#i am guilty of not hearing someone clearly and then answering something random or vague or noncommittal bc im embarrassed to ask again

[sapphic-bifrost]

normalize asking people to clarify or explain something. wanting to understand is not annoying.

[elyvorg]

elyvorg’s Great Ace Attorney Liveblog - Case 2-5 Part 2

This is a transcript of a liveblog that I originally did on Discord, having played a fan translation of the first game years ago and knowing a spoiler for the second game. I do not recommend following along with this on your first playthrough!

[[Please also bear in mind that I’ve long since finished the game by now, so if past-me wildly misinterprets something here (and I often did), no need to correct me, I already know!]]

Live reactions: the final Great Deduction

elyvorg

Diving back in!

Wait, Jigoku was actually here on the ship just recently? Why would he go back to it?

love the banter between Mikotoba and Sholmes, these two are so clearly good friends :3

THE NAME UPSIDE DOWN IS NUMBERS

OH THAT'S CLEVER

so he's not dead. What the fuck is going ON, then.

Is this really just going to be as simple as, Jigoku killed Gregson, we prove it in court, and that's it? Surely there's got to be more to it than that, there's a bajillion unsolved mysteries left.

what is Kazuma doing, he still can't actually think van Zieks is guilty surely, Ryunosuke insists he wouldn't lie but I really think he kind of is lying about some things.

Bench

I'll just say that I tied this with The Grand Turnabout in terms of quality for a reason.

elyvorg

excellent to hear. :D

ummmm Ryunosuke I think Kazuma is also a witness who can clarify what happened, as well as Jigoku, actually

kazumaaaa what on earth is going through your head, friend

nnnnnnn Ryunosuke admitting Kazuma's not quite the friend he knew any more DDDD:

yeah haha he was floored by the assassin thing, wasn't he, even if he shelved it in the courtroom to freak out about later

seatherny

[[here seatherny posted some kind of analytical thought about Ryunosuke and Kazuma’s friendship; something about how Kazuma always had these massive issues all along and Ryunosuke just never knew it, from my vague recollection]]

elyvorg

please save analytical thoughts like this until I've seen the full story and can make a judgement for myself!

(as in, I would actually appreciate if you deleted that so I can forget what I semi-read)

seatherny

ohh okay, sorry! i was careful not to put spoilers, but i can see why you'd still want ppl to wait

elyvorg

it's okay, I can totally understand the overwhelming urge to Ramble

but we can do all the rambles we like once I'm done! ^o^

(possibly after I've had a bit to solidify my thoughts without outside influence)

seatherny

kazuma has that effect on people :V

elyvorg

I'LL SAY

Iris's dad is SOMEBODY ELSE?

(awww but I liked the thought of her and Susato being sisters that would have been cute)

like if Iris's dad is some other person it's got to be someone who matters, it can't just be a randomer

Sholmes's inability to sit properly on the couch is a mood

seatherny

Same

Bench

>:3

Brief interim thoughts

elyvorg

stopping to take a break to get some food and am Thinking while my food cooks. Now that it's abundantly clear Jigoku is super suspicious, I'm coming back around to thinking Kazuma's mission was more than purely personal and he was assigned to be the Reaper's new assassin by Jigoku (the List is starting to make sense!!!). Which also means Kazuma was partly lying during the conversation in his office in case 4 when he made his mission sound entirely personal. I wonder how much truth there was in the part about him receiving the letter mentioning his dad's crimes and how Jigoku laughed it off like a joke. That feels like it wouldn't be an anecdote Kazuma would fabricate, because it'd be very personal and painful, but. hm.

Live reactions: The truth about the List

elyvorg

THE FUCKING LIIIIIIST

FINALLY LET'S GET SOME ANSWERS

[[for context, if you haven’t, I highly recommend reading my theorising about the List that I did at the beginning of this liveblog, here, before reading the rest of my reactions to this reveal]]

one year ago? as in, before Wilson died? so after all my confusion in 1-5 thinking the disc must have been made shortly before 1-3, it WAS actually earlier than that?

Hosonaga dug it up for us! What a bro.

there's slashes between the pairs of names on this version that we never had before. Like, Kazuma/Shinn were the assassins, Gregson/Wilson were the organisers?

but why did Shinn assassinate Wilson then argh

Sholmes didn't want to save Kazuma's life, he wanted to stop Kazuma being the assassin. Yeah, that... that sure tracks, doesn't it.

but then how did he know?

lucky for Sholmes that Kazuma had happened to drag a potential replacement lawyer along with him, then, he can't have predicted that beforehand

YES PLEASE TELL ME NIKOLINA'S OKAY

GOOD SHE IS

PROTECT HER

don't fucking tell me Sholmes knew this because McGilded sold the info to him???

oh so SHOLMES is just casually also stealing government secrets!

SHOLMES THOUGHT THEY WERE ALL ASSASSINATION TARGETS JUST LIKE I DID

HE WAS TRYING TO PROTECT KAZUMA

I WAS KIND OF PARTLY RIGHT

WOOOOOOOO

Bench

\o/

seatherny

\o/

elyvorg

fucking LOVE that Sholmes's thought process regarding this list has turned out to be BASICALLY THE SAME AS MINE

WHOOPS THEY WERE ALL ACTUALLY ASSASSINS

wait, no?

it's the assassins paired with their targets?

...

that means Kazuma was always supposed to kill Gregson

oh boy

(the message also said "these are all four", which really implied all four were the same category of people, grr)

...in court, Kazuma said "the assassination of the mark". he did not specify it was Jigoku. DAMN that's sneaky.

fffffucking assassin exchange, you know, as you do, normal student exchange business

seatherny

yep, nothing sus there at all

elyvorg

if Kazuma knew this, did he also know that Wilson was assassinated by his counterpart and just, uhhhh, casually hid that from Ryunosuke for the entirety of 1-1?

(it goes without saying that I refuse to believe Kazuma actually had any intention of killing anyone)

oh noooo that's why Gregson was gonna transfer

maybe he isn't actually the Reaper at all and pinning all this on him was part of the plan?

anyway. so.

WE GET TO DEFEND KAZUMA FOR THIS, RIGHT

RIGHT?????

makes a lot of sense why Kazuma never confided in Ryunosuke about this. "Hey bro, my real mission is to kill someone - but, wait, hear me out, not actually, I swear--". He must have been terrified Ryunosuke would never trust him when he heard that.

also the bit where Ryunosuke arrived and Stronghart was like "do you intend to do everything Asogi planned to do?" he was really thinking "so you'll do a murder for me, will you?"

yes please can Susato and Iris be honorary sisters anyway

(love how we've just switched onto this topic after HEY YOUR BEST FRIEND'S AN ASSASSIN)

yes let Iris learn the Susato Takedown, she'll be a TERROR

AWWWWW RYUNOSUKE'S GONNA BE HER BROTHER TOO

FOUND FAMILYYYY

(still want Kazuma to be assimilated into this found family too and no I do not care that he's literally a fucking assassin apparently)

Ryunosuke really is just pulling a huge Not Gonna Think About That about the assassin news isn't he, wow.

yyyeeeaaah think I'm gonna stop there for tonight I need to FUCKING PROCESS THAT

this fucking game, by the way

this fucking game

Bench

>:3

Interim thoughts: more assassin thoughts, featuring Somehow I Am Still Stuck On This Amnesia Thing

elyvorg

hmmmmmm guess what I've just thought about: an actual plausible reason for Kazuma hypothetically having faked the amnesia if that was indeed a thing, which whoops I guess I'm still leaving open the possibility of actually. For as long as Stronghart believed he had amnesia, he wasn't going to ask Kazuma to kill anybody. If Kazuma had no intention of ever carrying out the assassination (and of course he didn't), then that's the perfect way to put it off without arousing suspicion. Then I imagine him choosing the moment he did to hypothetically fake remembering everything would be out of a combination of having heard Gregson would be transferring soon, and the truth of the Professor case finally beginning to come to light such that he needed to be able to act with more agency to investigate that.

elyvorg

LITERALLY BOTH OF THE FUCKING ASSASSINS WORE A MASK OVER THEIR EYES AT SOME POINT god i love all the parallels and foreshadowing in this game

seatherny

ohhh I actually didn’t catch the mask thing till you just said it! love it

elyvorg

still can't believe this entire story's plot happened because Kazuma nominally agreed to go and assassinate someone halfway across the world. Like, I'd been increasingly suspecting he was some kind of assassin somehow, he straight-up admitted it in the latest court section, and yet I was still floored by realising just how important that was to the everything. It's literally the only reason Ryunosuke's in England. Kazuma must have known and been hiding it the whole time from before the beginning of the game. I'd been worrying that the Secret List's true nature would be kind of a letdown and not actually matter that much after how much I'd been trying to make sense of it, but it sure delivered.

Also I love the narrative bookending of how Exchange Assassination #1 was the very first murder case in the game, and now Exchange Assassination #2 (or something that looks like that) is the very last murder case in the game. Really brings it full circle.

Live reactions: 2-5 second trial day, aka And Then They Still Didn’t Arrest Kazuma >:(

elyvorg

so anyway I jumped the gun last time I said this, but THIS time it's time to go to court and accidentally make it look like Kazuma did a murder, right???

yeah I no longer remotely believe Gregson was actually part of the Reaper, this is being pinned on him posthumously

oh. no, huh, Kazuma basically already has been charged with being an assassin.

Kazuma's looking like he... didn't know about the exchange?

geez, this offer. You get to go on a study exchange tour! if you'll do a murder for us.

"There's nothing I wouldn't have done to get here. Be that agreeing to assume the role of an assassin... or betraying people's trust."

GHHHHHHH KAZUMAAAAAA

- Ryunosuke mentions how Kazuma lost his memory

- the camera pans to Kazuma, who is silent and doesn't confirm this

HMMMMMM

hee, love Kazuma helping us by telling us exactly the kind of proof we need to present to get this guy

Kazuma's claiming he just left the room after looking around but that's a LIE because we know he attacked Gregson's trunk at some point

okay I am very stumped at proving that the murder didn't actually take place at Fresno Street, I thought we established this well enough on the first day and have tried presenting most every piece of evidence relevant to Gregson's actual death and nothing works. Help?

okay, done it through guesswork, game please explain how the fuck it's the photo

okay, sure, the position of his body apparently. And why did nobody bring this up two days ago?

I guessss it's easier to interpret what it means now that we know he was transported in a trunk

that was annoyingly obscure, though

Kazuma seems... actually surprised that Jigoku did it?

my god I keep flip-flopping constantly on whether he actually ever thought it was van Zieks or not, what is going on in his head

or was he faking that reaction

looks like Jigoku's about to pin it on Kazuma here we goooo

...wait, what do you mean it actually was impossible for Kazuma to have done it and I have evidence

...okay, my logic for a second was "he was shot at point-blank range, that would have got blood over Kazuma, his outfit is very white and there'd be no way he could hide that", but apparently that's not it.

how IS the crew itinerary proof, Kazuma could be lying about where he was, surely?

okay, totally forgot he had an actual alibi there, derp

very sad that we don't seem to be actually arresting Kazuma for this murder, by the way

(I still assume there's way more to this case than this, though!)

hee, he broke the witness stand again!

still haven't explained the sword tip in the trunk, either...

Bench

Thoughts on Jigoku?

elyvorg

hold on, still not done with his confession

he wasn't actually planning to frame van Zieks apparently, interesting!

hm, he still can't say who his boss is even now. Is Stronghart (it's obviously Stronghart) threatening him in some way?

(could HE be Iris's dad?)

KAZUMAAA WHAT ARE YOU DOING

okay so hold on before we get into that, Jigoku: really fun twist to have a judge be a culprit! He seemed like a decent guy when we got to actually meet him and I totally didn't suspect him at all until quite close to when it became apparent he was super corrupt. Also, see what I just speculated about him being threatened and not actually as on board with all this as he might seem.

Bench

:D

elyvorg

though you'd think I could have guessed earlier that he was gonna be bad news because his name literally means Hell in Japanese. (Well, possibly not spelled with those kanji, but it's read the same way, at least.)

seatherny

well, seeing jigoku certainly is hell enough for Ryunosuke :D but yeah I didn’t expect him to be so involved either!

elyvorg

kazumaaaaa I know you're hurt and angry but van Zieks is not your enemy

also wow they sure got a new witness stand in fast

ryunosuke is determined to face him as his friend nnnnngh

wait, Gregson actually did bring Kazuma with him to kill Jigoku???

oooooh did they really pull an SL-9 on this

very >:3 at Kazuma furiously demanding the truth off Gregson while threatening him with a sword

someone please tell Kazuma that Stronghart was the original prosecutor on this case

ghhhh, Kazuma had no idea it was Stronghart

“Unless you were thinking of summoning a ghost to the stand." bwahaha, alas, no Feys around here

kazumaaaaaaaaaa, that breakdown, my HEART, he needs hugs

aaaaa that look of hope in Kazuma's eyes

[[so even though Kazuma never got arrested to become the final defendant and I am Still Not Over That, there were nonetheless some very delightful Kazuma moments here that I dug a lot >:3]]

[carewyncromwell]

[Carewyn bid Rowan goodbye at the East Tower stairs, splitting off to Divination and Arithmancy, respectively.

When Carewyn had first looked over the list of electives, she’d been a little stuck about which to pick. Arithmancy required a lot of math, which didn’t really appeal to Carewyn; Ancient Runes was reported to require a lot of extra homework, and Carewyn thought adding more to her workload could only be a mistake; and Muggle Studies seemed a bit pointless given that she was largely raised in the Muggle world. All that was really left was Divination, so that was what she picked.

When she arrived in the classroom, however, Carewyn was happy to see how many of her friends had chosen to take the class too.]

“Chiara! Talbott!”

[Chiara and Talbott looked up from their table, both of their faces lighting up at the sight of her.]

Chiara: “Hi, Carewyn.”

[Carewyn took a seat at the empty front table in the row in front of Chiara and Talbott, turning around in her seat to look up at them.]

“I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

Talbott: “(offhandedly) I know everybody. I just don’t talk to everybody.”

[Carewyn brought a hand up to her mouth to hold in a giggle, and Talbott smiled slightly.]

Chiara: “I didn’t know you were interested in Divination, Carewyn.”

“Mm, I’m not really interested in it specifically, but...well, you remember Torvus? The friend I’ve told you about?”

Chiara: “The centaur, right?”

“Yeah. Well, centaurs believe in stargazing and predicting the future -- so I thought, maybe taking Divination would give us more to talk about.”

Torvus has been really helpful these last few years, when I’ve needed help dealing with the Vaults. I’d like it if we could talk about more casual things when we meet sometimes, rather than it just being me asking him for something. And Torvus would probably appreciate that too.

[Chiara’s gray eyes sparkled.]

Chiara: “That’s so nice! I’m sure Torvus would really like that. Centaurs are known for predicting the future, right?”

Talbott: “(skeptically) Supposedly. I don’t know how much I buy this stuff myself -- I mean, a lot of the definitions in Unfogging the Future seemed so vague. You could probably see whatever you wanted to see and then apply it to whatever random thing sort of fits what you predicted. Like you could predict some ‘misfortune’ happening to you, then get a stubbed toe and go, ‘Aha!’”

[Carewyn nodded.]

“(thoughtfully) Yeah...and well, as soon as you say that the future can be predicted, like it’s set in stone...doesn’t that sort of defeat the idea of free will?”

Talbott: “(gesturing to her in agreement) Exactly!”

[At that moment, Tonks dashed into the room, clumsily hopping on one foot as she struggled to get her shoe back on, which had come loose.]

Tonks: “Wah-ah-ahhhhh!”

[Carewyn was able to jump to her feet and catch Tonks before she fell over.]

Tonks: “Whew! Thanks, Carey.”

[She slipped her shoe back on and straightened up, tossing a quick glance around the room.]

Tonks: “Oh good -- Trelawney’s not here yet! I thought I was going to be late for sure -- Tulip and I had to side-step Filch in the third floor corridor -- ”

“(dully) Don’t make me theorize what you two were up to, Tonks -- you know I’m a Prefect and should be disciplining you.”

[Despite this, Carewyn smiled when Tonks took the other seat at her table.

The class hushed as Professor Trelawney entered the room at last. She smiled up at her students, her huge, round spectacles magnifying her eyes to double their usual size.]

Trelawney: “I am the rarely seen, often talked-about Professor Trelawney -- proud member of the Hogwarts faculty since 1981.”

[Her voice was misty and awfully melodramatic. Carewyn was immediately reminded of a character from one of those sappy Muggle soap operas that her mum Lane used to leave on in the background while she was cleaning.]

Barnaby: “(confused) Is she asking us, or does she already know?”

Trelawney: “(mistily) I already know your reasons...”

[Barnaby looked very startled.]

Barnaby: “She read my mind just now!”

Badeea: “(whispers) You’d said that out loud, Barnaby.”

[Trelawney kept talking as though Barnaby and Badeea hadn’t spoken.]

Trelawney: “...But I’d rather you share your inspirations with me.”

[The professor whirled on Liz, who was sitting at the table next to Talbott and Chiara.]

Trelawney: “You, wearing the magnificent spectacles! How about you?”

Liz: “(startled) Me? Um...my mum’s a Seer. She’s making me take this class.”

[She sounded a bit guilty to admit it. Carewyn offered Liz a sympathetic look over her shoulder.]

Trelawney: “Your mother is wise -- though if you don’t possess her Gift, there’s precious little you can learn from me..”

[Carewyn frowned deeply.]

So if you’re not great at Divination as soon as you walk in, you won’t learn how to do it well? That seems awfully backward.

[Tonks leaned over the table to whisper to Carewyn under her breath.]

Tonks: “Rumor is, there’s precious little we can learn from Trelawney, full stop.”

[Carewyn couldn’t bite back a grin of amusement. Trelawney’s eyes fell on the Slytherin Prefect next, and Carewyn straightened up noticeably.]

[Carewyn raised her eyebrows innocuously.]

“If there were a way to see the future, I wouldn’t mind learning it. Seems like that kind of knowledge would be useful.”

[Her voice was pleasant, but rather nonchalant. As much as she wouldn’t mind learning a new type of magic, like Snape had taught her Legilimency and Occlumency, she couldn’t help but agree with Talbott -- if Divination was at all like Muggle fortunetelling, it wasn’t bound to be very believable.] 

Trelawney: “Ah -- your Inner Eye has started to open, but not enough yet to see, I should think. It is essential not to go in looking for answers -- otherwise you will not find any answers at all!”

[Talbott frowned deeply.]

Talbott: “So...if you want to know the future, you have to not want to know the future?”

Trelawney: “(beaming) Well said, Mr. Winger! You are a Ravenclaw, no question.”

[As Trelawney swept over to the table of teacups at the head of the class, Carewyn shot Talbott a open, perfectly baffled smile. Talbott looked down at Carewyn, pointing at the blue collar of his robes as if to say, “Of course I’m a Ravenclaw -- everyone can see that, dumb ass.” Carewyn had to stifle her giggles behind her hand.]

Trelawney: “Now, then -- to our lesson! Your journey into Divination begins with Tessomancy, or the art of reading tea leaves. Please consult your textbook, Unfogging the Future, chapter two, as you examine the shapes in your partner’s cup. You -- and you -- and you -- will break teacups in the process...but not to worry! I keep extras on hand should you need them.”

[Carewyn had no idea who Trelawney had been addressing with this last comment, but she decided to shrug it off and simply get to work.

She and Tonks together strained their respective cups of tea. Sure enough, Tonks did break her first cup, and Trelawney was right on hand to give her a new one.]

That was an easy guess, though. She likely heard Tonks stumble in when she was in the next room.

[Trelawney’s voice echoed over their heads as the class finished straining their tea leaves.]

[Once Tonks and Carewyn were ready, they swapped cups.

Carewyn squinted at the shapes in Tonks’s teacup critically, flipping through pages in Unfogging the Future and scanning the entries. ]

“...You’ve got a shape that looks like an apple on the side -- that means ‘success.’ That’s good. And this one kind of looks like a broom tail...that means ‘boring or monotonous work.’”

Tonks: “(laughs) Probably for a detention I’ll get at some point!”

[Tonks looked over Carewyn’s cup, rotating it while also goofily tilting her head at extreme angles]

Tonks: “(in a very good impression of Trelawney) I see an arrow pointing down at a puppy dog’s head -- clearly evidence that you must go and adopt an entire litter of crup puppies, or face extreme misfortune...!”

[Carewyn couldn’t stop herself from snorting with laughter again behind her hand, though she leaned forward and tried to reproach Tonks.]

“(hissing under her breath) Stop joking around and read the book, will you?”

[At that very moment, Trelawney had arrived beside their table. Carewyn had expected them to look over her or Tonks’s teacup, but as soon as the professor walked in front of Carewyn, she stopped mid-step, her body language almost startled.]

[Carewyn looked up from her teacup with a frown.]

“What is?”

[Trelawney wasn’t looking at the teacup -- instead she was simply facing Carewyn herself, her eyes oddly vague and unfocused.]

Tonks: “(with a raised eyebrow) You mean the tea?”

[But Trelawney didn’t seem to hear her. Instead she went on, her voice growing in volume and dramatic emphasis.]

[Carewyn straightened up, her eyes narrowing very sharply.]

The ultimate price? Like...a death?

[All at once, Trelawney lowered her arms and looked upon Carewyn with more focused, somber eyes.]

Trelawney: “It’s gone. The vision is gone.”

[Bewildered and not liking it, Carewyn gave Trelawney a very sharp look.]

“That was a vision? What did any of those things mean?”

[Trelawney swept away, rubbing her temple with one hand. Carewyn’s eyes narrowed on her back, chilling significantly.]

This is not a time to be vague, you -- !

Tonks: “Don’t pay her any mind, Carey. Trelawney’s not exactly known for her accuracy on prophecies -- I remember Professor McGonagall saying that she’s predicted the death of one student every single year since she first got here.”

[Carewyn crossed her arms, glancing down at Tonks’s teacup in front of her and speaking in a very dismissive voice.]

“I’m not worried. Everyone know about my history with the Cursed Vaults...of course someone who doesn’t know me would assume I’m going to be jumping into more life-threatening situations.”

[Despite her denials, Carewyn couldn’t help but worry. After all, she was still going after the Vaults, no matter what she told everyone else -- and the mention of “murky water,” after knowing that the final Cursed Vault could be linked to the Black Lake or some other body of water...it was a strange coincidence. And...the thought of anyone dying...

It was something she knew she had to take at least a little seriously...but she had no intention of showing Tonks or the others her concern.

So Carewyn put on her best wry smile.]

“...Now, come on, Tonks, for real -- what does a dog actually mean?”

((OOC: Is anyone else confused about why Divination is an elective we start taking in sixth year, when in the books it’s taken around third year and you can then drop it again if you want after fifth year? Then again, they also treat Astronomy like an elective in sixth year too, even though it’s a core class like Herbology or Charms -- and Care of Magical Creatures is also supposed to be an elective as of year 3! XD; *sighs in book nerd*))