#aaprison

[gemstoneslesbian]

Hi! For the drabble asks, would you do 4 or 8 for Alita and Mimi? I hadn't thought about them interacting before I read that drabble you wrote for me with them a while ago, but I really enjoyed reading that a lot, so I'd love to see something else with the two of them, if you'd like! Thank you!

YES ABSOLUTELY :D

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(warning for medical health / serious sickness stuff)

4. Sickness

Alita swallows her hums of pain. Instead, she gives Mimi careful instructions on how best to care for her-- that doesn't do much good, however, seeing as how Mimi quickly retorts that she oughtn't be trying to treat herself.

She presses her lips into a thin line, but doesn't argue.

She remains silent as Mimi replaces the IV, silent as she checks the numbers on the machine, silent as a crease forms between her brows and she records the information on the chart.

Alita knows what the numbers might mean, and Mimi knows that she knows.

When they get to the part with all the questions, there are more of them than normal, making Mimi's concern all the more obvious. Alita answers everything calmly, but the anxiety makes her have to frequently bite back scathing remarks.

When Mimi finally goes to leave, she pauses at the doorway and looks back without meeting her gaze. "For the record,"

What, another lecture about how Alita shouldn't be trying to be her own nurse the moment Mimi is gone? Or is she about to point out some dumb, awful thing that the both of them are clearly well aware of?

"It puts more pressure on your body to keep all your stress packed away like that. It's good you aren't panicking, but I've had hard-ass patients who've suffered more than the ones who cried into their pillow every night." She pauses, then adds, "If this sickness destroys anything, let it be your pride, not your heart."

And with that, she's gone.

Alita waits a solid ten seconds before grabbing her pillow, wrapping her arms around it tightly, and screaming into it as loudly as she can.

[gemstoneslesbian]

✏️!

aaa thank you!! :D

...I decided to give three excerpts because I have no self-control couldn’t decide

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excerpt 1

Shortly before 6th grade, when a tornado hit and they were all cowering in the basement of the orphanage, Horace held him close and kept saying, “Don’t worry, I’m too powerful for it. If it comes over here, I’ll just blow it away,” which made Souta laugh through the tears.

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excerpt 2

Lance scans them, the corner of his lips twitching. His gaze lands on Matt. "Traitor," he half hisses, half spits.

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excerpt 3

“Augh!” Simon makes a show of stumbling around before crashing slowly and dramatically to the ground, Souta hopping off of his back and out of the way as he does so. “To come so far... only to be bested by—” In the grass, staring up at his friend, he’s able to get a better and fuller view of the outfit. He raises a disappointed eyebrow up at him.

[gemstoneslesbian]

Ahem...

Calisto and Souta

Can bond over powerful, frightening men in positions of very high status having immense power over them and controlling the course of their lives for way too long

And then, you know, taking them down / aiding in their downfall in some way

Souta is a clown and Calisto is always losing her shit with laughter. They were destined to be best buds.

Both just kinda go batshit upon being confronted because that’s just how they vibe, that’s how they handle things. GYAHAHAHA-

Honestly, both are reckless and impulsive little trouble-makers

I’m not the only one who can see them somehow meeting in prison and making friends pretty quickly, and then enabling each other’s BS and running around doing stupid shit behind the guard’s backs, right?

Manipulated and betrayed men who were loyal to them and cared deeply for them

Were openly unrepentant assholes about the above action, but actually harbor some amount of internal conflict and grief about it

Disguises and appearance changes and secret identities and changed names

Lesbian/Gay Solidarity

Thank u for ur time I love these two jerks immeasurably.

[gemstoneslesbian]

Thinking about my fic, and Souta's just out here like. 'I get that you're about to destroy everything we've all been risking our lives for this past year, and you're putting everyone in extreme danger for the sake of trying to feel safe and control, but I mean... me tf too fam, you good?'

[gemstoneslesbian]

Welcome to my blog where I make vague, usually ominous comments about how the ace attorney prisoners are doing

[gemstoneslesbian]

I love you Matt hcs so much! So much inspiration for mine too!

Have you got any post-cannon hcs? (Maybe angst/Whump one? But that’s not so important I would love to hear any ^^)

Thank you sm!! :D

All right SO, my main niche in the fandom is fleshing out the Ace Attorney prison, examining the relationships between all the characters there, fleshing everyone out, considering their character arcs, etc. It’s definitely something I put a lot of thought into and get excited about ^^

I imagine there being three main prisons:

Prison A

The canon prison shown in Ace Attorney Investigations: 2. Prisoners are allowed one animal companion, there’s a supplier with influence over the warden (and, imo, the guards as well), it’s overall a prison that can be interpreted as more relaxed--with limited corruption, due to the fact that, in my opinion at least, Sirhan Dogen wouldn’t put up with much BS. Although he can’t control everything, Dogen has a decent amount of power that he uses to make his prison livable.

Prison B

This is the opposite of Prison A. Damon Gant is in charge, but in a different kind of way; after being Chief of Police for so long, he still has a lot of power and connections, and many officers hold respect and / or fear towards him. The prison is a hierarchy of power and control with a lot of corruption, and anyone who doesn’t work for Gant is in danger.

Prison C

The women’s prison. Dee Vasquez has the upper hand here, due to her outside connections with the mafia. She handles things in a more manipulative, underhanded kind of way--isn’t so much focused on the prison at large, but moreso on securing her own matters. She uses protection or exploitation sparingly, and when she does, she deflects attention off of it as much as possible. While the prison isn’t as horrible as Prison B, it’s not as safe as Prison A.

Now that the environment has been established, time to get into the details about Matt:

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Matt Engarde went to Prison A.

In Ace Attorney, fame and riches seem to make little difference when it comes to putting someone behind bars. However, the game does show that it can add complications, and affect things to a certain level. With that said, here’s how I imagine things went over with the arrest:

Things are a whirlwind of chaos and fear and pain at first, but it doesn’t take him long to get a deal set up with the prison. Sometime within the first week of his imprisonment. Thankfully, this is done quickly enough that his assets haven’t been transferred to his parents, yet.

His sentence is 10 years. No death penalty or life sentence, because the deal is that, for each year that Matt Engarde is alive and healthy, the prison receives $500,000. This would give them ample reason to take measures to protect him from De Killer.

Matt doesn’t have an endless amount of money, and he also doesn’t want to be stuck there forever. In his mind, hopefully De Killer would be behind bars or dead by the end of those 10 years, and if not... well, he’ll figure it out when he gets there.

He’s given the cell down the hall from Sirhan Dogen, the infamous assassin. This scares the HELL out of Matt at first, but the guards assure him that it’s for his own safety:

However, since he’s placed in this cell before the deal is made, there was an ulterior motive as well. Due to the fact that Shelly De Killer is another infamous assassin, Warden Roland considered it a possibility that he’s one of Dogen’s outside contacts. If Dogen were to rat out Matt’s location to him, the prison would be prepared to capture and arrest De Killer, and it would be confirmed that they had been contacts.

Obviously, Dogen could rat him out no matter which cell he’s in, but it’s more convenient to place Matt there as bait since the hallway is monitored so heavily--they’ll be prepared to restrain both De Killer and Dogen if/when that time comes.

If the deal were made beforehand, he likely would have been sent to Prison B; even though it’s a harsher atmosphere, no one in there is presumed to be a contact of De Killer’s. While he could have been transferred at this point, it’s decided that they’ll stick to their regular plan, just with added precautions and safety measures.

Matt, although suspicious, never has any sort of confirmation that he’s being used as bait--at least, not until years later.

BUT ANYHOW.

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Interactions and Reputation

I get into it a bit in this fic*, but the gist is this:

There’s no point in continuing to act charming when everyone knows it’s BS, and any chance of Toughness or Good Standing he could have had are kinda... shattered by his frequent (very loud) panic attacks late at night.

For the first year, he doesn’t bother trying to make friends. He doesn’t care about them, they won’t care about him, and he’s not interested in playing a tug-of-war with power dynamics when he knows he won’t always necessarily come out on top. So he’s kind of a loner here. Occasionally entertains himself by picking fights.

*(Spoiler warning for AAI2 in the fic I linked!!)

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Character Arc

From this point, I can see it going in several different directions. I have two different fic AUs where things turn out differently in each one, and I also have an extensive role-play I did with a friend of mine. In terms of imagining his “canon” life and his future, I definitely learn towards the events that transpired in the role-play, so I’ll focus on those.

(My friend and I made a post analyzing his personality and character arc, so most of the things I’ll mention here have been mentioned in this post in greater detail. HOWEVER the post is EXTREMELY long and also contains major spoilers for AAI2. So if you want to avoid spoilers and also want a summed up version, feel completely free to just read the summary below!) (oh also, with relation to the post I just linked, tw for?? a variety of common triggers)

I should mention that this might not be COMPLETELY spoiler-free, but I do avoid saying the spoilery name. It’s hard for me to accurately gauge what is and isn’t revealing, since I already know all the spoilers haha.

And, without further ado:

-Everything about his world has been turned upside-down. Instead of being adored, he’s despised. Instead of being the one with power, he’s the one under the thumb of others. Instead of a life of comfort and privilege, he’s confined to small, uncomfortable areas, and is barely paid anything for his labor. Additionally, he could be killed at any moment at any hour at any location--and this is something he’s forced to endure for years on end. The entire situation is incredibly stressful and traumatic for him.

-About a year after his arrest, a guy moves into his cell with him. Things align in just the right way that a friendship of some sort is formed between them: the guy is friendly, pretty, relatable, into some of the same hobbies he’s into, and he has power within the prison walls. It’s beneficial to form a friendship with him... and the guy isn’t annoyed with him for his (now much less-frequent) panic attacks, but rather, shows sympathy.

-Neither of them particularly trust one another, but they enjoy each other’s company.

-Humans need comfort, and Matt is no exception. Under the intense trauma and stress he’s enduring, it’s all too easy to form some sort of bond with the nice guy who dances with him and pets his hair and holds him.

-It’s important to mention that Matt is rendered unable to do his usual power & control shit. And he especially can’t get away with that kind of stuff when his new cellmate shows up. The guy is Very Alert to underhanded behavior (due to his own underhandedness + the fact that he’s dealt with one too many bastards), and is quick to call Matt out on even minor things. So Matt’s options at this point are either:

a.) try his manipulative shit and lose any small amount of power or comfort he may have had, with an added risk of retribution

b.) resist all forms of connection / interaction with other people, and just be miserable and alone and scared all by himself

c.) be friends with the guy WITHOUT being a shady douche, and getting to enjoy the comfort and benefits that provides

-So... YEAH. Long story short, he makes friends with the guy. And, also, lowkey catches feelings for him.

-Matt also makes friends with Simon Blackquill a couple years later (and that has its own backstory)

-His previous ways of moving through the world do not work at all here. In the end, Matt’s main goal is to get what he wants, and to feel good. With the circumstances, he has to completely change his approaches in order to meet that goal.

-Matt may be cold and uncaring towards other people’s emotions, but it’s clear that he does have very intense emotions. He shows much more vulnerability and pain now than he used to, because doing so makes him more sympathetic to his friends--but he also needs to learn to not be as manipulative about it, and to actually consider the other person’s emotions instead of making it all about himself.

-He does ultimately decide to make the overall changes necessary for healthy interpersonal connections, since it’s in his best interest to do so. It’s not easy, and he hits plenty of road bumps along the way. It definitely dredges up a lot of shit, a lot of painful emotions; he’s extremely self-protective, and genuine vulnerability is hard and frightening.

-The tl;dr is that he’s dragged through a healing arc, kicking and screaming the entire way.

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That’s what his life in like in prison, overall! There’s a ton of aspects and details, but I figured it’d be best to cover the basic storyline ^^

I also have thoughts on how things would go after he’s released from prison.

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...OH SHIT I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO MENTION THE SHELLY THING LMAO

I’m gonna make a post where I detail out what happens, and then link it here when I finish.

Edit: Here it is!

[gemstoneslesbian]

For the purpose of the song Meet the Plastics from Mean Girls: The Musical

Lance Amano is Regina George, Jacques Portsman is Gretchen Wieners, and Matt Engarde is Karen Smith.

Richard Wellington is both Damian and Janis, and Godot is Cady JFSKLHG

[gemstoneslesbian]

Matt Engarde / Souta Sarushiro (aka Simon Keyes)

So, while writing my longfic that takes place in the prison, these two unintentionally became a thing. I figured I may as well make a post compiling my various headcanons about them.

After going to prison, Matt spent the first half year screaming his head off, seeing a shadow or a guard or whatever momentarily convinced him it was Shelly. It didn’t happen every night, and got less frequent as time went on, but the other prisoners certainly didn’t enjoy being woken up by it on the regular.

Another half year passes, and Matt gets a cellmate! A pretty guy named Souta Sarushiro whom he’s wary of at first, but...

Souta is under the protection of that scary assassin dude with the dog who’s in the cell next door. Nobody messes with Dogen, and by extension, nobody messes with Souta. Being friends with him is like having a security blanket.

Once they get to becoming friends and feeling relatively comfortable around each other, they end up kinda being sparks of light in the prison. Two dramatic performance-y boys? Yeah, the other inmates have a certain appreciation for their antics. Makes things less dull around there.

Okay now for random bullet points

Souta has the top bunk

They sometimes sing together, loudly and in front of everyone. Usually musical numbers.

They also sometimes stage big dramatic scenes between them (such as a loud tearful “break-up” in the cafeteria that all of the older prisoners know is completely fake)

Neither really likes showing vulnerability, but it shows in different ways--Souta tends to hide his struggles and prefers to deal with them on his own, and Matt actively seeks out attention and will usually accept comfort but is uneasy and avoidant of discussing his emotions or showing too much tenderness

They joke around a lot, and tend to prefer handling unpleasant emotions / situations in a light-hearted way (most of the time)

Souta occasionally wakes Matt up in the middle of the night (or keeps him awake) with ridiculous topics of conversation because he likes being annoying (that’s not the reason, but Matt thinks it is)

They probably keep score on various absurd things in a friendly competition kind of way

Matt lost all of his power when he was sent to prison, he could die any day, and on top of that, Souta keeps him in line simply by existing. Souta won’t put up with any of his genuine assholery, and wouldn’t hesitate to take care of things appropriately if Matt tries to pull anything. So Matt’s fairly well-behaved in prison, because being anything else would only cause negative consequences for himself. So maybe it’s time for hot shot celebrity boy to slowly learn to genuinely make connections with other people and not be so selfish all the time.

Souta enjoys Matt’s company. He doesn’t trust him, but he’s usually fun to be friends with, and he knows that Matt wouldn’t dare hurt him. As always, he keeps his emotions guarded so he’s perfectly prepared for if he has to disconnect from him (and is prepared for if Matt is suddenly murdered), but he does care about his well-being.

Matt is guarded with his emotions too, but in a different way. Souta is a big comfort to him, and if he’s honest with himself, he’s probably in love with Souta. Or at least, wants to be in love with him. Hard to quite reach that point when you don’t trust anybody, and neither does the person you have feelings for. He cares about Souta’s well-being, but it takes a while to actually wise up and prioritize that above his own selfishness and defensive fears.

They aren’t officially dating, at least for a long while, but they are intimate in other ways.

[gemstoneslesbian]

jacques is the panel that's "this is fine"

lance is the panel that's "............................. [clears throat] T H I S I S NOT FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[gemstoneslesbian]

current mental states of the prison's Plastics:

Lance: barely holding it together. ready to press detonate at any given moment.

Jacques: "lmfao rip to us ig que sera sera"

Matt: running around a revolving door whilst screaming

[gemstoneslesbian]

Since apparently my favorite thing is blurting out songs for Ace Attorney Prison Life with no context-

~ Up in Flames by Icon For Hire ~

The first verse + chorus is Richard

The second verse + chorus is Matt

“You know I'll never fold like you're the authority I won't throw my hands up like you're the authority” -Calisto

Those lines repeated again is Souta

and then the last chorus could be either Souta or Godot

[gemstoneslesbian]

a family can be an ex-detective, an ex-prosecutor, an ex-defense attorney, and a clown

[gemstoneslesbian]

I love how three of Souta’s closest friends are people he can relate to on many levels, but all three of them are very different from each other

[gemstoneslesbian]

Me, in my head: emotional character arcs, in-depth daydreams, elaborate storylines and interactions and dynamics within the prison, can talk for hours about backstory and psychoanalysis,

The only words that are available when I try to express character stuff in a post: we should shut up portsman sorry amano look who’s with him, oh my god

[gemstoneslesbian]

[makes memes for my AA prison fic series]

[gemstoneslesbian]

Jay: And what are you supposed to be?

Matt: I’m the incarnation of righteous fury from every cat who has ever been declawed. I’m here to haunt those monsters until the day they die.

Souta, cupping a hand by his mouth and whispering: He grew his nails out and then clipped them into sharp claw shapes for his costume, but the guards told him it was a safety hazard and made him cut his nails short, and he’s mad about it.