, where I got the title quote. It’s important, trust me.

Phoenix: I became a lawyer because I thought... I thought I could save people who were suffering and in pain... Pearl: ... Phoenix: But... When I look at this mess we're in... I can't even protect the person closest to me. Even if I win the case, I still lose in the end... I just don't know what to do! Edgeworth: ... Wright. Would you get a hold of yourself? You have it all wrong. Phoenix: Huh? Edgeworth: We aren't some sort of heroes. We're only human, you and I. You want to "save someone"? That's something easier said than done, wouldn't you say? Pearl: Th-That's... Edgeworth: You are a defense lawyer. You can't run away from that. You can only fight. That's all you can do.

I chose this quote from Miles because it highlights the obvious flaw in Nick’s motivations: he’s not a savior, he’s just a man. Phoenix Wright, as noble as it may be, until this point has labored under the conception that it is his job, his moral imperative, to save people, whether that is something he can even manage or not. Like Franziska clinging to perfection, this is an untenable mindset. You cannot save people, certainly not everyone who comes your way needing help. You can try, but it’s not guaranteed, and it’s not your duty to do so.

Farewell my Turnabout is a trial of Nick’s existing motivations, because his client is not someone who should be saved, yet he must succeed in doing so, or else Maya will die, yet of course if he does so, he will be dooming Adrian Andrews to a conviction for a crime she did not commit. By forcing him in this position, his belief about what his role as a defense attorney has been challenged: he cannot save them both. Who is more worthy of saving? How do you decide that? And even if you decide, is your decision the right one? Is that something you have the right to decide?

It’s significant that the only way to get the good, true ending is by prioritizing the truth instead of his savior complex. Yes, by showing de Killer the truth, he is able to save them both, he does not have to give up anything, yet he’s only permitted this if he sticks with what’s true. His failure in pursuing the truth leads to the worst ending, where Engarde gets off, Andrews is convicted, and he never sees Maya again even if she’s alive. He loses everything. The reason why it doesn’t matter whether you say guilty or not guilty, even when saving only one was a serious factor, because who you choose to save matters less in the grand scheme of things than making the truth known. It’s neat.

Okay, but how does this relate to Miles? How does Nick’s savior complex, and learning to prioritize the truth relate to Miles? Well, I have only one thing to say: who is the person Phoenix Wright wanted to save by becoming a lawyer? See, Nick might say he wanted to save ‘people’, and I’m sure that’s true. That class trial in his youth had such a profound impact on him he would never want anyone to feel as lost and alone as he did. But the reason he became a defense attorney is Miles Edgeworth. Because in their youth, Miles saved him from the crushing despair of the class trial by wielding the idea of a defense attorney. Because when they grew up, Phoenix learned that Miles did not become a defense attorney, but a prosecutor, dead set on getting guilty verdicts without caring about who might pay for it. Because when he learned this is what Miles Edgeworth became, he had to meet him and find out why.

What is the plot of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney? Well, it’s about several things, but in this case, I’m referring to the wish to save Edgeworth. They meet again after 15 long years, and though Miles sucks ass especially in Turnabout Sisters, Phoenix manages to pull out signs the old Miles still exists in Turnabout Samurai. Then of course, in Turnabout Goodbyes Nick saves Miles not just from a guilty verdict for the murder of Robert Hammond, but from the belief he murdered his father, clearing up the trauma that plagued and motivated him into becoming what he became after all this time. And if we include Rise from the Ashes, Miles steps up to the plate to find the truth for the first time, if only because it feels personal. In fact, you can say he well surpassed his stated goal of just understanding why Miles became what he did. Phoenix Wright saved Miles Edgeworth; he did the thing he believes he is supposed to do.

Except…he didn’t, because Miles left. Because it turns out people are not so easily saved, and even if you clear up their trauma they still have the aftermath to figure out on their own. They still have to make peace with the life they lead up until that point. Miles left, and as has been well established, Phoenix took that as a personal betrayal. The ideals that Miles taught him as a child were not something Miles could live up to. Nick believed Miles left because he really did become someone wholly invested in perfection and never did see the error of his ways. The boy of his youth doesn’t exist anymore, and hasn’t for many years, and Miles leaving forced him to see that, but it wasn’t something he wanted to accept. If he did not fix Miles, which he took Miles disappearing as proof as that, then Miles might as well be dead.

The idea that Miles killed himself is a falsehood Nick engages in for a year because he is not ready to face the idea that maybe his preconceptions about who Miles Edgeworth is supposed to be right now are wrong. Miles isn’t a man who has to work through some shit, he’s a symbol of the ideals that Nick has striven to embody his entire life, and he left and threw that away despite all of Nick’s efforts. This is not something Phoenix was willing to accept.

He’s so unwilling to accept it that he’s very mad when confronted by anything that might remotely suggest he’s wrong. Franziska is a reminder that Miles left, and of the person Phoenix believed him to be for vanishing, and she stubbornly exists he still exists somewhere, and he is still like her, and that is all far too much for him. It’s too much that Maya innocently wants to know where he is, or what he’s up to, because if he has to think about it he’ll just sit in his anger again about how he feels betrayed that Miles could not live up to the ideal Nick imposed on him. Heck even when faced with the man in question he starts arguing with him about what Miles was trying to accomplish by leaving, and isn’t willing to accept the answer he gets at first. The person in front of him is not someone Phoenix Wright is willing to engage with on his own terms. Nick must be a savior, and if he didn’t save Miles, then that means Miles was beyond saving: Miles was dead all along. He’d rather kill him off than face he’s changed, that those ideals are not infallible.

And Miles Edgeworth did change, and change yet again. Yes, he turned into the demon prosecutor, after the events of AA1, while he was gone, he worked on becoming the man who stands for the truth above all else, one who doesn’t abide by any falsehoods. Whether it’s the lies in someone’s testimony, or the beliefs people project onto him, he cuts them down. He’s not a savior, he says so himself, and some of his actions in pursuit of the truth can be pretty cruel, like how he was going to expose Adrian. This isn’t the person either Nick or Franziska wanted him to be, but he is the one they needed him to be to realize their own faults. He was the one who enabled Nick to fight impossible odds, and encouraged Franziska to find another path. He advocates for the truth, and by asserting himself and what he believes, he puts Nick and Franziska on the right path to understanding the real message of the game.

Edgeworth: I had fun tonight. Now, if you'll excuse me... Phoenix: Wait. Edgeworth: What? Phoenix: ... I just want to say... Thanks, Edgeworth. You really saved me out there. Edgeworth: ...Hmph. If anyone should be saying thanks, it should be me, Wright.

Conclusion: “But we will always eventually reach that one single truth.”

Learning and accepting the truth is the moral of the story, one that permeates all three major characters of the game. Isn’t it cool? That both Nick and Franziska decide to accept Miles Edgeworth on his own terms, and become stronger people as a result? Isn’t it fucking cool how the theme even connects to the main characters’ personal denials and inability to accept how things might change, and how they weren’t willing to confront the truth about it until they were made to? Is it not sick as hell that Nick shows Miles the truth about what his life is and what he’s been doing, thus inspiring Miles to become better, and then Miles comes back and returns the favor to let Nick see that his savior complex is detrimental to his actual work and to his own wellbeing? Does that not fucking slap? Doesn’t Justice for All deserve just extreme respect for this cool ass subtle storytelling?

The single truth of this essay is that Justice for All is really fucking good dude holy shit. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. If you still somehow don’t agree with me…I’m sorry you cannot recognize the greatness that is Justice For All get well soon. Thanks for reading.

#ace attorney #miles edgeworth #phoenix wright #narumitsu #franziska von karma #my meta #this is long overdue #i have so many strong opinions about justice for all and now they're OUT THERE #PRAISE #if you read this you rule even if you still disagree with me and are wrong #thank you #I love Justice for All #honestly if i get any validation for this i will be surprised and awed #hope.txt

303 notes · View notes

just-pineapple-responses · 4 years ago

Note

Just curious, how many shower thought (response) blogs are there? I just dived into this side of tumblr (not gonna make any posts its fun to read though) and I'm already losing my mind

Well there is

The. Literal. Sun.

Plasma...

S p a c e

ALL HAIL THE LIGHT

The void. It shall consume ALL.

A typewriter incase anyone wants to write their will before they die

Also some ink, not related to the typewriter

Also some words, I wonder who'll use them

A hat with no maker and a maker with no hat

The pen is mightier than the sword. It just so happens that this one is evil. Luckily I can summon multiple

Anyone order some coffee?

Ooo, an author

The literal embodiment if of fanart

A fork, nom noms

B҉ r҉ o҉ k҉ e҉ n҉

Soap

Soap(for hair)

Toothpaste

🄵🄰🅄🄲🄴🅃

Towel

Bath mat

Washcloth

Bathtub

Bathwater

𝔹𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕓𝕠𝕞𝕓

Bubblebath!

One (1) bath boi

Some M͓̽o͓̽l͓̽d͓̽ (anybody got some strong disinfectant?)

Nvm, the mold has already caused a plague (gettit?) (although user misspelled it)

Nevermind, there's already a parasite here

Mirror

Door!!!

Some curtains

A denim jacket

Blackout

Rainbow

✨ Magic ✨

*Tree poses to assert dominance*

Coconut

(obviously me)

I think popeye dropped a tin of spinch and it became sentient?

Tost

Hummus. dip tost?

Criss Cross applesauce

Wibbly wobbly Wibbly wobbly jellyo

Mmmm océan s o u p

Some poison, a great addition for my soup

Smol bean

Potat

Shower magpie who I haven't seen in a while

Bird (brain)

Frog(×2:Electric Boogaloo)

An axolotl!

Ferret

*looks at smudged writing on hand. Squints. * a raccoon

Stinky bastard man (I just had to put the two next to each other)

Rat.

Becometh crab 🦀 (x2: Electric Boogaloo)

Nya~

Edgy Nya~

Tripod of dog

Brain

Nina i found one of your neurons (if you understand this reference, good job you)

A rotted brain, keep it away before it infects us all, I only have 2 braincells left

Did... Did someone drop their spinal cord?

The almighty binch

The titanic

Narrator

Water based introspection

Existential crisis

Dumbass

Also a pacifier (get it because they're also called dummies and their name is dummy)

A foolish thought to say a sorry sight join the shower community (as you can tell we did Shakespeare in English so many times i pretty much can recite everything lady macbeth said)

ADHD

Ominous

Anonymous

Anxious 🥺👉👈

Some edgy bastard

A person of culture I see (although obsessed with tweed for some reason)

1 Dapper boi

Sarcastic

nice

All smiles and sunshine

HAPPY! (why isn't there yellow 😔)

Affection (Derogatory) (I'm sorry I just felt like it)

~Petty~

Idiot

Disaster

Chaos and Order

Comebacks

'vanishing'

Defences

Threatened

Op is on drugs

All the F s

And F-general

Get out of the shower

Shower responses

Dry

The horny and the simp

Shower sins

Thower shoughts

I take quick showers

Shower thots

Last responder *countdown music*

You have shower thoughts?

Your shower thoughts are stupid

Wtf shower thoughts

Another shower responder

Just shower responses... responses

Response shower

NO SHOWER! only thought (×3)

Mmm, showery

Penny for your thoughts?

Hello darkness my old friend...

Llawyer

Beepbeep

Prussia

Haywire!!!

furry OwO

A Pigeon got in through the door, who left it open?

I'm feeling devious

You're looking glamorous, let's get mischievous, and polyamorous

Gay is stored in the ass

Gay

Trans

*opens door and walks through with you exaggeratedly* Fellas we got the whole LGBTQIA+ community right here

Enby

Hahaha gender go brrr

Lesbian

Lesbian-thot

Lust

Someone who thinks it funny to clown around

Joker (derogatory)

Haha straight

Dead inside

Some supervillain idk

News. Literally a shower news style responses

I cannot believe that I forgot Her Greatest Majesty, the Queen. All Hail Royal

Isaac newton?

M megamind?

Fiftieth

Crackhead

Some Phoenix Wright kinnie

What is a Dean Winchester and why does he have a tentacle fetish?

Well well well, if it ain't a homestuckian

Did someone kill/rob The Doctor or something, their TARDIS was left behind and its blocking my pretzels that I left in the shower

Mined crafts uwu

Well well well, if it ain't- *accidentally makes eye contact and is then killed by some unknown shadowy creature holding what seems to be some sort of cube of dirt*

GOTTA GO FAST

Mishamishamishamishamishamishamisha

Gen Z and ready to throw hands with OP

Not puki

Nom noms

Dip dap

Kensa

B͓̽u͓̽n͓̽g͓̽e͓̽r͓̽ ..........

Someone broke their space bar or something

It's time to d-d-d-d-d-dshower

The magical deity of sleepovers

DON'T FALL ASLEEP. NO MATTER WHAT THEY TELL YOU-

The muffin man genuinely left drury Lane for this

Txmblr

Moonlit nights on a winters day, stars glimmering gently

A child?

🟥

The fae. Just all of them. Every single one.

Crocus? (What on earth does that mean)

*sings* baba blacksheep have you any wool? Because if not you will be killed (this fits the tune perfectly. If not I have failed in everything)

The theatre itself is here... Somehow

Ahoy-hoy

boo

REEEE- *epic geometry dash gameplay to DanTDM's old intro music*

Yardale, not to be mistaken for riverdale and differs to lawn ale or front porch ale or even meter ale

I'll finish this list later

It's gonna be a long one folks

I'm including a ones that haven't spoken since ages ago because

Boy howdy there's new ones tell me who I'm missing now

Please stop thank you very much this is too many i keep having to add to this any new responder must kill a responder to continue the purge shall claim y'all as I will win i recently started watching Danganronpa

Seriously though everyone after mirror must have a battle royale it's too much i doubt all of you will even last longer than today also happy birthday me -dated:28th- do you even realise what sort of commitment you've made to sell pieces of your soul for entertainment and ability to make such epic retorts each and every post?! I sacrifice many souls DAILY to be throwing such bangers into this stuff y'know?

We have a tap guys we can finally wash our hands of all the blood of our enemies

Seriously though who left the door open I don't want a Pigeon pecking at me (the mishapocalypse got them lol)

So many responders so little time before the end of the world

If I'm missing someone please tell me very thank

There are not enough colours for me to assign a different one to each person 😔 also, wtf is on there twice on purpose

WorldHealthOrganisation IS MISSING (note: you may have a joke in place of name or under a category of names)

So there's lore without me?

ALL HAIL THE LIGHT *moth noises*

Okay now there's alternate timeline versions of responders for the benefit of myself they ain't going on the list bud

There is an incorrect role play blog quotes blog and I am crying. Not of laughter. Just wiuwhdhsjhshjxjabjsjdhdjsj

If any new people join I will go back to causing shower wars for the sake of killing you all I'm done I have snapped my laptop is updating 3 times in a row

I will commit crimes.

Does being a shower responder or role-playing seem encouraging to people to join this "community"? Because I'm pretty sure it's the latter

#ShowerThoughts blogs #Asks #As you can see I'm trying to organise in order of inanimate to animal to concepts to water else #*whatever else #And now rp blogs wow

659 notes · View notes

salty-dracon · 3 years ago

Text

Liveblog of Deltarune Chapter 2, in one Tumblr post.

DELTARUNE SPOILERS

Checking out Deltarune Chapter 2.

Does time move differently in the two worlds? I hope not.

Ralsei is so nice to us. Thank you Ralsei for your rooms made specially for us, and totally not over the course of 10 years.

Thanks Toby Fox dog for.... something.

The Internet world reminds me of Mega Man. Is this place like Web 1.0 with those giant cathode ray monitors or is it something else? The mention of Space Pinball makes me think it's the Windows XP era.

I just noticed that a sparkle flew off from us when we jumped into the new world. Was that our second uninvited guest, Rouxls?

Everything about Queen makes me want to punch her stupid face in. Good villain, I guess? Ughhhh she's so mean but in a 16 year old on a chat room kind of way.

The Werewires have such a good design.

Queen attempts to beat us at a fighting game, but with the power of friendship we got through it. "Bosom or Perish" lol.

It's not a highly emotional game without a dancing sequence by a highly irritating musician.

Yeah they're hinting at the Queen having a sidekick and him speaking in a way no one can understand. So it's probably Rouxls.

The enemies in this area look so good.

BERDLY!!! I have a voice in my head for this guy and it's Byakuya Togami, even now.

Triple trucies!

If I ever acted like Berdly towards you, I'm sorry. Also people who act like him suck. I want to draw him doing the Virgin Walk now.

Gamer's Delight of course it is.

I finally figured out the words for what Berdly is. An isekai protagonist. That's it. He's an isekai protagonist.

Hmm. Spamton. Don't like that.

Noelle's honest discussion about the city is a nice break from all the silly shit. I'm glad she could experience it. Why was she spelling out “December” on her walk, though.

I ONLY PLAY MOBILE GAMES

Wow, I didn't expect a shout-out to Kiwami Japan, aka the knife guy who makes knives out of increasingly weird stuff.

Berdly being ass at solving puzzles is giving me, who is good at solving puzzles, life. “Face it, you’re just as big a dumbass as the rest of us!” got me. The backstory for him is interesting, though. Once again, the word “December”, alongside a silhouette of Noelle. Hmm.

I knew those screams weren’t Ralsei! Lol, they were some of those giant conefaced plague doctor Phoenix Wright things!

The Tasque Manager enemy looks so cool.

Oh god. Blue checkmarks.

Is Nubert supposed to be a reference to Omori’s “Humphrey”?

I deeply adore all of the old computer references, like “Mouse Wheel” and the windows XP background behind Queen.

Thanks Toby Fox dog.

That post where it’s three versions of “has food thrown at me, inexplicably eats it all instantly” is what Susie just did. Like the “witch hitting me while i’m sitting in her cauldron: stop eating all the potatoes” one and the “woman throws a drink at me but i swallow it all perfectly” one. That’s what Susie just did.

mmmmmm battery acid and hands and logic puzzles

There’s Rouxls. He’s a pirate now.

GOD DAMMIT!!!

Noooooo poor Noelle. YESSS SUSIE COMING IN CLUTCH

amazing. pre character development noelle lent her a candy cane and susie payed it back by not picking on her. *slow, sarcastic clapping* bravo, asshole. bravo. fuck you

Noelle :’)

Wait a minute. Wait wait wait wait wait. Noelle calls her sister Dess. Noelle stayed silent when one of the words in the spelling bee was “December”. Noelle is Christmas-themed, with her being a reindeer, her name sounding like “Noel”, and mentions of Christmas songs and candy-cane pencils. Is it possible that Noelle’s sister’s name is December, and she lost December to an accident or something?

This is the funniest conversation ever, in the Ferris wheel. Aww. I hope it ends well for both of them. Ah. Berdly came to ruin it.

NOELLE????? WHAT????

This possible revelation that Noelle can strengthen the Darkness, and that a lot of this world is built on her own memories of this person named “December”, leads me to believe that actually, all of the worlds here are built from the memories of a person, in this case, this world was built from Noelle’s memories. But whose memories are the first world built from? Susie’s? Kris’s? Ralsei’s?

All of these boss themes ROCK!

Yeah as I thought, Queen is only acting to save Noelle.

What does the Knight have to do with any of this? There was a Knight in Undertale, though, I think- it was that guy lying on a wall near one of the shops. So the Knight apparently created the darkness through the power of determination, and with determination, which Lightners all possess, anyone can make more darkness. Hmm.

Epic final boss fight against Queen! I wondered what mechanic they'd bring back- turns out it was the fighting game. Despite being an asshole it seems she didn't really want anything bad to happen.

The Roaring is going to be the endgame I guess. Maybe it's the reason all the monsters are underground in Undertale?

And everything was back to normal!

At least Lancer's got a new mom now. Lancer's dad does not like her one bit.

Sans. Good to see you. Funny as ever. Cracking fourth wall breaking jokes about how goddamn long this part took to make.

There it is again. Kris's soul acting on its own- or, by the player's influence. If the last chapter suggested that Kris's soul wasn't ours to control, why did it let us do so again?

What the HELL? So Kris sometimes pulls her soul out, shuts it away, and lets it sit there while she goes out and does her own thing? That explains the connection between last chapter and this one. There's no discontinuity. We just didn't see her put her soul back into her own body.

So what Kris did just now was slash the cars tires. Why?

Oh. And there's the connection between The Knight and the events of this story. Kris, or at least her body without her soul, is the one causing these fountain of darkness to appear. That's why Kris, with her soul, is the only one who can seal them. Kris is the knight.

#deltarune spoilers

7 notes · View notes

itsbenedict · 4 years ago

Text

I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:

Raging Loop

Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch.

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.

That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.

Detective Grimoire

I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.

Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery

This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)

As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over.

All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.

There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.

(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)

Trails of Cold Steel IV

Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense.

Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.

It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.

did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win

One Step From Eden

OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.

Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.

(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)

The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???

A Short Hike

This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.

Pokémon Sword

Ehhhhh.

I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.

Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.

It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime.

(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though)

Hades

Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.

Petal Crash

It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.

Hollow Knight

Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.

(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)

Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”

(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)

#game rec #also some game non recs #long post

39 notes · View notes

gyakutengagotoku · 4 years ago

Text

GS4 vs AJ:AA - Turnabout Successor, Part 3

Hey, guys, I’m back. It just had to take the announcement of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles to bring me back into the AA fandom and back to work on this blog. No big.

I’ve gone back to add a few more entries to the last project update too (at least the lack of updates makes it easier to find those posts), so please check it out if you’d like. Now, I can finally move on into the infamous flashback case of this game.

Since this is a bit of a shorter one, I think I can get in the next part shortly before the end of tonight (I’m on PST), so look forward to that too! I’ll split up the posts ‘cause they’d be a bit long together.

> Phoenix Wright's case 7 years ago

> Court Lobby

<???> あ、パパ！　おはよう！ Ooh! Morning, Daddy!

<Enigmar> おお。よく来てくれたな。 Ah, I'm so glad you came.

<???> パパ‥‥大丈夫？いじめられてない？ You OK, Daddy? They picking on you?

<Enigmar> はっはっはっはっはっはっ。モチロン、大丈夫さ。 Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I am fine, as always.

今日はね。このオジちゃんが、パパを助けてくれるからね。 This old boy is here to help me, after all.

<Phoenix> （“おニイちゃん”だけどね） (That's "young man" to you.)

Note: Shadi Enigmar = Nanafushi Kagerou (last, first)

He calls him "ojichan" and Naruhodo corrects him with "onichan".

> Courtroom

<Judge> それでは、これより奈々伏　影郎の法廷を開廷します。 Court is now in session for the trial of Shadi Enigmar.

<Phoenix> 弁護側、準備完了しております。 The defense is ready, Your Honor.

<???> ‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥ ......

<Judge> 検察側。どうかしましたかな？ Is the prosecution ready?

<???> ‥‥いやあ。こんなものか、って思ってさ。 I was just thinking, is this what all the fuss is about?

ちょっと、ガッカリしてたトコ。 Bit of a buzz-kill, really.

<Judge> “こんなもの”‥‥？ "Buzz-kill"...? Is this some new kind of crime?

<???> 《サイバン》っていうから、もっとこう‥‥ One of the worst. This is a trial, ja?

ハートにビリビリ来るかと思ってたのにさ。 Where are the sweaty palms? The pounding hearts?

これなら、ガリューウエーブのギグのほうが、よっぽどスリリングだね。 A Gavinners concert's got ten times the thrill this gig's got.

As expected, the judge isn't that dumb in the original script. Kyouya here expresses a bit of disdain for "this kind of thing" and the judge asks what he means.

<Judge> あの‥‥あなたは‥‥？ Who... were you, again?

<Klavier> 牙琉　響也（がりゅうきょうや）。 Klavier. Klavier Gavin.

法廷をアツくするために来たオトコだよ。 I came... to get the party started. Legally, ja?

<Judge> あなたが、あの。牙琉　霧人弁護士の‥‥？ Gavin? Defense Attorney Kristoph Gavin's...?

<Klavier> やれやれ‥‥こっちの世界じゃ、アニキの方が有名、か。 Ah, figures my bro's more famous in this part of town.

"Let's get the party started" reference, GET!

<Phoenix> （牙琉　響也‥‥か） (Klavier Gavin...)

（デビューと同時に大ブレイクを　果たした、超人気ロックバンド） (Lead singer for the megahit band, the Gavinners.)

（《ガリューウエーブ》のボーカル。　場ちがいなボウヤだな‥‥） (You're out of your league, rock-boy.)

<Klavier> “場ちがいなボウヤ”‥‥おおかた、そんなふうに思ってるんだろ？ I know what you're thinking: "You're out of your league, rock-boy."

<Phoenix> ‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥ ......

<Klavier> デビュー曲《恋の禁固刑・１３年》が、いきなりミリオンセラー‥‥ True, my debut single, "13 Years Hard Time for Love", went platinum overnight...

そっちが遊びなんだ。ぼくにとっては。 ...but that's just a hobby to me compared to this, ja?

<Phoenix> ‥‥よくしゃべる検事さんだ。 ...Talkative, aren't you? I like your affected Euro-rock accent, by the way.

<Klavier> いずれ、わかるよ。 ‥‥成歩堂弁護士さん。 I'm just getting warmed up, Herr Attorney Wright.

Sad to say, Naruhodo doesn't comment on any "American" or foreign accent he may have. Interestingly, his voice actor in all the promotional materials does speak with a distinct style that easily distinguishes him from his fellow Japanese, even if it isn't a different accent or dialect. It's a very subtle difference in how he intonates, I think. (If anything it's all the more disappointing that the US locale team didn't bring in a voice actor with a "Euro-rock" accent for Klavier in DD. They're the ones who came up with it! Maybe just couldn't get someone else for some reason?)

> Enter 1st Witness

<Klavier> ‥‥で。ダレ？　きみ。 ...And you are?

<Gumshoe> ‥‥そういう聞き方をされたのは初めてッス。 Hey, you were the one who called me up here... sir.

自分は、糸鋸　圭介（いとのこぎりけいすけ）ッス。 Name's Dick Gumshoe.

所轄署の、殺人事件の捜査を担当する刑事ッス。 I'm a homicide detective down at the precinct.

Haha, it's one of those things that can't be translated well, but Kyouya speaks to the detective in a way that reminds me of how stereotypical celebs talk down to their backstage staff. So Itonoko comments about how "This is the first time anyone's called on me like that."

<Gumshoe> とにかく。引退した天斎は、ここ１年、入院していたッス。 Anyhow, the retired Magnifi's been in the hospital for the last year.

なんというか、ええと。 Hmm, what was it?

か‥‥“カンゾーにテンイ”した ‥‥その。 A mall-ignorant tutor or something.

あ。“アクセーシュヨー”に‥‥ ええと。“ナントカ”まれて。 Doing something to his liver, I think. Yeah.

<Judge> “むしばまれて”でしょう。 A "malignant tumor", perhaps?

<Klavier> “悪性腫瘍”‥‥つまり、ガン、だね。わかりやすくいえば。 In other words, he had liver cancer.

どうやら、余命３ケ月‥‥ といったところだったらしいけど。 He had only three months left to live, in fact.

Aw, Itonoko trying to speak in scientific terms feels like a kid trying to learn words. He ends it with "something-marete" as if trying to cite the doctor, so the judge corrects him with "Was it spoiled, perhaps?" By that, I mean that it was adversely affected.

<Judge> ふむう‥‥ Hmm...

たしかに、事実関係はシンプルかもしれませんが‥‥ The facts do seem simple enough.

なんとなく、スッキリしませんな。 But... something's not right.

<Klavier> ‥‥ほんの３ケ月ほど待っていれば、被害者は、天に召される運命だった。 ...The victim was already climbing a three-month stairway to heaven.

‥‥なぜ、それを待たず、 “射殺”したのか？ ...Why not wait for him to knock-knock-knock on heaven's door? Why shoot him?

<Phoenix> （そうなんだよな‥‥こういう　言い方も、アレだけど） (I wouldn't have put it quite so lyrically, but it's true.)

"Stairway to Heaven" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" references, GET!

In JP, Kyouya also puts it rather poetically, and Naruhodo comments on how the way he says it is a bit "out there".

> 1st Witness Testimony, press 3rd statement

> Check photo presented, select "shot something else", point to clown doll

> Press new statement (6th)

<Phoenix> そのヒタイ‥‥“ピエロの人形” だったのかもしれません。 But... it might have been the clown's forehead he shot.

<Gumshoe> ピエロで練習してみてから、被害者も撃ったかもしれないッス！ OK, so he practiced first on the doll, then shot him!

<Phoenix> 夜の病院‥‥いつ、だれが来るかもわからないのに、練習を‥‥？ He "practiced" in the middle of the hospital? Anyone could have come in at any moment!

<Gumshoe> でも。ジッサイは、ダレも来なかったワケッスから。 Yeah, but no one did come, did they, pal?

自分のモットーは《イシバシを叩いてコワす》ッス！ Besides, it's what I woulda done. "Always look before you shoot," I say.

In JP, his motto is the old Japanese idiom of knocking on a bridge before crossing it; aka be super cautious. The way it's written in English here, though, makes it sound like "Oh, yeah, I'd practice shooting in a hospital."

> Press 4th statement

<Gumshoe> はああ。あいかわらず、なーんにも知らないッスね。アンタは。 What pile of sand has your head been stuck in all this time, pal?

《ザックとバランの早撃ち》ッスよ！ You never heard of "Zak & Valant's Quick-Draw Shootem"?

<Phoenix> なんですか？　それ。 Huh? What's that?

<Gumshoe> 被告人の得意芸ッス。 One of the defendant's specialties.

真ん中に、女の子をはさんでザックとバラン��撃ち合うッス！ Zak and Valant stand on either side of a girl!

すると、フシギッ！ Then, they shoot!

魔法の弾丸は、女の子をスルリと通りぬけて‥‥ But the bullets don't hit her!

ステージの上のあらゆるモノを撃ちぬくッス！ Instead, they hit everything else on stage!!!

そのとき、ステージで使われていたのが、このピストルッス。 This was one of the pistols they used in their show.

トクベツなデザインで、チビっ子に大人気だったッス。 Got a great design, huh? The kids love it.

<Klavier> コイツにあこがれて、警察官をめざした少年少女も多かったとか。 Many boys and girls joined the police because of that pistol, I hear.

<Phoenix> （なんだよ、“とか”って‥‥） (You know, that would explain a lot about the police force.)

In the source, it goes more like:

Kyouya: "Like how many boys and girls joined the police because of it." Naruhodo: "(What do you mean "Like how"...?)"

> Press 5th statement, acquire pistol

> Present pistol at 6th statement

<Phoenix> ピストルの弾丸は、カンタンには手に入らない。 Oh? Where did he get the extra bullet? They're not so easy to come by, you know.

被告人が“用意した”と主張するのならば‥‥ If you claim the defendant "had one ready"...

その入手経路の立証を要求します！ ...then prove to us how he got it!

<Klavier> ぐっ‥‥！ Urk...!

‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥ クッ‥‥クックックッ‥‥ ...... Heh... Ha ha ha...

さすがに、これで決まっちゃあ盛り上がらないからね。 I had a feeling this wasn't over yet.

それに、ぼくにしてもね。このまま終わったら‥‥ No... this party's just getting started.

ただのチャラチャラしたお調子者のニイちゃんだし。 And I haven't proven anything yet, beyond my good looks, and startling record sales.

<Phoenix> （自覚してたのか‥‥） (And utter lack of humility.)

Kyouya: "Figures, it wouldn't be exciting if it just ended here. Besides, I can't let it end like that... Or I'd just be some jangly sucker who rides off on praise." Naruhodo: "(At least he admits it...)"

Catch you all later in the next one.

#gsvsaa #gs4 #ajaa #turnabout successor #part 3

10 notes · View notes

turnaboutnerd · 5 years ago

Text

None of the songs Klavier wrote for Gavinners were ever about anyone. He wrote by feeling, rather than by experience.

That changes after the Gavinners breaks up—after Daryan is arrested, after Kristoph is sentenced to death, after he learns he was responsible for the false disbarment of Phoenix Wright. After he falls in love with Apollo Justice.

He writes several albums’ worth of music all based on those experiences, as a way of processing what happened, as an outlet for all the sudden and complicated emotions he doesn’t know how to handle.

He writes songs about his feelings of betrayal regarding Kristoph (and Daryan). Some of them are angry. Some of them are sad. Some of them are longing — for the brother he wished Kristoph was, for the best friend he wished never changed. He writes about his guilt over Phoenix being disbarred. He writes about his perspective as a haughty teenager thinking he did the legal world a service catching a forger — and how he realized as an adult he had initiated a brutal witch-hunt and ignited the Dark Age of Law.

He writes about falling in love with Apollo, about how he wanted to hate him, about how he couldn’t. He writes about his complicated feelings “trading” his relationship with Daryan for Apollo. Did he betray his best friend for a crush? Did loving Apollo cause him to lose his mind and turn on family?

Later, he writes about the loss of Constance Courte. He writes about wishing how he could’ve been there for Apollo after the courthouse bombing, after he lost Clay.

He keeps these songs close to him, never shares them with a soul. They’re too personal—he could never release them. Besides, he’s done with the music business, ja?

But as time continues to pass, it’s suddenly no longer enough. He’s been venting in private lyrics for a couple years, but he needs others to hear what he’s been feeling—to validate what he’s been feeling. He misses trusting others. He misses performing.

So he pulls some of his best—which also happen to be his most personal—and records them in his home studio, compresses them into mp3 files, and loads them onto an old iPod. Klavier Gavin may be ready to step into the spotlight again, to share himself with the world again—but he at least wants to give the people he’s writing about fair warning.

Kristoph refuses to see him, as usual, no matter how much Klavier pleads. Klavier does not know why he continues to try (of course he knows, it’s because Kris is his bruder), but he supposes it’s good he at least tried at all.

Daryan sees him but is furious when Klavier tells him he wants to release a solo album (Daryan has no comment on some of the songs being about him). Klavier doesn’t understand. Daryan was furious when Klavier broke up the Gavinners; now he’s furious he’s making music again. He just can’t seem to win. Daryan throws the iPod on the ground and cracks the screen, refusing to listen to it. Klavier picks it up, dusts it off, and takes it with him regardless.

Klavier actually has more anxiety facing Herr Wright than he does Kristoph and Daryan. He knew it would go poorly with them; he doesn’t know how Phoenix will react, especially since they’ve never... properly talked about everything that happened.

But Phoenix is cordial, tells him he’s glad to hear Klavier is recording again (though his wallet won’t be, he jokes, with reference to Trucy; Klavier smiles crookedly, unsure how to take the joke). Phoenix is the first to actually take the iPod and listen to the album—the whole thing, even though Klavier only intended for him to hear the songs about him.

While Phoenix sits at his desk, pensively listening to each song, Klavier sits on the office couch, fidgeting nervously, trying to use his phone as a distraction. Finally, when Phoenix finishes, he pulls out his headphones, compliments Klavier on the great work, and says he’s sure it’s going to be a big hit.

Klavier thanks him but internally, he’s just like... that’s it? That’s all he has to say?

But Phoenix, already knowing what Klavier’s actually looking for, then smiles and says, “What? Was there something else you wanted me to say? Didn’t you know I already forgave you for the whole badge thing years ago?”

Klavier can’t help it: He starts bawling on the couch of the defense attorney he mistakenly disbarred nearly a decade earlier. Phoenix is totally unphased, but the episode catches Klavier by surprise. He hadn’t realized how badly he needed to cry about this—how cathartic it feels. Phoenix brings him tissues, wraps a fatherly arm around Klavier, and continues to talk about how he doesn’t blame Klavier and he knows this all has been very difficult for him too, etc. and it actually makes Klavier cry harder until he’s shaking and Phoenix is holding him like a father would his son.

Once Klavier calms down and is feeling better, Phoenix can’t help but ask: “Are some of those songs about Apollo?” He doesn’t have to specify which ones; they both know he means the love songs. Klavier says they are. “You should share this with him too,” Phoenix finishes, giving him back the iPod.

Klavier was already planning on it, but it makes him feel more nervous than before. (Ach, the songs are obviously about Apollo, aren’t they?) The next time he catches Apollo in the courthouse, he practically shoves the iPod into his hands, tells him he wrote a new album, and that he wants Apollo to be one of the first to hear it.

Apollo, for one, is utterly baffled. “Uh... I’m happy for you, that you’re writing music again, Prosecutor Gavin, but... you know I never was a fan of the Gavinners, right?”

Klavier’s hand trembles a little as he coolly flicks some of his bangs out of his face. “Sure, but this isn’t the Gavinners, ja? It’s pure Klavier Gavin content.”

Apollo remains confused but begrudgingly agrees to listen to the album that night, “if I have the time.” Klavier is partially relieved that he won’t have to watch Apollo listen to the damn thing like he had to with Herr Wright, but it means the suspense nearly kills him.

He’s utterly unproductive for the rest of the evening and following morning, waiting anxiously for a message or call from Apollo to let him know what he thinks—

And then Apollo walks into his office, looking sheepish and shy. Klavier’s heart leaps into his throat when Apollo holds the iPod out to him.

“I listened to it,” Apollo says, unable to look Klavier in the eye. “I, uh... had no idea you felt that way about me. I kinda knew that you were having a hard time with the other stuff, but, um...”

He’s blushing a bright red, and Klavier swallows hard before hoarsely answering, “Ja.”

Apollo manages to bring his eyes to Klavier’s then. “So... when are you going to release it?”

Klavier shakes his head. “I’m not sure. Soon. But I’m not sure.”

That’s when Apollo screws up his nerve and says, “Well. Before you do, can you at least take me out on a proper date before you go announcing your feelings for me to the world?”

Klavier is more than happy to comply, and the album is later released to critical acclaim.

#sorry for the long post but i cant do read more on mobile #klavier gavin #apollo justice #phoenix wright #klapollo #kristoph gavin #daryan crescend

295 notes · View notes

jayda-starrjones · 4 years ago

Text

My Top 10 Favourite Animes (So Far)

1. NANA

I've loved nana since I was 10, it was my first anime. I'll prolly love it forever, it makes me cry and I just feels so real and nostalgic idk the aesthetic of this anime is my most favourite thing in the world. It's about two 20 year old girls who are polar opposites but have the same name meeting on a train to tokyo; and their worlds end up colliding. With Nana Osaki, the punk singer in a band trying to make it big and Nana Komaru, the girly romantic, it ends up being a story of young adults trying to figure out their lives. It's emotional and real, with emotional and real characters.

I'm also a nana osaki kinnie

2. Devilman Crybaby

First of all: I LOVE ryo. His character depth is EXQUISITE. Second of all: I loved loved LOOOOVED the ending. It hurts but it's realistic and makes sense. It's complex... I enjoy complexity 😌✋ The plot is introduced as childhood friends trying to save the world from "devils," but I think it's REALLY a story about love and the complexity of it; how if you're greedy and narrow minded then you'll fuck up love for yourself. If you've seen the entire show then you know why.

I'm also in love with the shot of ryo pulling out his gun and shooting the devils at the sabbath party in episode 1

3. Ouran Highschool Host Club

The characters are S O endearing. Except for Renge, she annoys me 💀 but honestly this anime is just really fun to follow. It's a girl who joins the host club as a boy in order to pay off her debt to the boys from the host club, while also making great friends with them in the process. The characters have a good dynamic and they work well with each other, especially cause they're all quite different from each other. IDK MAN I JUST REALLY ENJOYED THIS ANIME OK

4. Danganronpa

Ok so tbhhh I don't really know if this one counts cause I love the games, not diggin the anime, but I think it's referred to as an anime so whatever lmfao. Again, the characters? Great, amazing, tasty. Like I'm being fed a full course meal with a bunch of different shit in it. Danganronpa is so diverse with it's characters, like some of them are kinda out there lmao. Yes, yes, I am also a Toko kinnie 😌✋ I enjoy the story of the main games and the antagonists are MMMM M W A H CHEFS KISS. The style of it is pretty cool too. It's about kids who wake up in a school only to find of they're being held hostage there unless they kill the others to be set free, if they can also escape the Phoenix Wright style court trial without being caught.

Side note: the games were supposed to be a LOT darker than they already are, like sickeningly dark, I almost wish they were what they were going to be just so i could see how they would have turned out.

5. Black Butler

I am enchanted by the dark plot. I started watching Black Butler when I was like 13 and fell in love with it's universe. It's dark, cold, fun and thrilling. Did I mention dark? It's about a boy who makes a deal with a demon just so he can survive the trauma that was sprung onto him. Ciel is crafted as a kid who hasn't been able to heal, and probably never will. The manga is better than the anime, a lot better; but the series is SO good. This is wack to think about for me but this anime actually got me through some hard times. Not in the most healthy way, but It helped me grow a THICK ass skin because I would relate to the feeling of loneliness and revel in the only other feeling I had in me; rage. I used to kin Ciel so hard bruh

6. Beastars

This anime gives me like a sorrowful depression afterward lmao like I can't put my finger on it but every time I've gone through it and binged it it's made me like sad, even tho it's not very sad?? I still love it tho. I love the idea of a wolf falling for a rabbit and having to fight his instincts just to be with her. Also, if you're an ARMY, legoshi has Namjoon's eyes. CAN'T EXPLAIN IT HE JUST DOES MK

7. Attack On Titan

K ya it's a popular anime everyone likes BUUUUUUT it has a nice big place in my heart so it's going on this list. The development between characters throughout the anime and manga is intense. I didn't expect where the story is to this day; I don't think anyone did lmao also? When I first started reading the manga it was cause I needed to finish where the anime left off cause I couldn't wait any longer lol THE MANGA?? GIVES ME LIKE CHILLS?? Idk the manga is scary to read sometimes lol again, I can't place it, but sometimes it's so gritty I can hear the screams in my head and feel the ambiance and death in the air. I like an angry ambitious story 🤷‍♀️

8. Yuri On Ice

GREAT love story. I also love yuri plisetsky a lot. The anime is really pretty and conveys a warm feeling. The pacing is really good as well. It moves pretty fast, considering it has like what, 12 episodes? I also loved the ending because like :') yurios debut dudes :') did u see the tears :'))))))

9. Death Note

Ok so I recently rewatched this anime for probably the 4th time with a friend and realized that the pacing isn't too bad but sometimes it feels slow. Nonetheless, I love it a lot. A killer and a detective working together to capture that same killer is fun to follow. It has a really nice aesthetic and I think it's clever with various things handled in the anime. It's very entertaining, I love playing it in the background while I'm painting. Also, I have a death note 🤪

10. Cowboy Bebop

This anime is different from most animes I get attached to, mostly because it loosely follows a plot but REALLY i think you could prolly tune into any episode and grasp what's going on. It's JUST space shananagins dude. Again, beautiful aesthetic. Cute characters. I love how cyborg man has a bonsai room like cmon that's such a cute character detail.

VERY Honourable Mentions

One Punch Man

K but one punch man is so funny wtf and it's very quirky and fun. Just the thought of a low budget superhero who isn't recognized as a superhero & can only kill bad guys with one punch & hates it is kinda funny idk man, mf does his deed of the day and then panics cause he needs to make it to the supermarket on time for the sale that's going on lmao

Soul Eater

Of course, great characters, great plot. Really good animation style. Funny with a dark aesthetic ♡

Your Lie In April

Okay hear me out. I haven't actually finished it yet. I just know that the characters have so much depth that I've been sucked in. I also don't think I've ever seen an anime THIS beautiful. Like really, this anime blows me away with how beautiful it is sometimes. It makes me rlly sad for some reason tho. Pretty music romance that'll remind you of your childhood mmmm

My Future Diary

mmmm taystey yandere

#yuri on ice #attack on titan #nana #black butler #cowboy bebop #soul eater #death note #devilman crybaby #beastars #my future diary #one punch man #your lie in april #danganronpa #ouran #ouran highschool host club #anime #manga #ratings #top 10

20 notes · View notes

rivalsforlife · 4 years ago

Note

AAA thank you for the commentary and also for the links for the art + the piece with kay giving miles a hug, i hadn't seem them!! miles really really needed that hug :C since you said you like doing commentary, i'm so sorry, but can i ask for phoenix and miles talking in the hospital in chapter 7? reading the commentary about The Scene made me rush to read it again right after haha take your time though, i get these are long to do and all!! thank you again!

Anonymous said:

Wait hold on I would purchase this DVD Director’s Cut Commentary on your fics in heartbeat! I only just realized that you were doing them. Sorry to be another catch up game request and sorry that it’s a somewhat long passage, but could you comment on the scene where Phoenix and Miles reconcile in Miles’ hospital room in chapter 8?

Got two asks for this one so I guess I have to do it haha! (And I’m assuming the first anon meant chapter 8 instead of chapter 7 haha.)

and also @\ second anon request I am so glad to hear that there’s a market for my 150 hour long DVD that’s me reading my fics and then rambling about them repetitively the whole time, maybe I can drop out of school after all! (jokesjokes)

Anyways!! the scene!! under the cut!!

I totally lied I have a few things to talk about first... this is probably one of the scenes I fiddled around the most with at the last minutes before publishing, because like I said in my commentary of The Scene at the end of chapter 5, it got a much bigger reaction than I was anticipating and then I was side-eyeing the rest of this fic to make sure it worked out haha. Particularly this scene, since it’s sort of the resolution to the end of chapter 5, so I wanted it to work out alright without it seeming like it just... wrote off everything that happened with chapter 5.

Okay I’ll start now I promise.

Phoenix’s heart pounded in his chest to a degree he thought might have something to do with a health condition. Maybe it was in the pamphlets. Kay reached around him, knocked on the door, and gave him a wink before darting away. How disrespectful.

meddlesome thief daughter is determined to help get her totally-not-a-dad a boyfriend. Also Phoenix is way more intimidated by the thought of an Honest Emotional Conversation than he is at running into a burning building which I think is in character, honestly.

“Come in,” said Edgeworth’s muffled voice, so Phoenix gave himself one moment to take a deep breath and then entered the room.

Edgeworth sat in the bed by the window, looking at his burnt and bent out-of-shape Steel Samurai figurine perched on the windowsill. At least it had been recovered; Edgeworth was fond of that one. Edgeworth himself was definitely worse for wear, with his hands bandaged and gripping tightly to his inner arms, and his skin a sickly pale colour where it wasn’t bruised, but he was awake and alive and the sight was nearly breathtaking.

hhghgh okay confession time! Up until I was about halfway through the fic the big moments in chapter 7 went down a little differently - originally this was going to involve, like, Miles getting kidnapped by the mafia group he was taking down and then Phoenix would go in and break him out of there, but then I ended up taking it out because I wasn’t really Vibing with it and it just seemed too dramatic and implausible... but honestly what I went with was probably equally dramatic and implausible, so no points there for me.

I mean I kinda regret burning down the prosecutor’s office. If I had more time to prepare/edit or I guess if I could do one thing in this fic differently, I’d probably rewrite part of this resolution so it was more emotionally oriented because I suck at action. plus like the health-related consequences of this whole misadventure kind of got glossed over, in true ace attorney fashion, but regardless.

This was absolutely caused by me not being totally sure what hurt/comfort meant (which chapters 7 and 8 were based on as a theme) and figuring to go with the safer option of more physical hurt/comfort than more emotional hurt/comfort; although some of that got in there at the end.

And one of my edits was definitely recovering the Steel Samurai figurine because that was the most critical thing in Miles’ office imo. Or at least from Miles’ perspective.

Edgeworth looked over as Phoenix entered, and his entire body sagged in relief. “Phoenix,” he breathed.

“Hey.” Awkwardly sticking his hands in his pockets, Phoenix walked over and sat on the chair beside his bed. He couldn’t help but think about the last time he and Edgeworth had been in a hospital room together, their positions reversed. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” said Edgeworth, and his voice was still rough. “I—I don’t… you’re alive.”

“‘Course I am.”

“Gumshoe and Kay told me everything, you know.” A menacing look flashed through his eyes. “What you did.”

Phoenix braced himself.

Gumshoe and Kay probably were there right when Miles woke up, a little before Phoenix did, I suppose -- or at least around when he was being rescued, maybe? I didn’t think this timeline through super well since Miles was in worse condition... ignore that! Anyways they definitely told Miles that Phoenix was alive, but considering Miles presumably witnessed him fall through a burning building, he can’t fully believe it until he sees Phoenix upright and walking around like nothing’s wrong.

“How could you be so reckless?” he hissed, and even though some of the danger was lessened when his voice was so shaky, Phoenix still recoiled. “You could have died, easily! You defied direct police orders and — and all — all logic and reason and for what?”

“To save you. Of course.”

“I would have been fine!”

Risking his life for someone is just your average Tuesday for Phoenix. But it shook up Miles a lot, and all of his anger is completely coming from a place of concern, but Miles being Miles doesn’t really know how to express emotions outside of angry glaring and in this case angry yelling.

“Would you?” Phoenix challenged, and Edgeworth’s glare redoubled. “Look, Edgeworth, I wasn’t going to die, not while I still had something to live for —”

“How is that going to stop you?” Edgeworth demanded. “People can have the world to live for and they still die! By your logic, I-I wasn’t enough for m-my —” He turned away and broke off into a coughing fit.

The realization struck Phoenix like a physical blow. “No, I didn’t mean to suggest —”

The “I wasn’t going to die, not while I had something to live for” is a reference to Phoenix’s line at the end of AA4; “People don't die that easily, really. ... As long as they've got something worth living for.” Which is a nice sentiment, really, and might work for Mr. Indestructible over here, but is not how things actually work, which Miles points out.

What he was going to say (if it’s not obvious) is “By your logic, I wasn’t enough for my father,” because you know Gregory would have done anything to stay with his son, but a bullet to the heart is a bullet to the heart. There’s not much “having something to live for” can do about that.

“Something to live for isn’t going to save you!” continued Edgeworth, once he recovered. “Why can’t you realize that? It’s not going to stop a bullet, it’s not going to save you from a fall, you — how much longer are you going to keep relying on your luck like this?! Do you — do you even realize how much danger you keep putting yourself in?”

His choice of examples here are what I want to talk about - “not going to stop a bullet” refers to both Gregory’s murder and also the last time he saw Phoenix’s life in danger, during SOJ when the guards burst in and are pretty much pointing guns at their heads -- I’d be surprised if Miles wasn’t terrified watching that, even if he wouldn’t admit it after everything calmed down. “not going to save you from a fall” refers both to this most recent falling through a burning building but ALSO Phoenix falling through the burning bridge in Bridge to the Turnabout, another instance where Phoenix almost died and Miles was involved.

And the events of SOJ where Phoenix walks in and risks his life for a kid, while something that Miles understands he would do since that’s the kind of guy Phoenix is, still were reckless and if Phoenix didn’t have protagonist immunity who knows if he would have made it through Khura’in, which is the most recent traumatic event prior to this fic.

Phoenix held up his hands. “Edgeworth, it’s okay.”

“No! No it’s not! Y-You… Do you have a death wish? Why would you ever…” He trailed off, digging his fingers into his arms and looking away.

Miles is just kind of... panicking a lot as the full weight of the situation they were just in catches up with him and just how close he was to losing Phoenix. He was going to say something like “Why would you ever do that for me?” but that’s edging a little too close to the whole issue of the rejected confession; he’s not someone particularly special to Phoenix, at least not in the way Miles would like, and they parted on awkward terms, so why would Phoenix still go out of his way to save him like this?

“It’s fine,” Phoenix tried to soothe. “We’re alive. If I hadn’t gone in there, who knows if they would have gotten to you in time, or if you hadn’t gotten that mask on when you did… Look, I don’t want to just sit back and watch you die —”

“I don’t want you dead, either! You imbecile! You…” He took in a sharp, shaky inhale. “You could have died, and it would have been my fault, do you think I want that? Do you think I could live with myself if that had happened? And not just now, you keep throwing yourself into reckless situation after reckless situation and one day you’ll pay the price for it a-and god, Wright, no one would ever want that, do you even consider the effect that would have o-on Trucy, on everyone, on…”

He turned his head to the side to hide it better behind his bandaged hand, but Phoenix could still see the tears dripping down his face. Phoenix hadn’t seen him cry since — since they were kids, probably. His eyes had been a little watery after the DL-6 incident was resolved, but Phoenix hadn’t actually seen anything. Even when he came to the Agency after prosecuting cases where the public details alone made Phoenix’s stomach turn, and he’d whisper about the horrors with his face in his hands long after they were sure Trucy was asleep, he hadn’t cried.

“Miles,” Phoenix whispered, horrified, reaching out for his shaking shoulder.

Edgeworth flinched away, curling in on himself. “Please don’t touch me.”

Miles... pretty much has a full-on breakdown here because he’s been through a LOT in the past few days. He finally worked up the courage to confess to Phoenix and was rejected, and then probably spent a lot of time worrying about how this could change their friendship, and if Phoenix would be less comfortable around him from now on; plus in general the hurt of being rejected plus the humiliation of having read the situation so wrong (so he thinks). Then the office was attacked which was horribly traumatic on his own, and dredged up some DL-6 trauma for him too with the building shaking like it did. Then Phoenix comes running in to rescue him, which Miles doesn’t understand, because they had parted on awkward terms and he doesn’t think Phoenix would want to go rescuing him after that; at the same time this is the sort of thing Phoenix would do because he’s so dedicated to the people he cares about and Miles loves that about him; and then he thought for a while there that Phoenix had fallen and died trying to save Miles, making it indirectly Miles’ fault that he died, and now he’s lost the man he loves and he’s lost Trucy’s father and someone who was such a loyal friend to so many people -- but he’s okay! and acting like nothing happened! plus it’s the first time Miles has seen him since his attempted confession and it’s still a little raw for him.

so he’s a complete wreck emotionally... which is why he’s crying. I don’t see Miles as the type of person to cry a lot and ESPECIALLY not in front of other people. That’s probably very embarrassing for him, too, not to mention he’s crying in front of Phoenix, who’s trying to comfort him, which just makes everything worse.

Also Phoenix calling Miles by his first name and kind of reaching out to hold him reaaaally does not help.

“Alright.” Phoenix reluctantly lowered his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Phoenix corrected, and Edgeworth peeked out from between his arms with reddened eyes to glare at him. “I know that sounds like a half-assed apology. But I’m not going to apologize for saving your life. I’m never going to stand by and let you or anyone else die if I can stop it.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

Another instance of Miles not knowing how to process feelings and being kind of angry-cat-like about it.

“Your life has more value than you know,” Edgeworth mumbled. “I wish you’d stop treating it so cheaply.”

“I’m not more important than anyone else.”

“You are to me.” Edgeworth sighed. “Forget I said anything. I know it isn’t going to stop you from doing the exact same idiotic thing in the future.”

HERE is a subtle callback to, once again, their conversation during the dinner in chapter 4 (which I’m referencing a lot back then since I guess it’s the scene where everyone’s repressing their emotions):

Phoenix immediately shook his head. “Hey, no, you were off doing research, planning to change the judicial system. I’m not more important than that.”

“You…” Edgeworth looked away and grabbed his arm. “... That doesn’t change the fact that I could have done more.”

He was going to say “You are to me”, like he did in this scene, but changed it at the last moment because it was too sappy and a little too close to his true feelings.

Miles now, going through an emotional breakdown, has less control over what he’s saying so it just sort of slips out -- but he regrets saying it since, well, Phoenix doesn’t feel the same way about him, he wouldn’t want to hear that, it’s not going to change anything.

“I don’t think it’s idiotic for me to try and save someone I care about from death,” Phoenix argued, punctuating his sentence with a cough.

“You shouldn’t do that for me.”

“Of course I would risk my life for you. You’re… you…” The words got stuck somewhere before his tongue.

Edgeworth’s eyes squeezed shut as if in pain, and he turned his back to Phoenix. “Please just… give me space, Wright.”

What Phoenix is trying to do is express how important Miles is to him in a romantic sort of way, but he still hasn’t fully acknowledged everything yet to do so, there’s a whole psyche-lock left, so he can’t quite get it out.

Miles perceives this as Phoenix trying to comfort him and say that he is important -- and he does know that he is important in some way to Phoenix -- but trying to do it in a way that can’t be mistaken as romantically-intended, once again reminding Miles of “hey remember when you tried to confess to him and it backfired so horribly”, so he wants space. Both for now because he’s dealing with a lot of other trauma, but also to take some time and get over Phoenix so he isn’t reminded of this and they can go back to being friends like before.

“No,” said Phoenix, and when Edgeworth tensed, “I-I mean, yes, I’ll go in a minute. I just… I wanted to talk to you about, uh, before all this. I-I know it’s terrible timing.”

Edgeworth was silent. Phoenix feared he was being ignored. “It is indeed terrible timing,” he said, eventually, his voice nearly unrecognizable. “I thought I said I didn’t want to talk about this again.”

Miles is anticipating the “You’re a great guy and a great friend, I just don’t feel the same way, but I’m sure you’ll make someone happy someday” conversation, which, while not a bad thing in most situations, is really not what Miles wants to deal with right now! Avoiding it was partially the reason he left so quickly at the end of chapter 5, and now he’s cornered in his hospital bed and does not want to have this conversation... ever, really, but especially not right now.

Basically Phoenix’s timing sucks, don’t have an emotionally charged conversation about why you rejected your crush after a traumatic incident irl, this is fiction though and I’m doing it for the drama.

“You don’t have to say anything. You don’t ever have to talk about this with me again if you don’t want to.” Phoenix ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I just want to apologize, a-and if I don’t do it now, I’m not sure I’ll have the courage to do it again.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Wright,” said Edgeworth, to the wall.

one of the first drafts of Phoenix’s part had “You don’t ever have to talk to me again if you don’t want to” which was imo too far; Miles wouldn’t completely abandon Phoenix over this, and also, if Miles wanted to cut off all contact with Phoenix he’d probably just do it. Phoenix is just promising he won’t bring up the conversation again.

Miles thinks he’s about to apologize for not returning Miles’ feelings, which of course isn’t something Phoenix would have to apologize for.

“Yeah, I do.” Phoenix took a deep breath and summoned more courage than he ever had before. “I… I lied to you. When you asked me how I felt.”

Edgeworth turned his head back to him. Phoenix willed himself to not look away, or crack some cheap joke. Just kidding, Edgeworth! I enjoy toying with your emotions! That wouldn’t go over well.

Miles would be well within his rights to cut off all contact with Phoenix if Phoenix DID say “Oh by the way I do love you! haha just kidding! why are you crying.”

And these two being so dedicated to The Truth is why Phoenix focuses the apology more around “I’m sorry that I lied to you” -- also why he was so bothered by the comment Miles made about his honesty throughout chapter 6 and 7.

Edgeworth’s face crossed at least three equally incomprehensible emotions before he asked, “Why?”

The incomprehensible emotions are probably some variation on “am I dead???”

“I…” Phoenix sighed, and admitted, “I don’t know.”

“It would make more sense if it were the other way around,” said Edgeworth, and his expression closed off. “I’m — I’m not misunderstanding, am I?”

Instead of asking if he was misunderstanding, the first draft of this had Miles ask if Phoenix was trying to spare his feelings... but I think Miles would know Phoenix well enough to know that Phoenix would never do that.

Phoenix still hasn’t worked through his Issues and hasn’t outright said that he does love Miles, just that he lied about how he felt - sneaky way to get past the psyche-locks.

“No, you’re not,” Phoenix insisted, leaning forward. “I didn’t mean what I said back the other day, when I said I didn’t feel the same. I-I just panicked, I think. I knew, already, how you felt, but I never thought you’d say it. I never knew exactly how to read you, then suddenly you’re baring your heart to me, and it was too much.” He realized how close he was to Miles, and started getting out of his chair. “I-It’s a stupid reason. I’m sorry. I-I’ll just go, you don’t have to deal with me right now —”

“Wait.” Edgeworth grabbed his wrist before he could go too far. “Please.”

His grip was gentle but still firm. Phoenix sat back down with superhuman effort.

Phoenix finally realizes that dumping heavy emotions on Miles right now might not be the best idea! But Miles starts processing what’s actually going on and demands answers Right Now. And he initiates physical contact again. I usually try to have it go about when writing these things that if someone refuses physical contact (like Miles does before) they’re the one to initiate it again, just so that no boundaries are broken here.

Edgeworth was silent for a long time. “Always turning things around on me, aren’t you,” he said eventually, in a hoarse whisper.

This line was a fairly last-minute addition! Just imagine it being said in kind of a... exasperated-fond tone of a man who is very much in love but also very tired. “I understand you always want to turn things around on me but did you really have to do it this way, Phoenix,”

Phoenix ducked his head. “I never meant to hurt you. I — I care about you a lot, Miles, and I’m sorry if I screwed things up because I got scared. I want the same thing you do, I just don’t know if I can anymore, it’s been so long and…” He let out some self-deprecating laughter. “Isn’t that stupid? I’m such a coward. I know you, I know you wouldn’t hurt me, not on purpose. But I just can’t…”

So Phoenix hasn’t been in a serious relationship since the Dahlia-Iris debacle in college, which by this point, is fifteen years. And that was traumatizing enough he’s not sure he knows how to navigate a romantic relationship anymore or be vulnerable in that sort of way again.

That “not on purpose” caveat is there because Miles has hurt Phoenix pretty badly before -- not intending to, of course, because I don’t think he thought anyone would really care after the “Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death” note, but he still did anyways.

And since I usually like to plan out what characters are saying when I have them trail off like that... Phoenix’s intention was to say something along the lines of how he can’t get over what happened or whatever this emotional block is that won’t let him express his romantic feelings freely, but can’t find the words for it.

“Don’t you dare put yourself down in front of me.” Edgeworth reached out, slowly, to guide Phoenix’s head upward to meet his eyes. “I… I always thought you were the more… emotional, of the two of us. I’d assumed you weren’t saying anything, before, to give me time to process how I felt. I thought you were just waiting for me to speak up.”

Miles kind of degrades Phoenix often in court but, at least after Turnabout Goodbyes, I was always under the impression it’s just courtroom banter/not letting Phoenix think he’d go easy on him. Judging by the big emotional speeches about Phoenix’s brilliance he tends to give afterwards, there’s no way he actually thinks Phoenix is stupid.

And the rest of that is pretty much giving the reader who has not read these extensive DVD commentaries more insight into Miles’ perspective throughout the fic!

“Guess we got it the other way around,” said Phoenix with a faint laugh. “I-I mean, I used to be that kind of person. Everyone always knew how I felt all the time. It didn’t really… well, you can’t survive long like that.” He placed his free hand over his heart. “I-I’ve got locks, you know that? Black ones. I don’t know for sure why, but I can guess.”

Edgeworth scowled. “Dahlia?”

“Not just her,” said Phoenix. “She — and Iris — they’re not the only ones, you know, who — who I thought betrayed me.”

Edgeworth released Phoenix’s wrist. “Me,” he realized. “You thought I’d betray your trust again.”

Pretty much summary of Phoenix talking about how he used to be the “Feenie” in Turnabout Memories and then the events of the games slamdunked him into the emotional repression zone. ... to put it simply.

And Miles’ hurt at Phoenix pointing out that Miles had betrayed him in the past (referring to the Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death thing, primarily, because Phoenix describes it as a betrayal himself in the games) is less hurt that Phoenix doesn’t trust him and more guilt/anger at himself for having hurt Phoenix in the past to the point it could be comparable with what Dahlia and Iris did.

(Phoenix interprets it as the former, though, in the next paragraph.)

“I know you wouldn’t,” Phoenix clarified, because the brief flicker of hurt across Edgeworth’s face was unbearable. “I trust you to be a good person, and I trust you as my friend, but I… Miles, you left before, and it hurt. A-And let’s be honest, you’ve always been the smarter of the two of us, you’re better looking, you — you’re always fighting for justice, now, for truth, you’re honestly incredible. Why wouldn’t you want to leave me?”

“I trust you to be a good person, and I trust you as my friend, but I don’t trust you not to leave again” is the full version of that sentence, but Phoenix stopped himself because it seemed too cruel to say out loud.

And Phoenix using the word “incredible” here is also a very tiny subtle callback to Miles calling Phoenix incredible back during the original confession in chapter 5!

... I realized looking back on it that in my editing of that confession I accidentally cut out the part where Miles calls Phoenix intelligent during that conversation, shit, and then Phoenix claims that Miles called him intelligent when arguing back, which doesn’t make any sense anymore. Originally when Miles says “surely you figured it out already?” it was a little later and he said something like “surely you figured it out already, with your brilliant mind” but that was overkill so I cut it out but forgot to cut out the intelligence comment! fun how you realize these things so long after publishing! anyways. once more, please ignore that.

THE POINT IS that the things they find attractive about each other tend to be similar because they have very similar values and goals; their fight for truth and justice being a core one.

“I don’t know where you’ve gotten these impressions of me, but you’re wrong,” said Edgeworth, his gaze locking onto Phoenix like he was chasing down a contradiction. “You can be very stupid, when you’re risking your life running into a collapsing building, for instance — but you’re one of the smartest men I know, smarter in ways I’ll never be. I wouldn’t be anywhere on my path to truth if you weren’t there to guide me. And…” A faint sheen of pink covered his face. “I find you extremely handsome. I’m not sure if you know this.”

Phoenix was sure he was turning red. “I don’t know why you would.”

“Any thought suggesting that you’re not good enough for me is wrong,” Edgeworth asserted. “I think it’s the other way around. You’re — you’re brave, you’re good, you’re always so strong despite everything… I admire that about you.”

look I love morosexual miles jokes as much as anyone else, but Phoenix is actually wickedly smart, albeit in an unconventional sort of way -- he’s a very flexible thinker and that can lead him to reach conclusions that Miles didn’t even consider. I found that interesting with investigations that sometimes Miles got so caught up in his logic and assumptions that he’d get stuck, and it was only emulating Phoenix’s thinking that got him out of it.

(Which is why I usually get a little irritated at some characterizations of Phoenix where he’s just completely oblivious in contrast to extremely intelligent Miles... anyways.)

And if my twitter feed is any indication, lots of people find Phoenix Wright attractive... so Miles isn’t alone there.

“But that’s just it, I’m not,” Phoenix argued. “I-I can’t be that. I’m always pretending to be strong, always smiling, for you, for Maya and Pearls, for Trucy… I think I forgot to be anything else. I didn’t want you to need me and then realize I wasn’t up to the task, and leave. Because…” He let out a bit of faint laughter, but there was no joy in it. “That’s always what happens. People need me, then they don’t, and they leave for better things. I wouldn’t ever want to stop them, but the more attached I get, the more it hurts when they leave me behind.”

oof this paragraph was a chore and a half to write because I had to kind of cut to the core of Phoenix’s characterization bits that cause the conflict of this fic, mainly the abandonment areas -- which was why I needed pretty much everyone Phoenix cares about to not be around as much as he’d like, which feels like he’s being left behind, as everyone fulfills their destiny and is happy and he’s just... the same.

which is like a total mood for me approaching the end of my years in university and having no idea what I’m doing with my life while most of my friends are gonna do great things -- but I also think it’s a fairly universal human experience. no one really knows what they’re doing.

But especially for Phoenix because his career was defined by saving a specific person -- in this case Miles, who’s past needing saving and is going on to save other people. Then there was taking care of Maya and Pearls, but Maya is a proper adult now and Pearl is also an adult and they’re living their own independent lives in Kurain Village without needing him. Then Trucy kept him together throughout disbarment but even she’s grown up and leaving to live her own life now. And like I said in the other asks Phoenix tends to fall apart without someone to take care of, and now suddenly he has no one to look after and is questioning his purpose if he’s not taking care of or trying to save someone.

And since so much of his personality is defined by that he kind of gets tired and gets in the mindset of “if they’re just going to leave anyway, why even bother getting attached?” which could have gotten really unhealthy if he’d allowed it to fester for much longer; luckily it got caught and dealt with fairly early with the help of off-screen therapy after this.

Edgeworth was silent for a moment, as if weighing his words. “You don’t have to be strong for me anymore,” he said. “I needed you when I was younger, but… I don’t need you now. That’s not why I’m still here.”

Phoenix’s breath caught somewhere deep in his chest.

“I just… want you, Phoenix Wright, because I’ve known you for so long, and I’ve loved every part of you I’ve seen.” The lines around his eyes and mouth softened. “I won’t run from the rest. And I don’t want to leave your side, not for long, not for good, whether that’s as a friend or as something else. I am willing to try if you are.”

I really like these lines!! ... though I think I fiddled with the last paragraph a little too much and now it’s a bit too long and it throws off the rhythm a bit but oh well. is rhythm even the right word to use here? idk.

But basically it’s about their relationship being much healthier now that Miles isn’t dependent on Phoenix for the sake of his own mental health -- he likes the person Phoenix is, even outside of all that Phoenix did for him, and even if Phoenix hadn’t done anything for him, he’d still love Phoenix. (... He’d probably be dead, too, and everything Phoenix did definitely helped his feelings develop, but regardless.)

And it’s also kind of what Phoenix needs to hear right now, because hey, Phoenix, people don’t stick around because you help them out; they stick around because they like you! And this applies to pretty much everyone Phoenix cares about (which Trucy says in her letter) but Miles is speaking on his feelings specifically since this is the Romance moment.

And the last line kind of enforces a “even if this relationship doesn’t work out, I still don’t want to leave your side, even if we’re only friends,” plus Miles comes down a bit from his dramatic all-or-nothing “I WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH YOU” speech and to a more reasonable “I’m willing to put effort and time into making this relationship romantic if you are as well”.

so maybe the rejection did him some good after all.

“Miles,” Phoenix whispered.

“If you want me…” He took a deep breath and rested one hand, palm up, beside Phoenix. “If you want me, I am here. And even if you don’t, I’m not going anywhere. It’s as I said before. I’m done running away.”

We don’t get into Miles’ head so I don’t get to explore his thoughts as much as I do Phoenix’s (which is why so much of these DVD commentaries are just What Is Going On With Miles Edgeworth since (I hope!) I conveyed Phoenix’s thoughts sufficiently in the actual fic. But this conversation is probably taking a lot out of him emotionally, too. He has no idea what he’s doing. I tried to convey that a bit with his actions with him thinking things over carefully and taking deep breaths to kind of brace himself into making a move.

And his words are once again affirming the “even if you don’t want to be romantically involved with me, I’ll still be by your side as a friend”, because their relationship is so important to both of them, they wouldn’t want anything coming in between that.

Phoenix extended his hand, brushing his fingertips against Miles’ palm. The sensation was the only thing that made him sure this wasn’t a dream.

“I’ve been chasing after you my whole life,” said Phoenix, scarcely able to breathe. “I don’t know what to do if I’ve caught up.”

shameless title reference. I struggled so much with this title I was lying in bed the last day of June like “screw it, the catch-up game??? Sounds catchy enough???” and threw it on there. This is my approach to most of my titles. Either I have a title in my head from the outset (Deep Dark Secrets, Fifty Flights of Stairs) or I make it up at the last possible minute.

“Well, you have.” Miles’ hand shifted, but it was only to thread their fingers together, tight and reassuring. “I don’t know either. We’ll figure it out together, as we do with everything else.”

Phoenix lifted his head to meet those familiar grey eyes, mirroring the fear and anticipation and the giddy, almost child-like excitement in his own, and he smiled. “Yeah. I think I can try that.”

neither of them know what they’re doing but together they can accomplish anything!! is the vibe I wanted to go with. Honestly the way that they can work together to do anything they put their minds to and create miracles in court is one of the things I love so much about this ship. They complement each other so well and have so much faith and trust in each other that they make the perfect duo. Like two halves of the same whole. about the closest thing you can get to actual soulmates.

Anyways that’s the scene! Hope both you anons enjoyed it haha. This is one of the big emotional conflict resolution scenes (the other being Trucy’s letter later) so it’s got lots of stuff to talk about, so thank you!!

#dvd commentary meme #the catch-up game #asks

13 notes · View notes

miy4bot · 4 years ago

Note

HMM I CANNOT REMEMBER IF I RESPONDED. if i already did, u can ignore this lol. sorry brain empty rn oop. AND ITS OKAY ASDKJFASDLFJ omg did the water just overflow alsdjflasdjf. HMM MAYBE? i think i definitely do get INFP when im more secluded. but i'm still secluded but now im just like itching for PEOPLE sooo fair enough. also lmao im,,, studying physics which is just STILL MATH so rip me. BUT LAW WOULD BE COOL. ALSO DESIGN??? ppl i know in design usually cry (1/2) -ameris

LMAOO no u didn’t don’t worry BUT WHY IS THIS SO ME

tbh i think i’m more on a introvert side cause i’m not really a social person?? like i’m kind of shy when i start talking to someone but after literally 3 minutes i go brrrrrrrr

and PHYSICS ❓ ❓ ❓ GURL ❓ u need help? OK JK SORRY but physics... i could never... i barely passed physics exams and then said fuck it and changed to social sciences 😹 😹 yeah now i need to suffer w economy and history BUT BRUH at least i’m free of chemistry. the only reason why i got a 8/10 was thanks to my multiple cheat sheets 😭 like sorry no i aint coming back.

and yeah, they cry. and they are usually gay too, so it’s kind of my natural environment. ppl in law r on some ace attorney shit so my vibes too. the only reason i want to be a lawyer is so i can scream OBJECTION sorry buds new generation phoenix wright is coming 🤙 🤙 was it too many geek references?? idk...

#miya talks #mootsy doopsy #ameris bebé 🧚‍♀️

1 note · View note

exaltedgrimleal · 5 years ago

Text

AI: The Somnium Files review

AI: The Somnium Files is a story about a detective from the Metropolitan Police Department named Kaname Date and his efforts on finding a newly founded serial killer.

The first victim is Shoko Nadami, found tied to a merry-go-round horse with multiple stab wounds to the front of her body and her left eye missing.

Referred to as Date, Date is joined by his AI partner, AI-Ball, “Aiba.” Aiba filling the role of a computer, a communication device, an assistant, and a prosthetic left eye, the two work together to try and find out the truth about the New Cyclops Killer.

Gameplay

The game is a point and click investigation game. The majority of the game revolves around Date going around questioning suspects and exploring his surroundings such as the crime scenes. While investigating locations does little for the story, the game keeps you interested with its interesting story and entertaining flavor text.

When not investigating, you enter a phase called Psync. Psyncing is the act of using a specialized machine where one person can enter another person’s subconscious and explore their dreams, this place called Somnium. While it’s still mostly a point and click adventure in these phases, you’re given less freedom as most things can’t be interacted with.

While in somnium, you have a hard six minute limit. While standing still, time passes quite slowly, each nanosecond prolonged to last a normal second. Otherwise, walking around will pass time normally and performing actions will drain your time with varying results. You are introduced to two things, Timies and penalties. Timies can reduce or increase the amount of time needed to perform certain actions while penalties will multiply the amount of time needed. You receive timies and penalties by performing actions themselves.

In other words, you need to balance your time and use timies appropriately. If you get a penalty, you have to decide whether it’s worth performing the action that needs to be done with a large amount of time being spent or target the penalty on a side action that will ultimately result in a smaller penalty.

ex. There are two actions, one that takes 55 seconds and one that takes 2 seconds. Your penalty is x3. You can either perform the 55 second action with a x3 multiplier, meaning it will take 165 seconds, or perform the latter, meaning it will take six seconds.

Non-spoiler review

I thought AI: The Somnium Files was a good game.

I do think the game was weighed down by the gameplay itself. While the main gameplay revolving around a point and click investigation similar to the investigation phases in a Phoenix Wright game were strong, the psync process was either boring or frustrating.

The idea behind the psync process was interesting, but most of the process revolved around dumb luck on what you chose to do during your six minute time limit. Because the somnium took place in a dream, it allowed the settings to be colourful and real life rules to be distorted, but I found this just made things either confusing or redundant.

I also didn’t really learn anything from the psync phases. While the game pushes on the idea that you psync to find clues on the investigation, I found it was more about diving into the subject’s psyche and potentially just make more questions. While this isn’t a bad thing, I found it didn’t fit in enough with the story to be relevant. It’s hinted you can heal someone’s mental ailments with psyncing and that is proven once, but it’s also well stated that the subject does not perceive the psync in the same way that the psyncer did.

It was fun to weigh out your timies and deal with time penalties, but I found that I only had to worry about those things in three out of thirteen psync phases. Otherwise, psyncing was a mindless effort.

Also due to the multiple endings, there are of course points in the story where it branches off into a new set of actions. Ultimately the player will find themselves with two locked routes where they cannot proceed until they play more of the story. While this isn’t a problem, the fault lies in the fact that in order to unlock all the locks, you need to play part of one route, jump to another, and jump back. This leads to confusion on which events have happened in which route if you’re not reviewing the story and keeping track.

What really sells the game is the characters and story. Written by Kotaro Uchikoshi, I was expecting an interesting narrative and I wasn’t disappointed. It kept me constantly thinking and throwing me for loops. The mystery on who the New Cyclops killer is well thought out and the story only volunteers information at a need-to-know basis, leaving you in the dark when you need to be.

Spoilers below cut.

Story introduction

The story begins with Date and Aiba arriving in an abandoned theme park, Bloom Park, in the Kabasaki District on a rainy night. Date is a member of ABIS, a top secret organization in the MPD that specializes on the act of psyncing. Psyncing is the act of one person entering the dreams of another, aka Somnium. They use this to find clues in their investigation. The psyncer can only stay in somnium for six minutes, however. If they are there any longer, the psyncer’s consciousness will be lost.

With said district having been abandoned for six years due to an explosion at a chemical plant that caused the whole district to become inhabitable, people were evacuated and restoration began. Having been six years, the location is now technically safe to enter but still off limits by government laws. This means there is very little foot traffic in Kabasaki District.

An anonymous call brings the MPD to Bloom Park claiming there is a dead body on one of the theme park’s rides, the carousel. Sure enough, there is the corpse of Shoko Nadami. Date is shown to have been this woman’s acquaintance but he knows very little about her other than she is the ex wife of Renju Okiura(Date’s best friend and drinking buddy), and the mother of Mizuki Okiura. After divorcing her husband for unknown reasons to us, she takes her maiden name and becomes estranged to Mizuki.

The front of her torso has been stabbed multiple times and her left eye is missing. Due to the dried blood on her face, it alludes to her eye having been removed while she was alive and it’s whereabouts are unknown. Cause of death is blood loss. She has been bound to the merry-go-round’s horse as if put on display.

This mirrors four murders six years prior done by a serial killer known as the Cyclops Killer. The Cyclops killer killed four young women in different ways. Postmortem, their right eye was removed. Date’s boss, affectionately just known as Boss, claims these crimes cannot have been done by the same person but does not offer any other information.

We learn that Date has amnesia and does not remember anything prior to six years ago. While he finds that suspicious, Boss will not tell Date anything about the Cyclops Killer case.

With Aiba being an effective investigation tool, he uses x-ray vision and finds a figure inside the column of the merry-go-round. Busting the column open, he finds Mizuki who is holding a bloody ice pick which is revealed to be the murder weapon. Traumatized by seeing her mother in this state, Mizuki develops aphonia meaning she can no longer speak. They wrap up for the night.

That night, Date has a strange dream. With Aiba’s help, he is able to organize his thoughts and unfolds the scene. He sees a woman on the ground with blood coming from her shoulder. It’s unknown if she is alive or dead. Standing above her is a dark haired man with cold looking eyes.

Morning arrives. Date traces the anonymous reporter and finds the call was made by an Ota Matsushita. Date first goes to Ota’s home, Matsushita Diner. Only Ota’s mother, Mayumi Matsushita, is present. Mayumi claims Ota is obsessed with an internet idol, a “witch,” and is most likely where he can see her.

He finds and approaches Ota in the Lemniscate office building, a talent agency owned by Renju. Ota is revealed to be a huge fan and friend of a budding idol and internet personality, Iris “A-Set” Sagan, also known as Tesa by fans.

Ota admits to having been with Mizuki when they found the corpse. Mizuki received a suspicious text to go to Bloom Park and when they went, they found Shoko’s corpse. Terrified, Ota runs away. He drops his cellphone in a puddle leaving it inoperable so he used a payphone and fled the scene.

We meet Iris who claims she is Mizuki’s friend due to working under Renju, Mizuki’s father. She convinces Date to bring her to the scene of the crime due to being interested. Despite not finding anything, Iris is satisfied and Date brings her home. He is introduced to Hitomi Sagan, Iris’ mother and childhood friend of Renju. Date is shocked as Hitomi looks exactly like the mystery woman in his dream. We learn Hitomi suffered from a random break in six years ago where she was shot in the shoulder, leaving her arm paralyzed.

Date returns to ABIS headquarters and is ordered to psync with Mizuki in hopes he can cure her aphonia and/or gain clues on Shoko’s murder. Futa Amanoma, known as Pewter, is a scientist that initiates the psync.

Mizuki’s somnium is Bloom Park in the midst of a violent lightning storm. While this somnium is dream like, we know it is based on reality as you cannot dream of something you do not know.

This is where the story divides between the red route and the violet route.

Red Route

In Mizuki’s somnium, Date sees a mysterious figure in the shadows watching. When the two wake up, Mizuki’s aphonia has been cured. She explains the reason why the ice pick was in her hand was because she found it in Shoko’s left eye socket and she panicked. This reveals Mizuki does not have the eye, as well as the eye was not in Shoko’s corpse when Mizuki and Ota found her. Mizuki also does not know who the figure was as it was too dark for her to see. She did however get scared by the figure and hid in the column of the merry-go-round, explaining why she was in there.

Date brings Mizuki to Bloom Park to investigate and question her. They find there was a car in the area from security footage that belonged to Renju. Hoping to find him, they go to Sunfish Pocket, a maid café that Renju owned. In the building, they find a horrifying scene: Renju’s corpse.

Renju’s corpse has a bruise around his neck and his cause of death is asphyxiation. He has been strung up on the ceiling with a large hook in his mouth attached to three beer kegs on the ground weighing him down. He is missing his left eye, and like Shoko, it was removed while he was alive.

Date gets information from his informant, Mama, and learns that both Shoko and Renju were involved with a Yakuza gang, the Kumakura gang. When he goes to investigate the Kumakura building, he finds So Sejima there, a politician. So puts out a smoke and leaves, leaving Date without any leads.

When Date runs into Ota, Ota admits he saw Iris and Renju together a few hours before Renju was found dead, leaving Iris suspicious. Iris is brought in for questioning, and backed into a corner thinking she is going to be pinned for a crime she didn’t commit, she texts Ota. Ota texts back promising he will not tell anyone about, “that thing,” putting even more suspicion on Iris. When Date is unable to get any information from her, he psyncs with her.

Story proceeds to the green route or continues on the red route.

Red Route continued 1

Iris’ somnium is an abandoned warehouse with a few old fashioned televisions. Each one shows various animals that have been killed. It ends with an unknown figure kissing So Sejima. Having learned nothing from the psync, Iris is released.

Driving Iris home, she requests that her and Date stop at Matsushita Diner and they meet Ota. Questioning Ota about, “that thing,” Date is incapacitated. Aiba is able to record Ota telling Iris he is going to get the car ready as he leaves the diner. Aiba is only able to see their feet as Date is on the ground. Mayumi supposedly threatens Iris to leave her son alone to which Iris calmly walks towards her saying nothing. Ota returns asking if anything had happened, and when Iris denies anything, they both leave. Mayumi follows them. Learning that Mayumi suffers from dementia, it is unknown if she remembers this happening.

When Date regains consciousness, he receives a call from Boss who sends him a link to a livestream. Iris can be seen on a table underneath an ice cutting machine, her left eye removed. She can be seen breathing. He quickly gets into his car and drives towards the location, the Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse.

Date arrives in the nick of time. He finds Ota has been stabbed who is lying on the ground in a pool of blood but is alive. While Date goes to find the culprit, he is unable to. Both Ota and Iris are rushed to the hospital and undergo surgery.

It is learned that at Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse, there is the Matsushita van and a stolen car. Ota’s story is that he and Iris stopped at a convenience store. When he was in the store, the polar bear stole the van when Iris was inside. Ota stole a car to pursue them but couldn’t find them until hours later.

When Ota has been stabilized, Date questions him but he is unable to get any useful information. Boss has Date psync with Ota.

In Ota’s somnium, Date relive’s Ota’s memory of the warehouse, albeit a bit exaggerated as Ota deems himself a heroic figure.

Story proceeds to the green route or continues on the red route.

Red Route continued 2

Date sees the polar bear is holding a custom knife that belongs to Mayumi. He goes to question Mayumi who confesses to being the New Cyclops Killer. While Date nor Boss believes her and think she is protecting someone, they interrogate her. With her testimony being unreliable, they decide to have Date psync with Mayumi. The psync is postponed as the machine is broken, so Date continues his investigation.

He finds Mayumi had followed Ota and Iris in a taxi. When they stopped at a convenience store, Mayumi also did the same at a nearby store so they would not spot her. She saw the van driving away, so they followed again thinking Ota was in the van. The van stopped at So Sejima’s mansion and then at the Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse. When Mayumi entered the warehouse, she saw the polar bear ripping out Iris’ eye. Because Mayumi did not know Ota was left behind at the convenience store, she assumes Ota is the killer which is why she confessed, in order to protect Ota.

It’s revealed that the knife was at the scene because back in Matsushita Diner Mayumi threatened Iris with it. Iris walked up to Mayumi and took the knife from her, leaving with Ota and the knife in hand.

Knowing the van stopped at So’s mansion, he arrives there to question So only to find So’s chopped up corpse. The body had been dismembered and stuffed into a decorative vase. His left eye is missing.

Date sends CSI to the Sejima household and returns to ABIS headquarters to psync with Mayumi.

Ota End

Date does not find anything related to the case in Mayumi’s somnium but was able to regain some of Mayumi’s lost memories. Mayumi and Ota reconcile in the hospital and both apologize for possibly having doubts of each other.

Yellow Route

Date sees that Ota was able to injure the polar bear’s leg during their confrontation. He is pulled out of somnium before he is able to see Ota unmasking the polar bear. When he asks Ota if he saw the polar bear’s face, Ota claims he did not and was stabbed as he tried to look.

Date and Mizuki return to Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse to have the pool of blood Ota was lying in analyzed. They find it has two peoples’ DNA, so if they are able to find out whose blood is mixed with Ota’s, they will know the killer.

At the warehouse, they spot So Sejima who is walking away with a limp. With suspicion on the politician, Date returns to the Kumakura office and retrieves So’s cigarette butt. They use it to confirm it is So’s blood in the warehouse.

Date and Mizuki raid the Sejima household. When Mizuki is held at gunpoint, Date and Aiba initiate a plan to incapacitate So. While it works, So uses the last of his strength to shoot. Date is able to protect Mizuki but gets shot in the left eye.

Date lives as the bullet was stopped in Aiba, his prosthetic eye, but he is in a coma. Mizuki psyncs with him to attempt to pull him out of it.

Mizuki End

Mizuki and Date visit a shrine they have been to in the past. They talk about how So was held countable for the New Cyclopse Killer victims despite Date having his doubts that the mystery was completely solved.

Green Route

Iris’ somnium is an abandoned warehouse with a few old fashioned televisions. Each one shows the original Cyclops Killer victims and how they were murdered. Having learned nothing from the psync, Iris is released.

Driving Iris home, she requests that her and Date stop at Marble, a bar owned by the informant, Mama. When they arrive, Mama is not there and instead Ota is sitting at a stool. Questioning Ota about, “that thing,” Date is incapacitated. Aiba is able to record Ota telling Iris he is going to get the car ready as he leaves the diner. Aiba is only able to see their feet as Date is on the ground. Mayumi supposedly threatens Iris to leave her son alone to which Iris calmly walks towards her saying nothing. Ota returns asking if anything had happened, and when Iris denies anything, they both leave. Mayumi follows them. Learning that Mayumi suffers from dementia, it is unknown if she remembers this happening.

As he is driving and watching the stream, a large figure in a polar bear costume appears on screen, starting the ice cutting machine and leaving view. The saw blade slowly lowers towards Iris’ abdomen but is turned off by Ota. Ota threatens the now unseen culprit and supposedly goes to fight him off. Shortly after, the polar bear reappears on the screen and starts up the ice cutting machine again. Iris is cut in half by the machine and the camera is splashed with blood.

Being the first to arrive at the scene, Date finds Iris’ body in two halves. On the table she originally was strapped to, there is a polar bear cut in half as well. Taking off the mask, we see Ota who is now dead. His eyes are intact.

Devastated, Date turns to another point in the investigation. He discovers a prisoner known as #89 is linked to the case and interrogates him. #89 is said to have been the Original Cyclops Killer. #89 tells the story of a man known as Falco who worked as a detective during the day and an assassin/hitman during the night. He got involved with the Kumakura gang and became a hired gunman for them. Eventually meeting a younger Hitomi and Iris, he began romantically seeing Hitomi and Iris began calling him, “uncle.” Falco decided to get out of the dirty business of being a gunman. The Kumakura gang leader, Rohan Kumakura, agreed to let Falco go as long as Falco performed one last kill, the target being Hitomi and Iris.

Date psyncs with #89 to learn more. Upon the completion of the psync, Date receives a video of So Sejima looking dazed with his left eye missing. He is shot in the head by a mystery figure who, when showing their face in the camera, proves to be Boss.

After a firefight, Boss is detained and psynced with. Her somnium is a warehouse with several doors, each main door showing the murders that have happened in the past few days. It shows a strange occurrence where each victim was killed by another victim: Shoko was killed by Renju, Renju was killed by Iris, Iris was killed by So, and So was killed by Boss.

Date and Pewter question Boss. Boss reveals that while it is Boss’ body, it’s not Boss’ mind. The mind inside Boss’ body belongs to Saito Sejima, So’s son who was said to be soul searching far away. He explains that if you stay in somnium for more than six minutes, the minds of the participants are swapped. Saito used a psync machine to transfer into Shoko’s body. As Shoko, she lured Renju to a remote location where she switched minds with him, meaning Renju’s mind was in Shoko’s body and Saito’s mind was in Renju’s body. Saito used Renju’s body to kill Shoko and tied her to the horse of the merry-go-round. He then switched minds with Iris and used Iris’ body to kill Renju. Then he switched bodies with his father, So, and killed Iris in So’s body. Lastly, he switched minds with Boss and killed So’s body with Boss’ mind inside.

Annihilation End

Saito claims this was all revenge and wanted his original body. Date comes to the conclusion that Date’s body is actually Saito’s original body, Date’s original body unknown. Saito threatens Date to switch bodies with him with Hitomi, showing him evidence that Hitomi is attached to a bomb.

Date and Saito switch minds but Date is too late and Hitomi explores.

Violet Route

In Mizuki’s somnium, Date discovers the completely frozen corpse of Iris with multiple stab wounds to her back and her right eye missing. Date is confused as he just saw Iris earlier. He then hears an unknown ringtone.

Upon awakening, Mizuki has not been cured of her aphonia. Date calls Iris and tells her to lock her doors and not go anywhere with anyone.

With the lead of the ringtone in mind, Date returns to Bloom Park to find where it was coming from. He and Aiba find a burner phone that had been thrown in the merry-go-round horse’s mouth. They track who called the phone when Mizuki was in the park and discover it was a person named So Sejima, a big politician.

Pursuing the mysterious phone call, Date hears that there has been a big car accident that Renju was in. After getting out of surgery, Renju escaped the hospital and cannot be reached.

Date makes a few stops finding out one, Ota could not reach Iris at all, two, Hitomi is a teacher and teaches Mizuki, three, Hitomi was able to cure Mizuki’s aphonia, and four, Shoko had ties to the Yakuza gang’s Kumakura household.

Arriving at the Kumakura office, he learns that the leader, Moma Kumakura, is a big A-Set fan. Date promises to introduce Iris to Moma in exchange for information on Shoko or Renju.

Finally returning to the phone call, he finds So leaving a warehouse. Inside, Date finds a body on a table: Iris. She is exactly as Date saw her in Mizuki’s somnium.

So is brought to ABIS and interrogated. While So claims he does not know who Iris is at all and that he did not kill her, he is psynced with. In So’s somnium, we see an unknown figure stabbing Iris. It is unknown whether the unknown figure is So or someone else. He saves Iris in So’s somnium before both of them wake up.

Date gets a call from MPD about the body he found in the warehouse. The policeman questions Date on where he found the body and when Date says the table, the policeman claims there is no body in the warehouse. Date arrives to see that indeed there is no body. Confused, he rushes to the Sagan household where he finds Iris fine and well. Because Iris amuses him with the idea of a parallel world, Date believes he saved Iris.

Continuing with his investigation, he finds that a prisoner in Fuchu Prison known as #89 claims to know who the New Cyclops Killer is. They call him out for interrogation, but he escapes by incapacitating Date and holding Pewter at gunpoint. It is revealed that #89 got in a car that fled the scene, that car being drived by Renju.

Desperate to find Renju, Date gets a call from Moma claiming he has seen Renju. Moma is introduced to Iris when he gives information, but Renju is in neither location.

Date and Iris go to Marble, a bar with an informant owner, Mama. He tells Boss and Mama about his trip and Mama claims someone will be there to talk to Date about Renju. Upon arrival, Date and Iris are attacked by several gunmen trying to kidnap Iris. They are able to defend themselves and escape unscathed.

Iris claims she is being hunted by a secret society known as NAIXATLOZ, also known as NAIX. She claims to have learned about their secret involvement with the Wadget System and that is why they are targeting her.

Date psyncs with Iris to see if what she is saying is true or not.

Story proceeds to the magenta route or continues on the violet route.

Violet Route continued

Believing Iris, Date promises to be her bodyguard.

The two find out from Mama that the person that was going to speak to Date was Futa Amanoma, which we know is Pewter. Knowing he is a traitor, Date confronts him where he explains that he intentionally let #89 escape because Renju asked him to do so. Pewter also admits to having let the hitmen target Date. Pewter then uses Aiba to perform an electrical shock in Date’s head causing him to pass out and kidnaps Iris.

When Date wakes up, he enlists Ota, Mizuki, and Moma to rescue Iris. They find her location at the Okiura Cold Storage Warehouse and perform a raiding party. After rescuing Iris, they all split up in hopes they would not be pursued and caught.

Date brings Iris to an abandoned warehouse where he finds a psync machine that was supposedly stolen and its location was unknown. Before he can read into anything, Iris collapses. Aiba does a scan and notices her brain is experiencing massive failure.

Date believes that if he psyncs with Iris and saves her in somnium, he can once again save her in real life.

Iris End

Iris wakes up and thanks Date for everything he’s done. Date promises that Iris is going to be okay and will continue to live. She begins to ask him something but succumbs to her condition and dies. Date yells her name to no avail.

Magenta Route

Date decides to not believe Iris about NAIX. She gets angry and runs off leaving a note saying not to worry about her and that she would be with the person she could trust the most.

Date learns that Iris is suffering from a brain tumor that will kill her within a few months which causes her to potentially hallucinate, explaining why she is so set on her belief that NAIX is after her.

Thinking the person she can trust is Renju, Date goes to Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse and finds the frozen corpse of Iris again. Hitomi is brought to ABIS to identify Iris’ body, but she is very calm. In order to find out the truth, Date psyncs with Hitomi.

We learn that eighteen years prior, Hitomi and Renju were friends with a girl named Manaka Iwai. Manaka became pregnant with So Sejima’s child and kept the baby. When the baby was born, she asked Hitomi to take care of the child so she could confront So about it. Saito killed Manaka by stabbing her in the back several times.

Rohan Kumakura, the previous leader of the Kumakura gang, is tasked with disposing of Manaka’s body. He pulls out her right eye before they bury her. Hitomi and Renju clean her up and freeze her body so they could expose So when the time was right. From then, Hitomi raised the baby as if it were her own, naming the baby Iris.

Hitomi explains that Iris was diagnosed with a brain tumor that would kill her. There was only one cure, using nanomachine treatment that was too expensive for Hitomi to afford. She decided to blackmail So with Manaka’s body to try and get money from him to fund Iris’ treatment. She put Manaka’s body on a table in the Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse and called So to the location and threat. That means the body Date saw earlier was not Iris and instead was Manaka.

Hitomi also explains that she did not come to the cops about it earlier because she got a call from someone who said they had Iris, and if Hitomi told anyone, Iris would be killed.

Date and Hitomi track down where the culprit is and enter a warehouse. Date is electrocuted and falls unconscious and Hitomi is kidnapped. When Date wakes up, he finds himself strapped to a stolen prototype psync machine with prisoner #89 looking down at him. #89 explains he is Saito Sejima, So’s son, and that he is the Original Cyclops Killer.

The whole story started with a detective named Hayato Yagyu, known just as Yagyu, became an assassin/hitman. He got involved with the Kumakura gang and became a hired gunman for them. Eventually meeting a younger Hitomi and Iris, he began romantically seeing Hitomi and Iris began calling him, “uncle.” Falco decided to get out of the dirty business of being a gunman. Rohan agreed to let Falco go as long as Falco performed one last kill, the target being Hitomi and Iris.

Boss and Yagyu talk and decide to have Rohan and Yagyu swap bodies. Boss explains ABIS and psyncing, as well as if you stay in somnium for more than six minutes, the psyncer and subject’s consciousnesses would swap places. This would give Yagyu’s mind in Rohan’s body the opportunity to one, tell the Kumakuras to never touch Hitomi or Iris, and two, to kill Rohan in Yagyu’s body which would dispose of Rohan and Yagyu’s body who would be known as a hitman and scandal in the MPD. After they perform the psync, Rohan in Yagyu’s body escaped ABIS headquarters and went to kill Hitomi himself. Yagyu in Rohan’s body goes to save her, but in the process, accidentally shoots her.

Rohan’s mind is arrested and he is put in prison, given the title #89. Yagyu’s mind finds out that the Original Cyclops Killer, Saito Sejima, had an accomplice: Rohan. In Rohan’s body, Yagyu tries to get a confession out of Saito. Saito immediately is suspicious of Yagyu and learns about the psyncing process. He forces Yagyu to switch bodies with him meaning Yagyu’s mind is in Saito’s body, and Saito’s mind is in Rohan’s body.

The process is halted midway, however, which caused both of their memories to be shattered. This left Yagyu as an amnesiac where Boss finds him and gives him a new identity: Kaname Date. Saito in Rohan’s body was caught and since he was acting insane due to not knowing anything, he was brought to a hospital for the criminally insane. He was in Rohan’s body for five years until he pieced together his memory and escaped the hospital.

He lured Shoko out and swapped bodies with her and pushed Shoko, now in Rohan’s body, off the roof to make it look like a suicide. He then waited a year and switched bodies with Renju only to kill Shoko’s body with Renju inside. He went to kill Iris, but Iris refused to go with him because Date told her to not go anywhere with anyone. So, he had #89 escape and swapped minds with him. This meant that Saito’s mind was in #89′s body, #89′s body being Yagyu aka Date’s original body, and Rohan’s mind was in Renju’s body. Because of the car accident, however, Rohan’s mind perished when Renju’s body died from the accident injuries.

Finally, Saito explains he wants his original body back. Due to a brain deficiency, Saito’s body only could produce oxytocin when he killed something. This made his serial killing habit pleasurable. However, in other bodies, he did not feel this pleasure and therefor wanted his body back. Date is confused as even though he is in Saito’s body, he does not receive pleasure when killing and Aiba explains that she administers oxytocin to Date’s body regularly, preventing Date from going down Saito’s path.

Saito and Date switch bodies, meaning they are both now in their original bodies. Saito threatens Date with both Iris and Hitomi’s lives. Without being able to do anything, Aiba explains that she has a solution: she can self destruct in Saito’s eye socket which would cause his skill to explode. Date and Aiba agree that this is the only thing that can be done and Aiba destroys herself.

Resolution End

With Iris, Ota, Mizuki, and Hitomi now privy to the classified information about what ABIS is and the Original Cyclops Killer, Boss is able to pull some strings from the higher ups to buy their silence. Boss funds Iris’ nanomachine treatment and she undergoes surgery to have the tumor in her brain taken care of.

Three months after the treatment, Iris is released from the hospital and her and Date travel around the town so she can thank everyone who visited her.

At ABIS headquarters, Date is put to sleep by Boss. When he wakes up, he sees Pewter to alludes to Boss having done something and it is assumed he returns to prison for unintentionally helping Saito having thought it was Renju.

Iris eventually takes Date to the harbor where she has a surprise for him. He closes his eyes only to open them and see the Aiba. Aiba, having been restored, is now back by Date’s side and the two reunite happily.

The story ends with all the characters dancing and having a good time together.

Takeaways

While I was playing, I had two predictions: one, that the person who was playing patty cake with Iris was Date, and two, that Date prior to his memory loss was the original Cyclops Killer. Both of these ended up being true in a sense, but there was still a much bigger picture I hadn’t caught onto until they were revealed which was very entertaining.

And it’s worth mentioning that there is a secret ending called Me and My Girlfriend’s Atami End. In interviews, Uchikoshi said that no choices you make in this game are wrong ones, but I’m pretty sure this ending is a wrong ending as it involves Date abandoning his investigation to run away with the receptionist of Lemniscate. I honestly thought it was a joke Date was trying to pull until the game actually gave you a Fin screen and made you save, haha.

It was also very interesting to learn that small things that happened in the game pointed to bigger narrative points about characters, like how Aiba would mention that Date’s dosage possibly increased which is later revealed to be oxytocin for Saito’s body.

As well as little things like how Date is the only character we refer to by his last name, Date and Yagyu.

It turns out that the stolen psync machine is a bit underdeveloped compared to the one in the ABIS headquarters, and one of the problems with it is the left eye must be removed in order for it to work. With the well functioning machine, nanocords are able to go around the eye and reach the brain, but with the underdeveloped ones, the eye must be removed for the cords to reach the brain. Since we learn that Rohan is the one that took the eyes of the Original Cyclops Killer victims, it makes sense that Saito didn’t need them.

I get very emotional over some of Date’s intentions, as well. While it’s not talked about in the game, it’s interesting to think that the reason why Date has such a strong paternal instinct towards Mizuki is because he had that with Iris while he was Hayato. He was awkward about it because he was never really a father as well as his built family was almost broken because of him.

And Date being such a well rounded character made it fun to play as him and explore the world around him.

Even though AI: The Somnium Files wasn’t a perfect game, it was still very entertaining. It took me about twenty two fun-filled hours to play through the whole thing. I am very excited to see what Uchikoshi comes up with next, whether that be a sequel, prequel, or a completely new project!

#MyNameIsKagami

#AI: The Somnium Files #AITSF #AITSF spoilers #Spoilers #Review #I can't believe I spent five hours writing this and it's now eight in the morning

48 notes · View notes

tk-writer · 6 years ago

Text

Turnabout Tickles - [Wrightworth/NaruMitsu]

Obligatory WrightWorth/Narumitsu fic... enjoy!!

CW: mention of murder and violence in 2nd paragraph

~~~

Miles Edgeworth let out a weary sigh as he stared out the window of his office. He felt the warmth of the midday sun upon his face, enjoying the sights of the newly blossomed flowers in the garden as he waited for his apprentice to show. The weather was lovely; a pleasant spring day had finally graced the city after a long, cold winter. But unfortunately, he had no time to spare romping around outdoors. Not with the upcoming trial his protégé had taken on.

At first glance, it appeared to be an open and shut case. The body of a young man was discovered, stabbed to death with a kitchen knife that had his girlfriend’s fingerprints all over it. She was found at the scene, blade still in hand, and was arrested on the spot. But she asserted her innocence, despite there being no other possible suspects. And some of the evidence, besides the murder weapon, were inconclusive at best. One of which was uncertain enough to throw his entire argument out the window.

And of course, that man was going to defend her in court tomorrow. Which meant the trial could be turned around at any time, despite all odds against it.

He checked his watch. 12:34. The apprentice was very late. Edgeworth let out another exasperated sigh. It was so hard finding reliable interns nowadays. The least he could have done was call ahead of time and give him some sort of excuse.

The prosecutor closed his eyes for just a moment when he suddenly felt a shocking sensation: something stiff grabbed him from behind and pinched his ribs, causing him to yell out in surprise and flail his arms wildly. Was this the work of his irresponsible apprentice? He spun around, ready to fight whoever it was that had attacked him so, and found himself face to face with that man. Grinning like a fool in his cheap blue knockoff designer suit.

He furrowed his brows and frowned.

“Wright!! What the hell are you doing?”

Phoenix’s laughter boomed, bringing an unwelcome noisiness unfamiliar in Edgeworth’s office.

“Ha haha! You’re tense as ever, Edgeworth!”

The prosecutor slammed a fist on his desk.

“Are you out of your mind? Sneaking up on a man like that when he least expects it! I should have you arrested for trespassing!”

“Easy, easy! My bad, just thought I’d lighten the mood a bit… you seem stressed.”

Phoenix looked genuinely remorseful, and a bit sheepish, so Edgeworth softened up and relaxed. He rubbed his temples, grabbing the cup of tea he had on his desk and moving to sit on the crimson couch.

“What business do you have with me? It’s not very often I’m graced with your presence.”

Phoenix sat next to him, a little too close for his taste, and pulled out a thick marigold envelope from his briefcase.

“Actually, I wanted to get your opinion on this case…”

Edgeworth raised a suspicious eyebrow.

“You mean, for the trial tomorrow? You do realize I will be acting as the lead prosecutor, correct?”

Phoenix nodded. His knee pressed against Edgeworth’s, making the prosecutor flinch away upon contact.

“There’s one piece of evidence that doesn’t make any sense no matter how much I think about it. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

Edgeworth placed his mug on the table and rested his elbows on his thighs. Of course he knew what Phoenix was referring to. But he couldn’t afford reveal that he was also in the dark about it. Not when they were about to face each other in court tomorrow.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Wright,” he stated blankly.

“Oh, come on! You’re telling me that Miles Edgeworth, the genius prosecutor, hasn’t realized the contradictory evidence glaring in his face?”

Phoenix poked his childhood friend playfully in the side. Edgeworth responded by gasping loudly and jolting back as if shocked by electricity.

“Wright!! Stop that!”

“Hehehehe… why does it bother you so much?”

“Because!! It’s extremely unpleasant…”

“But, why? What’s the reason? It’s just a little poke. Yet you have such a big reaction every time.”

“That’s none of your concern.”

Edgeworth hoped, no, prayed that Phoenix would just drop the subject. It was embarrassing enough harboring this little secret, but even worse knowing his rival was so close to discovering the truth. And with the way he was rubbing his chin and gazing up at the ceiling as if putting together pieces of a puzzle in his mind, he knew he wasn’t about to let it go anytime soon.

“It seems that there are three possible explanations for this behavior.”

Edgeworth slowly began to scoot away, careful not to alert Phoenix to his movements.

“… Is that so…”

“Yup,” the lawyer lifted his index finger. “Possibility number 1: You have an injury of some sort.”

He looked curiously at Edgeworth, as if searching for signs of vulnerability.

“Have you been hurt recently? If so, I know basic first aid!”

“No! No… I’m fine. I have no recent injuries.”

Phoenix returned to his previous position. Tapping the bottom of his chin pensively. After a couple more seconds, he raised two fingers.

“Alright then. Possibility number 2: I simply took you by surprise.”

Finally. An answer that would end this. Edgeworth basically jumped on it.

“That seems to be the most logical conclusion. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Ah, but you haven’t heard the third option yet.”

He leaned in towards the nervous prosecutor, in such close proximity that Edgeworth could almost feel his breath on him. He felt a lone bead of sweat drip down his forehead.

“Possibility number 3: you’re very, very ticklish.”

Edgeworth’s arms immediately came to his sides protectively. His eyes shot daggers at Phoenix with the sharpest gaze he could muster. The panic in his voice glaringly obvious.

“N-nonsense! That’s… baseless conjecture!! You have no proof!”

“Is that so?” Phoenix smiled deviously. “In that case, there’s an easy way to prove Possibility 2 and 3 wrong… right now!”

“Don’t you dare…”

Oh, but he did. With almost no warning Phoenix grabbed his lower sides, the only part of him unprotected by Edgeworth’s arms, and began to gently squeeze the soft skin. At first, Edgeworth simply made bizarre noises akin to monkeys in the wild or gooses honking in the park. He’d bite his lip, clench his teeth, and strain against his own voice so as not to give in to Phoenix’s attack. But the longer the tickling went on, the harder it was for him to hold out.

“ACK! Nggh! NNNAAA! Fffff, AUUUGH! Stop!! Wright, WRIGHT!”

“Wow! You’re the first person I’ve ever met who doesn’t laugh when they’re tickled!”

“Ngggggh SHUT UP!”

Edgeworth tried seizing his hands, but Phoenix was too quick. He jumped from spot to spot, wiggling stiff fingers in his underarms or in the spaces between his ribs, taking him by surprise every time. The worst was when he poked into his waist and sides at random; then it was impossible to predict where he’d hit next. Edgeworth tried to cover himself, but it was no use. That man was just too damn fast. He felt his resolve weakening. His laughter was getting harder to suppress and the noises escaping his mouth were more recognizable as giggles.

“Nnnnaha! Mmmm, mHMHMHMHM! Noho! Noooo!”

“That’s it! Just let it out!”

Then, suddenly, Edgeworth cackled uproariously. Phoenix froze for a second, looking down at his hands, and realized he had just grazed his fingertips across Edgeworth’s stomach. He smirked as Edgeworth looked on in fear.

“Wait, Wright! That’s enough! You’ve proved your point!”

“Mm, I don’t think… I think I gotta hear you laugh for real before I’m convinced!”

And with that, he dug gently into his belly, just barely scribbling his nails through his white dress shirt. Edgeworth took off like a rocket, howling louder than ever in an off-key discordance. Pheonix knew he’d hit the jackpot. He’d have to save this information for later.

- Edgeworth’s worst tickle spot added to Court Record. –

“AHAHAHAHAHA! WRIGHT STAHAHAHAP! ICANTTAHAHAHKEIT!!”

Finally satisfied, Phoenix ceased his administrations and backed off. He gave him some space as he recovered, his face flushed in a shade that matched the reddish-colored velvet of the couch. After several seconds passed, he spoke.

“You will speak of this to no one.”

The defense lawyer gave him a victorious grin as he placed a hand on the marigold envelope.

“Sure. As long as you tell me what you think about this evidence.”

Curses! He knew this would end badly for him. But at this point, he had no choice. He balled both hands into fists as he spat out a scathing jab. It didn’t seem to phase Phoenix.

“Grrr! You… you criminal!”

“Hehe… hey, it was kinda fun! Don’t you feel a little better now?”

Edgeworth, still seething, would have kicked him out then and there, but once he noticed how much his shoulders had relaxed and how his tension had melted away, he held himself back. It had been a while since he’d laughed so freely. And he supposed it was better that Phoenix knew about his “secret”, rather than anyone else. At least he’d keep his word. He looked at his old friend, his eyes lit up with amusement and joy, and couldn’t help but sense the corners of his lips turning upwards into a smile. This time, a voluntary one.

Yeah, actually… he felt pretty damn good.

#ace attorney #tickling #tickle fic #obligatory Wrightworth/Narumitsu fic #im love them #wrightworth #narumitsu #lee!edgeworth #ler!phoenix

137 notes · View notes