“some People Don’t Deserve Redemption” Redemption Isn’t Something That’s Deserved, It’s Something

This is further evidence for my point that that Edgeworth has a “move on” attitude towards trauma and the past. After his father’s death, he pushed down his grief and guilt to pursue guilty verdicts. He probably did everything he could to forget his old life. Even now, he doesn’t dwell on the past, the difference is his goal is no longer so unhealthily single-minded.

He buries his emotions not for the sake of hiding them but to accomplish his goals.

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

you buried two people that day

Thinking about AA role-swap AUs and if prosecutor Phoenix Wright would also “choose death” and then I remembered that in Farewell My Turnabout, Phoenix tells Edgeworth it might be time for "Defense Attorney Phoenix Wright chooses death". In the bad ending where Matt Engarde is declared "not guilty", Phoenix literally wanders the streets. Before I played this case, I thought Maya dies in the bad ending which prompts this reaction, but no he doesn't even see Maya again.

The more I look at canon, the more I realize Phoenix is as much of an emotional mess as Miles is, likely even worse. Phoenix's identity has always been so tied to being a lawyer, to saving people. He condemns one innocent person (Adrian Andrews) and he completely falls apart. And honestly, the same would probably happen if he got Matt Engarde "guilty" and Maya dies. Of course prosecutor Phoenix Wright would leave like Miles did.

Iris is a personal fav for me!

No worries! It's pretty easy to miss.

Basically in Bridge to the Turnabout, Larry himself implies that two of his previous girlfriends have hit him. This is what he says when he's on the stand testifying about witnessing the lightning strike:

Yeah, I don't think there's any other way to interpret these lines. Poor Larry... someone needs to teach him what a healthy relationship is like.

Currently halfway through Bridge to the Turnabout and no one told me I'd end up feeling bad for Larry. I feel like the developers made it their mission to hate on him specifically. And honestly out of every Ace Attorney character with trauma that gets unaddressed, why does it feel like Larry gets treated the worst by the game.

Everyone thinks he's useless and annoying. But I think the judge was correct when he said Larry has "quite a severe inferiority complex". Larry casually drops that he's been physically abused by two of his ex-girlfriends, but seems to think it's perfectly fine. He seems to believe he's utterly worthless and that he makes people "eternally unhappy". But he never changes because he suppresses his trauma so hard that he forgets about them. He actually feels so bad for screwing up in The Stolen Turnabout but instead of genuinely working on himself, he adopts a new identity because he can't stand himself probably.

But AA1 clearly shows that Larry is not "useless" or a "nuisance". After all Phoenix also wanted to repay Larry for defending him during the class trial. And not to mention Larry saved Edgeworth with his testimony in 1-4. Oh Larry you'll always be a part of the signal samurai trio.

Prosecutor’s office AA1 vs AA6

This is literally how I view the wrightworth relationship progression through the trilogy.

Phoenix is 100% more emotionally constipated than Edgeworth is and I will stand by that.

Space to share a headcanon you rotate in your brain like a rotisserie chicken

I have a very specific idea how the mitsunaru ship dynamic goes:

Also that one headcanon about Phoenix suppressing his college self means everything to me...

The idea of him getting back to that mentality for a moment and trying to backpedal out of embarrassment is just

Oh 100% Phoenix has major abandonment issues and a massive savior complex. He isn’t a defense attorney for himself, and he probably has little to no identity outside of it.

Comparing Phoenix’s issues to Adrian Andrews’ “dependent nature” is quite fitting really. The parallels between them are so interesting.

They both obsessed with someone close to them and modeled part of their career after them (Adrian acting like Celeste as a manager, Phoenix becoming a lawyer to save Edgeworth). They are both devastated when said person leaves them. They both forsake the truth because they are too dependent on someone else (Adrian forging evidence and Phoenix trying to get Engarde acquitted). And at the end of 2-4 they are both saved by the truth (when Edgeworth shows them the meaning of trust and finding the truth).

the more I think about phoenix wright the more convinced I am of how deeply fucked up he is

This is what I’ve been saying!! I hate mischaracterizations of Narumitsu that make Phoenix Miles’s savior and turn Miles into a poor baby who needs to be saved all the time. That is not them. Do you think Miles “we aren’t some sort of heroes” Edgeworth would ever approve of that? Miles, the only person who properly calls Phoenix out for his savior complex?

I could go on but, everything you said OP.

Wrightworth is not "Sunshine x Grumpy"

They are "Visibly Traumatized x Repressed Trauma", they are bitch for bitch, they are so many more interesting things than that overused dynamic.

Miles is not some sad boy who needs to be coddled, he is a grown ass adult who sent many people to jail. Some of which could have possibly been innocent. He's done some shitty things that are influenced yes--but not excused by his trauma. He can and SHOULD be called out on things he did, stop blaming all his bad actions on Manfred or Gant.

Phoenix is not a golden retriever boyfriend. Maybe he was in college when he was "Feenie" but that shit ended the day Dahlia was arrested (Hot take Feenie feels more ooc to the Phoenix we knew in the trilogy than Beanix ever did to me). Phoenix is a snarky bitch almost all the time, even thinking/saying downright mean things to/about people he cares about like Maya. He has massive big brother energy but not always in the "I'll take care of you" way but often in the "I'm gonna disgust/upset/annoy you on purpose because I think it's funny" way. (Like if you choose the fishing pole in Turnabout Goodbyes, he teases Maya by suggesting they use Missile as bait, which Maya takes as well as you'd expect).

Miles is not a princess who waited every day for Phoenix to save him. Miles was perfectly content to forget his past entirely as is his coping mechanism, and Phoenix has a savior complex that no one asked him to have. Miles never asked for Phoenix to reappear in his life, Phoenix just realized Miles was gonna ignore him, so he became a lawyer himself so that would no longer be an option for Miles.

This isn't to say Wrightworth is a bad ship by any means. This is to say that their characterization and relationship are so often blatantly misunderstood by the fandom. So often watered down to fit a basic mold. Which is a shame because their actual relationship is so much more interesting to me.

Sooo many fanfics get both of their characters wrong to either fit a dynamic they never were or because they want to give them less accountability than they deserve.