An Intro Post (of Sorts)

today, you'll never guess what happened at gourd lake

mine are:

I told my partner that Phoenix went to law school for Miles, and she was immediately like: omg stalker???

I showed my irl friend fanart of Miles smirking and she immediately pulled up a picture of Sasuke smirking (I have not watched Naruto).

I showed another irl friend Miles' dismayed courtroom sprite (the one below), and now she does it whenever she's mildly annoyed at something.

ace attorney fans: what are some of the funniest ways your offline friends have reacted to seeing you play ace attorney?

mine are:

1. my partner at the time shouting "HE'S 23?!?!" and going through all 5 stages of grief upon learning that aa1 miles edgeworth is not, in fact, in his 40s

2. i showed my IRL bestie kristoph gavin and mentioned he was a villain. without skipping a beat they said "well of course he's a villain. he's blonde"

Evil Athena Cykes

Character Idea: defense attorney whose gimmick is similar to Psyche Locks except instead of figuring out what they’re lying about with logic, you just have to figure out which insults would be the most hurtful to that particular person until they break down and cry. Her name is Eris Charge

Here’s our girl

Still not very good at digital art but I don’t mind how this one turned out :)

Click for higher res

perfectionist (pt. 2)

1 | 3

tag as ship for an instant block theyre siblings you freaks

Phoenix is the one good at performing and Miles is the authentic one, right? It doesn’t fit them 100% of course, but I cannot see it the other way around.

Phoenix is an “insufferable emotionalist”, yes, and his emotional reactions are very genuine. But when he’s expressing emotions it’s almost always about other people; saving other people, believing in other people. When it comes to his personal issues, he is a closed book. He never says a word about Miles’s disappearance or Dahlia’s betrayal to anyone. Phoenix might not have multiple masks but he’s the one who took this piece of advice from Mia to heart: “for a lawyer, the worst of times are when you have to force your biggest smiles”. That’s his performance: the defender, the savior.

Phoenix is so driven by his attachments to other people that it feels like he doesn’t have an identity outside of it. He became a lawyer for Miles, twice. He pretty much only takes cases because Maya drags him to or one of his friends is the defendant. He doesn't function well when he's alone. You can't tell me he has a stable sense of self.

Miles suppresses his emotions, yes, and in the first game has a crisis over who he was as a prosecutor. But he doesn't perform. He holds himself to personal standards of perfection and doesn't care as much what other people think of him. And he's always authentic in his morals. He always tries to do what he thinks is the right thing, even during his "Demon Prosecutor" days. He thought getting every defendant a "guilty" verdict was the only way to get justice. It's the truth that makes him change his ways. It's pursuing the truth that becomes his main motivation. And isn't that the definition of authenticity?

Miles also 100% does see through Phoenix: "We aren't some sort of heroes. We're only human, you and I". Miles sees past Phoenix's performance. I think he might be the only person to ever address it.

Phoenix Wright is not the excruciatingly authentic and bright sunshine. He is the mirrorball who only shines so brightly because he reflects everyone else’s light.

But it's mutual. They see through each other. And that is probably my favorite part of wrightworth.

Send Me a Character

And I will tell you my:

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One core trait of Phoenix Wright as a character that I rarely see discussed is how utterly evasive he is about his private affairs. It sticks out the most in AA4 when we see Phoenix from the outside, but "Phoenix won't tell anyone anything important unless he absolutely has to (and even then, he probably won't)" is by no means a new development for him.

From AA1 onwards, we see Phoenix dodge people's questions about his personal life time and time again. In part, this is by narrative necessity - Phoenix knows more than the player is meant to know in order to achieve the optimal tension curve. But AA takes his narrative shortcut and turns it into a real character beat.

Phoenix Wright is the most cagey fucker on the planet.

At the end of 1-1 Mia asks him how he came to befriend Larry and Phoenix dodges the question with a vague promise to tell her later - this also means that in all of his time working with Mia, he's never actually disclosed his full motivation for becoming a lawyer to her.

In 1-2, Maya asks him how he knows Edgeworth and he dodges, because of course he does. The same song and dance repeats at the end of 1-3. And despite Maya's repeated prodding by 1-4, Phoenix still has not told her a thing about his past. That's from October until December that Maya is left going ??? and her questions go nowhere.

Then, between AA1 and AA2, Edgeworth is presumed dead by suicide. Does Phoenix tell Maya about this? Absolutely not. He does not tell her in letters nor is he clear about it when they see each other again in person, months later.

What Maya gets once it's inevitable to talk is a vague 'he's gone' and no elaboration other than the request to not speak about him again.

This is Phoenix's default coping mechanism.

In AA3, there are numerous instances where he mentions forgetting Dahlia, not speaking her name again, etc. Edgeworth is 100% getting the 'person who hurt me too deeply to think about' treatment here.

But to not even tell Maya a vague overview on the matter, when Maya knew him too? Rough. And it just keeps going.

It's six months between telling Maya that Edgeworth is 'gone' in 2-2 and her finding out that 'gone' seemingly means' dead' in 2-3.

Maya complains about it, too. This isn't a matter of 'she never asked again', it's a matter of 'Phoenix is dodging all questions'. Gumshoe has to intervene in order for Maya to finally find out.

And finally in 3-5, does he tell anybody why he's going to Hazakura temple and why he seems interested in Iris? Absolutely not!

At this point we get Edgeworth openly acknowledging that Phoenix keeps his emotional cards extremely closely to the chest. When he states that he wants confirmation on whether or not he has met Iris before, this exchange happens:

Even as Edgeworth directly calls him out on being evasive and never actually speaking to people, all Phoenix can do is acknowledge that this is how he is by apologizing - but he won't change his ways.

AA4 Phoenix is really just a natural evolution of Trilogy Phoenix - Trilogy Phoenix is already evasive, already hates telling people about his struggles or accepting help... It's really no wonder that he'd isolate himself instead of reaching out once he gets disbarred.

I have to save him.

You know one thing that I absolutely hate? When one recurring joke about a character overshadows their trauma and complexity. I hate when characters are treated unseriously and frankly disrespected because of one meme or gimmick that is probably massively overused anyway. And why is it always video game characters.