#in a way that no doubt makes phoenix go ??? especially after he gets disbarred

[cornertheculprit]

one thing i think is really funny is that. like. okay edgeworth chartered a jet and came flying over the instant he thought phoenix's life was in danger but if it hadn't been for larry calling him in a panic in the first place i sincerely doubt edgeworth would even have known about it at all because phoenix sure wasn't gonna call him about it. something even funnier is that at the beginning of the stolen turnabout when atmey makes the claim that even edgeworth thinks godot is a masterful prosecutor or whatever phoenix has no reaction whatsoever. he doesn't even care. it's MAYA who exclaims in disbelief and goes edgeworth?? no way??? etc etc. phoenix literally just stands there like he's made of cardboard until maya asks him if he's heard of godot before. doesn't even REACT to hearing edgeworth's name. at any given point in time in the trilogy + investigations there is this giant disconnect in how phoenix and edgeworth see each other and it's hilarious in an interesting way. by aa3 phoenix has already gone through the "savior complex" and "victim of my undying hatred" options and apparently that just left him like ??? uh yeah edgeworth's my. friend i guess. it's good to see him again. hey edgeworth i wasn't planning on calling you about my condition or the situation at ALL but now that you're here would you mind taking care of this girl for me and finding maya and acting as a defense attorney in my place because i trust in your ability to sort shit out. thanks! and edgeworth is just like ah wright the last bastion of justice and hope in this universe the man who shines so brilliantly before my eyes (or whatever the hell the line is i forgot) my dear and indispensible friend of course i will do this for you. it's just. the more you look at it the more the trilogy and investigations make it clearer that phoenix and edgeworth are just two guys in their twenties who do not really know or understand each other at ALL

#like they literally turned it around on each other first edgeworth was the victim of phoenix's idealizations #(and his savior complex) #in a way that just made edgeworth go ??? and then phoenix is the victim of edgeworth's idealizations #in a way that no doubt makes phoenix go ??? especially after he gets disbarred #does this make sense. idk i'm typing this out as i walk my dog

[ashrizen]

yeah so uhhh i accidentally wrote like a 1.2k+ word meta about phoenix & the differences between him when we’re playing as him vs as someone else & the reasons behind those differences.     woO O P S.

               the reason phoenix comes off as so capable whenever we play as someone else & when we face off against him in aa6     —     capable to the point where it seems to not just contrast everything we’ve seen of him from his pov but do a near perfect 180 of it   ( what with him having figured out the case & having a set plan of action & having prepared witnesses & evidence beforehand )     —     is exactly because we’re viewing him from someone else’s pov.

               to the world at large, phoenix’s uncertainty & anxiety & admissions to bluffing & surprise at some of his own tactics working are all kept to himself, to the blue text of inner monologue.     he could be questioning his own decisions tenfold, yet to anyone else looking at him it would seem that he’s utterly confident in his statement.

               the thing is, he has, pardon the expression, a good poker face.     when we play as him, we get to see his anxiety & freak - outs, but everyone else just assumes he’s deep in thought rather than internally screaming & thinking   “ I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING WHAT IS GOING ON WHY DOES THE UNIVERSE LOVE TO TORTURE ME I AM FIVE SECONDS AWAY FROM CRYING ”   ( which sounds like an exaggeration but honestly that is a pretty much perfect summary of the sort of thoughts he has when he’s up a creek without a paddle ) .     his theater kid years have served him well, along with the inadvertent practice of general avoidance of open conversations & of poker   ( a game notorious for being a game of bluffs, something phoenix even mentions being akin to lawyering )   over the past near decade     —     he’s a good actor & knows how to look collected.

               plus, he actually is a pretty capable lawyer  ;     he’s certainly grown to be one over the course of the first trilogy.     i mean, you don’t amass a reputation of being the   “ turnabout terror ”   &   “ comeback king ”   & keep recognition as a brilliant lawyer for like nearly a decade, even through disbarment, on bluffs & luck alone.     that doesn’t fucking happen, especially in a country where the legal system seems to have absolutely everything stacked up against lawyers, with them being allowed limited police department assistance & having prosecutors be allowed to speak with   ( & thus potentially manipulate by making them omit parts of testimony )   the witnesses, & where the court favors quick trials to convict criminals as quick as possible, going so far as to have a trial length limit of three days & having the judge be the lone decider of the verdict.

               & also like, i mean, if people like miles & franziska can admit to phoenix being a worthy rival, someone on their own level, there’s no way the majority of phoenix’s success stems from Luck & Bluffing.     don’t get me wrong, he’s incredibly lucky   ( interruptions that give extra time, new testimony that was Just what was needed, new evidence that you can spot from a mile away contradicts established testimony, etc. )     & has bluffed his way through parts of trials   ( bluffing someone’s guilt to buy time, bluffing about contents of evidence to trick a witness, etc ) , but that’s still a very low occurrence percentage.     saying phoenix’s career has had so many successes due to luck & bluffs is like saying that miles edgeworth & franziska von karma, when they lost cases against phoenix, while both being brilliant prosecutors who’ve had perfect win records up until facing him, lost because of Bad Luck.     that doesn’t happen.     you don’t go years winning on brilliance only to lose due to Bad Luck.

               & you know what’s worse ??     despite boosts in confidence when he’s on a roll, a rather big chunk of phoenix’s internal monologue is spent stressing over shit.     the guy that’s lost three cases in his entire career   ( though the first two verdicts were fair & he had no qualms about them, so technically they’re only losses by name, & the third was lost in a foreign country with an unfamiliar court & legal system & the verdict was soon overturned due to proving his client’s complete innocence )   still second guesses himself & has internal freak outs when his grasp on near victory begins to slip, as though he hasn’t recovered soon after in every single case beforehand.

               also, on the matter of his level of capability post!trilogy, when you look at all the facts of the cases that phoenix   “ seemed to magically solve while apollo was still figuring it out ” , you have to remember a few things about the conditions surrounding the cases.

               in the case of zak’s murder, unlike apollo, phoenix was there at the crime scene & was familiar with all the tricks & quirks of the hydeout, not to mention the conditions of the previously ongoing poker game.     he had time for a quick investigation before the police arrived plus prior knowledge to ways one could disappear from the hydeout.     that, plus the good amount of time at the detention center he had to mull things over, easily explains how he figured the case out before apollo, who had never been to the crime scene, was informed of the case through kristoph, & only had a few hours to figure out the entire case from scratch.

               as for the case of the mishams, his investigation of things in relation to them spanned over 7 years & he’s stated that he’d taken trips to europe due to a friend needing help once in a while, which we can obviously assume to be edgeworth, so it’s highly likely he had help with small details.     not to mention, while phoenix may have figured out who done did it, he didn’t yet know how to prove it without a shadow of a doubt & how to use what he’d acquired to show the guilt.     he may have figured out who did the deed & collected evidence & information, but he did so over the span of 7 years, &, ultimately, it was apollo & klavier who put together all the puzzle pieces & were able to prove kristoph’s guilt.      the mystery of the black psychelocks still remains, & as we learned in aa5, they lock secrets that not even the keeper is aware of, but they’re not impossible to unlock, so there is potential for that mystery to be solved before kristoph’s death sentence is carried out.

               but i digress.

               aa4 is where the   “ magical knowledge of cases ”   starts & ends.     the cases besides zak & misham’s were solved entirely by apollo & trucy, & phoenix only helped out a little in the meraktis case, & that was just helping the kids get into the crime scene.     he did nothing else.

               meanwhile, in aa6 when we’re up against him & he has everything ready for the trial, while true that often phoenix doesn’t have all the details & evidence ready, not to mention the witnesses are often not as helpful as he’d like, you have to remember that edgeworth was helping phoenix with the case, being the only other person to know of the blackmailing situation.     so phoenix being more prepared than one would expect is nothing unusual when he has someone to help out, not to mention the sense of urgency to perfect the case due to the circumstances that no doubt played a large part in the preparations.

               phoenix doesn’t magically become more capable when we’re not playing as him     —     he’s always been as capable as he is, if more oblivious & clumsy with his work in his first couple of cases.     seeing him from an outsider’s pov just lets us see what he’s like without all the internal screaming & uncertainty, not to mention the fact that he’s grown quite a lot as a lawyer since his early years at the practice due to over a decade of experience.

#this was supposed to be SHORT #fu c k #* !! study. #* !! i'm about to end this man's whole career.

[edgequill-moved]

for the aa ask meme: 31, 36, 37, and 45?

HI ANON thanks for the ask!!! my replies got hellishly long so i’m gonna put them under a readmore.. sorry i can’t shut up

31. Did you like what they did to Phoenix in Apollo Justice?

actually it’s hard for me to answer this question because i (accidentally) played AJ:AA first!! when i first decided to start the series i went to gamestop and asked for a used copy of PW:AA but they gave me the wrong game cartridge, haha. so my first introduction to phoenix as a character, besides seeing fanart from the trilogy that sparked my curiosity, was ~hobohodou~ in all his dickish glory. i think that shaped my interpretation of phoenix while i was playing the earlier games -- i always saw him as a bit more cynical and world-weary than he let on as a younger man.

as far as whether or not i like the choice that shu takumi made for him.. it’s hard for me to say, but i thiiiink my answer is yes? i mean he definitely bothers me in a lot of ways, even into dual destinies and spirit of justice, but i appreciate that shu takumi wanted to see his glory days through and then pass the torch onto someone else. (even if the dual destinies writers had other ideas. lmao.) it also leads to an interesting contrast between phoenix post-disbarment and edgeworth during the seven year gap -- like, with phoenix becoming more bitter and “morally grey,” compared to edgeworth turning into more of an optimist and trying to right the wrongs of his past.

so yeah, tl;dr i think the change adds a lot of dynamism to phoenix as a character even if there have been several times i wanted to deck the man in the face just like apollo. ALSO IT GAVE US TRUCY SO LIKE??? CAN I REALLY COMPLAIN??? NAH

36. Do you like where the franchise is heading or did you prefer the atmosphere in the original trilogy?

i will always always always cherish the feeling i had when i was 13-15 playing the original games and clicking through court-records.net and listening to the original soundtrack... but i also understand that All Good Things Must Come to an End. and as much as i miss shu takumi on the writing staff, i gotta give the new team some credit -- there have been some really good thematic elements in the latest games, especially in spirit of justice. i’m not so fond of the new gameplay (lots of the investigation elements seem unnecessarily complicated or redundant) in recent games, but my affection for the new characters kinda overrules that in my mind.. so... i guess i like it? it’s different. but i’m devoted to these characters no matter what, so i’m putting up with the changes in spite of some of my Differences In Opinion on how the series should be developing.

however..... i might have a different answer to this question if all the plot points left hanging from AJ:AA aren’t addressed in the next game. or if they ever try to make certain nasty ships canon (which i doubt will happen, but still). DON’T LET ME DOWN AFTER I’VE ALREADY SOLD MY SOUL TO YOU CAPCOM

37. Capcom suddenly announces that Phoenix will no longer appear in the Ace Attorney franchise! Your reaction?

i’d be sad as hell but that would also probably mean that we’d finally move on to a proper AJ:AA sequel so it might be a fair tradeoff tbh. i mean if he were dead i’d be really upset and probably like, in mourning for a while bc he’s always been very important to me... but i can’t realistically see that happening. ace attorney isn’t that kind of series. we’ve never had any major characters die -- the closest was mia, and she was only in a single case before she was fridged. so if phoenix wasn’t going to be in the franchise anymore i expect he’d just be off living a nice peaceful life with his husband and daughter while apollo gets up to khura’inese hijinks without him

45. One thing you think the Ace Attorney games can improve on?

FUCKIN?? CONTINUITY?????? i doubt i rly need to go into details here bc it’s such a common feeling in the fandom but like.... if the DD/SoJ writing team could properly address character development that happened as a result of events before the seven year gap my life would be complete. actually if they could address things that happened ONE GAME AGO i’d be happy. what i’m saying here is *bangs fists on table* WAS CLAY TERRAN EVEN AN ACTUAL THING OR DID THE WHOLE FANDOM COLLECTIVELY HALLUCINATE HIM

#long post / #replies #anonymous #clay's death / #mia's death / #wank / #i guess? it's not rly wank it's just a few complaints but nothing too negative #anon