#celesdrian

[aloeville]

the girls are going through it

[aceredshirt13]

The parallels between Raymond and Adrian break my heart, and because of it I will forever be pushing my Raymond-Adrian friendship agenda. (But if you wanna know why - and okay a lot of it is because of how I personally view the characters, but still - you’re gonna have to go under the cut, because this accidentally got too long to handle.)

I mean, they’ve both got such similar stories! Yes, some of it is based on my own headcanons (which are VERY long so I won’t go into them), since we don’t know for sure what led them to meet their mentors, but I have to think that the reason Gregory and Celeste were such inspirations to them is because before they met them, they felt profoundly lost. Working for them didn’t just give Raymond and Adrian a role model - I think it gave them a whole new lease on life.

(The bitter irony being that the very people who gave them that lease on life would soon lose their own.)

And, well, this is entirely my opinion, but I don’t know that Gregory and Celeste were just role models in their eyes, if you catch my drift.

There’s being inspired by someone, admiring someone, wanting to be like someone… and there’s the attachment these two had to their mentors. Seventeen years after Gregory’s death, Raymond is still working in an office that bears his name, and wearing his clothes, when no other lawyer who has lost a mentor has done the same - held on so tightly to a memory. Adrian is shown to have been intensely dependent on Celeste (who was quite fragile, herself, considering her actions) to the point of trying to emulate her entirely as a coping mechanism after her death, even trying to take her own life because she couldn’t stand to live without her. Their wounds manifest as grudges- Raymond’s unfair one toward Miles for what he sees as him turning his back on Gregory’s memory, and Adrian being so furious (and rightly so) at Matt and Juan that she tries to frame Matt for Juan’s murder.

Now, I’ve had a good number of role models in my life - friends, teachers, etc. - who have had a positive impact on me. It would be, and would especially have been in the time which I directly knew them, devastating to lose them as suddenly and painfully as Raymond and Adrian did. But I don’t think my grief for them would have driven me to those lengths - I question whether I would go to those lengths even if I lost my own parents. So I have to wonder if it was more than that.

I have to wonder if it was love.

There are certainly stances that contradict this - in Raymond’s case, much of the fandom concludes that he must have seen Gregory as a surrogate father (which used to be my only stance in regard to Raymond’s feelings - even now, I do still like that theory, too), and in Adrian’s, the anime writers, apparently having thought that she seemed like too much of a lesbian, decided to declare her and Celeste to be sisters. And while those are valid interpretations (though I and most of the fandom are quite unhappy with the real homophobic-feeling choice to make Adrian and Celeste biological sisters instead of just saying they were like sisters or something), I don’t think a more romantic sort of affection is any less valid than those. Even going beyond their reactions to losing them, you can look at how Raymond’s eyes light up when Gregory does literally anything, and see how though we never meet Celeste, she is clearly Adrian’s entire world. Can any of us non-aro folks really say we’ve never fallen for someone who inspired us?

The parallels don’t end there, either. If you subscribe to the theory of love, then they both share a degree of impossibility, real or perceived. Gregory and Celeste are their superiors and if that weren’t enough, Gregory is quite a bit older than Raymond, and Celeste is getting engaged. Their mentors also strike me as people whose sharp intelligence, outward confidence, and great proficiency in their field (as well as them just being sweethearts) hides insecurity and a profound loneliness - seen by Gregory’s struggles with social interaction, and the fact that being dumped by her fiancé was enough for Celeste to feel it wasn’t worth being alive. So the people they inspired, and unknowingly captured the hearts of, reach out to them - not out of a belief that anything will ever come of it (Ray and Adrian’s self-esteem is too low for that), but just out of a desire to know them, to befriend them, to help them realize that they aren’t alone, and that they’ll always have someone there for them. Sometimes, even just making them smile for a moment is enough.

Part of them, I think, wanted to confess someday, to free them of this white-hot anxiety in their chests, but they postponed it. They could wait until they were braver, and older, and more confident.

(...How could they have known they wouldn't have enough time?)

So I like to think that for the brief period of time when Adrian is in prison, breaking down, fearing she’ll be imprisoned and possibly executed for a murder she didn’t commit, it is Raymond that offers to be her defense attorney should the case go to trial.

Because Raymond looks at Adrian, hears her story and her circumstances, and she reminds him of himself all those years ago.

Luckily, it never comes to that, and Adrian is set free, but I think maybe, by chance or deliberately, the two of them meet up again and become friends, as well as shoulders to lean on. Who could understand better, right?

And they stay friends, as they grow older, and find love in other places, and move on.

[aloeville]

i already have more sad fanfic about them in my notes app on the way. pray for me

[aloeville]

:(

[aloeville]

Throwing my ace attorney fanart out into the void

[aloeville]

I cant stop thinking about Adrian Andrews and Celeste Inpax in this headcanon hell i have created for myself (doomed unrequited tragedy yuri)

[aloeville]

Adrian Andrews lovers rejoice!!! I was making this a comic but had so many ideas that I decided to write a script, which I eventually just turned into a short little fic. Not sure the best way to format/post this so I’ve just pasted it all below. Here’s the link to the fic on ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65691040

Echinaceas in Bloom

“Morning, Cel. It’s nicer out today, isn’t it?” Adrian kneels gently, settling herself in a cross-legged seat on the soft, warm grass. She fusses with the rustic posy of wildflowers she brought with her for a minute, making sure they are arranged just right, then she carefully, ceremoniously, sets them on the patch of grass in front of her. She fiddles with the loose buckle of her purse anxiously, her body pulled into a rigid, upright position. She thinks of something nice to say.

“These are freshly cut from the garden today. The coneflowers are finally in bloom.” Adrian stares at the tombstone as if it might finally speak back today. Then she sighs, dragging her palm across her face and letting her back slump. “But you don’t want to hear about that, do you? You always loved some good gossip. Or at least something juicier than which flowers are in bloom.” She fights off the familiar, nagging thought that she’s not behaving correctly in front of Celeste. She ought to correct her posture, wear a smile, and be ready with her notebook— things Celeste always reminded her she must do if she wanted to be an exceptional agent. But Adrian was tired. And Celeste was dead.

“So I’ll tell you how I’m really doing. Not much juicy gossip, though, I’m afraid.” Adrian shrugs off her purse and sets it beside her, taking in a deep breath before focusing her attention back onto the purple petals of the coneflowers. “I’ve been alone a lot lately. Not lonely. I finally listened to you and put myself out there, I guess. I’ve got plenty of wonderful colleagues at Lordly Tailor, and that Ms. Fey at Wright and co. gives me a poor excuse for a prank call from the office every now and then when she’s feeling bored. Shoe makes great company. And I have Lana, of course.”

Adrian feels a little more at ease as she remembers the comforting presence of her best friend, Lana Skye. For a moment, she wonders wether she can even call Lana her best friend, considering they’ve only known each other for a little under a year, but she waves away the thought, reminding herself that such arbitrary limitations on the amount she may care for someone won’t do anyone any good. “She’s really been there for me, you know?” Adrian recalls last summer: Lana sitting on the balcony chair with Shoe purring as she scratched behind his ears, Adrian bringing over fresh herbs from the garden for Lana to cook for a dinner with her and Ema, and yeah, Lana holding her as she shook, sobbing and snotty-nosed. But she knew Lana was crying too. They’d had plenty of hours-long talks— filled with angry tears and confused laughter, which almost always ended in rocking, back-patting hugs. Adrian felt so lucky to have found someone who could understand, if only partially, what she was going through.

“But yeah. Even with all those people, I’ve often been alone— and it’s nice, to be honest. I’m living on my own, and there’s nobody else I rely on, nobody I live for but myself. Is that selfish? I don’t know. It was so hard being alone at first. I couldn’t do it. I clung to anyone who would let me— you, Franziska. But you all left in the end, didn’t you? Even Lana leaves; she’s got her own family, her own job, of course. But that doesn’t keep me from dreading my silent apartment as I hear her footsteps fade away outside the door. At the end of the day, I’m stuck with myself again.”

“I guess it made me realize that I’ll be the only one to stay here with me forever. Might as well get to know her, and maybe even get to love her. So I have. And Celeste,” Adrian tilts her head skyward, feeling the warm sun on her face. “it’s like falling in love again. But it’s different this time. Every day I get to learn something new about this woman who’s been right here with me this whole time. It makes me wonder why you never really tried to get to know her. Maybe I just hid her too well. Because now I never worry about whether or not you’ll be pleased with me, never hanging on anybody’s every word for even an ounce of praise or validation.”

Adrian laughs, feeling a hairline fracture beginning to form somewhere in her well-kept composure. “Every second wondering whether I was doing enough to keep your attention. What I’d have to do to get you to look at me like you looked at him. You knew how I felt about you, and you always gave me just enough to keep me holding on, to keep me up at night— a flirty joke, a tease, a tipsy kiss on the cheek. But never the love I really needed, what I really deserved. That kind of love was reserved for Matt. For Juan.” She felt tears prickling up in the corner of her eyes as years of unspoken thoughts and emotions made their way to the surface. “I loved you, and you know I always will, but damn it, Cel, you really fucked me up, you know that?” Adrian felt the hot anger crackling up to the tips of her ears, her voice getting a little shakier. Was she seriously getting pissed off at a gravestone right now? She takes a deep breath, pausing for a minute with her eyes closed, using that box-breathing technique she’d practiced with her therapist.

Inhale, two, three, four. She pictures her garden, remembering the hours she spent meticulously planting, fertilizing, weeding, watering, reading up on proper soil pH. How beautiful it became; the wildflowers bustling with bees and butterflies; spots of red tomatoes and strawberries peeking out from under their lush foliage.

Hold it, two, three, four. She thinks of the soothing weight of Shoe’s little body curled up on her chest, purring and making muffins with his paws on her sweater.

Exhale, two, three, four. Lana, standing proudly with her oven-mitted hands on her hips, a table full of home-cooked food before her, Ema smiling ear to ear and eagerly leaning over to take in the heavenly aroma.

She keeps breathing, over and over, feeling the air fill and empty her lungs until the rhythm silences her racing thoughts. She opens her eyes again. “You’re gone, and the past won’t change.” Adrian sighs, slowly rising to her feet. “But I can. And I’m healing. I know you’d be proud.” She smiles weakly, running her fingertips over the smooth, cold stone. “See you later, Cel.” She smiles, her purse back on her shoulder, as she looks one more time before she goes. “And tell Ms. Mia Fey that me and Lana say hi."