#Feenris

[belletroxa]

as a phoenix yume whos pansexual and arospec, picturing nick as panromantic and acespec is AMAZING LMAO

What happens to a guy right before exploding and putting their own ideas all up in everybody's face.

[snailianz]

Falling for love

oh feenie...you don't know the half of what's to come...

[clownowo]

It’s fucked up that if Iris and Phoenix ever had sex he would have been moaning her sisters name. Would really kill the mood I’d think

[nortsauce]

i am compiling a list of Freaknix wright moments bc. i see absolutely no one talking about his. preferences.

[distanttraceofbeauty]

"phoenix's type is accused murderers" "phoenix's type is people he thinks he can fix/save" wrong. phoenix's type is this

[thegoddamnhat]

after years of being in fandoms, has anyone gone from being super strict about ships (physically shuddering when a character is shipped with someone other than who you ship them with) to becoming a very chill multishipper? like, you think everyone should just date each other now and are just cool with everything? is it just me?

[beebisbeeble]

poor man doesn't know what bisexuality is....

[tall-willows]

I forgot I had tumblr here's an ace attorney art dump

[relicsongmel]

Iris, Miles, and their mutual "secret"

The Ace Attorney fandom is no stranger to discussions of homoerotic subtext in the game's script—pretty much everyone who's spent more than five seconds here will be able to tell you that. Screenshots of lines that imply romantic tension between same-gender characters are all over the place, to the point that many fans are drawn to the series purely by its reputation as "the gay lawyer game." Some scenes are more well-known than others, but one I find brought up fairly regularly is this conversation between Miles and Iris:

This is optional dialogue that can be triggered by presenting incorrect evidence on Iris' Psyche-Lock during the Investigation portion of Bridge to the Turnabout. The argument here is that the "secret" Iris is referring to is the same as her own: that being, a romantic interest in Phoenix Wright. Which is definitely hilarious when you consider that Iris has known Miles for less than a day and she's already reading him for filth (granted, she could have been clued in by the similarly infamous "indispensable friend" line, and she's also exceptionally good at reading people despite Miles thinking otherwise). As a Narumitsu shipper myself I am not immune to enjoying that interpretation; however, I feel like there's a lot of nuance in this scene that isn't often addressed by the fandom at large. Which is unfortunate because watering it down to just Iris calling out Miles for being the gayass he is (to be fair. she's not wrong) does a MASSIVE disservice to both of their characters, and I'll explain why.

My bone to pick with the usual analysis of this scene is mostly centered around the larger conversation to be had regarding the treatment of female characters in fandom spaces. All too often they tend to play second fiddle to the male characters, and a similar principle holds true for ships with their canonical male love interests: mostly ignored in favor of the the more popular M/M ship(s). At best these women are sidelined, at worse they are flattened into wingmen for the boys (as is frequently the case with many AA girls and Narumitsu, Iris included), and at the absolute worst they are demonized for their perceived "competition" with whatever gay ship is most popular and therefore the Only Valid One for the male characters involved (as exemplified by some very "passionate" fans that I generally try to avoid interacting with). Whenever this scene gets brought up, the focus is almost always exclusively on Miles and what the interaction says about his relationship with Phoenix; Iris is only relevant insofar as she's the one initiating Miles' Homosexual Moment™—you could replace her with almost any other character and there'd be a similar level of neglect for their role in the interaction. Only very rarely will you see attention given to what Iris' question about Miles' secret means when she is the one asking it, and what it can tell us about her relationship with Miles/what she thinks of him, and vice versa (absolutely wild how even Miles himself is often flanderized despite being the fandom's golden child). It's all too characteristic of the systemic misogyny that has plagued fandom since its inception, which is deeply frustrating to me as someone who adores Iris as much as I do (if that wasn't obvious by now). So that said, let's dive deeper into what I think the missing link is here: namely, the Iris-Miles dynamic as it pertains to their relation to Phoenix.

Iris and Miles is one of my favorite relationships to explore in the whole series—but as I've described above, unfortunately a lot of people get it wrong in my opinion. Discussion about the two is frequently centered around Narumitsu Love Drama—which is a conversation worth having, don't get me wrong—but the elements at play there aren't always represented the way I envision them, which again, is frustrating. Take the idea of potential jealousy, for instance: it's pretty standard love triangle fare that can be (and often is) quickly turned into demonization when it's used in a shipping context, character assassination be damned (re: Narumitsu fanfic authors that project their personal dislike of Feenris onto Miles via his jealousy of Iris and/or how they tend to portray Iris unfavorably). However, it's not inherently a bad thing to explore: personally, I do believe that there is mutual jealousy between the two of them. Miles might not have the full context of Iris' history when this conversation takes place, but he's emotionally intelligent enough to pick up on what Iris means to Phoenix, and vice versa. And him being a jealous hoe about it isn't out of the question when you consider that he's a bit of a loner by nature and doesn't have many close friends or outlets for socialization outside of his job. The crucial element that's sometimes missed, though, is that Miles not only lacks the self-awareness to realize he's a jealous hoe...he's also a self-sabotaging jealous hoe.

And the same can be said for Iris, who is similarly introverted and doesn't often leave her home at Hazakura Temple.

The whole reason Miles is peering into Iris' heart in the first place can be found in this exchange, after he breaks her Psyche-Lock:

Miles uses the Magatama in order to gain the answers he needs to bring the truth to light and get Iris acquitted, and he does so for the express purpose of reuniting her with Phoenix so they can find closure—in fact, he reiterates this to her multiple times. He obviously recognizes how Phoenix is suffering from what happened between them (I'd argue he sympathizes with Iris' plight as well) and has resolved to do what he can to help him heal, but there's no reason for him to be so insistent that she rectify things with Phoenix when it does nothing but harm his own chances with him. Unless, of course...that's the whole point.

To convince Iris to reveal her secret so he doesn't have to face his own, because he thinks himself undeserving.

And Iris, noticing this because she empathizes with that feeling of unworthiness, calls him out on it in an almost uncharacteristically forward manner when she asks him what he's hiding.

Takes one to know one, indeed.

Iris highly respects Miles for taking on her defense despite the risk to his job as a prosecutor. She's willing to trust him after hearing he's a friend of Phoenix, hearing him out and letting him reason with her. She still keeps her cards close to her chest in some regards, but she's more honest with him than she's been with anyone else in her life apart from her sister. She sees his commitment to the truth and how it starkly contrasts with how she's lived her life to this point, and thinks that this is the type of partner Phoenix deserves—not someone like her, who only knows how to survive using lies and deception. She sees so much strength in him but still recognizes the insecurity lurking beneath his tenacity, which is why when he falters in his logic, she takes a leap of faith and gives him one last chance to examine his reasons for pushing the burden of his unspoken affections onto her, as if to say: "Look in the mirror. Is this really for me? Or is it for you? Do you really seek the truth for its own sake, or do you merely hope to find one truth so you might run from another?"

Her question to Miles is a gamble—a coin flip of self-sacrifice. If she loses and he presses on, she has to face the secret within her heart she's been suppressing for five years. But if she wins and he gives in to the truth in his, she has to live the rest of her life watching it unfold and knowing she threw away her chance to finally stop living in fear of her own love.

Either way, there's no escaping heartache for her anymore.

Miles and Iris both want what's best for Phoenix and prioritize their vision of his feelings over their own. However, they are also both deeply emotionally repressed people who find difficulty in being direct with their feelings, and are predisposed to self-sabotage due to childhood trauma. These tendencies may manifest in different ways for both of them, but the fact remains that such people would likely not compete for a person's affection in the traditional sense, which is exactly what we see with how Iris and Miles deflect their feelings for Phoenix. These selfless, lovestruck idiots toss that man around like a game of hot-potato because their mutual self-hatred for the ways they've harmed him has rendered them terrified of the reality of what he means to them, and desperate to find a way out of admitting to it. It's the most compelling explanation I can think of for why the usually unassuming Iris makes such a bold judgment about what Miles might be keeping locked away, and why Miles goes to such lengths to make sure she talks to Phoenix and tells him the truth—his agreement to defend her was conditional on that exact promise. They go through this whole song-and-dance of playing wingman to ignore their own feelings while still trying to bring Phoenix the happiness they think he deserves—and then they wonder why seeing Phoenix give the other one attention burns them up inside.

Because they’re dumb. And I love them.

TL;DR the Iris Psyche-Lock scene in BttT is so much more than just "haha Miles gay" and I wish people talked about it more. Also Iris and Miles are way more similar than they appear at first glance and if I think about it for too long it makes me physically ill thank you for coming to my TED talk

[trlvsn]

phoenix wright's bisexuality is actually not about the male-female attraction spectrum but about the "how innocent will the defendant turn out to be by the end of the trial" spectrum. the colors match perfectly. has this been said before it must have been

[kajuelle]

MASOCHISM TANGO .

[nabbbal]

a pure love 🩷

[doctorsiren]

Today’s textured canvases once again featuring that Legally Mom AU 😁

Miles and Phoenix were never separated, and so they remained best friends through high school and college. They both went to law school, but Phoenix got a BFA and went to law school wanting to defend artistic and creative rights. He also went because he would be bored all day if Miles was still going to school and he wasn’t

Edgeworth actually becomes a lawyer and he works at his mother’s firm

Mia ends up working there instead of at Grossberg’s because it makes more sense that she would work at the firm connected to DL-6 and also uh she would have a woman as her boss lmao (Eleanor ends up becoming like a mother-figure for Mia, and Miles becomes like a younger brother to her)

Since Mia isn’t working at Grossberg’s, she wasn’t involved in the Fawles trial (which was prosecuted by Franziska). Diego was the defense attorney on that one, and he went on a solo mission to investigate Dahlia. He and Mia met and became friends, but Diego kept the Dahlia investigation close to his chest and a secret, partially to protect Mia (since they were friends now and since she was a new attorney and inexperienced). Diego and Mia finally ask each other out one day, and they plan to have a date later that week, but Diego then has to go to a meeting he has…which was with Dahlia…and he got poisoned…and by the time he wakes up, Mia is dead and they never got to go on that first date. He was asleep and unable to protect her, which is why he didn’t tell her about the Dahlia investigation in the first place. He ends up blaming the Edgeworths (Eleanor and Miles) for her death.

Dahlia (Iris) still dates Phoenix since Phoenix and Miles are dummies and have yet to confess their feelings for each other (although Eleanor can tell). Since Mia wasn’t a part of the Dahlia investigation, and since it was handled by a different firm, it didn’t raise any red flags when Phoenix started dating this chick. Phoenix was also in the courthouse library that day because, again, he wanted to go to law school with Miles (subconsciously pulling an Elle Woods).

When the murder of Doug happens, Miles isn’t a lawyer yet since, even though he could have skipped a grade or two, he never did because he didn’t want the increase in social isolation and also didn’t want to get separated from his friends he already had at his grade level. So he’s the same year as Phoenix (senior in college). I think Eleanor would then be the one defending Phoenix (rather than Mia) since she’s also basically a mother to him (he practically lived at the Edgeworth household since his home life wasn’t great, and then he moved in after his mother passed away his senior year of high school. So he’ll call her Mom and such, but he doesn’t refer to Miles as his brother and neither does Eleanor refer to them as brothers since She Knows What They Are [even if they don’t really know yet lmao])

We also figured out that for Turnabout Goodbyes, Eleanor is the one framed for Hammond’s murder since MVK wants to get rid of her as she is still trying to investigate the truth and he can’t have that. Miles has to defend his own mother BUT THEN when Miles starts saying the stuff about how he probably is the one who killed his own father, Eleanor then defends HIM and it’s just…Ough…mother son bonding over murder and death of father 😭😭😭😭

Just some thoughts 😁

[dailyhawthornetwins]

[x]

[nortsauce]

Rizz.

[emptydoorways]

the phoenix wright polycule strikes again

for context this is also based off of the batshit insane playthrough me and my friend had. no not all of these are serious, at least three of them are crack ships and were played as a bit. but i mean...

also larry is the dog in their weird game of house /j