#youareshauni

[artsymeeshee]

I've just realized that Ford is wiping a bit of dirt off of Stan's cheek or gently touching his cheek on page 57 of the Instincts comic!! Just a small gesture showing his affection and reassuring his brother.

Yes! :D It was VERY necessary to add that detail because it's very much a reassurance for Ford as it is for Stan.

[dailybobzanotto]

I felt like I was intruding, seeing him vulnerable like this so soon after we had reconnected. But... he needed someone to talk to, why not his uncles?

---

[aquato-family-circus]

I had a blast from the past, seeing your Otto Brain DLCs on my dash. I've been thinking about Psychonauts again.

Something clicked in my brain, when I refound posts about the stylistic shock inside Bob's Bottles and Ford's massive construct of himself. The usual cartoony Psychonauts style, before BAM. Hyperrealistic Helmut Skull and the inside of Ford's head with stylized / dream-logic but still much more realistically rendered bones, his tongue, eyeballs.

Specifically, I think it fits the the dissonance in Mentallis' Movies. Between the both sanitized but also actionfied version told to the public and the terror and trauma of the memories of entering the ravaged Grulovia (they likely saw bodies), having to fight Lucy as Maligula, thinking that Helmut died in the waters, that Lucy died because Ford needed to kill her, etc.

It could be the Showman going for a bit of shock value for a scene in the documentary. People love a good scare if it's not too much! It draws attention through morbid curiosity!

Except. The little 'shock moment' becomes viscerally real. I haven't figured out what he intended and what he actually got. (It needs to fit P2's rating.) Unlike with Bob and Ford, it gets directly acknowledged, by the Showman quickly hiding everything while he laughs uncomfortably. Otto's defenses are unravelling.

Otto doesn't fear the idea of death per se. It's just a part of life to him. He finds disembodied brains fascinating. But he fears loss. I like the idea that the events when Maligula was unleashed again (retraumatized!), plus the recent weeks, have shifted his mental associations.

And I love the contrast of the usual associations of machinery (which is as cartoony as the rest!) with Otto, to the organic motif.

I really love the dissonance of when a more "real" looking use of bones or guts appears in the games. Meat circus is cartoony enough from just being rendered in the old graphics style but I think it also counts, there's something visceral about being reminded about meat and bones and death inside the ephemeral mental world.

Mentallis' Movies is one I haven't thought abt in a while but I love the idea here. Something meant to just dazzle and shock the audience ending up being too much and a result of Otto losing control of the show.

My mind goes to Disney's Body Wars and other similar science exhibits I've seen, where the point is to show the internal workings of the human body. Maybe it's an edutainment movie in that vein, where it kind of makes you sick to look at it bc seeing the inside of the body is sort of upsetting to most people. I'm still not sure exactly how it would roll out in the mental world narrative but that's my contribution to why it would come up

Otto's relationship with death is a rich vein to dig into... he seems like the kinda guy who brushes it off but also has plans to fight it off as long as possible. the showman in him grapples with the fact the show can not go on forever and every movie has an ending

[purrfectwriting]

Who of your OCs have you been thinking about the most recently?

omg hello!! tysm for this ask and for asking about my ocs 🫶

I've mostly been thinking about Raina and Iskander recently (my bodyguard and princess ocs!) as I really want to go back to writing for them, but working really has sapped my creativity, especially for writing in particular. 😭

But, I really would love to write a short story for them someday or draw something with them cause I miss them so much 😭

[solitaria-fantasma]

What are the Polterpups' favorite toys?

Hockey pucks, cardboard, and Callahan!

Cardboard is really less of a 'toy' and more a tool they use to bait stadium staff and athletes into chasing them around for a bit of fun (and also it tears up very nicely and helps calm the gnawing hunger in some of them), and hockey pucks are an easy item they can boredom-chew without getting in trouble for damaging anything (since the pups only have teeth when they're truly angry) that can also be thrown/hit/rolled for them to fetch.

The Polterpups as a whole are easily excitable and prone to excitement displacement tactics, as well, and some of them self-soothe by chomping on their boss. Callahan's natural icy-ness and relatively steady emotions (y'know...when he's not causing a blizzard or two >.>) helps ground them before they can get too worked up and bite something/someone they're not supposed to.

[vickyvicarious]

I feel Phoenix Wright is among the characters who are like,

"If I didn't have constant anxiety, it'd be over for you."

He already seems impossible from the outside in canon when he's often a nervous wreck. Imagine if that anxiety wasn't there.

Take a look at these three sprites for a second. (It takes a little while, but I promise you'll see the relevance.) They're the confident/smiling forward facing for each person. And... there's some interesting similarities, yes? AJ-era Phoenix's sprite is pretty close to being a perfect mix of Godot and Mia's. His hands in his pockets, midway between Mia's crossed arms and Godot's hands on hips. They're all angling their bodies slightly to the side in the same direction. Mia's head is tilted the opposite way and forward a little; Godot's in line with his shoulders and back; Phoenix is in line with his shoulders but closer to Mia's angle. Heck, even color wise - it's definitely more of a stretch but Phoenix has on a dark jacket and necklace like Mia, but his hat is closer in color to Godot's shirt, and it is also noticeable/bright headwear like the mask.

The reason I bring up these sprites is because... well, in AJ we see Phoenix from the outside for the first time and he really does seem very inscrutable. Knowing him, he's definitely still feeling a lot of anxiety over things, but he doesn't show it and thus we the players don't see it, since he's no longer our POV. I think there are a couple factors at play there as well, because Phoenix certainly seems to have gotten better at hiding his flopsweat moments in that game. You could say there's a certain element of detachment, because despite all his machinations, in the end he isn't a lawyer for any part of that game and so ultimately, the responsibility is no longer his. Maybe that's a factor.

But AJ-era Phoenix (or 'Beanix') keeps coming to mind for me. I realized a few months ago that in that game, his relationship to Kristoph (and the plot itself as well as Apollo) strongly mimics Mia's with Dahlia. However, looking at these sprites got me thinking that he also mimics Godot.

AJ-era Phoenix also returns after a long absence from the legal world, which was forced upon him due to the actions of a poisoner who successfully tricked him (Godot actually got poisoned, Phoenix just disbarred). And when he next shows up in court, he is visibly very different (mask and hair vs. beanie/hoodie). He's also a lot more jaded, and takes an interest in a young new attorney closely linked to the poisoner responsible for his absence. He's secretive, often for what seems like no purpose at all, but has a plan that's only revealed in the final case - which itself was a combination of somewhat longterm planning/buildup, and adapting to unexpected situations right at the last minute. He takes risks and works outside the courtroom/sometimes the law to achieve his goal (the bloody ace isn't exactly the same as stabbing Misty Fey, but, y'know), and in general appears quite different from his past self. However, in the end his goals are very sympathetic, and much more than just simple 'revenge', however morally dubious some of his choices have been.

Obviously, Beanix is not one-to-one with Godot. But I can see a rough sketch of similarities there, and certainly in general attitude/vibe they're more similar than Phoenix and Mia seem to be at that point. Even some of the things Godot says seem like they could be a Beanix quote (this came to mind). I think there's at least enough to go on to say that AJ-era Phoenix is once again a mix of Mia and Godot.

I find this interesting because Phoenix looked up to Mia right from the beginning, and modeled so much of his behavior, strategies, and philosophies after her. And yet, she just as obviously learned a lot from Diego, back when she was the inexperienced new lawyer. The most notable being, of course, the quote passed down to Mia and then Phoenix: "A lawyer only cries when it's all over." (Another Godot quote that seems to apply to Beanix is this one.) And the thing is, Phoenix looks up to Mia so much, and she generally seems pretty knowledgeable and unflappable, but once we get inside her head/play a few cases as her we see she has a lot of nervousness hidden behind her facade, much like Phoenix. Of course, those cases were when she was a rookie attorney, but I think the point stands. Godot also reveals a heck of a lot of issues and self-recrimination later on, but for the most part he's really good at seeming very confident. It's another similarity between all of them.

And yet, Godot's problems are more personal. When it comes to the courtroom, he's actually pretty legitimately confident for the most part. At least, I think so. He loses every case we see him try, but it's not for a lack of ability so much as a lack of care. His strategies are good, if unorthodox for a prosecutor (because he's acting more like a defence attorney). He knows what he's doing in court, and although he definitely gets surprised/owned at times, for the most part he's pretty unflappable and fairly quick to recover. Basically, this meta by @theggning is great and I'm trying to restate it briefly, but go read the whole thing. I also think there's a great argument to be made for Mia being quite similar in court. Less cryptic shenanigans, but the same type of underlying confidence in her abilities/craft to back up her determination to protect her clients. Unfortunately, we've never seen her in a case outside of her rookie ones/being a ghost during brief points in Phoenix's trials, so I can't point to specifics as much.

ALL OF THIS TO SAY... as soon as I read your ask, I thought of Godot. I thought of Mia, too. I think that "a more confident Phoenix" would be a lot more similar to the both of them, than to anyone else. You could even say it's a natural extension of his arc, and that it's at least somewhat represented in AJ. In a funny way, you can also read that very same game's events as the reason why he doesn't seem as confident as you might expect him to be once he returns to law in Dual Destinies (his failure with the ace/getting disbarred leading to being somewhat unfamiliar in the courtroom after so long, the pressure of living up to his reputation, the heavy responsibility of protecting his clients again, etc. - you know, vs. the writers just wanting to go back to lawyer!Phoenix and not always thinking too much about his characterization during AJ and how that would develop when they did so). But certainly during AJ, especially from Apollo's outside perspective, I think we get a lot closer to the image of a supremely confident Phoenix Wright.

At least as far as I picture it! I don't think it would make too much difference in terms of him being unstoppable - since like you said, he pretty much already is. But there would be even fewer cracks for his opponents to poke at, and his mistakes wouldn't cut him down as much as they do in trilogy-era. He would inspire the same type of reactions as Godot did when he first appeared... a lot of people feeling intimidated and noticing just how well he seems to know his way around the courtroom, or people getting caught up in his pace and listening to him even sometimes outside their best interests. And, like Mia in the first game with Redd White, he'd scare villains enough to cause issues, probably. But at least he might (also like established lawyer Mia) actually be able to get his clients to pay him well, enough to buy fancy glass lamps if he wanted.

[outofgloom]

One of the things that I love about how you wrote Vakama in mask Masker? He defies his creators who always sought to do undo their mistakes completely, one way or another. As if they never happened. Instead of healing the damage they inflicted and learning from their mistakes.

Vakama says, no more. No more trying to act as if it never happened. It reminded me of his conversation with Onewa back when they were Toa Metru. When they went to that giant conveyer belt where tools and masks would be destroyed.

"It keeps us from learning from our mistakes. We just melt them down and make them go away."

I'm glad that theme rang true for you! That particular idea developed slowly over the course of writing the story, thinking about why exactly the GBs would want something like a Mask of Time, and what they might use it for. There's a contrast then between how the GBs want to do things, and what their creation(s) choose to do instead. Thanks for the feedback--it means a lot! :]

[that1nkyone]

Headcanon for your Distortion Guide AU!

Ingo doesn't go out of his way to challenge others in Hisui. It's much more common that others approach him for a battle. This goes even for Akari / Rei who give him the best challenge.

Some indeterminate time in the Distortion World later and Ingo challenges Emmet to a battle, confusing Irida. (That is before the twins challenge Akari in a tag battle.) Ingo isn't able to say why he does it. He has an inkling that's been steadily growing stronger, just muffled by his amnesia.

Most of all, it's a feeling that he needs to do this.

I just love the idea that Ingo challenges Emmet. Usually I've seen it in fanwork that it's always Emmet who does it [though not battling Ingo in that case]. Also, the point that Ingo is slowly recovering - part thanks to and for Emmet, part because Ingo wants to do this for himself.

Oh I love this take. It's implied in Emmet's dialogue in Masters that he and his brother love to battle competitively with one another, too.

Ingo actively challenging Emmet after being the one approached for battles after so long would probably be pretty shocking for folks like Irida.

... but Emmet is smiling wider than he has in a verrrry long time.