Game Over.

No joke, my dream mainline AA final entry (whether that be AA7 or later) is not one that simply brings back all the beloved living characters from past entries who’ve disappeared (Gumshoe, Franziska, Kay, etc.) I want it to lean hard into the concept of spirit channeling in order to bring back all the former big bads (Dahlia, Manfred, Kristoph, Phantom, etc.) but also the lost loved ones (Gregory, Mia, Clay, Jove, Dhurke, Metis, etc.) for an all-out, true send-off to the mainline series.

It’s Ace Attorney! It can be ridiculous; the stakes get stupidly higher with each game anyway! Let’s say Maya senses there’s havoc being wrecked in the spirit world, and she channels Mia to discover that something has gone terribly awry with Judgment and now everyone who’s ever died in the series is stuck in purgatory, unable to move on into either Heaven or Hell (or whatever equivalent there is in the world of Ace Attorney).

Mia and some other spirits who dealt with justice systems in life (whom we later discover to be the likes of Gregory Edgeworth, Dhurke Sahdmadhi, and Godot) are trying to sort it out, but they simply can’t do it on their own—so Mia is reaching out to the world of the living for help. Now all the main living characters—Phoenix, Apollo, Athena, Maya, Ema, Miles, Gumshoe, Klavier, Simon, Nahyuta, Franziska, everyone—have to team up to help their loved ones find peace and ensure their enemies face justice in the Beyond.

Like, can you imagine what an amazing emotional mess this could be? Miles having to face his father after all the mistakes he made in his life, and them working together to send Manfred to literal hell (and just think about how Franny fits into this dynamic). Apollo and Phoenix needing to unlock Kristoph’s black psychelocks, digging up all the Gavin family skeletons, and requiring Klavier’s help to do it. Simon and Athena and Metis and the actual Bobby Fulbright having to unmask the Phantom for real. The list goes on.

It’s pipe dream, but I’m foaming at the mouth just thinking about it.

Finally YouTube gave me the right recommendations

gen z prosecutor: in the courted room. straight up "alleging it". and by "it", haha, well. let's justr say. Your charges

Many moons ago, I wrote this post about one of, if not my favorite, ship in the Ace Attorney series. That being Klavier Gavin/Ema Skye, a.k.a Klema. At the time, I said in the tags of the post that I would probably revisit it and add things that I didn't include at the time. Looking at it again, I would say that my feelings remain largely the same... so maybe it's time to add those extra thoughts to the post:

Give me post-AJ Ema and Klavier spending time together at work where they’re more cordial at first. Where it’s awkward because she doesn’t want to say anything insensitive because he’s Been Through A Lot Lately. And he’s polite too but he notices the tension between them, and neither of them know how to get past it. He doesn't want to be treated like glass, and she doesn't want to rub salt in the wound. Then one day he can’t help but make a joke at her expense and she snaps back with a snarky retort. It’s a shift back into familiar territory, but it’s with a new foundation of mutual civility and consideration for each other.

Give me an Ema who realizes that she knows what it’s like to have been deceived by an older sibling who you were supposed to trust implicitly. So even if she finds his attitude utterly grating most days, she can never bring herself to hate Klavier for the mistakes he made when he was younger when he was acting on the advice of someone he trusted. Even if she could salvage a relationship with her sister in the end, it does not erase the years of uncertainty and loneliness or the lingering doubts.

Give me a Klavier who starts paying attention to how his own attitude could rub someone the wrong way, and how his own standard of perfection and success is not necessarily shared by all. He considers how disheartening it must have been for his colleague (and now maybe work friend?) to fail to realize her own childhood dream, despite her best efforts. He had once made a disparaging remark about the forensics experts and how as a detective, Ema has even more authority, so shouldn’t she be more grateful for that? When he remembers the brief pause in her reaction, the hurt and dismay in her eyes that quickly gave way to outrage and the outburst that had followed, he apologizes to her for making the remark in the first place. Maybe he's surprised when she forgives him (and maybe so is she).

Give me a Klavier who feels he has to atone not just for his own mistakes but for those of his brother. It's enough for Ema to see that maybe there is goodness in him. There is a man who wants to do better and be better.

Give me these work friends bringing coffee to each other and sharing stories over them while they're working. Give me a Klavier and Ema that start to spend time together outside work and finding each other to be great company, actually. Making time for each other in their lives to the point where they are a welcome and expected presence. Where it just hasn’t been a regular day if Klavier doesn’t make a lightly flirtatious or self-aggrandizing remark or if Ema doesn’t bring him back down to earth.

Give me a Klavier that encourages Ema to follow her dreams, to try again and again until she has what she wants. Who, if he could, would move heaven and earth to make her dreams come true, but he knows how much sweeter that accomplishment feels when it's earned through one's own merit. Klavier who stops to consider why he would feel that way, why he would want to do that for her.

Give me Ema who's so so happy when she gets the news. Ema Skye, Forensic Investigator. Doesn't it just roll off the tongue? She thinks so, and she's bursting to tell the world. Give me an Ema who finds Klavier and wants to celebrate with him because he's been supporting her through her renewed efforts, and maybe a small part of her still wants to gloat. Give me Ema, whose insides warm when Klavier gives her the brightest and most sincere smile she's seen from him. She must have seen him smile like that before, but here it takes her breath away.

Give me Klavier and Ema suddenly with mixed feelings. Unable to shake the realization that they might not work together anymore. This is a good thing... right?

Give me a Klavier and Ema with tension, but this time it's the tension that comes with unspoken feelings. Feelings that they can't even fully admit to themselves. Of course he's happy to see her achieve her professional dream, so why is he worried that she'll never want to be around him again now that they don't have to be? Meanwhile, she can't pretend that he's still just the 'glimmerous fop' she once couldn't stand. He is still that glimmerous fop she can't stand... sometimes. He is also much more than that, and that 'much more' is what she has come to admire and miss in him.

Give me a Klavier and Ema that try to fight their feelings at first. Maybe there's embarrassment because 'ew, are you even supposed to have crushes when you're 25?'. But at some point it just grows and grows until there is no hiding the stolen glances or lingering touches. Someone has to eventually make the first move. There is awkwardness as there always is when you're in uncharted territory, but they want to go through it together.

Give me a Klavier and Ema filling their shared moments with banter in one minute, and then with companionable silence in the next. Give me a Klavier and Ema who root for each other, tease each other, and still drive each other crazy. Who somehow couldn't get away from the other. A Klavier and Ema who don't want to be apart from each other.

Give me Klema.

seriously though, one of the best (and pretty unique all things considered) prosecutors!! legit ready to sell my soul just to have a klavier investigations game

Playing AA 5-3 right now (Turnabout Academy) and I was so genuinely delighted when Klavier showed up. He's such a friendly good boy. Athena asks if he'll help them and he's like "of course but you didn't need to ask, I actually came here specifically to help you." He's an australian shepherd of a person and one of these days I'm going to do a long character breakdown on him and why he's so darn loveable.

250 posts?!?!

my bitchass yaps a lot i fear..

The Athena von Karma Theory

Most people already know about Manfred von Karma’s granddaughter- she’s seven years old at the time of AA1, has a dog named Phoenix, and mostly just exists so Manfred can make a point about Polly the parrot.

But I can’t help wondering just who exactly this granddaughter is- or if we’ve already met her. And there seems to be one person in particular who stands out as a candidate for this granddaughter… Athena Cykes. I might sound crazy now, but hear me out.

We know from a mock interview that Franziska von Karma has an older sister, the mother of this elusive granddaughter. Now, assuming the family follows traditional naming conventions, that means whoever this granddaughter is, she doesn’t have the von Karma name, but her father’s name. It also means that Franziska’s sister doesn’t necessarily use the von Karma name anymore.

We also know that this granddaughter was born around 2009- and is therefore the exact same age as Athena. We can also assume that she was raised in Japanifornia during this time (a more obvious connection in Japanese, as the dog is named “Ryu”- a name that an American child would be unlikely to come up with.)

On Athena’s part, there is the fact that she has family in Europe, close enough to her that she moved to live with them. There is also the fact that Phoenix encountered her there; and, since Phoenix would have been travelling Europe with Edgeworth at the time, it makes sense that she met Phoenix at the von Karma household. How they met in canon has never been properly explored, so this explanation is as good as any other.

Finally, we have the fact that Athena is, by all rights, a legal and lingual prodigy. She is fluent in several European languages, took the bar exam incredibly young, and is the youngest attorney in the series to date. All of this makes sense if she’s from an old European family filled with legal geniuses.

So essentially, the theory goes that Metis Cykes is Franziska’s older sister. Metis got briefly married and had Athena, thus making Athena the mysterious granddaughter. Then, when Metis died, Athena moved to Germany to live in the von Karma household, presumably with her grandmother and/or Franziska; there, she learned her assorted languages, met Phoenix while he was visiting the household with Edgeworth, and decided to study law to save Simon, taking advantage of the von Karmas’ legal resources/connections (as well as her own talent) to pass the bar at eighteen.

(Not to mention, it would make one hell of a springboard for Franziska to come back into the series, and to explore the disbarment era a little more. That’s some prime drama fuel right there, and it’s exactly the kind of thing Ace Attorney would do for a twist.)

Obviously it’s a bit of a stretch as theories go, and I’m not by any means suggesting that it’s canon. But it’s a very fun concept, and it has the potential for a lot of good storytelling.

me when ao3 is drunk