#maybe trucy should be phoenix's and the Play date was the motive

[abluescarfonwaston]

I saw Thor so how about a despicable me au. Miles loan request is denied in his steal the moon project because Franziska stole the shrink ray he stole and Manfred declares the project too risky without the key piece secured. He's been ejected from her lair 456 times already.

And then he sees her welcome in the girl scout cookie kids and has a lightbulb.

He takes home three little kids. All holding hands- assumed they were related - is Kay, Sebastian and little Trucy. He manages to steal the ray with their help and then on the way back they demand to go to the amusement park on the boardwalk.

He plans to tuck them into the rollercoaster and leave. They'll get over it- just like he didn't. But adults must ride with kids. He passes out from sheer terror. Comes around to trucy and Kay attempting to swindle a swindler into giving Sebastian the rainbow unicorn stuffed animal of his dreams. Miles reaches up and grabs it.

"Hey no can do Mister you gotta knock them all over to win!" "She did." "Nuh uh see that one? Still standing." "... I see. Let's play again."

The shack does not have a back when they leave. Sebastian buries his entire torso in his prize. "ITS SO FLUFFY I COULD DIE!"

By the time he gets home they're all covered in face paint and either giggling or sugar comaed right to sleep.

Manfreds face twitches as Miles re presents the plan now that the key asset is in place. The trio keeps interrupting. "... Pathetic. Boy you can't even read a room. I was attempting to be gentle. Your simply no longer worth the risk. Loan denied."

Miles and kids end up at a bank glaring down on burned out bank teller Phoenix Wright for a loan to- "uh..." *Kay whispers into Miles ear* "No we are not buying you a paraglider." *Trucy whispers* "I will not have tigers in the house young lady magic or no." *Sebastian whispers* "... Yes thank you Sebastian remodel the house so they can have their own rooms."

They end up on a date. It's definitely not cause Phoenix is a member of the Evil reformation team secretly trying to suss out if Miles is a viable candidate or because Miles is extremely gay. No he just wants to copy wright's office key and approve his loan. Sure. Suuuuure Miles.

"What you gonna offer to steal the moon from the sky for me?"

"It would have made a better gift than the flowers."

"the ones you were allergic to?"

"precisely. What would have been a good date then Wright."

*Flashbacking to being strapped to a table James Bond style and having a Lazer grow ever closer.* "Not being kidnapped is nice."

"what?"

"i said if i don't end up taking a nap partway through it's nice."

At the climax Franziska has kidnapped the kids from their ballet recital (Sebastian was the only one Really into it but the fact Miles didn't show up broke their hearts all the same) and is holding them hostage while she has stolen even the moon from him and Papa loves her more and-

"STOP IGNORING ME AND UNTYING THEM ITS VERY RUDE!"

Miles spends the majority of their climatic fight trying to get the kids to safety and keep them calm. She points the electroshocker directly at him. Sebastian grabs the back of his leg, crying. Miles doesn't look away as he gently tries to push him free. "Go to Gumshoe Sebastian. Go." Manfred screams in her earpiece just to Do it already.

The moon jolts. Increasing in size. "Oh shi-" "Takee mushrooms." Miles finishes for her. Working together to return it to the sky before it crushes them all.

She slips out as the dust settles. Confused. Stands as Manfred - Papa - scolds her to hell and back. On her watch she watches Miles tuck the trio into bed. Kiss them on the head. Something he never did. For either of them.

"Are you listening to me Girl?"

"No." Tranquil as his face went red. Fury building oh so familiarly. Hand on the electroshocker whip. "I'm done listening to you I think."

Phoenix shows up the next day with a smile and "Great news! Your loan was approved!" Miles stares at him with the velvet mansion behind him. "Course you know that already since you approved it yourself!"

"..."

"So let's talk about your repayment plan!" Hands him a pamphlet on the Villain redemption initiative.

"I'm not doing this."

Course if Geff Beesos woke up in nothing but his boxers, assets raided like the Grinch had been through and millions more woke up to find their medical debt was gone - well. That could still be considered Villainous couldn't it?

[rivalsforlife]

Do you have anything you wished was different from Ace Attorney canon?

Hello I'm finally slowly starting to get around to answering some of these! Sorry for the wait.

Uh this ask got super long so a basic summary of it: narumitsu being canon in a well-written way would be nice even though I don't think it would ever happen, I stand by not bringing back Phoenix as a main protagonist in DD, and I'd also want to rewrite all of SOJ so that Apollo goes to Khura'in in place of Phoenix, to have more interesting character stuff going on.

So the longer answer is this:

Aside from some of the actually problematic stuff that I don't feel qualified to talk about, story-wise, I answered a sort of similar question about a year ago here. I have changed my opinions a little bit since then, particularly with regards to the canonicity of narumitsu... because while I do love narumitsu I feel like I don't trust Ace Attorney to actually do it properly. After all if this past November has taught us anything "making a ship canon" could actually be quite undesirable and I have no desire to see Phoenix and/or Edgeworth sent to superhell. (I literally know nothing else about supernatural sorry about that.)

If capcom were somehow able to make narumitsu canon but in an unobtrusive way and as a natural progression of the storyline, like oh hey, the court record profile for Miles Edgeworth's Obligatory Last-Case Appearance has Phoenix mention they're dating, and maybe there's a few lines suggesting they live with each other, but it's not like... taking the entire story to force them together and otherwise does not change the way they interact with each other and butcher one or both of their characterizations in the process? I'd definitely be happy about that. Not gonna lie even if they made narumitsu canon in the most terrible way possible I'd have a "holy shit I can't believe they did that it's the best day of my life" kind of moment before I could think about it critically. But I honestly see no chance of them ever actually making narumitsu canon, so that's quite unrealistic to hope for anyways.

Aside from that in that other ask I talked about basically the premise of an Apollo trilogy and not bringing back Phoenix as the main protagonist in DD, and I still stand by that, buuut in my other ask I did touch on making SOJ a different game where Apollo goes to Khura'in instead of Phoenix - and you know what I'm going to take some time to actually talk about my dream version of SOJ because there were a lot of little things about the one we got that I didn't like. And it's going to be very long. So it's under a cut.

SO yeah I talked about it a bit in the other ask. I think that Phoenix going to Khura'in is a rather weak idea both externally and in-universe. In one of the interviews, too lazy to find which one, Phoenix basically goes to Khura'in because the writers couldn't figure out how to challenge him anymore. ... And then they don't actually challenge him at all. Because oh well now we're going to this new country where they KILL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS WHO LOSE and then it's supposed to be *shocking* that Phoenix would risk his life for a kid or his best friend. you know the guy who ran across a burning bridge to save his best friend. you know the guy who got punched in the face, nearly killed by the mafia, and tazed trying to save his clients. This doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. His whole travel in Khura'in doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. Basically the only reason he's there is to see Maya - Maya who theoretically would be returning home in about two weeks. Maya who was still in her training for two more weeks when Phoenix visited so he wouldn't be able to see her anyways. ... And in the meantime Trucy had the biggest show of her life that was going to be on TV and Phoenix wasn't there for it. And of course Phoenix didn't return home after Trucy was accused of murder (yes he couldn't be there for the trial, but he definitely could have for the emotional support afterwards) and instead just sits for two weeks in Khura'in doing literally nothing after Ahlbi's trial.

(And yes I know about the anime prologue that has Phoenix think Maya's in danger... but that's not strictly canon since it's never mentioned in game, isn't technically a part of the game, and even still, why wouldn't he go home after knowing that Maya's safe and that Trucy had been ACCUSED OF MURDER. Honestly that's what makes me angriest about this whole thing is that it makes Phoenix out to be a terrible dad. We really don't need any more takes like that, especially not from canon.)

And what about Apollo, you may ask? Well, given case 5 of SOJ, Apollo actually has a personal link to Khura'in and ends up staying there afterwards... after being there for like a day or two. I should note here that it has been a while since I went through SOJ in its entirety so I am fuzzy on many of the details. But both through what I remember and some conversations with people who actually played the game recently, the motivation for Apollo to actually stay in Khura'in isn't that great. It mainly seemed like guilt about his dead dad who he hadn't been in contact with for years and had completely written off until a few days ago but oh he died and then went to go visit him so... better take up the law office!

If Apollo had gone to Khura'in in place of Phoenix and spent more time there, reconnecting with his childhood home and actually getting passionate seeing how corrupt the legal system is there (even though we have a corrupt legal system at home) and being driven to fix it, that would make for a stronger story, I think. The Khura'in plot is more personally focused around Apollo than it is Phoenix. Phoenix's connection to Khura'in is through Maya, but Maya doesn't really have much of a connection to it aside from "it's where spirit channeling is from and she trains there". But Apollo, I guess, grew up there. So it's so strange to me that they force all of Apollo's connection to Khura'in in the last case while Phoenix is running around doing who-knows-what for the rest of the game. Phoenix spends more time getting to know the state of Khura'in and the Defiant Dragons and case 3's whole thing but he isn't the one who in the end decides to sit down and fix it; that's all on Apollo. It almost feels like they forced one of the two plots in to everything. And it was probably conceived as a Phoenix story that they needed to fit Apollo into last minute because oops he's supposed to be a protagonist too.

Some other strengths to Apollo going to Khura'in include that it would shake up the character dynamics a bit. Instead of Phoenix defending Maya, it's Apollo defending Maya, and that's a particularly interesting thing to look at in the context of Khura'in's "we kill defense attorneys" system. Of course, Phoenix would risk his life to save Maya, 100%, every time. But what about Apollo, who hasn't met Maya, who only knows her as "Mr. Wright's former assistant" - would he risk his life for her? And I feel like Maya would argue more against him defending her because of that. "We're strangers, you don't know me, you don't have to risk your life defending me." (Sidenote that I was always upset that Maya didn't protest much when Phoenix offered to defend her, knowing his life was at risk - sure she knows him better and knows he's always been able to get her out of these situations, but at the same time, the fact that there was no "what about your daughter?" conversation sucks. I really wish SOJ wouldn't have like. completely forgotten about the phoenix-trucy father-daughterisms.)

Let's say Apollo goes to Khura'in. Phoenix stays at home. Phoenix gets a call from Apollo that's basically "uhh hi Mr. Wright you know your friend Maya, she's been arrested for murder, if I defend her and I lose we're both dead," then you can tie in to that moment in 6-2 where Phoenix (who can't make it in time for the trial!) believes in Apollo and his skills as an attorney, not just to save Maya's life, but also his own. It ties in a bit more to the overall challenge of defending someone at the risk of your own life. Again, Phoenix would have very few hesitations, if any, risking his life to defend Maya. Apollo may have more defending a stranger at the risk of his own life.

Then if you can actually have Apollo and Maya talk together that would be neat - Maya can tell him embarrassing stories about Phoenix's rookie days, for instance. Their dynamic would be quite a bit different from Phoenix and Maya's, and that would be an interesting thing to see, unlike what we have in SOJ where all of Maya's substantial interactions are with characters she already knows or brand new characters.

(It would also be pretty neat to know more spirit channeling politics and dive in more to Maya's perspective on Khura'in and also her role as upcoming Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique and where she plans to lead the village in the future and also reconcile with her family's bloody legacy, but I'm not quite sure how to fit that in right now.)

And how about Phoenix, back home in Japanifornia? Evidently he'd end up being in charge of defending Trucy. Now, I did love the siblingsisms in canon 6-2, but I feel like there is still potential for Phoenix defending Trucy. All of Apollo Justice has a bunch of good moments between Apollo and Trucy, and she's co-counsel on all his trials, but we've never had any substantial Phoenix and Trucy investigation or co-counsel moments. I feel like AU 6-2 would be a great opportunity to dive more into Phoenix and Trucy's relationship and how it may have changed after Phoenix got his badge back. Plus, Phoenix being "the only one who knows how she really feels on the inside", he'd have unique insider knowledge into some of the Gramarye stuff that comes up in the case and Trucy's personal connection to the Gramaryes, which Apollo knows a bit of, but Phoenix knows more of. ... Or at least, should know more of, given that he raised Trucy for nine years at this point and they're very close, and Phoenix knows her better than anyone else does, even if capcom has forgotten this.

... Of course having Athena defend the case would also be great because more Athena spotlight is never a bad thing, but it's hard to come up with a reason why Phoenix wouldn't be there to defend her. And doing more switcheroos in terms of role in the plot is a bit beyond the scope of what I have in mind right now. Sorry Athena.

Aside from that, Athena still gets Storyteller, Apollo still heads Turnabout Revolution, and Phoenix still gets the DLC case. Apollo stays in Khura'in in the end with a bit more to his motivations. Rather than it just being about carrying on Dhurke's legacy, it's also something Apollo is passionate about after all he witnessed here. While we're at it I'd still rework a lot of Turnabout Revolution to make it so that Phoenix genuinely believes in Atishon because that makes for sooo much more interesting of a plot and actual character development on Phoenix's part than "Maya was kidnapped again and Phoenix is only wrong when he has no other choice", but that'd require some more detail and this post is long enough already.

And in terms of other details that need to be sorted out, there's the question of why Apollo would need to go to Khura'in in the first place. I'd probably say something to do with Dhurke. Maybe he comes back a bit earlier - actually alive, maybe, though crossing borders would be a bit of a challenge, or he reaches out to Apollo remotely somehow and Apollo goes to yell in his face about abandoning him (or at least that's what he thinks he wants.) Then we could have some more Dhurke and Apollo bonding time, potentially? Idk, if you switch up Phoenix and Apollo you're pretty much writing a whole new game and obviously I have not worked out all the details, but I think if Capcom had tried to go with this route from the outset they'd have a stronger game. At least stronger character motivations.

So... yeah. Those are my opinions. If you read through this whole thing I'm very impressed because it got very long!