#putting my franmaya goggles on for this as well because GAH

[varpusvaras]

At this point, for me, one of the most interesting paralles in Ace Attorney is actually Mia and Miles and Maya and Franziska.

They both start their careers for very similar reasons - Because of DL-6, because they lost their parents, because their families have long-running discourses in them. These things also shape their law careers a lot: Mia chose to be a defense attorney and Miles a prosecutor because of how their shared past affected them.

They meet for the first time in court on the opposite sides, and both go through a really messed up first trial that ends up with neither of them winning.

Most interestingly, for me, as an older sibling, is the fact that they are both the older sibling in their families.

Especially what hits close to home for me is the fact that they are the much older older siblings in the family. I have a similar age gap with my younger siblings as Mia and Maya have, and the one Miles and Franziska have is not that far off, either. I moved away from home when I was 16, on top of the large age gap, so my youngest sibling was a literal toddler when I left.

I can't help but feel like I've left them behind in some way.

This sentiment is very much echoed in text with Miles and Franziska. Franziska feels like Miles has abandoned him, gotten the attention of their father, the one thing she wanted, by just the virtue of being first (this is not the whole truth, but for a kid, the perceived truth is in practise the very same as the real truth). Miles does care about her, of course, but he is a traumatised and messy person who largely sees things from his own perspective, especially as a young adult, and thinks mainly about how he is supposed to do things and how he is supposed to operate his own life. Franziska does get left behind in all of that, and the resentment she feels is completely valid. It's maybe not fair to Miles, who did not ask for the many horrible things that drive him forward, but it does not mean that Franziska should just be understanding of his feelings to the ends of the universe, without ever feeling anything herself.

And then there's Mia and Maya.

Mia had, arguably, very noble reasons for moving away from their home. She wanted to find out what happened to their mother. She wanted to remove herself from the arguably very toxic situation that was primed for pitting her and Maya against each other, in order to lift Maya up. They are still in contact with each other, and are very much in good terms.

Mia still, just by being so much older and by removing herself so thoroughly from their home, left Maya behind.

Maya does not show any resentment about this outright, but when reading very closely between the lines, you notice that she is anxious and worried about her future, about the rest of her family, about her own abilities, about...everything. She hides all of this very effectively behind her otherwise bubbly personality, but it does end up coming through, especially towards the end of the first game. She has a lot on her shoulders, and she feels inadequate to deal with all of it. Her home is not really supportive either: the other adult in her life, her aunt, does not hold any true affection towards her, and most likely cannot show the type of support that Maya needs, either. If she could, Maya would not be saying things like "I wish that I hadn't woken up at all" when faced with things she perceives as failures.

No matter her reasons, no matter how much they love each other, Mia still left Maya behind.

And there they are: Mia Fey and Miles Edgeworth, standing on the opposite sides of the courtroom, one of them barreling head first into the tragedy that binds them together, and one of them running away from it as far as possible, while being chained to the ball.