the later aa games going harder and harder on edgeworth being a steel samurai fanboy retroactively make his arc in aa1 much funnier. turnabout samurai is arguably the turning point for edgeworth's progression as a prosecutor and it's notable because he credits phoenix as being the catalyst for his "unease and uncertainty" regarding how he approaches prosecution. and it's true, phoenix IS the catalyst from both a narrative and character perspective. but that reinforcement of edgeworth's fanboyism also means edgeworth was definitely already going into that case plagued by a deep agony that he was convicting the steel fucking samurai, which would not only end the show but also means that he miles edgeworth is functionally the evil magistrate. can you imagine the torment? the conflict? sitting on the floor of his apartment watching reruns hollow-eyed in his limited edition samurai slice hoodie re-coming to terms with his responsibilities to be a heartless professional. all that built up pressure primed edgeworth to crack that much more easily when it became obvious will powers wasn't really guilty. i put to you that had that case involved any other defendant miles edgeworth would have taken at least two more cases to crack. he's like yes i am but a humble machine to be used by the noble goal of putting criminals behind bars i have no feelings and to prove my commitment to these goals i will condemn my childhood friend to death without hesitation (is faced with convicting his fictional hero) noooooOooOOOoooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Does the narumitsu wedding get interrupted by a murder? I feel like that's the sort of thing that would happen to them.
i have a couple of posts about this which i will link throughout but in short yes. in long here's one proposed timeline (of many possible that exist simultaneously in my brain)
phoenix and miles are not dating and are complicated for many years until minimum 35 years of age
one of them proposes marriage (again they are not dating). i believe it's phoenix and i have an unposted ficlet in my drafts about how this happens but in brief he proposes with his attorney's badge in the absence of a ring
they get married at the courthouse in a whirlwind at some point and awkwardly text their loved ones after
they decide to actually have a nice ceremony to celebrate and plan a huge elaborate wedding
there's a murder at the wedding
they spend the wedding investigating, agree it's a fitting way to spend their wedding, but also agree they'll have a vow renewal ceremony at some point
during an unrelated case, phoenix keeps trying to "propose" again to miles properly, which his subordinates find out about (some of this is buried in this post but the post also talks about the first wedding murder) and think he's proposing actual marriage because they didn't know phoenix was even married due to some mishaps meaning they never actually got the rings
miles re-proposes before phoenix gets a chance to. phoenix re-proposes one second later to get even. they plan a vow renewal ceremony to make up for their wedding ceremony, which had a murder at it
drawing on your prior post, misc langworth hcs (especially in regards to That Man) ? :)
HEY there ok i hope you dont mind that theres also krisnix in this because this is a post i wrote and then left in my drafts for like several weeks. to me langworth and krisnix are like dark foils. fated to circle each other forevermore in the endless void of fucking cringe
anyway more of the langworth/krisnix bible in my brain
phoenix doesn't learn about langworth until years after the fact and is mostly just like what the fuck do you mean I had to go through the treacherous emotions gauntlet just to get you to look at me one time let alone h*ld my h*nd and you're telling me you just went off to FUCK a sexy interpol agent (with PENIS) what the fuck dude and edgeworth is like (avoiding eye contact thereby proving the point) my entanglement with agent lang was significantly less fraught owing that my feelings for him are nowhere near as deep or complex as my feelings for you thus it was less emotionally challenging to involve myself with him and phoenix is like yeah okay that's very sweet etc. is he single? do you have his number? edgeworth is like you mean to say you're jealous of ME in this situation? we are at our wedding
meanwhile: krisnix occurs while edgeworth is in europe in like, semi-regular extremely tender but kind of fucking tense contact with phoenix back in the localised states, phoenix and edgeworth are mutually aware of their feelings for each other and are in the 'will they won't they no they won't but in an alternate universe where everything is less complicated they would but in the now world that we live in it's a won't therefore i have no claim to you whatsoever and am at sad peace with this' phase of their relationship (recognised phase, comes before honeymoon) so phoenix is swapping soft and heartfelt bittersweet sentiments with his not-boyfriend across the globe while actively at dinner with kristoph gavin whom he is trying to do evil mindsex to and edgeworth knows about the evil mindsex and like, disapproves? of the mindsex? but recognises the tactical necessity of the evil mindsex and also see aforementioned no claim to phoenix wright very at peace. so now it's like a im texting my soulmate while he's at his boyfriend's place and nobody is happy about this and from what i hear from his disgruntled texts the mindsex isn't even good which just rubs salt in the wound to be frank.
i am just personally a really huge fan of the dynamic that you get when you are not dating and therefore nobody has a right to be mad at anybody else for being involved with other people because it's not cheating because you are mutually agreed not together and in fact you aren't really upset at all because it's all very open and affable but it's still fucking weird, man. like edgeworth's objections to kristoph are not a jealousy thing they're more of a "you cannot pursue ANOTHER beau who actively wants to kill you as your second ever relationship" and phoenix is like "bet"
anyway phoenix meets lang at his and edgeworth's wedding and lang is like so he was completely in love with you for the entire past ten plus years and it infected his entire personality and the way he interacted with everyone he's ever met, are you like, aware. phoenix is like yeah sorry
if you ask phoenix after the fact, he stayed friends with kristoph to keep an eye on him so as to ultimately take him down and that's it. he sees kristoph as a villain to be defeated and dislikes and distrusts him. however i think phoenix is hard-pressed to spend that much time with anyone and not find something in them to believe in or at least care about. so while i don't think phoenix would consider kristoph a person to be rehabilitated nor would he go to any effort to 'save' him, i do think if kristoph found himself in a bind even postcanon, phoenix wouldn't do nothing. he wouldn't necessarily do something. but he would not do nothing. and he would feel very complicated about it. more on this in the fic im not writing
there's just something about closeness that can't be shed even if that closeness comes from animosity rather than amity. im just saying. it's like the familiarity of divorcees who hate each other. enemies aren't strangers. it's intimate. in the fic im not writing that doesn't exist, phoenix still calls kristoph 'kris' years later.
i don't think kristoph likes or admires phoenix at all because everything he feels towards phoenix is obscured by bitterness and disdain. if they'd met in different circumstances kristoph would probably be less hateful but not that much less disdainful. phoenix isn't the kind of person whose company he'd enjoy
that said, while kristoph doesn't want phoenix, if it came out that phoenix didn't want kristoph, kristoph would be incandescent with shame and fury. there is something really demeaning about considering someone beneath you and then finding out THEY consider you beneath THEM. like hello? who does he think he is
this is an insane reference to bring up here but you know in la la land that one song lyric that's like "you say there's nothing here, but let's make something clear / i think i'll be the one to make that call." that's krisnix, somehow.
thoughts on great revival and the von karma legacy etc
i really like that miles and franziska share variants of the great revival theme, and i really like how differently they're used. miles' great revival has evolved quite dramatically over time, going from initially using the same theme at certain points to starting to develop his own version of the theme to eventually incorporating motifs from the theme into his own independent objection! themes. his great revival is a bit more steady and steadfast than franziska's--obviously a different key but also the instrumentation makes it a bit deeper in sound with the brassy intro (and in the 3d games more orchestral brass and strings in the body with the harpsichord being lost entirely, although i acknowledge the 3d games' instrumentation is so different by design that it's hard to definitively claim the changes mean anything) compared to franziska's harpsichord which feels more grandiose and extravagant in a prim, frilly way. i think this matches miles' ongoing exploration of his dual influences in that he will always have manfred von karma's teachings and legacy within him, even as his primary influence for his style and manner, but that he also draws inspiration, heart, and purpose from his father's less showy and more grounded approach to the law. (miles' objection! theme also has a little background motif from phoenix's objection! 2001 theme which means the world to me.) it's a fantastic evolution of a motif to demonstrate a person's struggle with difficult roots and the challenging process of shaping your influences into your own unique legacy.
on the other hand, i really like that when you hear manfred using great revival, it's identical to franziska's. while it shows up in the games for franziska first, we can surmise it's really manfred's theme originally and that it's something franziska has now taken on for herself.
something i really like about franziska is that even after everything that goes down in turnabout goodbyes, she rarely addresses her father or what he meant to her, but she also never renounces the von karma name or demonstrates in any way that it means less to her personal identity than it did before. she still prides herself on being a von karma. while she occasionally acknowledges her father's talent or standards, she never states that her goal is to live up to HIM, or prove her worth to him, or avenge him, or anything like that (in fact when phoenix and maya make that assumption in jfa she shuts it down). i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about franziska's unseen journey and any decisions she made about how to approach manfred von karma's stained legacy. but the thing i like most about miles' theme (that it takes elements of von karma's identity and changes them to make them his own) is also the inverse of the thing i like most about franziska's theme (that it doesn't). franziska does not take her father's legacy and reshape it or try to make it her own. she doesn't try to distance it from its sullied roots. she is a von karma. she acknowledges her father's contributions to the legacy and she clearly still feels some level of love or affection for him (calling him her 'papa' in big top for example). at the same time she does not try to defend him or step into his shoes. she is not trying to become her father. she is trying to prove herself as a von karma. it's interesting because the creed itself has not initially changed in jfa: it's still about perfection, it's still about a flawless win record, etc. but it's not about manfred anymore, it's about herself. while the creed of perfection evolves as the games go on, it's not franziska's response to her father, it's her response to herself and her learnings in the law. she is not trying to remake the legacy. she doesn't feel like she needs to transform it in order to make it her own. she simply took it from her father, because it is her own. and now it's exclusively hers.
i think the duality between miles and franziska is a really interesting demonstration of how to approach a damaged legacy. for miles the legacy was always transplanted. it was never a legacy he wanted, but now it's an undeniable part of him that he can't do away with. so, the solution is distance and transformation, the creation of a new personal identity and the incorporation of everything he's been into everything he wants to become. for franziska though, it's a legacy she was born into, and it's one she's always yearned to deserve. it's her name, it's her purpose, it's her own family. it's how people will always recognise her no matter what effort she makes to distance herself from it: she will always be von karma's daughter, even if she changed her name. so she embraces it. she is a separate person to her father. the von karma name and legacy is as much hers as it ever was his. she will not allow it to be defined by him. she does not need to change it to make it her own. it already is her own. nobody else has more claim to it than she does, including the father who brought her into it. honestly in this way i think franziska and klavier have a lot of interesting commonalities, especially in being unable to shed a family name which means a lot to them as an individual but also comes with so much baggage. franziska's feelings towards her family and once role model must be complicated, affectionate and grateful as much as they are wounded and betrayed and angry. part of her will probably always love her father. but at the end of the day, he's not needed anymore. changing the von karma legacy to allow herself to hold it would mean ceding the original legacy to him, and she refuses to do that. she takes the entire thing from him, top to bottom, completely unchanged, and leaves him with nothing to call his own, because his legacy and his theme are hers to take and define.
what's the most pointless recurring (non-serious) argument that klapollo would have?
apollo thinks vinyl is pretentious and can't hear any meaningful difference between listening to a song on a record vs playing it on spotify on his crunchy no-brand bluetooth speakers
probably best encapsulated in this ficlet i posted a while back. it's also 😶 a significant part of a fic i am in denial about working on right now. some character thoughts in non-prose form, though (long):
phoenix
in the darker times and early stages of his disbarment, i imagine he held a lot of resentment for klavier. klavier had maybe one evening of warning about the forged page but still (i assume with kris' pointed assistance) tracked down drew misham and convinced him to testify in the event that the page was presented and needed verification. that's a lot of effort to go to to verify a piece of evidence that hasn't been shown yet - so if i were phoenix, i would resent that klavier were willing to go to that kind of effort to prove phoenix a fraud but not apply it to investigating any reasonable doubts about how the page was commissioned or how kristoph could possibly have known about it. i mean, phoenix was only put on the case at the last minute - it stands to reason he wouldn't have had the opportunity to commission such a detailed fake, right? some interrogation of misham about how long it took, how much it cost, etc, should have uncovered at least that much doubt. we've previously seen that when phoenix was hurt by edgeworth's disappearance, he redirected his ire to "all prosecutors are evil not a single one of them is good" and i think despite his growth since then it would be realistic for him similarly to be bitter here that klavier clearly is approaching this from a position of zero faith in people and zero doubt in accusations, which is the worse side of approaches to prosecution in aceatt. so i do think initially he resented klavier.
however i think over time he pulled away from that for several reasons
first, recognising the depths of kris' character, it's obvious that klavier is also a victim and was in a uniquely vulnerable position
second, recognising that no matter what failures there were in klavier's investigation and no matter what corruption led to the objective disproportionality of phoenix's penalty, the fact of the matter was that phoenix erred in presenting forged evidence. especially without doing his due diligence as to where the evidence came from. but even if it wasn't phoenix's fault, it's still a serious thing to have happened given the potential consequences ie that an innocent person could be found guilty. so phoenix over time comes to accept that even if klavier's actions were inadequate (didn't investigate enough), they weren't really wrong in themselves (had to point out a known forgery), and klavier did not orchestrate the disproportionate fallout.
third, klavier was young. aceatt is insane about their youth prodigies but 17 is young. it was klavier's first trial. there's no fair way for phoenix to blame him for not doing everything right in such unique circumstances.
(i also just think phoenix isn't as great at holding a grudge as he'd like to be.)
by the time of AJ:AA i do think phoenix has largely let go of his resentment. that said. i don't think he's fully comfortable around klavier. i think part of him remains bitter even though he recognises it's not fair. from that i think he sometimes takes the opportunity to tease klavier a bit, which is mostly harmless but admittedly sort of unkind, because he knows klavier is tense around him.
i also think phoenix feels guilty that klavier was used as a weapon to hurt him, as well as how much klavier loses in the fallout while being kept in the dark for really the whole time. so beyond the teasing i think phoenix eventually makes an effort to ensure klavier understands there are no hard feelings. and then resumes fake hitting on him whenever apollo is in the room.
klavier
iiiiiiii think. klavier carries a ton of guilt. i think he starts out righteous and angry at phoenix for what he's "done", triumphant, arrogant, etc, and then slowly doubt begins to creep in until it's something that haunts him but that he can't look at or figure out until apollo arrives on the scene. after AJ:AA i strongly believe klavier would make a concerted effort to avoid phoenix for a long time (thinking phoenix hates him, rightly in klavier's opinion) and is visibly uncomfortable in his presence. i also think he's uncomfortable with edgeworth for a long time for the same reason and is tense at work. (this is in the fic im working on too so ill leave this here.)
however i also think (see the ficlet i linked) klavier would ultimately be the one to approach phoenix first. he's an honest person who is okay with doing damage to himself if it means he doesn't have to live with a lie, so i think once he's processed enough and just can't live with the uncertainty and guilt anymore, he would be the one to go to phoenix with an apology. it would blindside him completely that phoenix doesn't hate him. klavier carries a lot of guilt for kristoph's wrongdoing, i think, and no matter what he has to say about it i think he always carries a silent burden for struggling to unlink himself from his older brother's legacy. i think it would take a long time for klavier and phoenix to really be friends but by the time of the 3d games i think they have a mutual respect and care for each other that almost counts.
im gonna stop talking here because this post is long enough and a lot of this will be in the fic if i ever post it !!!
i just recently finished spirit of justice.. like literally last night actually. i never knew apollo decided to stay overseas at the end of that game!! do you like that direction for him? what do you think life would be like for him post aa6?
great question and i hope you had fun with soj!! this got really long! again! im sorry!
i have very complex feelings about this because as much as i personally really enjoyed soj, i also do not think it (or the "apollo justice trilogy" in general) was written with a lot of consideration for maintaining any kind of consistent arc thread throughout the three. calling it a trilogy is very generous and it's mostly for marketing more than narrative. like... this is a dumb comparison but if we say the pwaa trilogy is star wars original trilogy 456 (not necessarily conceptualised as a trilogy but able to pick up, maintain, and call back to plot points to form a mostly cohesive 3-part arc with their own storylines while having consistent plot points that carry all the way through) then the ajaa trilogy is star wars sequel trilogy 789 (no plan we adapt on the fly depending on the fan reaction and end up with three divisive entries that all have their own fans, strengths, and weaknesses, but are constantly bringing up new plot points, disregarding old ones, and doing any old random thing with our characters in each new entry).
and we can see this very clearly. at the end of the pwaa trilogy phoenix feels like he has changed and grown significantly from the beginning of the trilogy, because he has endured things that have very specifically challenged him, his worldview, values and ideals, beliefs, his relationships, his approach to the law. all the major cases he goes through test him as the protagonist. he's learned and unlearned lessons, he's had his relationships tested, and by bridge to the turnabout when you get that iconic image of him carrying on mia's spirit, you BUY it, because you've seen him growing into himself.
apollo's games suffer from a much broader scope where he is not the only protagonist, and in fact is quite rarely the protagonist, and even the cases where he is the protagonist just do not often center him as much as they need to. he hasn't had the opportunity to develop in that way because the story just is not about him. so the result of that is that while i love apollo and i actually love all three games in the ajaa trilogy, he basically starts a new character arc in each game and never gets any of them resolved in a particularly satisfying way. id actually argue dd does the best job out of the three of having anything resembling a self-contained character arc for apollo, because we didn't know enough about his past at the start of the game to contradict a new backstory, and his new challenges are raised and resolved fairly well by the end of the game. ajaa leaves both the gavins and the gramarye plots dangling for future resolution. soj brings up khura'in, dhurke, and nahyuta in a very clumsy way that is difficult to reconcile with
i hit this sloth by accident fucking whatever you get a sloth now
that is difficult to reconcile with what we already know about apollo. i have a whole other thing about how the apollo&nahyuta's past thing is clearly trying to recreate the success they had with phoenix&miles. they did this with athena&simon too and it arguably worked better than apollo, but none of the later games ever actually captured the reason why phoenix and miles' complex past and journey to redemption worked so well narratively speaking, so it just doesn't land. ask me about that for a separate thesis i guess.
the point is that it's difficult to articulate how i feel about apollo staying in khura'in at the end of the game when for the entire game im struggling with his khura'inese lore to begin with, from its very introduction. the lore just is not incorporated in a particularly graceful or well-written way. it FEELS like a retcon. and my frustration with this is actually that my problem really is just with the writing, not the content. it is not impossible to conceive of a world where apollo did come from khura'in and had a past with nahyuta and dhurke, without it feeling like a retcon. i am actually very on board with that premise. but it's sort of a messy idea and it would need to be written very delicately and skillfully to integrate it into what we already know, and i just don't think it was. it could've been done, it just wasn't.
as a result, and to finally answer your question after this entire fucking wall of text about nothing: i have no objection to the IDEA of apollo moving to khura'in at the end of game 6. i think if i bought the lore, and more importantly, if i felt that apollo's story had been sufficiently wrapped up by the end of his trilogy, i would've been really happy to see him move on and start his own firm in a place where he's more needed. as it is, i'm left unsatisfied, because he still has unfinished shit back in japanifornia and i never really got to see him go through a complete character arc. so instead it just feels like when a sequel doesn't know what to do with a beloved horse that you just spent two movies bonding with so it goes "if you love something set it free!" and sets the horse free even if it doesn't really make much sense or feel that necessary, like toothless in httyd, or elsa in frozen. apollo is a horse.
i guess the answer is that in the character void i like him in khura'in and will happily write him there in fan content, but im not happy that the games took him there because i don't like how they did it. and as a random aside, i also don't like it because now i don't know how they're going to do future games. they can't delete him as a protagonist because they keep teasing that sibling reveal, STILL. but i honestly just didn't like khura'in as a setting, i didn't like any of the khura'inese trial mechanics, and i don't want to go back there. lmfao. i respect aa for taking a risk by creating that setting but i just didn't enjoy it and now i don't know what they're gonna do with it.
