#and also the gumshoe lore!

[milkcurdles]

Born to prosecute, forced to hold up baby sister so she can investigate the window

[tiredetective]

Team Edgeworth Vs. Team Wright Leff

Who's gonna outsmart the other?

What if Phoenix decided to hide his identity from Miles after his disbarment, and finds himself in another fucking rivalry with his courtroom rival again under the pseudonym Mr. Robin Leff?

I call it "Conjunction Wright and Left"!

More context and doodles below--

Conjunction Wright and Left takes place between September 2019 to April 2020 after Phoenix's disbarment.

He, weirdly, takes it in stride. He immediately rises up to investigate and figure out the weirdness behind his disbarment and look into some shady sources, all the while he takes care of the new Wright in the family, Trucy. It doesn't mean it isn't difficult, but he's living the best he can. Sort of... [he gets a lot of injuries... and old man back pain]

However, he's also lying to many of his friends and family. He keeps in contact with them, but never lets them on of what he's doing for their safety.

This includes one Miles Edgeworth, who isn't even aware that his best friend is literally no longer a lawyer! He's too busy taking in all his studies abroad!

Miles Edgeworth, after months abroad dealing with conspiracies, studies, and many kinds of adventures, settles down back in Japanifornia in August. He finds himself followed by the newly employed private investigator/training detective Kay and recently promoted Sergeant Gumshoe leads them all back together! With the investigations trio reunited, they find themselves wrapped up in another conspiracy full of betrayal and corruption in the legal system!

But everything feels strange… Gumshoe seems antsy about something, these new witnesses of different cases are somehow all connected, and a new mysterious man who calls himself Mr. Leff seems to be everywhere and nowhere.

While investigating, Miles finds out more than he’s ever bargained for, especially about new revelations of a long time dear friend, Phoenix Wright and the intriguingly odd Mr. Leff.

Story contains a lot of angst, fluff, found family antics, gumshoe lore, phoenix lore, an abnormal amount of physical violence and fighting [but probably a good accurate canon amount] , arguing and narumitsu + dadworth + dadnix <3

----

I do plan to have this be a fic, but my ideas are so dang big that this is going to definitely take some time, especially cuz i want to establish motivations, reasons, and a really intricate case!

ALSO IM GIVING LORE TO GUMSHOE AND PHOENIX THEY NEED SOME KIND OF BACKSTORY BEFORE THE GAMES YKNOW??

[theresattrpgforthat]

There's an RPG that I just can't find. It's so simple, and yet? It's a one page fantasy RPG, "like" D&D but with much simplified rules. It's called something like Wizards and Sticks, or... Swords and Spells. Or something I don't know. But despite my best efforts, it's just beyond the boundaries of the map. Do you have any idea what it could have been?

Theme: One-Page Fantasy Games

Hello there! I found a *lot* of one-page fantasy games, and I honestly don't know if any of these are what you're looking for. One-page games are great for designers looking to put their feet in the water, and fantasy is definitely one of the most popular genres to play in, by far.

There's also a good amount of Lasers & Feelings hacks, which I'm not surprised by, since the basic rules are easy to pick up, and easy to hack. For the unaware, Lasers & Feelings is a rule-set that gives you two stats, and a single number that defines your proficiency in both. Roll high for one, roll low for the other, and roll it exactly for something special - and that's the core conceit!

Sovereign Shield, by Groovy Dad Games.

SOVEREIGN SHIELD is a tabletop role-playing game set in the grim fantasy world of Avren-Yara, also known as the Sundered Realms. Most of the action takes place within the last bastion of humankind, the great Western Imperium.

The Sovereign Shield is an order of secret agents in service to the High King of Nach Vadryn, the largest city-state in the Imperium. As agents of the Shield, players will undertake clandestine missions on behalf of the High King such as conducting espionage against powerful Guilds and other city-states of the Imperium, as well as investigating strange phenomena and threats that plague the peoples of the realm.

Par for the course for a single-page game, Sovereign Shield has simple stats, some basic rules on Tests, and a player resource called Luck that can be spent for re-rolls. On top of that however, it has an extensive item list, as well as a section for magic & gadgets, giving the players a lot to work with. With a double-sided page format, one page is dedicated to players, while the other is for GM's including some advice on how to run games, a few enemies to pit against your players, and even a first mission to get the ball rolling. It also draws from GUMSHOE in terms of how it handles clues, which might be handy if you decide you like this style of play. (GUMSHOE games assume that clues are too valuable to be hidden behind a chance roll.)

Sovereign Shield appears to be a one-page quick introduction to two other games made by the same designer, Through the Borderlands and Wardens of the Sundered Realms, which provide more lore and tools to play with. This is a very deliberate and thought-out piece of work that gives you a quick introduction to what could be a very complex and in-depth world if you decide to keep the game going.

Dungeon, by Jamzilla.

Dungeon is a one-page table game for one Narrator and at least one Adventurer. Venture into the depths of the Dungeon and face off against the Dungeon Lord!

All you need to play is a coin, at least one friend, a twenty-sided die and a ten-sided die.

What I love about Dungeon is the roll-tables. It has four roll tables for the GM to mine inspiration from: Denizens, Curiosities, Happenings, and Treasures. Each item on the list is a wonderful little starting point to create unique locations and charming NPCs to dazzle your players with.

The rules of the game are very very simple: player simply flip a coin and heads equals success. No stats, no weapons, no modifiers. If you want something more than these simple rules, you could probably take the roll-tables from Dungeon and use them to help generate encounters for another game on this list!

Song & Sword, by Vivanter.

Song & Sword is a 1-page, rules-lite, fantasy adventure game inspired by The Legend of Zelda and its myriad successors. It’s also a hack of John Harper’s Lasers & Feelings. Players take on the role of bold adventurers, attempting to save the land by collecting artifacts of legends and battling the forces of the Adversary.

Another Lasers & Feelings hack, this is a game for the Zelda lovers at the table. You use an ad-libs style of legend creation together, developing a universally known legend for each player to pull from as they dive into the game. Characters have a health system represented by Hearts, which can be lost when you take harm or embarrass yourself.

When it comes to what you do in the game, there's only rules for generating one large villain that the party must defeat. This game feels like it's focused primarily on the ultimate confrontation, and not the smaller fights that your characters might be expected to get into on their way to the big boss. The game also mostly focuses on what the players need to know - there's little to no help for the GM. I'd recommend Song & Sword for a group with a GM who isn't afraid to improvise - or perhaps for a GM who doesn't mind pulling inspiration from somewhere else.

Sword Poem RPG, by ahcoffeebeans

there is a sword. a cursed sword. it has been around for as long as the earth has known life, or perhaps it only pushed its way out into existence the first time you picked it up. either way, the sword will kill you. and then it will wait, for the next person to arrive. forever

SWORD POEM RPG is a gm-less one-page rpg about a very cursed sword and the people who pick it up. You play as the cursed sword, experiencing the lives of the people you ruin from the moment they pick you up to the moment they self-destruct. This is a game for one to seven people.

I don't believe this is anywhere close to what you're looking for, but there's a lot of 1-page games out there and they are easy to read, so I felt like throwing it in anyway. Plus Sword Poem is very pretty, and only requires d6's to play. The game is focused on story first and foremost, following a tragedy where a single cursed sword warps everyone who wields it. It's GM-less, meaning that everyone at the table will get a chance to decide what their leg of the story will look like.

Sword Poem definitely needs a group that is happy to pull from a deep well of creativity, and it's also a game that needs the group to decide when the story has reached it's end. If you want a game that feels like a game, and not a storytelling exercise, you might want to skip this one.

Age of Adventure, by Ageofadventurerpg.

Age of Adventure RPG (Version 10.5) is a one-page rules-light old-school heroic fantasy tabletop roleplaying game inspired by John Harper's Lasers and Feelings. d6 system

Welcome adventurer – to an exciting world of monsters, mayhem and magic. All you need are some 6-sided dice and your imagination.

For a Lasers & Feelings game, Age of Adventure carries a lot of information. There is no space wasted on this one-page game. Despite the fact that it shares the same base rule-set as a number of other games I found, it feels very traditional in genre and tone: high fantasy, encounters, proficiency checks, spell-lists, and a characterization of characters that isn't exactly race or class-based, but feels very similar.

Dungeon Vermin, by BooCherry.

DUNGEON VERMIN!! is a one-page micro-RPG about the dregs of the dungeon going on missions for their Dark Master.

Play as skeletons, goblins, gremlins, kobolds, and other weaklings as you bodily hurl yourself towards certain death. Your foes will fall under your sheer numbers as you die, die again in pursuit of what you're pretty sure is a worthy cause.

This is an option for folks who like the monsters in fantasy games more than the heroes. Your characters have a d6 dice pool that they'll need to leverage in order to roll above their EXP, which stands for their Expiration Point. If you fail - you die!

I expect this to be a game that you careen into and and play fast and loose. Expect death, especially gruesome over-the-top death, and expect to roll up a new character fairly easily - at least, that's what I assume, given that it's a one-page game.

By String and Song, by EfanGamez.

Your words are stone, and your songs are steel…

Introducing By String and Song, a one-page bard-only tabletop roleplaying game! Create a character in under 2 minutes and begin an adventure!

Being one page and by utilizing a simple d20-only system, this game can be enjoyed by both TTRPG vets and newbies alike!

Since the game revolves around a d20, it will likely provide a similar vibe as D&D in terms of kinetic play. That being said, it strips away classes, and gives your characters just 4 stats to worry about: Boldness, Bulk, Brains & Brawn. Combat is expected, with a list of six different kinds of monsters to get your DM started, as well as a short list of spells available to beginning characters. By String and Song might be an easy pick-up game for a short run of 1-3 sessions, but I'm not sure if it works for a year-long campaign.

Dragons & Dungeons, by Little Lab.

You are a group of adventurers returning from a long journey, finally setting foot again in the town of your departure at a great festival, and just now you are at the counter of the inn where you first met. You are celebrating with the treasures you have recovered in your quest when a messenger arrives with this letter. It is signed by an old ally of yours asking you to save the kingdom again in one last great adventure. What do you do?"

A Lasers & Feelings game, Dragons & Dungeons has a very similar feeling as D&D, which makes sense, considering the way it brands itself. Designed to be printed on a piece of paper that folds out into an envelope/brochure format, Dragons & Dungeons has a really lovely presentation, which can make it a fun thing to print out and hand around a table. Additionally, unique to this version of a one-page fantasy game, you can spend a resource called Inspiration to use special powers, such as getting special information from the DM, rolling an extra dice, or saving an ally from certain death.

Realm Warriors, by Trollish Delver Games.

Welcome to REALM WARRIORS, a one-page fantasy TTRPG inspired by games like The Fantasy Trip.

Players take on the role of Champions of the gods, chosen to destroy the Dark Magus himself.

This is another game that is no-nonsense when it comes to laying out the rules. Everything on the page is devoted to telling you how the game works - and the game feels like it pulls a lot of inspiration from the OSR. Similar to D&D, your champion will have modifications to their core stats based on the class you choose, as well as some basic equipment. There's specific rules for wounds, sleeping, and travel, which are some things that the OSR often cares about, and your Experience is determined by the length of the adventure you go out on. The bulk of the GM advice provided in this game is mostly how to run enemies, as well as a list of typical creatures to send up against your characters. All in all, fairly standard when it comes to one-page fantasy.

Also Consider…

First Fantasy, by Mars Strocks.

Wolves & Spices, by A.Tian.

Dawnfire Warriors, by matara.

Magic & Might, by The_Bellmont.

If you like what I do and want to leave a tip, you can check out my Ko-Fi!

[badaceattorney]

I like narumitsu/wrightworth enough but you people need to accept that it’s not that deep compared to the rest of the series. Most of the cool things about it exist only in the fandom.

That said, to help you i have compiled a list of ships that are gayer/more canon than narumitsu/wrightworth, ranked by how gay/arguably canon they are:*

Asoryuu. Do not spoil the rest of tgaa2 for me, but i do know about some things that I haven’t gotten to yet. Anyways i think breaking the boat rules and risking your trip to Britain that you’ve been dreaming of forever in order to bring your childhood friend (for whom you were already about to risk the trip again in order to get him out of murder charges) with you is a bit gayer than starting work in a profession you’re good because you heard that guy you knew in elementary school is a prosecutor now.

Susahao. do not spoil the rest of tgaa2 for me. Anyways if you’ve played it you know what I’m talking about

Aurametis. If you try to tell me that “unnecessary feelings” is gayer or more canon than “her respect as a coworker isn’t all that I wanted” you should maybe see a doctor. This would be at the top of the list if I wasn’t also ranking for sheer gay energy

Shamseki. do not spoil the rest of tgaa2 for me. Anyways see my shamseki post, it’s gotten even gayer as I play through the case. Even if it’s not a true ship, they definitely fucked and soseki was topping

Klapollo. This is more vibes based with only a few lines that actually help it, but holy shit are those vibes there. Especially if you ship narumitsu, then it’s a narrative parallel

Gumwright. The entirety of t&t, maya is just constantly trying to get phoenix to date gumshoe and gumshoe isn’t denying it. My headcanon is that gumshoe told maya he liked phoenix and she’s trying to be his wingwoman

Gumworth. I have to concede that this is actually on the same level of gayness/canon as narumitsu if not slightly less but I’m putting it here because most people assume it’s far lower than that and that’s an injustice to poor gumshoe

*not ranked by popularity/which ones are my favorites. I haven’t finished tgaa2 or played aaic so i don’t know about that lore yet, please don’t spoil anything more for me.

[yellowocaballero]

i see you reblogging aa, is this a sign an ace attorney fic is on the horizon 👀

I resign myself to the fact that any reblogging spree of one work inevitably results in people in my inbox asking if I'm currently writing fanfic about it. I can't complain, because the answer is usually yes absolutely of course I am.

I will say that the Great Phoenix Wright Trilogy Playthrough Of 2024 was this summer! It was very much a tether to sanity and I'm very grateful towards @lazuliquetzal for letting me watch her play and for making the experience so much fun. A very intricate bedrock of lore/in-jokes developed. Edgeworth thinks he discovered homosexuality and younger sister figures are mandatory in a court of law. We found it extremely well-written, very funny, and really interesting in character dynamics. I also got her to play Ghost Trick, which was awesome as usual. We're currently both obsessing about different things - and my fanfic to-do list is already VERY long - so no fanfic is actually in the works right now.

Of course I've already written some, who do you take me for. I wrote this just for us, so it's unfinished and rife with our in-jokes, but somewhat shockingly it probably has the densest joke-to-word ratio that I've ever written. Sometimes I want to continue writing something, but I look at it and I'm like, 'This is too good. I can't keep up this level of good. I can't reach this high again'. The short fanfic - sourced from our recurring jokes/efforts to figure out [SPOILERS FOR ACEATT3] how blind Godot is exactly, and what I would have found the most interesting - is, believe it or not, too good to keep writing.

Zany fanfic and spoilers for Ace Attorney 3 under the cut.

           As it turned out, there was a prosecutor’s lounge.

           Like a lot of Phoenix’s least favorite facts, it was both obvious in retrospect and deeply disturbing. The defendant’s lounge had an obvious purpose: confer with your client, beg them to tell you simple facts that would determine if they were sentenced to death via electric chair, let your coworkers blow off steam by making fun of you. Gumshoe is useful at the least useful second. None of these banal and extraordinarily stressful events had anything to do with a prosecutor.

           That was why Edgeworth had always wandered into the defendant’s lounge and made vague yet affectionate threats at Phoenix. If he had his own sterile room to stand around awkwardly, he surely would have done so. This felt so obvious it ought to have gone without saying. There couldn’t, like, actually be a real lounge. That would imply a lot of things about Edgeworth’s choices. 

As a result, when Gumshoe tossed Phoenix the updated coroner’s report and asked him to run it to the prosecutor’s lounge, Phoenix’s first instinct was to contemplate suicide. His only remaining link to sanity was the knowledge that running Gumshoe’s errands to an imaginary room was better than the alternative of staying here.

           Much better. Gumshoe was looking at Maggey, Maggey was refusing to look at Gumshoe, Phoenix wanted to be nowhere near any of this, and he was taking the out. Gumshoe might as well have asked him to go check if his refrigerator was running. Call him a mechanic, because he grabbed both Maya and Pearl and high-tailed it out of there.

           He had to ask for directions three different times before he even found the place. It was a place that could be found. In real life. Phoenix better go catch his fucking refrigerator!

It was also right next door to the defendant’s lounge. Had this really been here the entire time? Could Phoenix have been wandering into Edgeworth’s lobby and making vague yet affectionate threats at him? He could have even stood in front of the door and blocked Edgeworth’s ritualistic escape from his feelings. His was a life of missed opportunities.

           “I bet they have free coffee,” Maya said grimly. “I bet they have tacos.”

           “With free avocados,” Phoenix intoned. “As much as they want. Maybe caviar.”

           Pearl blasted her large and doleful eyes up at Nick. “Why don’t you put avocados on the tacos you make for us? I love them…”

           Poverty, but he couldn’t tell her that. Nick settled for patting her on the head. “Avocados are as immoral as the prosecutors themselves, Pearly. It’s a matter of ethics.”

           “Ethics are so overrated,” Maya said mournfully, kicking the doors open. “Let’s go evil, Nick. For the sake of the children.”

           The cops inside did not appreciate Maya’s dynamic entry, but nobody ever did. Disappointingly, the prosecutor’s lounge was identical to the defendant’s one – down to the cops, cheap sofa, and ugly-ass art. The only difference was – son of a bitch, they did have coffee!

           Entirely possible that Godot refused to step foot inside the courthouse unless they installed a coffee machine. But it was the principle of the thing, goddamn it! Nobody ever cared about Phoenix’s hunger strikes!

           Potentially entirely due to coffee, Godot was sitting on the scratchy sofa with his head tilted back and one earbud in his ear. Its cord snaked onto the cushions of the couch, attacked to some small black media player. Was he awake? Was he asleep? Was he dead? If they were really quiet, would he sleep through the trial and leave Phoenix to win by default –

           “They have a chartreuse board!” Maya screeched. “Those rat bastards!”

           Pearl gasped, hands flying to her mouth. “Is that sushi? Free sushi!? I love sushi!”

           “Get my purse, Pearl-chan! Grab much as you can!”

           “So it’s hereditary,” Godot growled. Phoenix winced, instinctively checking for coffee cups in his vicinity. The familiar cheap coffee table seemingly only had one, but on closer look Nick could tell that they were carefully stacked into each other. How tidy! “How did you even know this place existed, Trite?”

           One of these days Phoenix was going to start pronouncing his name “guh-dot”. That would show him. He hadn’t mustered the courage yet, but one of these days! “How could I not know it existed?” Poker face, Phoenix. Look condescending. Evoke Edgeworth. Show him what’s what. Literally nobody else you know is scared of him, therefore you are not scared of him, we are manifesting absolute zen in the face of the tallest man Phoenix had ever met in his life. He was sitting down. This shouldn’t be hard. “It’s right next to the defendant’s lounge, how could we miss it?”

           “Is that so?” Godot slowly leaned forward, like a great beast awakening from a mighty slumber. His movements were stiff and disjointed, like a fat bear waking from hibernation. “The spotlight of truth must be like a floodlight to the most enlightened defense lawyers. Illuminating all. Hiding nothing. But shadows cling to the undersides of society, and true darkness lurking underneath the charcuterie board –“

           “I have the updated coroner’s report,” Phoenix said, flapping the envelope loosely. “Gumshoe wanted you to have the other copy.”

��          “Yeah, give it here.”

           “If the charcuterie board is evil don’t tell me.” Maya was plowing through a hunk of goat cheese like a rabid coyote. “I don’t wanna know. None of my business. Put the wasabi in my coin purse, Pearl-chan.”

           There was something inherently evil about having a cheeseboard at the workplace, but the legal system couldn’t get much worse. Godot didn’t stand up from the couch – he just thrust out a hand, making shockingly childish little grabby hands, forcing Phoenix to cross the entire room and put it in his hands. Pearl ran up to Phoenix and helpfully smeared wasabi on his hand.

           Godot took the coroner’s report and dropped it on the table. He leaned back, reaffixing his earbud in his ear. “Charmed. Clean us out of the nori, girls, it’s Payne’s favorite and I want him to experience suffering.”

           Pearl helpfully tugged at Phoenix’s sleeve, dying it a light green. If he lost this case because the judge thought he smelled bad… “Can you pour me the last of the coffee, Mr. Nick? I wanna be a big girl and do it for me but the big jug is too heavy.”

           “Are you kidding? You’re way too young for coffee.” The last thing they needed was a nine year old bouncing off the walls. In a courtroom. During a murder case. Phoenix turned to Godot, who was biting his tongue and barely restraining himself from cursing out a nine year old. Was that blood? “You’ll want to take a look at that, Mr. Godot. There’s a new piece of evidence that could change everything.”

           “Save the dramatics for the courtroom.” Godot leaned back again, waving his hand absently. Yeah, that was definitely blood on his yellowed teeth. Phoenix had to admire the restraint. “What’s this new tidbit that’s so important, then?”

           Was he everyone’s errand boy? “The report’s right there, read it yourself.”

           “Seems like I was correct in pegging you as the lazy type, Trite. Look at you refusing to do a simple task.”

           Pearl made an ‘ooo’ing noise behind her hands. Maya broke a cracker in half, giving her the smaller piece. “Don’t say that world, Pearl-chan.”

           “What wo –“

           “You can’t insult me into doing the most basic aspect of your job. You read it.”

           “I’m a busy man. I’m hard at work actually making justice.” But he was sleeping?! “Defense attorneys clearly have nothing better to do than eat our precious cheeses. Show me that you can do the most basic element of the job.”

           Talk about a turnabout! This man had cranked the hostility meter up towards eleven and broke the knob off. Francizka had spent most of a year almost gnawing his face off, but she had never made Phoenix feel so specially hated. “Sorry, Godot, I’m not falling for it. But you’ll definitely want to read the report yourself. It has essential information for the trial in literally five minutes.”

           “If it’s so important than why did we give it to him at all?” Maya garbled, spewing pita chips everywhere. “We could have hid it and won this case!”

           “Because that’s unethical –“

           “You never let anything go! You and your silly ethics –“

           “Silly?!”

           Godot leaned forward and swept his hand over the table with incredibly unnecessary drama. He swept the folder into his hands, yanking the crumpled police report out. He ostentatiously snapped the paper and held it up to his visor, reading it closely. He nodded several times. He even hummed once.

           Finally, Godot straightened and tossed the report on the table. “Boring! So much for crucial evidence. You’re looking at the shadows in the cave and calling them innocent of heinous crimes, Mr. Trite. Turn away from illusions and overcome your cowardice by entering the deepest depths of Plato’s cave, facing your inner demons and reckoning with the truth of –“

           “Boring?” Phoenix cried. “The window for the potential time of the murder is completely different than we thought? And I’m the one living in a fantasy land?”

           Godot stared at him. “Really?” Phoenix made a garbled noise of outrage. Godot ignored him. “What’s the new window, then?”

           “Read it yourself!”

           “Hm.” Godot angled his head to the side, facing away from Phoenix. “Hey, little girl. I bet you can’t read.”

           Going for the throat?! Pearl clearly didn’t know whether or not to puff herself up in indignation or start crying. “I am such a good reader!!!!”

           “Really? Prove it.” Godot picked up the crumpled page and wave it at her. “Or are you a liar?”

           “Being a liar is for bad girls! I am a very good girl!” Pearl reached up on her tip-toes and nabbed the paper out of Godot’s hands. She scanned the page seriously, eyebrows furrowed. “Here! Right here! The new time of death is –“

           “Are you making a nine year old read a coroner’s report?!”

           Maya slurped slivers of ginger with pitying eyes. “She channels the dead, Nick.”

           “And that’s the time,” Pearl finished smugly. Phoenix hadn’t even heard her say it. She held out the papers to Godot again, who ignored her. “Now you know the time, because I am such a good reader.”

           “You’re a diamond in the rough, kid,” Godot told her seriously. “Never let these dullards dull your shine.”

           “My name’s not Diamond,” Pearl informed him, equally seriously. “It is Pearl Fey. Don’t feel bad. It’s a very common mistake.”

           “I don’t make mistakes, kid. I’m just one step ahead of reality. Count on it.”

           “You don’t have to be prideful, Mr. Godot.” Pearl smiled brightly and encouragingly at him, as if she was trying to connive a pit bull into a doing a trick. “It’s okay if you aren’t a good reader. Or if you aren’t a good speller. I’m a bad speller but that doesn’t make me a bad reader. Being a bad speller has nothing to do with being a good reader. I am a piece of decisive evidence about that.”

           Maya looked grimly at Phoenix, who was contemplating suicide again. “We’re ruined her vocabulary.”

           “We let her sit in during murder cases, Maya.”

           “And it’s ruined her vocabulary.”

           “What’s ruined your brain?”

           “Do you need me to read more things for you?” Pearl asked sweetly. “I like practicing my reading. I’m always practicing with Mr. Nick’s court records. They’re lots of fun and very educational. I can read ‘five counts of manslaughter’ very well. Do you want to see me spell it?”

           Godot looked at Maya. He looked at the coffee table, where the papers were not. He looked contemplative, maybe. Finally, he said, “How are you at serving coffee?”

           “If the jug is medium sized I can be very good at it!”

           “You’re hired.”

           Alright, that was enough. Phoenix had a lot of responsibilities, but his responsibility to Maya and Pearl came before every single one. That conviction had been put to test during that awful Engarde case. Phoenix almost sacrificed his integrity as a lawyer for Maya’s sake - he was not going to lose it now!

           “Absolutely not,” Phoenix said. It didn’t matter how insanely tall this guy was. Phoenix was taking a stand - right here, right now. Granted, the stand would go to his shoulder, but it was the conviction that counted! “Child labor is against the law, and her legal guardian does not give consent for this.” Phoenix made dangerous eyes at a cowed Maya, just to reaffirm that her legal guardian was not giving consent. “Don’t you have your own co-counsel? Make them do your chores, and stop stealing mine!”

           “I wasn’t planning on paying her,” Godot said affably. “That’s a violation of child labor laws, you know.”

           Maya appeared to be seriously considering his proposal. Which shouldn’t have been a big deal, but please refer back to the legal guardian wrinkle in this case. “I don’t know, Nick. Don’t you think it’s time Pearl flew out from underneath your shadow? It’s not exactly as if you pay me either.”

           “You’ll get paid when you do something helpful that gets me paid,” Phoenix said instantly. Maya glumly accepted this reality. “There’s no paycheck in moral support, Maya. Godot can use his own co-counsel –“

           “I don’t have a co-counsel,” Godot said. “Do I look like I’ve received an ounce of moral support in the last four years? Of kindness? Hell has no comradeship.”

           Phoenix flapped a hand. “Yeah, whatever. Your plucky imouto, co-counsel, whatever. Just get her to do it.”

           For the first time, Godot actually gave him a baffled look. Maybe. It was insanely hard to tell. “What would I do with a – younger sister, is it?”

           Everybody froze. You could have heard a penny drop. Maya and Pearl’s eyes practically goggled out of their heads.

           Godot just stood there, ignoring Pearl and Maya but clearly unsettled by the silence. “Cream and sugar undercuts the delectable bitterness of the black coffee. A life without siblings is a satisfyingly dark roast.”

           Slowly, Phoenix said, “I’m sorry. You’re a lawyer with no plucky female sidekick?”

           “I’ve had kouhai,” Godot said defensively. “I have a certain talent for mentorship –“

           “Mentorship? What makes you think you’re qualified to give any sort of mentorship? You’re a rookie!” Phoenix said the word ‘rookie’ like how Edgeworth said ‘polyester’, which was deeply satisfying. “And haven’t you lost every case you’ve ever taken?”

           Maya looked close to tears. “No wonder he’s such an awful lawyer…he doesn’t have a single imouto.”

           “Is that the ‘hell’ Mr. Godot talks about?” Pearl asked, voice wavering. “A world with no women?”

           “You’re projecting,” Godot snapped. “Just because you’re surrounded by teenage girls all day doesn’t mean any other lawyer is obligated to do the same.”

           “Any good lawyer. Why do you think Edgeworth has an imouto.” The thought of Edgeworth with no Franciska to hone his…edge…how sad. “And Franciska has Edgeworth as an imouto. This is law one-oh-one, Godot.” Phoenix propped his hands on his hips, grinning. “Hah! No wonder you can’t beat me! You don’t know the first thing about law, do you?”

           “And he can’t read,” Maya said sadly. “Maybe Mr. Godot isn’t exaggerating when he tells us how sad and pathetic he is…”

           “You thought he was exaggerating?”

           The tragic sight of the thoroughly baffled man clearly tugged at Pearl’s heartstrings, but she quickly found her resolve too. She rolled up her sleeves, as if they were at the office and she was ready to attack Phoenix’s toilet with a scrub brush. Once she had almost fallen in. “That does it! If Mr. Godot doesn’t have an imouto, then I’ll - ”

           “Nope. His problem, not ours.” Frankly, Phoenix was just trash talking a little. If you pretended Edgeworth and Franciska didn’t exist – impossible for Phoenix, but he could stretch his imagination – then Godot was a pretty good lawyer. To be a pretty good lawyer without the massive handicap of no young girl…Phoenix better stop giving the competition a hand like this. “Come on, the security guard’s started glaring at us again. It’s definitely time to start the trial.”

           “Your face will freeze like that, you know,” Pearl seriously told the security guard. He didn’t visibly react to her words at all. Maybe Pearl was onto something… “Mr. Nick, I have a duty to my fellow man -”

           “You can practice your reading with picture books, like a normal kid.” Pearl indignantly opened her mouth, doubtlessly about to launch into a meandering and breathless rant about her favorite Newberry Award winning children’s book author. “In English, not Japanese. Reading in English is your problem. At this rate you’re going to know how to read legalese and nothing else.” Phoenix yanked open the door, shepherding both girls out. Maya quickly stuffed more California rolls in her sleeve. “Bad enough Maya’s neglecting – Jesus Christ!”

           “You can’t give me a hard time about that,” Maya said reproachfully. “I’m Shinto.”

           Obviously, goddamn Gumshoe was at the door, one fist raised and clearly about to knock. His fist fell at the exact moment that Phoenix opened the door, and Phoenix only barely avoided a royal smack on the head by via Gumshoe’s meaty fist. He really couldn’t afford another concussion at this rate! CTE was a very serious brain disorder!

           “Mr. Wright! Hey, I thought I’d find you here! Right underneath my fist too! How’s that for some detective work, huh!” Gumshoe laughed uproariously, as if his crush wasn’t about to board her kayak and start doing the death row. And as if he hadn’t told Phoenix to go here. “Well, enough playing around! It’s time to get back to it! There’s no excuse for slacking off when Maggey’s life is on the line, you know!”

           “You’re the one who sent me on an errand!” Phoenix snapped. He shut the door tightly behind him. The last thing he needed was Godot adding his two cents. Or, knowing his wordiness, his two dollars. And change. “Did you forget telling me to give Godot the coroner’s report? It was five minutes ago!”

           “What? Why would I do that?” Gumshoe paused a second, creaky and rusty gears churning in his brain. Maya made demonstrative kissy noises. “Oh, yeah! Did you read it out to him?”

           Phoenix was going to have a fucking aneurysm. “Is there some reason why Prosecutor Godot is incapable of doing his own work? I’m already doing half the prosecutor’s job in the courtroom anyway!”

           “Some reason? Uh, yeah.” Gumshoe scratched the back of his neck, quirking an eyebrow. “It’s not exactly as if he can read the thing, you know.”

           “Oh my god,” Maya whispered, “he really can’t read.”

           Pearl’s eyes were brimming with tears. “A lawyer who can’t read…he’s so brave!”

           “Brave is one word for it,” Phoenix said flatly. How could he have ever been scared of this guy? No imouto, no literacy…the only thing impressive about him was how he’d even gotten this far. “It’s not my problem if Godot dropped out of fourth grade. He’s giving me enough problems, tell him to solve his own.”

           For some reason, Gumshoe outright glared at Phoenix. Phoenix was getting used to his misplaced ire over Xirneohp, but what did Maggey have to do with this? If anything, he should be thanking Phoenix for refusing to help the competition. “That’s out of line, pal! Haven’t you heard of basic human decency?”

           “In a courtroom? No.”

           “He’s got you there,” Maya said wisely. “When Nick’s putting the ‘Nick’ in ‘panicked’, then he can do some pretty sketchy stuff –“

           “And you call me the narc?!”

           “The courtroom doesn’t matter.” Gumshoe was still scowling at Phoenix. Of course it’s only Phoenix who gets treated like this. Edgeworth insults Gumshoe all day and he’s still his biggest fan. “I told you specifically to read out the autopsy report so Prosecutor Godot could record it into his PDA. Then he always labels it with that funny little label maker of his. You gotta get your ears cleaned out, pal.”

           Phoenix turned to Maya and Pearl, silently pleading for backup. Gumshoe was making Phoenix doubt his own sanity. Normally he just made Phoenix think he was losing it.

           But Maya just looked tragically disappointed in him. “Nick…you didn’t even let Godot label it with his funny little label maker?”

           Desperately, Phoenix rounded on Pearl. He was ready to fake tears. But Pearl just looked ready to whale on him with her little fists. “How could you, Mr. Nick? I didn’t get to see Mr. Godot’s cassette recorder! I’ve always wanted to touch one!”

           “Ah, Prosecutor Godot’s things are always super fun to touch!” At least Gumshoe looked sufficiently cheered up. “His bumpy labels make no sense to me, but I think they’re super cool. Like a secret code or something. But Prosecutor Godot always dumps coffee on my head when I mess around with them…makes me put ‘em back in order, then he says I’m doing it wrong, and…I won’t say I miss the whip, but prosecutors can be so rough sometimes.”

           Wait. Hold on a minute. Several different small pieces clicked into place, and Phoenix’s familiar trusty intuition began to churn its gears. Phoenix raised one finger, and Gumshoe instinctively ducked. “Detective…that label maker wouldn’t happen to be a Braille label maker, would it?”

           Gumshoe brightened, nodding voraciously. Then he apparently remembered he was angry at Phoenix, and started scowling instead. “Yeah, that’s what he called it! And I’ve just caught ya in a contradiction, pal! You said I didn’t tell you about the bumpy label maker. But you obviously knew what it was, didn’t you? You really were lacking human decency on purpose, weren’t you!”

           Cool. Phoenix wished he was dead.

  Both girls looked at Phoenix immediately, correctly deducing the return of his consistent suicidality but uncertain of the cause. Phoenix pinched the bridge of his nose, hard. “Braille is an alphabet for the blind. You read it by feeling little bumps with your fingers. Apparently Prosecutor Godot is some level of blind. And apparently nobody saw fit to tell us this.”

“Did we gotta?” Gumshoe asked blankly. “Mr. Godot doesn’t like talking about it.”

“Yes, you gotta! Now I look like some kind of - you know!”

Sure enough, Maya was giving him the most judgmental look he’d ever seen. Her face when full-ass adult Maximillian admitted that he had asked a sixteen year old to marry him was nothing in comparison. “You were bullying the blind, Nick? I can’t believe you!”

What was it, bully Phoenix for something that was not his fault week? “It’s his fault for not saying anything -”

“Victim blaming?!”

“I thought he was just being an as - jerk again! It’s not exactly out of character!”

“Ableism,” Maya denounced. Phoenix drooped. “I can’t believe it. I expected better from you, Nick.”

“I’m literally ADHD, don’t give me this -”

“Who isn’t autistic?” Maya said frankly. “That doesn’t count.”

“Plenty of people in this world are neurotypical, Maya.” 

He’d had to explain this multiple times. Sometimes she even made him doubt himself. It wasn’t as if he knew neurotypical people. The people in Phoenix’s life either knew they were neurodivergent or thought that normal people were the freak. Most fell into the later category. Unfortunately. Lana wasn’t winning sister of the year, but Ema’s diagnosis and Ritalin prescription was probably his sole link to sanity during that case. Phoenix had a conspiracy theory that Gumshoe plus Ritalin would produce a shockingly competent person. Like everybody else on the prosecutor’s side, he had no idea.

There was no way Edgeworth knew he was autistic, but Phoenix was softening him up for the revelation. He had to take it slow. Couldn’t afford for him to run off to the Philippines to find himself and then come home acting as if he invented autism. Again. Like he did with homosexuality. Shut up about the German discotheques, Edgeworth!

“Mr. Godot is blind?” Pearl gasped. Horrifically, Phoenix was relieved that she knew what blind people were. “Is that why he couldn’t read? And you made fun of him! That’s bullying, Mr. Nick!”

This was a thousand times worse coming from Pearl. “I wouldn’t say I made fun of him,” Phoenix said evasively. “If anything, I really think he’s been bullying me.” This did not impress Maya and Pearl, who somehow only looked more disappointed in him. Phoenix began to sweat. “I got nothing against the disabled, guys. They’re - like, they’re fine! Some of my best friends are -”

“Autism doesn’t count,” Maya said frostily. “You’ll never get your Disability Awareness and Inclusion Girl Scout badge at this rate, Nick.”

“I - am I a nine year old girl now? Seriously?”

Pearl straightened, eyes widening. “I’m a nine year old girl!” Phoenix gestured towards her, emphasizing the handful of differences between them. Gumshoe nodded vigorously. “Can I get a disability aware badge? I’m aware of disabled people!” Left unsaid: unlike Phoenix, apparently. Yet another difference between him and nine year old girls.

“You aren’t a Girl Scout,” Phoenix said, exhausted. “If that’s something you’re interested in, we can sign you up -”

“Girl Scouts! That’s a great idea. I was a Girl Scout way back when. It was awfully rewarding.” Gumshoe gave Pearl a big thumbs up, as if he hadn’t casually dropped the most insane bomb of all time and promptly moved on. “You’re probably overqualified for the Legal Expert and Fortune Teller badges. You could really make it!”

That was it. They had lost her. Pearl rolled her sleeves up, puffing out her chest with pride, and before Phoenix could react she had already turned around and pushed the lobby doors open. They swung open with a theatrical flair, revealing -

Godot, just on the other side of the doors. Judging by his somewhat harried look and unbalanced stance, he had also just barely managed to avoid door-to-face impact. Or, more likely, door-to-visor impact. 

Pearl either didn’t notice or didn’t care. She jabbed a finger at Godot, who still seemed dazed from the unintentional assault. “I’m taking your case, Mr. Godot! I’ll be your co-counsel! I’ll find you innocent of all charges - um, not that!”

“I lost all innocence a long time ago,” Godot said darkly. He pushed past them, flagrantly brushing off everybody. “If you wish to scout for something, scout for that. It ought to distract you from standing around and wasting time with meaningless gossip.”

Phoenix winced. He didn’t seem very happy. But he never really did - cheerful and amused, frequently, but almost never actually happy. “Uh, hey, man. I’m really sorry about - in my defense, you were actively hiding it -”

“Classic defense attorney,” Maya announced. “Always defending himself!”

“Mr. Edgeworth says that the attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client,” Pearl said helpfully, blissfully unaware of that one time Phoenix had to defend himself against a murder charge. Edgeworth had known. Obviously. 

“Save your pity, Trite. Save it for the courtroom. So you can pity yourself.” Godot held up one hand, not even bothering to aim it in Phoenix’s direction. “Out of all of your victims, of course you would pity yourself the most.”

“Dude,” Phoenix said, “did I, like, ghost you the morning after or something? I’m sorry about it, but becoming a lawyer because I didn’t text you back is a little weird.”

“A little weird?” Gumshoe said, baffled. “That’s a crazy accusation, Wright. Who would become a whole lawyer because of a guy?” Phoenix looked at the ceiling. Godot coughed. “I don’t like the sound of that cough, pal.”

“For whom does the bell toll, Detective?” Godot said. Maya looked actively distressed as she attempted and failed to decipher what the fuck he meant by that. “I’ll see you all in court. Prepare yourselves. I don’t intend on losing to the likes of you.”

He turned on his heel, striding down the hallway and escaping them all as quickly as possible. Pearl gasped, and she immediately let go of Maya’s hand so she could set off barrelling down the hallway. “Hold on! Wait for me, Mr. Godot!”

Godot didn’t look back. But he did slow until Pearl caught up, and when she shoved her little hand in his large one he didn’t pull away. 

Gumshoe scratched his chin. Maya squinted at the departing duo, obviously wondering how Godot knew where to take a left turn at the hallway. Phoenix made a mental note of it too. For a blind guy, he was really familiar with the courthouse…which meant that Phoenix’s mistake was perfectly reasonable! Anybody would make it! “Just double checkin’. You two are actually cool with sending off a little girl with the sketchiest grown man ever? Completely unsupervised and stuff?”

What, seriously? Phoenix and Maya glanced at each other before shrugging. “If you can’t trust your coworkers,” Maya intoned seriously, “you can’t trust anybody. Nobody’s more trustworthy than a real lawyer.”

“And Edgeworth recommended him,” Phoenix pointed out. “Good enough for me. The state of California would never have certified him as a defense attorney if he wasn’t trustworthy.”

“That doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know enough about the law to dispute it,” Gumshoe said cheerfully, displaying a chain of logic that had proven extremely convenient for Phoenix over the years. Maya had once tricked Gumshoe into letting them into a crime scene by pretending that there was a legal holiday once a year where every law and police procedure was inverted. “Don’t we got a trial to hit, anyway?”

“Shit!”

Pearl’s inaugural performance as the prosecution’s co-counsel/imouto went off without a hitch. Phoenix couldn’t be prouder of her efforts. She played her part perfectly: from the well-timed timed motivational encouragements to tension-relieving funny quips, she was a natural. Her only experience co-counseling with Phoenix had been very stressful for her, so Phoenix was happy to see her shine with confidence. Pearl Fey was truly suited for villainy.

She even went above and beyond into the role of personal assistant imouto. She carefully managed the presented evidence, holding up the right photograph or blood-stained object for the purview of the court. Pearl read out any written reports, described the evidence that Phoenix presented, and reported on any notable body language. Phoenix wasn’t sure if Godot knowing that ‘the Defense looks like you ate the last onigiri he was saving for lunch…’ was remotely helpful, but it was cute. Godot better realize how lucky he was to have such a top-quality imouto at his side today. It confused the judge, but what didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” the judge said, as Pearl carefully withdrew a generic white coffee mug from a large box underneath the table. Seemingly…filled with more mugs.  “Doesn’t that little girl belong to the Defense?”

“The Defense is loaning her out today,” Phoenix said seriously. Pearl began wrangling a coffee pot the size of her head. “Don’t worry, it’s not a conflict of interest.”

“I see!” Pearl carefully tipped the large pot into the white mug. It spilled everywhere, but coffee was poured. “And what is a ‘conflict of interest’?”

“Obscure old legal term. Don’t worry about it.” Pearl reached over the table and attempted to slide the mug towards Godot, as the unlucky draftee from the audience always did. He just pointed at a random pot in the crowd and told somebody that they were in charge of his coffee today. Terribly unorganized way to do things. 

“Watch it, you senile old man. The Defense is distracting you with outdated legal concepts. Focus on the most important aspect of this case!” Why was only the prosecution allowed to insult the judge! Why were they the only ones allowed to get away with that! Seriously unfair! As if Phoenix didn’t want to strangle the judge with his own two hands too?!

The mug scooted forward a little, but barely moved. Pearl scowled and tried again, sliding the mug forward a few inches and sloshing coffee over the side again. Pearl huffed in frustration before carefully cupping her hand around the mug and pushing it forward as she walked down the table. 

Godot cupped his hand on the table and let Pearl push the cup into his hand. Then he slammed the table, throwing his head back and chugging the entire mug of steaming hot coffee in one go. He slammed the mug back on the table. Pearl carefully retrieved it. 

“The fact that the old man and this fake Frenchman saw the accused put poison in the cup!” Godot announced. “That’s one fact that can’t be denied! Not by a reliable witness!”

Pearl clapped. Godot patted her on the head. Phoenix groaned.

Phoenix got his way - as usual - by the skin of his teeth - as usual. He was going to have a heart attack before he was thirty at this rate. Phoenix and Maya waited in the courtroom lobby for almost fifteen minutes before Pearl finally came running up to them. She was beaming, cheeks flushed red with pride. 

“Great job out there today, Pearl!” Maya cheered, clapping her hands. Yeah - a little too good. Godot’s performance in court was way smoother than last time. Maybe he was just getting his sea legs, but Phoenix never underestimated the power of young girls pursuing merit badges. “Are you ready to go home?”

“Nuh-uh! Mr. Godot said he’s gonna take me out for ice cream!” Pearl thrust her hand out, shining the biggest, wettest gaze directly into his eyes. “Can I have money for ice cream, Nick? Please?”

“Typically speaking, when you take people out for food, you’re the one paying,” Phoenix said flatly. “Mr. Godot’s on a prosecutor’s salary and I’m representing a waitress. He can pay.” 

“Mr. Godot doesn’t get paid,” Pearl said frankly. “He said he does it for the love of the game.”

This was somehow the most surprising thing he’d heard all day and completely predictable. 

Maya frowned, tilting her head. It was a gesture he’d seen in Mia a thousand times. Even after all this time, Maya still hurt him in those little ways. “Prosecutors get paid by the government. How do you legally work for the government and not get paid?”

“Maybe he’s a volunteer?” Phoenix suggested. “People volunteer at places, right? Like…in zoos?”

“That makes sense!” Maya said brightly, clapping her hands together. “Zoos, a court of law…what’s the difference, right?”

“After we’re done with it, not much.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t meet the parrot,” Pearl said, crushed by the immovable weight of the world’s injustices. “I wanted to make friends. We have so much in common.”

Maya sympathetically patted Pearl’s back. “You do! You’re both so good at imitating voices! Maybe one day Phoenix can cross-examine you too, huh?”

Nope. No. No way! “Not happening. I’ve accused every imouto I’ve ever had of murder on the stand. Pearl’s merciless enough, we can’t take that chance. She wouldn’t make it a day in prison.” 

“Sounds like a you problem,” Maya said, unimpressed. “Godot would never accuse an imouto of murder. He’s a bro like that.”

“He’s a prosecutor, it’s not his job -”

“Apparently being a prosecutor isn’t his job either.”

“You’d make an unemployed man pay for my ice cream?” Pearl demanded. “For shame, Mr. Phoenix Wright!”

Phoenix sighed and pulled out his wallet. He didn’t know why he wasted time pretending this wasn’t going to happen. Pity he wasn’t in the habit of accepting the inevitable. His life would be a lot easier.

[tyramir]

My Thoughts on Veilguard

I've finished the game, and as a longtime Dragon Age fan, these are my (spoiler free) thoughts.

It's good. It's not great. It wasn't worth the ten year wait.

Veilguard is a semi-climax in terms of lore building across three games. There are mysteries that have been resolved and paid off. Long asked questions have been answered. We know so many things we didn't know before, and there's satisfaction in the knowing.

This is where Veilguard succeeds the best at, in my opinion. The big picture.

Where it fails is in the execution. In the little things. While lore is paid off in the grand gestures, it almost feels spat on in the small ones. It's tiny things, little inconsistencies that feel like nitpicks, but they build up fast. The breaking point for me was one character chanting an incantation while casting a spell. Since when does Dragon Age magic require incantations? The answer? Never. Do your homework, please. I know you're trying to build drama into your scene, but the complete lore break took me out of it. It was so jarring and unneeded and kind of lazy.

And that's what a lot of the writing feels like in this game. Lazy. And all respect to Trick Weekes and their team. They've done great things in the past. But the writing in this game clearly doesn't trust its audience to draw its own conclusions about anything. It is constantly trying to feed you an opinion to have, both in what characters say to your Rook, and in the dialogue options Rook is presented. I know by and large that you're going to have limited dialogue options as a consequence of budget and technical issues, but certain issues presented are very nuanced, and the dialogue tends to feel, "You think this is good", "You think this is bad," "You think this is sad," or "I have a quippy sarcastic comment about this that does not require me to commit to an opinion one way or the other." And while it works for the first half of the game... it doesn't work for the back half.

I don't know about anyone else, but the romance storyline I pursued felt... short. As if it were added in as an afterthought. As if someone said, "Well, I guess we're known as the horny RPG franchise, so we have to include something."

A lot of people come to Bioware for the interpersonal relationships, both romantic and not, between characters. And both romantic and platonic, this felt like the weakest entry in the series in a lot of respects. I feel like there was more growth between the friendship of Lucanis and Davrin than there was between Rook and any given party member.

A lot of narrative arcs didn't do it for me. At all. I found Neve's entire plotline and character very phoned in. I was excited at the idea of a Mage Detective in Tevinter, looking to protect the little guy. She was presented, on-paper, as a clever and passionate mage who defies what it means to be one in a country that very much believes in magical supremacy. It's probably because of my expectations. I wanted Harry Dresden. Instead, I got ... Neve.

I understand there is party banter that explains why Neve wears high fashion outfits when she comes from a poor neighbourhood, working jobs for people who have little to no way of paying her. But why is her voice actor also presenting her as very posh? Why is this woman throwing around sacks of coins to overpay for her lunch, and not scrounging for loose change in cushions at the Lighthouse? Why is she presented as highly educated and well-spoken, and not a street-savvy, 'I learned from experience and have great intuition but poor grammar' gumshoes?

And then there's Taash. I am not going to be one of those dudebros who cries about woke culture. Or at least, I hope I do not come off that way. But Taash, written personally by Trick Weekes, was so clumsy and hamfisted, and I am left disappointed. I romanced Taash, and I am disappointed with their character arc. Because it is so painfully generic. It couldn't have played into cliches harder if it tried. I wanted more. Taash does have a personality beyond being non-binary. But they don't have a character arc beyond that.

Expectations, I guess. I went into Veilguard with a lot of them, and they came up short.

I like this game. I swear, I do. But Inquisition came out when I had an Xbox 360, and was just about to get an XBox One. It's been so long since Inquisition, we have an entire generation of consoles in between releases. I expected a masterpiece. And I did not get one.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Clearing Up Some Confusion: Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is Not Powered by the Apocalypse

There has been a little confusion cropping up here and there regarding our game Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and its relationship to the Powered by the Apocalypse system, A.K.A. PbtA, which we would like to hopefully clear up in this post.

PbtA is a very popular system for indie RPGs lately, it’s safe to say most of the indie RPGs we see cross our dashboard use it, in fact, and since Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is an indie RPG that also happens to use 2D6+Modifier dice rolls, we can see where this assumption might come from. However, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is not a PbtA game, nor is it a ‘hack’ of any other game. It is an original from-the-ground-up system that uses 2D6+Modifier because 2D6+Modifier is just a very good way to roll dice. It’s very predictable, and dice results that are randomized yet still predictable are beneficial both for players playing the game and for us designing the game.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually does take inspiration from other games, even PbtA games like Monster of the Week—though in Monster of the Week’s case, that “inspiration” often took the form of doing the opposite of what Monster of the Week does, because we actually found MotW far too restrictive and limiting in its character creation and other elements for the kind of game we wanted to play—but also Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Gumshoe, Shadowrun, AD&D2e, etc, both in the “do what they do” and “do the opposite of what they do” sense. In fact, if your TTRPG doesn’t take inspiration from a good number of other TTRPGs, that’s probably a pretty bad sign.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy also takes a great deal of inspiration from non-TTRPG sources, some of which are probably pretty obvious and some of which might surprise you, such as Blood(1997) and Warhammer 40,000(the tabletop wargame specifically, not so much the lore). Other inspirations include but are not limited to: Kolchak: The Nightstalker, The X-Files, XCOM(the reboots, not so much the originals), Columbo, Hardboiled, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Scooby-doo, too many horror movies to list, etc.

That got a little off-topic, but this is supposed to be a promotional post for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy as well, after all—plus, I get excited.

Anyway, the point of this post is that the 2D6+Modifier dice system is where the similarities between Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and the PbtA system end.

To elaborate, here are some—but not all—of the biggest differences:

No “Classes” or “Playbooks”

All PCs in Eureka draw from the same list of Skills, and spread their skillpoints around them how they see fit; as well as a collection of 3 gameplay-altering Traits that can be mixed and matched in any way, rather than being a set collection of “moves” or “class features”. This does not mean that all PCs are the same, Traits can make them vary wildly in how they play mechanically.

There are what could be considered two or three “categories” of PC in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy(Mundane, Mage, and Monster), but these are not “classes” or “playbooks” in any way, they mostly determine what lists of Traits the PC gets to draw from, and due to the wildly gameplay-altering nature of these Traits, two Monster PCs in Eureka are likely to be far less similar to each other than two PCs both using The Monstrous playbook in Monster of the Week, and far less similar to each other than two Fighters in D&D.

Making Multiple Rolls per Scene

In PbtA games, it is fairly common for a single dice roll and a single “move” to dictate the outcome of an entire “scene”. In Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, this is not the case. PCs may make multiple rolls of different Skills or multiple subsequent rolls of the same Skill within a single “encounter” or “scene”.

NPCs Make Rolls Too

That brings us to our third big difference for this post, the fact that NPCs also make rolls. In most PbtA games, NPCs do not make rolls, only the PCs do, but in Eureka, that is not the case. NPC stat blocks are not as robust as PC stat blocks, but they do still make rolls in the same manner the PCs do, especially in combat, which brings us to the last point I’m going to make in this post because I’m running out of time.

Deep, Intricate Combat Rules

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is not a combat-focused game by any means, the party will probably only get into 1-2 skirmishes across an entire mystery, but when those skirmishes do happen, they will be played out using deep, tactical combat rules with multiple types of attacks and combat moves, including mechanical crunch for things like positioning and cover, multiple types of damage, environmental damage and effects, etc.

All of this should be telling you that Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is not only entirely different in its core systems, but also an overall crunchier and less improvisational-ruling system than PbtA, with tons of freedom in its character creation as well as plenty of rules and guidelines to help GMs make fair and realistic resolutions on the fly. That is not to say that Eureka is a complicated TTRPG, nearly everything in the game runs off the same core 2D6 system, making it very easy to learn and memorize—the rules crunch just means that if the outcome or appropriate modifier of a roll is not immediately obvious, you can rest assured that you can find a solid answer or at least a guideline with just a quick flip through the rulebook, either during or after the session, whatever is your preference.

[rjjameshiii]

RJ's Platinum Collection #30: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Achieved on 6/9/2023 at 10:00 PM

You ever have a fandom that you found, became part of, and became completely obsessed with, even though you haven't ever actually watched the show or played the game that the fandom belongs to?

Yeah, for me, that was Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

I stumbled across some fan art of Phoenix and Edgeworth and from there I got totally hooked. I read a lot of fanfiction, wrote some even hehe, and I read a lot of the lore and backstory. So I decided eventually that, why not buy the trilogy and get the Phoenix Wright Platinum? And let me tell you, these games are fun!....but the trophies are the tiniest bit annoying.

Obviously this game is made of three separate Phoenix Wright games, so it made the most sense to start with the first game. Also, the first trophy I got was for just starting one of the games. Somehow less than 100% of players had this trophy. How on EARTH do you buy this game but somehow avoid getting the trophy you get for STARTING THE GAME?

Whatever.

1/31: First Steps - Start playing the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy.

The first game is definitely the best out of all of them. Ace Attorney is a classic. Also, my parents are both lawyers, so it was a lot of fun to see how completely inaccurate it was, hee hee.

I tried to play the game as blindly as possible, so I could try to solve all the cases and win my clients an Innocent verdict all on my own merit. However, I did look up how to get the miscellaneous trophies that you can get in each game - for example, there are three in the first game - and I will be honest and say that I did keep a guide open on my computer in case I got stuck and couldn't figure out how to proceed.

2/31: Please Turn In Your Badge - Answer "Mia Fey" when asked who the defendant is.

3/31: The First Turnabout - Clear Episode 1 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

4/31: Turnabout Sisters - Clear Episode 2 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

5/31: Turnabout Samurai - Clear Episode 3 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

6/31: Secret Weapons Three - Borrow all of Gumshoe's "secret weapons".

7/31: Turnabout Goodbyes - Clear Episode 4 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

In the fifth and final episode of the first game, there was one trophy that I was a little annoyed by, and that is the trophy for getting Angel Starr to offer you every single lunch box she had to sell. I absolutely needed a guide for this, as Angel only offers you certain lunchboxes if you choose certain answers, and as episodes in these games are VERY long, I did not want to replay them. Sue me.

8/31: Lunchbox Specialist - Check out every lunchbox Angel Starr has to offer.

Out of the three games I played for this platinum, the first game was the only one in which I thoroughly enjoyed all five cases. The original Phoenix Wright game is definitely the best of them all.

9/31: Rise from the Ashes - Clear Episode 5 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Now onto the second game, Justice for All. Now, JFA is not a bad game, but I definitely liked it the least out of the three games. Franziska is an amazing prosecutor; I was very happy she was introduced in this game. However, out of the four episodes, I really only enjoyed the second and fourth episodes. The first episode annoyed me, and the third episode was so convoluted and confusing that I ended up using a guide for almost the entire episode. JFA is the middle game of the trilogy, and it's definitely the most "mid" of them.

10/31: Mind Your Own Business, Pal! - Press Gumshoe about "They were even talking about marriage!".

11/31: The Lost Turnabout - Clear Episode 1 of Justice for All.

12/31: Um, Lotta Hair, Was It? - Reply with "Lotta Hair" when talking to Lotta.

13/31: Reunion and Turnabout - Clear Episode 2 of Justice for All.

14/31: Naruhodo A. Wrighto - Present Max's profile to Maya.

15/31: Turnabout Big Top - Clear Episode 3 of Justice for All.

16/31: Judge Wackner - Press Oldbag's claim that "It was the Nickel Samurai that I saw!".

One thing to make sure to do is to purposefully get the bad ending of the game in the final case. Don't worry, once the bad ending is over, the game gives you the option to go back to the trial and choose the correct choice. With that, I finished the second game and only had one more game left to play for the Platinum.

17/31: Justice Ill Served - Get the bad ending for Justice for All.

18/31: Farewell, My Turnabout - Clear Episode 4 of Justice for All.

Now for the third game, Trials & Tribulations. I actually LOVE this game. It doesn't have quite the same charm as the first game, but it DEFINITELY is a huge improvement over the second game. I especially love how you get to play as characters other than Phoenix - the first episode is a flashback that has you playing as his deceased mentor Mia Fey, while our favorite prosecutor Miles Edgeworth gets the spotlight for a bit in the final episode. Same as the first two games, I played while making sure to get the miscellaneous trophies and using a guide when I got stuck.

19/31: Beware Your Honor! - Press Dahlia's claim that "Feenie pushed him twice".

20/31: Turnabout Memories - Clear Episode 1 of Trials & Tribulations.

21/31: Smells Like Oldbag - Examine everything with even a whiff of Oldbag on it.

22/31: The Stolen Turnabout - Clear Episode 2 of Trials & Tribulations.

23/31: Violetta's Home-Made Donuts - Get a donut offered to Phoenix by Violetta.

The third game did, unfortunately, have my least favorite trophy of the entire trilogy. It's similar to the lunchbox trophy from the first game, in that you have to get the character of Jean Armstrong to use all of his questionably legitimate French words that you can get out of his dialogue. Doing this requires you to do things like answer questions incorrectly or answer a question the same multiple times, so a guide was absolutely necessary.

The reason I hate this trophy is because Jean Armstrong is the worst character in the game, I hate him, and I wish I didn't have to speak to him so damn much. Grr. Fuck you Jean.

24/31: Jean's Foreign Language Course - Learn all of Jean Armstrong's fancy foreign words.

25/31: Recipe for Tournabout - Clear Episode 3 of Trials & Tribulations.

26/31: Turnabout Beginnings - Clear Episode 4 of Trials & Tribulations.

27/31: I Hate Childhood Friends - As Edgeworth, hear all of his and Larry's childhood tales.

So something I haven't brought up yet is how you can have at least one or two optional conversations per game about what exactly constitutes a ladder or a step-ladder. It's a funny and classic running gag in the entire franchise, and I didn't even need a guide. All you have to do is make sure to click on any ladder-shaped object you see across all three games and you're sure to get this trophy.

28/31: Ladders Vs. Step-Ladders - Get every ladder vs. step-ladder conversation in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy.

And once I finished the final episode of the third game, which had some genuinely incredible plot twists I didn't even know about despite being in the fandom, I finished the trilogy and got me the Phoenix Wright Platinum!

29/31: Bridge to the Turnabout - Clear Episode 5 of Trials & Tribulations.

30/31: A Lawyer Only Cries Once It's All Over - Clear the entire Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy.

31/31: Ace Attorney Trilogy - Get all the trophies.

Phoenix Wright is one of my favorite characters of all time, and I greatly enjoyed getting to Platinum his original trilogy. The only reason I don't give this Platinum a 10/10 is because the second game just doesn't have the same effect as the other two games, and those two annoying trophies weren't fun.

Rating: 8/10

[purplemonkeypuppet]

watched italian restaurant elsbeth (s2e14 i think)

wild seeing elsbeth & co in the first like few seconds of the episode

of course elsbeth is gonna reopen some decades old case

love elsbeth not even being supposed to be there and she's just like "kaya! kaya!" and the cops are like oh that's elsbeth let her in

THE CONVERSATION WITH CONNOR AND WAGNER ABOUT KAYA JWHDKEIWGDGJ

connor advocating for kaya! wagner being a sentimental fuck (affectionate)! me realizing why kaya hasn't been promoted yet!

also connor and wagner really balance each other out well as captain and lieutenant damn

no way we're getting fleming lore. don't you make me care about buzz fleming

give me donnelly

anyways where were we. uh i don't have all that much to say about the whole mafia thing but i enjoyed it

no way roy is starting a true crime podcast

i'd break up with him too

that's a joke i love roy he's great and i'm happy he and elsbeth get along so well

it continues to be hilarious that elsbeth and judge guy are married irl

also wagner being cool enough to be able to pull off "you've made a powerful enemy, elsbeth" all dramatic like i love him

wait weren't goldie and pupetta part of the same mafia family? did she fuck her cousin? or am i just getting confused

cause i got confused about that part

oh also why did crawford want to block investigation into the moresco case anyways? just to annoy elsbeth?

how obvious is it that i'm here for the characters way more than the murder plots

like i'm not into procedurals or anything i was captivated specifically by elsbeth being not exactly like me but so much closer than any other character in anything ever

like she's brightly colored and excessively friendly and carries around way too much stuff AND she's smart and capable and mature?

for those of you who like ace attorney i've said before that i would not be any one aa character i'm more like if you put edgeworth kay and gumshoe in a blender and that's also elsbeth

i haven't watched the good wife and i don't particularly want to

i know i was just talking about how much i love elsbeth but if there's no kaya and wagner then what's the point

anyways this episode

i hope teddy and roy stay together :(

and i love how connor knows that kaya and elsbeth work really well together but also knows that they shouldn't hold kaya back

she deserves to be a detective already! she's a freaking legend!

although like. are they actually gonna go through with that? this season?

i don't think this is what they're gonna do but it'd be funny as fuck if they made rivers be her new sidekick

wait or maybe roy? that'd be kinda wild

last but not least i'm a bit afraid to ask but uh. kayabeth shippers how are y'all doing?

[local-hyena]

...I hate this game series. It turns your brain inside out. It keeps suspense to its maximum untill the very end. And then, it's the same process all over again, untill the end, were NOTHING MAKES SENSE but at the same time, everything's a genius move. I love this game series.

It was really nice to play as Edgeworth, and even nicer to actually investigate and walk around. The new mechanics were very interesting too. Logic and deducing from the crime scenes, Little Thief...

The new characters were awesome too ! My favorites are probably Lang and Kay, but I like Detective Badd too. And of course, Gumshoe is here !! All the time !! Woohoo !!!

Also. Edgeworth. You are allowed to say "Phoenix Wright", it's okay.

What I really liked about this game is the continuity of the story : every case felt like it added to the final objective, which wasn't always the case of the other 4 games (even though they DID give clues for the final mystery, I feel like Investigation's cases were more tied together with the smuggling ring).

The story gave us much Steel Samurai lore too. Edgeworth is shown being a steel samaniac on all his splendor. Never thought he'd be the type to gatekeep, but seeing the other guy it was valid lmao.

However I absolutly HATE Yew's "objection". Like, what is that ??? There's no emotion ! The sound quality is so bad too ?? Why ? I don't understand ??

Also, ending the game with a Scooby-Doo reference was... a choice. It made me laugh. A way to relieve tension after all the events I suppose.

I CAN'T WAIT TO PLAY ACE ATTORNEY INVESTIGATIONS 2, however I think I'll take a little break, for the sake of my mental health.

My brain is in shambles

[twistedtummies2]

Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 9

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “How do you think this all works? By being big and being bad.”

Number 9 is…Bigby Wolf, from The Wolf Among Us.

“The Wolf Among Us” is a video game made by the now-defunct developers Telltale Games. The game was based on the comic series “Fables.” I’m going to come right out and say it: I have never read the comics, and I have basically no real knowledge of them or how the characters and lore in them may differ from the established points in “The Wolf Among Us.” HOWEVER, very thankfully, the game is able to stand up on its own two feet regardless, and so are its characters, so even someone who has basically no knowledge of the source material can still enjoy it.

The game is a sort of choose-your-own-adventure sort of deal; a point-and-click adventure where the player’s choices every step of the way affect how the story plays out, the kinds of relationships you form with other characters, and so on. Some choices are more important than others, but virtually every choice of note is worth pondering. The plot is a combo of film noir crime story and dark fantasy: it takes place in a world where various characters from the world of fiction, after their universe was mysteriously destroyed, have fled to the “real” world in order to seek refuge. They’ve established their own city, called “Fabletown,” where real world problems combine with fantastical adventures, as they struggle to build new lives and survive in this different universe, and hide their identities from the “normies” who exist beyond the borders of the city.

The main character is Sheriff Bigby Wolf. Bigby, as you may have guessed from his name and the title, is the Big Bad Wolf of fairy-tale infamy himself. In the world of the game, Bigby is a werewolf, who can transform from a human to increasingly more wolf-like forms, his true and ultimate form being a GIGANTIC feral beast bigger than elephant, able to create hurricane-force winds with his breath alone, and more than capable of swallowing a person whole. Needless to say, with this kind of setup, and his reputation as one of the greatest, most archetypal villains in history, Bigby isn’t exactly a popular Sheriff. Many fear or distrust him, and those that don’t typically still keep their distance for one reason or another.

Because of the playstyle of Telltale games, Bigby’s exact personality can shift depending on the choices the player makes: he can be sort of a gentle giant, who looks rugged and tough but really isn’t that bad. In contrast, he can be much more morally and ethically dubious, an anti-hero closer to Dirty Harry, who walks a very fine line between a man and a monster. However, regardless of the choices you make, a few things remain constant: Bigby’s general demeanor is that of an almost stereotypical noir-style detective. He’s gruff, grumpy, coarse, and can’t seem to go five seconds without having a cigarette. He’s often cynical and sarcastic, very much the sardonic hard-boiled sleuth. The character is voiced by Adam Harrington, and he does a phenomenal job giving Bigby the airs of such a great archetype, while also injecting vulnerability and sympathy into his portrayal.

The most notable constant of all, however, is Bigby’s motivations: even if you make him especially nasty, it’s usually pretty clear that this Big Bad Wolf is racked with guilt over his past. He knows the stigma that hangs over him is VERY well-deserved, and he legitimately wants to try and help people and make things better. Even when he makes questionable decisions, the majority of them are still justifiable in some fashion or another. He doesn’t want to be seen as the bad guy anymore, he wants to try and start a new life. It’s up to the player to determine if Bigby is truly able to put away the vicious, cruel, beastly sides of his personality and turn over a new leaf, or if his efforts and desires are all in vain.

Even though Telltale officially closed down in 2018, the first game was so popular that it was eventually revived for an upcoming sequel, made by the remnants of the Telltale staff with help from AdHoc Studios. The new game is set to release sometime this year, though no official release date has been given. Whenever it arrives, I look forward to seeing how Bigby’s story continues, and what new paths and new cases will await him in the future.

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 8!

CLUE: “Just one more thing…”

[the-bar-sinister]

Have you played the AA Investigations games? If yes, what did you think of them? Sadly I was only able to play for myself the first one (I couldn't make the translation patch for the second one work :( ), and let's just say that the novelty of playing as Edgeworth wore off quickly lol. The second one was much more ambitious with some stellar character arcs and a memorable final villain, but of course it's still stuck in "only in Japan" limbo...

Yes! We played both Investigations, and Investigations 2 (fan patch) about 10 years ago. Currently, we're in the middle of watching a letsplay/fandub of the games because uh, yeah. We're not going to play through them again. They're the worst 'games'-- NOT the worst stories– in the AA series.

I definitely can't blame you for saying the novelty wore off quickly. Investigations has some serious flaws as a game and in structure. Which is an absolute shame, because the characters and stories are some of my favorites.

I absolutely adore Detective Badd, Agent Lang, Shih-Nah, and Kay Faraday from the first game, and Sebastian Debeste and Justine Courtney from the second game are some of my favorite characters in the whole series.

It's also absolutely fantastic to get to see more of Miles and Gumshoe together. I just love them as a mystery solving pair. They have such delightful energy. It probably helps that I'm a gumworth shipper from way back of course XD

But frankly, the fantastic characters, interesting worldbuilding and good stories absolutely can't save the Investigations series from its faults.

Problems with Ace Attorney Investigations

the need for the narrative to telegraph to the player how to solve problems, and forcing the player to painstakingly go through each of Miles' thought processes as a game mechanic has the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of making the player feel clever it makes Miles Edgeworth seem, very, very stupid and slow.

logic chess (from the second game) is agonizing. It's a great character bit for Egdeworth, having him conceive every logical problem as a chess problem, but its a fucking agonizing game mechanic.

circular reasoning. Every case is way too long, and it goes around in circles. I feel like this is a result of the "trial" phases being outside the court and thus having no real mediator. It's very true to life because people are going to "nu-uh" for as long as they can, but, realistic or not, t's agonizing to explain the same things to characters over and over and over.

connected to the above, all of the cases are too long, and also some of the logical leaps that the games expect you to make are some of the worst in the series. From Apollo Justice onward the games got a lot better about having a clear line of logic for where you're supposed to present evidence. Investigations and investigations 2 are just fucking guesswork.

So yeah while I definitely think these games are fantastic lore and character wise and worth experiencing, they are absolutely aggravating to play. My personal suggestion for anyone who wants to experience them is to pick a lets play/walkthrough video of their favorite variety (commentary, dub, no commentary) and enjoy them without having to worry about the terrible fucking gameplay.

[angrybatart]

WIP

Got an idea for my own seasonal spirit group while listening to Peggy Lee sing Ghost Riders in the Sky. Sooo, obviously cowboy themed. I only have one more guy to add to the drawing, but I'm trying to figure out where to put him and trying to make them look as good as I imagined. Also need to change the Manta Tamer's (temporary name) look because he's starting to look too much like Gumshoe.

Also need to look up outfits to go with the hats.

Quick character lore!

Manta Tamer (temporary name)

- 👪 Somewhat of an introvert, unless around his friends/siblings (adopted siblings)

- 😻 Loves animals to the point of info dumping about them (without realizing it)

- 😰 Worries that Krill Wrangler (not pictured) is too much of a daredevil

- 👊 Will fight if he has to

Bowler Hat Spirit (no official name yet)

- 💪 Acts as the big sister of the group; everyone looks up to her

- 🕯 Knows the best, and easiest, candle banks to rob

More to come as I work on this.

[a-hoomin-kirby]

I’m so sorry but I don’t have any art of Victoria!! 😭😭 but I’ll give you some lore instead? As a exchange lol

She’s edgeworth’s bio daughter from a fling he had in college (when he was around eighteen ish to nineteen ish) don’t ask where the other parent is because edgeworth doesn’t know either! But he tries to keep her a close knitted secret since for obvious reasons it’d kinda be dangerous to be a prosecutors daughter publicly lol, the only people who know about her are Franzsika and gumshoe (and also my AA character that I ship with edgey but we aren’t talking about miskha rn)

Phoenix meets her in justice for all tho when she’s seven as he’s the one who has to take care of her after ya know and oh boy the girl is constantly glaring at him and constantly declaring she wants her aunt instead of the weirdo defense attorney, she’d also appear in the investigation games where she’s very high energy and attempting to help out her dad and Kay since she wants to be a prosecutor just like him…and miles is just gritting his teeth since he’s seen a child of an attorney wanting to be just like them before….so he’s going to stay far away from elevators and letting her in the courtrooms (which Phoenix actually already did so uh sorry miles)

Sorry I don’t have much for her rn but I’ll write more and give her a proper design some day lol

thamk you, eating this up and patting her and edgy on the head

also just love the idea of Phoenix and her like

“hey kidd—“

“AUNTIE GET HIM AWAY”

“PLEASE SHE SCARES ME ENOUGH ;-;”

[honourablejester]

VTM Character Concepts

Just a pair of Vampire: The Masquerade character concepts. I think these are both mostly classic VTM, because I haven’t really kept up with developments in the lore, but I was rewatching and rereading some things recently and figured it’d do no harm to doodle some VTM characters along with all the D&D and PF and Starfinder ones. Heh.

No Nosferatu this time. They are still my first and true clan, but I wanted to expand outwards a little bit, experiment with a couple of others.

Ventrue:

Deanna Fontaine, Ventrue PI. Deanna had the misfortune in her mortal days of getting in the way of a large criminal enterprise, and stubbornly refused to politely get back out of the way. To no one’s surprise, least of all her own, this refusal promptly resulted in her death. Rather more to her surprise, however, the head of the criminal organisation she had refused to bow to was a Kindred, a Ventrue, and he was deeply impressed by her integrity, even in the face of death. She woke in her shallow grave, and there was a very well-appointed car waiting for her outside the lot. Deanna promptly ignored it and made her own way into the night, ravenous and furious and not a little terrified. It took four months of near misses and near starvation in her attempts to survive on her own and understand her new condition on her own terms before her sire, who felt he had had been extremely patient, finally ran out of said patience and kidnapped her for a ‘discussion’.

The results were … mixed. The grudge for her mortal death runs deep, and her hatred for her sire’s criminal enterprises is still equally strong. Deanna died once for her convictions, and she will do so again, without a qualm. On a personal level, she despises the vampire who made her. However. As she got more of an introduction to the broader Kindred society, and the rules of her new world, while very aware of who was showing her that world and those rules, nonetheless some of her sire’s points did land with her. The Camarilla is a sect she broadly believes in, keeping the blood and the chaos away from the wider, more innocent world. And dignitas, while a part of her despises it for a mockery, the ‘appearance’ of virtue overriding all fact, another part of her does understand reputation, and the need to maintain it, and the need to repay your debts, and stick to your word, and to not damage someone without proof and cause. She’s not going to risk mortal lives to deal with him on a criminal level, and she’s not going to sow chaos among the monstrous to try and unseat him on a vampiric level, not until she knows full well what the consequences will be. She is not, and never was, a tabloid gumshoe. Do things the right way from the start, and don’t play petty games when there’s lives (or unlives, as the case may be) on the line. Die with your head high, and leave the cheap shots to the muckrakes. All things considered, while she does everything in her power to have as little to do with him as possible these days, her sire is still very pleased.

(Note: I do enjoy the Ventrue obsession with dignitas, and there’s a lot of room to play around with it in the contexts of mortal vs vampire morality, codes of honour, criminal codes of honour, and just general themes of what do you consider a compromise to your reputation, and what do you consider a compromise to your integrity, and do those two considerations match up. So. A criminal sire, and an upright childe, and he chose her because of that, and now she has to navigate personal questions of morals and honour and integrity and reputation in a much different and more monstrous milieu).

Gangrel:

Addie Thompson, ex-dockworker Gangrel autarkis. Addie’s had a hard life. Born to blue-collar parents, while Addie was decently intelligent and decently pretty, she was also always on the burly side. She did a lot of dead-end jobs as a teenager and young woman, but in the 1980s, when dock work was opened up to women in LA, the lure of better money enticed her to try her hand down at the port. Lots of her friends used to joke that if she’d been born forty years earlier, she could have been a model for Rosie the Riveter, so why not? The port wasn’t all that welcoming, though. To the point that when she was attacked one night while working out on her own, she was not remotely surprised. Of course, this wasn’t some disgruntled fellow docker. This was a monster, and it fully killed her. But no docker, male, female or otherwise, is going down without a fight, and Addie fought. Tooth, claw and whatever else she could fucking reach, all the way down. She didn’t win, obviously, or even survive, but her ferociousness did win her another sort of reward: the unlife of a Gangrel. A fairly typical embrace, as these things go. And a fairly typical aftermath: abandonment. It was up to Addie to prove she was worth the effort of instruction. She could have gone back to the city, made her way among easier hiding spots and easier prey, but Addie’d fought for her place down the docks. She’d fought for her place by the sea, so by the sea she stayed. A longshorewoman, not a sailor, but fuck it anyway. The coast was her territory. She stayed, and she survived. And maybe the next few women to try their hands down the docks had a slightly easier time of it, when the worst of their opponents tended to have accidents, and wind up vanishing, or floating in the water. But there’s only so long you can sustain that, and soon she had to move on, or risk being found and killed. And here’s maybe where her story wasn’t so typical. It wasn’t another Gangrel who found her and showed her a little bit more of this strange, fearsome new midnight world world she found herself part of. It was a Lasombra. A gun-runner with a private boat, who stumbled across Addie’s activities when the bodies in the water started to draw attention to her own doings. A beautiful demon of the deep, who found and became enchanted by this stocky, ferocious creature on the shore. And the feeling was, eventually, entirely mutual.

Addie Thompson is a wandering coastal Gangrel, a regular haunter of waterfronts up and down the coastline. She’s a rough, self-sufficient, no-nonsense survivor who has no patience for politics or any of the games of vampires. She goes where she wants when she wants, and kills anyone who’d try to hold her. She doesn’t generally kill willy-nilly, however, and often tries to choose certain targets, echoes of her first. There may or may not be rumours of a coastal serial killer who tends to target particular longshoremen and other port workers that may or may not be related to her. But Addie herself is a relatively personable monster. And she has one deep and true connection in this midnight world. A beautiful sea-demon, a gun-runner with a private boat. A Lasombra corsair that she truly and deeply believes loves her, and who she genuinely loves in return.

(Note: So. I love Mariner Gangrel, and I love Corsair Lasombra, and I ravenously adore nautical horror. And you would wonder if ever the twain should meet. And there’s those sort of fairytale elements, mist and shadows, seabirds and mermaids, the nightmare-life-in-death, the rime of the ancient mariner. Does this Lasombra corsair actually love this burly, rough-and-tumble docker woman? Maybe. But Addie wants a dream to hold close to her heart, a little bit of something romantic in a rough life, and, for at least a little while, some nights, I say she gets to have it).

[lea-andres]

I'm doing the whole series by @montydrawsstuff , because I will take any excuse to look at Espio's stupid pop idol outfit again. I wish I could concoct an excuse to steal it for my lore, Dinah would blackmail Espio SO HARD-

But that's a couple more issues in. First, Chaos Clash on the Cliffs!

(I'm gonna do two parters together as one unit.)

I'm not gonna reveal a lot of story details because GO READ IT.

I love Monty's low detail silly expressions. Plus have Charmy being adorable.

*Archer voice* You want Eggman? That's how you get Eggman.

THE BOOOOOOOOOOI

I wouldn't expect less from the same idiot that *blew up his own fucking house* in Sonic X. (Galactic Gumshoes). Look at his stupid run from the scene of the crime, god I love him.

(Plus Charmy's "who walks?" Lmaoooooo)

A love story for the ages, lmao.

Katana and Dinah are Exhibits A and B that Espio's only rizz is his leaf swirl, in this essay I will-

RACISM. Also that seems unwise. Why hire technicolor furry animals to do your bidding if you're not gonna bother making sure your robots don't shoot them? Classic Eggman logic smh 🙄

Katana's the best boi. "Lea, you would make fun of Espio and call him six different insults if he did this" I absolutely would.

Hold lizard like ice cream cone

GAY GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAAAAAAAAAAAAY

I'm out of pics I can put on this post lmao. Wanna know how it ends? GO READ IT!