#real feelings about fictional characters

[alynnl]

My (Unnecessary) Feelings about Miles Edgeworth: The Saga

Presented without context as I play the Ace Attorney trilogy for the first time. Spoilers ahead!

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Case 1-2: Miles Edgeworth makes his debut as a prosecutor with a winning record.  He’s arrogant and smug. I’m not sure if I like him when he’s clearly trying to get Maya and later Phoenix put in jail.  What do you mean, updated autopsy report?!  He’s corrupt as the summer days are long.  I don’t understand all the fanart featuring him.

Case1-3: I’m laughing.  His witnesses are giving him a hard time and I’m laughing.  Edgeworth takes major Ls in this case but he still puts up as much of a legal fight as possible.  He actually helps Nick this time around towards the end of the case, which was a surprise!  Maybe he’s not so bad after all. (And all the fan artists and fic writers have a point.)

Case 1-4: I immediately want to defend him.  Edgeworth is a lot of things but I didn’t want to believe he was a murderer. Knowing how cold hearted Manfred von Karma is, made me even more protective of him.  And what’s worse, Edgeworth wants to try and convict himself for his own living nightmare!  I was so relieved when he was found Not Guilty, both for the Gourd Lake case and DL-6. His smile group picture, his awkward but genuine thanks and his brief moment of cheering for the new year before hanging his head endeared him to me so much.  I cried tears of joy experiencing this scene.  He’s definitely my favorite without a shadow of a doubt!  I fully understand all the WrightWorth fanart, as well as the individual Miles Edgeworth art. He’s a fandom favorite for a reason!

Case 1-5 (first and second attempts): Despair, anguish, hopelessness. I cried sad tears, twice.  I want to defend him but I can’t. Politics are getting the better of him (and me too.)  I know actions aren’t free of consequences but the narrative seems to go out of its way to doom Edgeworth even though he’d just been saved.  He’s in his worst mood and outlook in this case.  Him taking the L is no longer a joke.

Case 1-5 (reprise, finale): A hope spot with a whole lot of angst.  The hope comes in that even though he’s put in a tight spot, Edgeworth still finds small ways to help Phoenix look for the truth, in and out of court.  He’s trying his best in a very grim situation!  He’s truly resilient.  But he’s not able to accept others reaching out to him (yet?)  He’s not able to grow (yet??)  Even though this case was added later and game 1 was supposed to end with case 1-4, it sure paints a clear picture as to what will happen in the second game when he goes missing.  It’s a rather sad picture.

Ace Attorney: Justice for All

Case 2-2: The first hint that he’s disappeared/he’s gone.  It’s Franziska von Karma we face off with in court (and if I remember right), Phoenix’s inner monologue makes it seem like Edgeworth died.  I refused to believe it because there is no evidence, of course!

Case 2-3, Investigation Day 1: Second hint that Edgeworth has disappeared/is gone.  Gumshoe confirms it.  He’s incredibly cagey about it, which is unlike our normally talkative detective.  The way it’s framed also implies character death, but there is still no evidence.  I have background knowledge that Edgeworth has not one, but two spin off games, more appearances in the first trilogy and a presence in the later trilogy as an NPC, so I know on a meta level he survived.  But from an early story perspective, I still have yet to figure out how he survived.  He has some major explaining to do!

More notes to be added, as I make more progress.

[bixels]

I'm not explaining why re-imagining characters as POC is not the same as white-washing, here of all places should fucking understand.

[daydreamingmiller]

joel miller 13/?

[maerhiya]

in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."

like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.

when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.

media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.

which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)

any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?

[blitz0hno]

Y'all realize that if John is truly a new alter at least one has to have existed before him right? Even if the "third" alter (dubbed Midokoto) is no longer in the system/story, he WAS there.

Mikoto. Was never. A singlet.

Ever.

That's just not how DID works. Mikoto has to have had childhood trauma to have alters; you don't just split from stress in adulthood without ANY parts beforehand.

With this distinct difference in appearance, it's plenty reasonable to argue this guy could be John's predecessor (not John, but also NOT Mikoto).

So yeah it's plenty reasonable to think about the other alter and treat him as a factor in the story, whether or not he's around anymore. Bro is not like "an OC," he didn't come from nowhere. Systems cannot ever be singlets because their brain's development was disrupted; if John is truly new, someone else has to have previously existed alongside Mikoto.

Idk I trust that Yamanaka has thought this stuff out but this is just my opinion lol

[boxesblr]

*fighting the 'Etho doesn't care about Bdubs as much as Bdubs cared about him' allegations from the highest tower that I built and stand alone in on the hill I will die on, the people closing in from all sides*

I GET IT. I FEEL THE SAME WAY. I just think that Etho feels Bdubs loyalty is slightly too close to pity especially when he never wavers in it despite Etho not giving him reason to. To trust your friends, to believe in your friends, it can't be absolute fact - you have to hold space in your heart for doubt.

*kicks someone from the ramparts*

It can be both true that Bdubs gives Etho his undying love in a way that doesn't feel returned, and that Etho does return that love in his own way (which happens to be more logical and less self sacrificial). The out of context Siken quote "if you love me...you don't love me in a way I understand", it's both of them! It's someone who keeps hearing "I owe you everything" (Bdubs) AND who thinks that it's not true and is tired of hearing it (Etho).

*pulls a sword from a body and turn to stab someone approaching from behind*

It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It doesn't mean it feels fair. I ask myself frequently why they both act this way. But how much Bdubs cares about Etho is just as much about who Etho is as it's about who Bdubs is. You can't separate who Etho is from how Bdubs cares about him. And Etho is someone that cares. He does. I said I was gonna die on this hill and I meant it.

*jumps into the crowd of people below, duel-wielding daggers*

[silver-griffincat]

i'm currently on day two of begging people to please, please stop infantilizing marina. she's a grown woman, long time celebrity and news host, and 100% knows how rap battles work and that she was in one.

no, being very kind and autistic coded does not automatically make her oblivious to the point of being totally unable to understand sarcasm, or unable to be mean to anyone.

and, it's true that being naive doesn't in itself make someone less intelligent, but with her background, she'd have to be kinda dumb to not have picked up these social skills eventually (autistic people can do that). which wouldn't work, because dumb, she certainly is not. the opposite, actually, in case anyone forgot.

let the girl have her win she got by turning shiver's strategy against them. stop downplaying what she's capable of in favor of presenting her as just a little uwu cute wholesome bean too pure for this world ❤️. that's a public figure, a prodigy combat engineer who deserted her whole militarized society, and a grown lesbian who probably lays with her wife on a regular basis, not the awkward clueless tism girlie there for you to project yourselves onto.

[i-d-e-g-a-f]

i ache for katara so deeply, she deserves so much better than her canon fate. i cannot express in words how much her story and how the fandom views/treats her physically hurts me

[coquelicoq]

when you're the only person who keeps living through the time loop, the people around you cease to be people and become mere characters. your treatment of them doesn't matter because they're not real and they won't remember. the only way to give anything meaning is to end the loop; their actions don't affect the loop and therefore are meaningless. you're the only one who has the ability to change the future, so anything you do in service of that goal is justified.

but. kim dojka looks at yoo joonghyuk and says no, actually, these characters are people. whether they remember or not is beside the point because they are real right now. and you don't give your life meaning by achieving some accomplishment that retroactively makes everything that came before worth it - you give your life meaning in the living of it.

[mikakuna]

nobody wants to see real footage of me tweaking the fuck out when i see panels of bruce sincerely and happily hugging his kids, compared to his abuser-tactics 101 hug with jason

like fuck.. my boy can't have anything!!!!

[fictionadventurer]

The worst part about reading in a genre where you have low expectations (in this case, Christian historical fiction) is that when a book impresses you, you have no idea if it's actually good or if you're just overly impressed because it was a fraction of a degree better than the usual garbage.

[mbat]

i literally read the book of bill days ago but its only now kinda hitting me how fucked ford and bills whole thing was though cause ford literally talks about being so unable to sleep (to try to keep bill away), and when sleep inevitably caught up to him, he would wake up to his body abused and things messed with and he just couldnt seem to find an escape (and he literally didnt get to truly escape until 30 years later)

(also keeping people awake for unhealthily long periods of time is another tactic used to mess with and control people because of how it impairs brain function)

listing off the things we see in those few pages in the book of bill:

i mean, punching and scratching at a steel door for hours would be so damaging to your hands and probably hurt like hell for at least 2 days after. then bill says he was hitting fords head against a wall, though its said in a post-it as if its a joke, but he also isnt exactly above doing that, and honestly he says most things like its a joke.

i also dont need to say 'bill really doesnt know how to take no for an answer' because he makes that very clear in literally any interaction we see with him.

bill literally puts a venomous snake near ford while fords asleep, which could have killed him if he wasnt lucky+skilled enough to deal with it.

he nearly gives ford hypothermia, and in the same action actively threatens ford with the idea of making him jump off of a high spot, and like ford says, doesnt do it just so he can send a message to ford about how hes the one in control.

he gets ford in trouble with not only the law, but also with other people that are probably not very happy with him after. he mutilates fords body in several ways, and i dont think i need to go into detail on them because theyre... so ew. and he even exposes part of fords body to the world. like, its just taking his shirt off, but thats still showing off his body in a way that he didnt agree to or want

and then he attempts to (or purposefully fails to) call stan, using fords voice to threaten suicide and tell stan that ford never loved him.

and he punctuates it with a final power move, in a hallucination that he creates, hes messing with stans memories and making him feel like his body was basically about to implode

and like. okay, we all joke about toxic old man yaoi, and its a good joke and toxic old man yaoi is great and its an interesting ship, but holy fuck.

like. to say the absolute least, that had to be so, so deeply violating. its no wonder that when we see ford in the past, when he finally contacts stan, he looks like hes on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. he just went through, and still wasnt yet out of, some deeply abusive shit.

like... everything coming out lately both in this book and what ive heard is on the website, mixed with what we already knew from the show itself... the stans are both so, so fucking tragic dude. their whole lives were thrown away over things that really didnt even need to be the way they were, and then they both get into situations that are pretty damn screwed, and those situations follow them for the rest of their lives. its basically a miracle that things worked out in the end for them.

i dont really have a point, i just had to talk about all that. i read almost all of the book of bill in one sitting, and while i was really enjoying it, i was also getting kind of tired of sitting in one spot only doing this one thing for several hours straight. i still felt a lot of the emotional bits of it of course, but man this part specifically just really didnt hit me until now.

i mean, to say the absolute least, i know what its like to feel violated in a similar way, though not anywhere near to the extent of what he went through at all. someone get that man some therapy got damn

[deservedgrace]

"You can't hate god while also not believing in him HAH checkmate atheists!!!"

1. I can and I will

2. "You can't have emotions about fictional characters" isn't the take you think it is especially on this site

3. I am far more concerned with how the people that believe he is real treat actual real living people because of their belief, and it's perfectly reasonable to hate that a being I deem to be fictional is apparently requesting and requiring that its followers harm others

[lovelytonys]

watching iron man 2 with someone who will only ever criticize tony stark and refuse to understand or empathize with him is so nervewracking like……we’re watching the scene where he goes to pepper’s office and what I see is someone who is anxious and dying and doesn’t have the tools to express his emotions but I can feel the judgement radiating off of this other person in the room who is only thinking of him being inconsiderate and annoying and a jerk. i’m suffocating

[brainrotdotorg]

Cringe is a byproduct of authenticity. They are inexorably intertwined, not in the way that something like yin and yang would be, but like how branches are part of a tree. There is no tree without the branches, and branches cannot grow if there is no tree. There is no true sincerity without cringe, and true cringe cannot be born from anything but sincerity.

I admire the authenticity in the things I love. The characters and people that are true to themselves, that express with no hesitance their most raw and most primal forms of themselves; they are who I adore. They are intentionally and wholeheartedly bombastic in their passions, so dramatically full-throttle with no inclination to step on the breaks. It feels wild to experience who they are– I feel like I am in their passenger seat with my head out the window, experiencing what it could be like if I, too, put my foot on the gas.

What is stopping me from loving my passionate self the way I love them?

[a-cipher]

the thing about me being aroace is that I love romance/sex in fiction, because all romance/sex is fictional to me. like, if I say yeah I'd fuck that guy, it's in the same way that I would say yeah I'd make a deal with a demon or yeah I'd fight a dragon