#and is willing to do everything she can to elevate her status (bc that’s everything to them and that’s what she lacks)

[swordmaid]

I think ina is very family-oriented… being able to protect her family (and her community) is a really big thing for her…!!! she’s willing to stand up against a human lord and kill (prob her first kills tbh now that I think abt it ….) to save her cousin and she’s like what … 16…!!!! and she loves her family a lot and I think she feels bad that she had to leave them behind even though it wasn’t her choice. she’s doing her heroic stuff and getting recognition for it, and she’s experiencing things she would’ve never experienced if she still lived in the alienage (like being able to afford fancy clothes and proper food, etc.) and she feels bad that she can do all that stuff knowing that her family is still back in the alienage, living off of rats and whatever they could find. and even though she had that encounter with that spectral shianni in the temple of sacred ashes, she still hasn’t reconciled with the fact that she did leave them behind, and her life will continue without them. like I think throughout the origins plot she gets sooo homesick and she misses her family a lot..! like that was her whole life you know, and she’s still young despite everything that has happened. and I think tabris would’ve wanted children too — obvs not in her current age, but some day in the future she would’ve wanted her own kids and I think she would’ve grown to love nelaros too I mean I make her wear the wedding ring you can loot off of him until zev gives you his earring, but now she can’t have them bc she’s a grey warden, and she can’t even look out for her own family bc she’s a warden and she’s not supposed to have those ties anymore…. like it’s so bad for her! but she has to make her own peace with it … and I think she has enough sense of responsibility to take up that mantle of being a warden, and she’s willing to save these people (the very people who looks down on her bc she’s an elf) but it doesn’t mean she has to like it, or she’s happy about it, she just has to do it, u know…. but if such a choice was possible I think she would’ve wanted to go back home. but she can’t go home anymore so it is what it is … 😮‍💨

[sireneia-a]

🎰 Including the multi bc HIT ME

+*. @exalted--zealotry / roulette ships.

1. alfonse & kent - alfonse’s aversion to bonding with heroes works fine with kent tbh. he’s not against camaraderie, but kent deals well with well-defined boundaries and working in them as a retainer to a liege lord. mixing up the status quo is what frazzles him, so i don’t imagine these two really going beyond a very professional relationship unless alfonse started doing things out of the general interest of the order of heroes. even then, there’s like hundreds of other heroes that would get to alfonse before kent i wager lmao — assuming anna and sharena don’t get to him first.

2. travant & febail - I’M… NOT EVEN SURE HOW THESE TWO MEETING WOULD BE LIKE. like even on a platonic level. febail is a mercenary and perhaps that would have travant think better of febail, but febail hails from the manster region. he’s impoverished, yes, but he doesn’t know the conditions of thracia. while there’s a common thread that can work into sympathy, idk if these two would ever get along or even try to in the first place.

3. eldigan & coirpre - nobles from different side of the continent and also completely different time periods!!! i think eldigan and coirpre could maybe have interesting talks as fellow nobility who ended up getting crossed by their own countries, and well, if lene becomes ares’ lover, then we could get into the territory of in-laws interacting haha

4. anri & deimne - anri would be very complicated to deimne. one, deimne avoids high-ranking figures and anri’s an EXALT. two, anri crusaded against plegia, and i think deimne would learn to feel some sympathy towards plegia in his hypothetical time of askr, likening it at least a little to isaach. third is, despite everything else, anri believes in holy blood and exalted bloodlines perhaps as much as deimne does. the two are alike in how much emphasis they put in someone’s blood determining how much greatness they’re determined for, and i think this is the final nail in the coffin to justify why deimne wouldn’t interact much with anri – because he feels like he doesn’t mix well with the likes of him. still, if anri is interested in his potential ancestry, then there comes deimne as an interesting figure that was likely lost to the pages of history. deimne was a childhood friend to seliph and thus could tell anri what text cannot, but there’s also the potential that deimne could very well be seliph’s brother-in-law which could make this EXTREMELY WILD and have anri somewhat distantly related to him. god… imagine wanting to avoid your in-law because he’s just so ELEVATED compared to you.

5. eirika & mark - my memory of sacred stones: Puny. Tiny. Foolishly Small. still, i think mark would feel compelled to help eirika just cause her plight of being on the run and her love for family would remind him of lyn. mark appreciates eirika’s compassion and although he can be pretty pragmatic and emotionally distant… i don’t think he would scold her for the decisions she makes especially in terms of the Controversial lyon scene. he’d trust eirika thought it through, considering how thoughtful she normally is. she also exhibits a sincere desire to know tactics, and mark would be more than willing to help her if she asks him to. in the end though, despite his respect for her, i think he’d most likely inevitably leave her behind regardless of platonic versus romantic vibes between them.

[ladyloveandjustice]

ACE ATTORNEY GAMES RANKING AND THOUGHTS ON DUAL DESTINIES

Personal Ranking of the games, highest/most enjoyable to lowest: PLEASE NOTE THAT I REALLY ENJOY ALL OF THEM AND THINK THEY HAVE A LOT OF MERIT, EVEN THE LOWEST RANKED.

Ace Attorney 3: Trials and Tribulations (WE HAVE TO PRETEND GODOT DOES’T EXIST BUT I’M WILLING TO DO THIS...but when I do remember Godot exists, it gets moved to second place and AA1 is top dog), Ace Attorney 1, Ace Attorney Investigations 2,  Justice for All, Ace Attorney: Investigations, Dual Destinies, Spirit of Justice, Apollo Justice

I think that’s pretty solid. AA3′s ranking is pretty variable depending on my mood bc ugh godot why godot but i love so much about it and it basically has great moments for the whole cast, so? gotta admit it. Even Godot can’t ruin AA3 for me. AAI and DD also might switch places depending on my mood.

I am surprised at how far down AA2 was knocked- it introduces great characters and the final case is one of the best in the entire series, but the other cases are pretty eh and the circus case is pretty terrible, as we all know. On replay that stick out more. Meanwhile 3/5 of AA1 cases are just fantastic, and it does a great job getting the feels and endearing you to the characters. Rise from the Ashes does a lot to elevate it. 

AAI2 is one of the best games in the series, I’m almost tempted to put if first tbh. The cast, the character development, the mysteries, the little moments- all a plus. 

AAI is frustrating and tedious at times and the plot is very weak, but I think largely makes up for it by having a ton of investigation options (obviously) that allow for fun character convos. The flashback case especially was a blast.

Then we’ve got DD and the fact I like DD better than SoJ and AJ is probably very unpopular- I can see why people would feel differently. The plot to DD is weak (the climax and final twist of SoJ is much much stronger), a lot of it’s on-the-nose and cliche, some characters are underwritten and it’s way too easy. SOJ is a better game structurally and mechanically. But ultimately, I find DD a lot less frustrating and more fun than SoJ. 

There are just so many things about SoJ that make me actively ANGRY- how Maya is treated and her return and character is uttely wasted and she’s damseled in a blatant retread of JFA, how Athena is regressed and blatantly sidelined, how PHOENIX is regressed for no reason in the JFA retread- like he makes almost the exact same mistakes he did in JFA and there’s absolutely NO reason for him not to tell Apollo and Athena what’s happening- and in general, just several characters are dumbed down and sidelined to make Apollo look good, which??? Ya didn’t have to do that?

I feel DD was way better at balancing it’s cast and treating them with respect. Apollo’s arc took him out of focus sometimes, but it didn’t feel like he was regressing (mostly bc...they didn’t develop his character all that much in AJ in the first place).  He made the mistake of not trusting his agency, but honestly, there was never a lot of trust between Phoenix and him in the first place, and he was just getting to know Athena AND he was going through a lot of grief- so it all felt pretty natural. And it established that he approaches “trust” and being a lawyer in a different way than Phoenix and Athena do, which I feel was very important for making him distinct as a character. It was DD that helped me really “get” Apollo TBH, because again, his own game actually didn’t develop him that much even if he was a cutie. At least he had a character arc in DD, and I felt he’d grown by the end of the game.

I think it’s important to remember it’s been explicitly stated that Apollo’s popularity shot up in Japan after DD came out, for all fans gripe about it, this game still actually cared more about him than his own game did, enough to actually endear a bunch of fans to him.

Meanwhile, I’ve already worded on Athena and how I feel her character arc was great- she grew a lot over the course of the game and her story was very resonant to me. She got a lot of the spotlight, but other characters weren’t ever dumbed down to make her look good, like what happened with Apollo in SOJ.

Phoenix also progressed a bit- he’s noticeably more confident than in the trilogy and it’s interesting to see him in a (much more reliable) mentor role. He’s always enjoyed looking after people, so it does feel natural for him to take on that role and feels like he’s really continuing Mia’s legacy by getting his own proteges. A lot of a stuff that happened to him in AJ isn’t really followed up on when it would have been way more interesting to keep those aspects, but I can understand to some extent why it didn’t happen. Following up on what AJ did to him while still making a new, separate game, is TOUGH, and I don’t envy DD’s position in having to do it. 

I do think it’s believable Phoenix could recover a bit and scale back on his cynicism now that he’s finally managed to prove his innocence, and there ARE hints throughout DD that some issues remain, so there’s at least something to work with there.I especially appreciate that DD did it’s best to address what Miles and Maya were up to during AJ and reassured players they WERE around- the hints that Miles and Phoenix might have been in conflict over whether he should get his badge back and that Phoenix was resistant to Miles helping him were especially appreciated, and make sense for the characters. The fact that Miles eventually did manage to make him get it back and even pulled strings- also great. The way they settled in old married couple closeness felt so natural too.

I think what a lot of fans don’t take into account with DD was (as well as I can glean) what it was like when AJ came out and there was no follow-up. Guys, AJ would have gotten a direct sequel if fans had reacted well to the new status quo. They obviously didn’t. And that’s NOT SURPRISING. We had Phoenix going through a full, developed character arc, a complete story and then AJ comes along and is like “lol never mind his life is ruined now and HAS BEEN TERRIBLE FOR SEVEN YEARS and all that progress he made went down the drain. also where are Miles and Maya? who knows?” and introduced a new protag without bothering to develop him or give him backstory and introduce a lot of underdeveloped, HARD-TO-UNDERSTAND (why are the gramyrie men so awful why did they do anything they did their actions make NO SENSE)   characters and unresolved, inexplicable things.

I really think what AJ did with Phoenix is interesting, but it was also devastating and frustrating and they didn’t bother to explain most of it so it felt so random too. I honestly would have been gutted at it had I not know DD was coming out and he was going to be okay and practice law again. Phoenix losing his badge is bold, and it is a legit direction to take things- life really does suck like that at times- but also, we KNOW life sucks like that sometimes. that doesn’t mean we want to see characters who had a complete story come back only to be miserable and lose almost everything. I’m a wuss, so seeing that happen to Phoenix would have been way too much for me had I not known a happy ending was coming. I find AJHoboNick interesting as a phase of Phoenix’s life, but don’t like it as a permanent state of being for him. 

That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have reached that happy ending in a more interesting way obvs- I’d have liked (and would still like) for the bitterness and moral looseness Phoenix picked up during the AJ years to be explored more, even as he comes back to law. DD played it safe, while AJ took a lot of risks that didn’t really pan out and ended up as a mess. I can see why one would prefer the latter to the former.

But I think DD accomplished what it set out to do, in an enjoyable way. It had a job: restore Phoenix as a protag while still involving Apollo, give Apollo some actual backstory and an arc, introduce this new character and give her a complete arc, actually explain where all these character who were just dropped in AJ have been and follow up on it as best you can. It did a good job doing all that, and succeeded (except for in addressing the Apollo and Trucy thing, it didn’t follow that up...aghhh....). It let all the characters shine, felt balanced, and introduced a new status quo that felt comfortable and fun. I remember being so overjoyed when I first played with it and there was a reason for that. It felt like coming home.

And again, SOJ had a lot of good things going on, like Rayfa, and a stronger plot, but the way it just blatantly screwed over characters-and how Nahyuta was SO BORING AND SUCH A FAILURE AS A RIVAL (another thing DD did better btw Simon is a blast he is ridic but also makes sense and his older-brother-relationship with Athena is sweet) just leave a bit of a sour taste.

also i love athena and DD introduced her so. you guys probably can guess that’s a big factor. 

I’ve already worded about the way AJ- while interesting and ambituous and impressive and nice looking- failed majorly in some ways. and wasn’t as enjoyable to play- so you know the drill there. I STILL LIKE IT THOUGH. IT HAS A LOT OF MERIT AS A GAME.

SO MY UNPOPULAR OPINION. DD HAS A LOT OF WEAKNESSES BUT I STILL LIKE IT A LOT AND LIKE IT A LOT BETTER THAN SOJ OR AJ, THOUGH I ALSO LIKE BOTH THOSE GAMES. DD TRIED AND IT GAVE ME MY YELLOW DARLING.

also really no need to argue with me on any of this. in fact please do not.

now i just have to play the bonus case and then it’s PLvAA time! i wonder how that will rank. probs not very high since crossovers tend to be nonsensical.