#we're never going to treat people with disfigurments properly are we

[secret-71845th-thing]

The fact that more people in arcane fandom only started to like Silco after the s2 flashback where he's young and more "attractive", and now they already like this Vladimir guy because he's conventionally pretty despite him also being a villain is kinda disturbing ngl

[thedivinecalamity]

MAJOR ACE ATTORNEY 5 SPOILERS IN THIS POST JUST FYI

Man I have so many Ace Attorney Dual Destinies thoughts and the game is so muddled to me cause it introduces 3 of my fave ace attorney characters (Athena, Bobby, and Simon) and then absolutely proceeds to dunk on two of them.

I have sooo many thoughts about the phantom and how it was handled, I've seen a lot of really good analyses but there's one angle I don't think I've seen explored too much and I kinda just wanted to ramble about.

I totally understand where people are coming from when they say Bobby shouldn't have been impersonated and just the phantom (even tho I disagree I'm sorry you just cannot introduce a himbo to me and expect me to not like them) but there's another angle that I think could be explored that plays into the games themes that's just comically never even thought about by the game.

Throughout all of the games there's a running theme on how the justice system fails everyone. In DD, it failed Athena for having her mother's murder never properly solved for seven years, It failed Simon by getting him falsely convicted and nearly executed, and in a way I think it failed Bobby too? (hear me out hear me out)

Like, the guy is just treated as so disposable by the narrative. Surprise! The guy has been dead for a year and this clown is impersonating him! Like yeah he was disfigured/mutilated to the point where no one could tell who he was, but oh hey let's check his fingerprints, now seems like a good time :) Are we gonna ask the phantom if he murdered Bobby/was involved in any way? Nah. We got other detectives it's no biggie. Are we not gonna question the system that allowed a guy to impersonate an officer for a year? Nah. Does anyone care that this guy they thought they knew was murdered and heavily implied to be mutilated? Nah. (Also in a more overt way if the phantom was caught seven years ago Bobby would probably still be alive cause of the heavy implications that the phantom was the one who murdered him).

(Also this is more into headcanon territory and a whole other huge can of worms probably needed for another post but the fact that the phantom is literally just some guy™ hired by some organization that is very much still active after AA5 and could have potentially hired more guys™ to do their bidding and potentially kill and impersonate more people out there like?? hello??? I am going to go fucking insane what do you mean we're not gonna acknowledge that the organization is still active and potentially this shit could happen again to other people?)

Anyways even if you don't like Bobby I just think there's an interesting narrative to explore on how the justice system even treats its own workers, like one other example I can think of is how it's treated like a joke that Gumshoe can barely afford instant ramen despite being the reason a lot of the cases were able to be solved in the original trilogy. (Also I just want to clarify I am not a cop apologist irl, I just think you have to suspend some of that when playing the games cause lawyers can be just as scummy)