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shidiand · 5 years

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How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

#tenco's story #freshlybakedspiderbread

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marsixm · 5 years

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edit sorry this post is both long (if the readmore fails i am truly truly sorry) & longwinded im just reflecting and thinking; (another edit: u can probably just read the tl dr and get it)

anyway allow me to spin some very personally based theory here for a mo while i put off/warm my fingers up from the cold in preparation to email my therapist

so growing up i had, i think only, het ships, but i never quite had the ones you were (narratively speaking) “supposed to” have

in most media i recall when i was a kid, there were like, 2 diff structures of character romance plot arcs in media i consumed, there was the main lead and 2 best friends model, where thered be the star of the show who had outside romantic leads and the 2 best friends (who were always a boy and a girl) would have their secondary romance, OR there were ensemble shows where there was a more clear romance set up between the main boy and main girl, then side characters whod pair off in whatever ways ended up happening. in the first, see: hannah montana, the second, see: zoey 101. obv this isnt a hard rule and there were loads of exceptions but like, lets just say i tended not to care for the romances set up for the main girls in the trio models, or quite as hard for the main boy and girl in the ensembles, and in general if there was an obvious romance between two leads i either didnt care or outright hated it

basically i never liked the ships they set up for us in straight media, as a kid (namely, a girl) i liked being that “ew pink!” “i hate valentines day” sort of contrarian, but what i remember actually disliking was the predictability of it, because i clearly still shipped characters, so it wasnt /really/ that i hated romance, per se

looking back on it i think it was probably or at least to a degree more like that i hated the hetero expectation of it- i can nit pick down to more specific examples of why i disliked the main pairings (kataang, for example, i thought was weird bc katara acted like a mother/older sister figure to aang, and i didnt feel like there was romance between them at all except where it felt shoehorned in) - maybe it was also that i thought it made more sense for a main character to be with someone they clearly already spent a lot of time with and not some random new hot boy in town (i very distinctly remember shipping miley and oliver on hannah montana, and i believe that was the first time i ever read fanfiction @ age like... 11 lol) as is often the case w like these things.

theres another level to this though, which is that i notice i tended to ship characters who were more vaguely similar to each other, like, physically (ie, similar heights, or hair colors mainly) obviously this is funny now since my main pairing is johnlock which is such a physically different ship we can construct them from basic shapes and colors and theyre still recognizable as who they are, but i have some thoughts about this- but i think there might be two interesting things about this again in retrospect

first of all, this sounds silly ik, but shipping the vaguely similar ones as a child’s way of queering heterosexuality is an interesting concept and not that difficult, like, two boys are also vaguely similar to each other in a similar way a boy and a girl with the same hair color and height might be, which is something i thought of a while ago

the other way in which this is really interesting to me now, that i think might have been more actually pertinent to myself as a trans child, is that i think i shipped the characters i did in an attempt to morph the concept of boy and girl? to find the boy counterpart to every girl??? that second one makes more sense actually. anyway, i digress

2 start off i definitely had gender feelings starting from a very young age so i think these observations ring more true than just reflections, PERHAPS

so the first thing i remember shipping, ie wanting them to be together, thinking about it an inordinate amount of time outside watching the films, even imagining them eating ice cream together in their pjs (i was NINE DHFJGghfkg) was jack sparrow & elizabeth swan from potc (basically my franchise of choice as a kid bc i never read harry potter) now this doesnt quite fit the “visually similar” thing bc actually orlando bloom looks more like kiera knightly and is prob due to them like making out in one movie, but i think this works for the “shipping as gender expression” theory, because elizabeth swan dressed up as a boy, spent most of that movie wearing boy’s clothes, etc- meanwhile jack was a wacky pirate which like hello duh i’d want to be. so i wonder if beyond the fact that they kissed and flirted, there was something to this concept of me wanting two characters to be together, meant i wanted to marry together two conceptual things happening with two characters, or absorb the cool dude and the boyish girl characters into each other to make one whole archetype for myself? i likewise shipped aang and toph (toph who, normally doesnt really have anyone to be shipped with, since she likes sokka but he has a gf) who we all know is the VERY boyish girl character, so boyish im p sure her actually being a trans dude later in life is a p decently accepted headcanon (i dont actually delve into aatla fandom though so i can only hope)

another thing about this ship thing, is most of my ships had brown hair (like miley and oliver), just like i always have, and in certain cases the girl character would look a LOT like me (i also shipped logan and quinn on zoey 101, which to my surprise n delight actually came true later (although looking back im like... 11 yr old me is glad they made out a lot but adult me is like uhhh why were the kids on this show making out a lot? anyway thats another issue) and i def was a weirdo girl with glasses and long brown wavy hair) which sort of further fuels my feeling that this was an attempt by my brain to do 1 of 2 things, if my own involvement really was a greater motivating factor in this thing, 1. ship MYSELF with a boy (which is like def possible for my gay kinnie ass, but not quite my thesis here) or 2. morph these boy and girl counterparts by imagining them together, seeing them together, etc

for example, i realize now, when i was a kid i drew an avatar sona for myself and said sona looked an awful lot like how id imagine a katara/zuko fusion would be, and the fact that i shipped zutara (very hard lol) was what lead me down this thought path rn

i feel like even to me this concept sounds weird and far fetched but like, gem fusion made enough sense for someone to write with its clearly, usually, romantic implications and we all “get” that, so whom knows???

another thing ive noticed while writing this is for a good few of these ships you can argue the boys in them can be read gay, like jack sparrow and zuko and aang, which feels even more strongly like me trying to marry my gay boy feelings to my tomboy realities [thinking emoji]

the biggest reason i think this makes sense to me is because when i was 10 i became obsessed with the idea that this boy i was friends with and i were secretly twins separated at birth, like i was so into the concept that we looked alike, i like hoped and wished so hard for it to be true, i wished a christmas miracle would happen for fucking real and a magic door in my house would open and be his new room and itd all work out perfectly! and you might think this was a manifestation of my difficulties with my family and wishing to leave it, but in my dream world my parents were still my parents and he came to live with us- which makes me think the obsession of ME looking like this BOY was a manifestation of my gender feelings, which i think can maybe be traced to this concept of pairing a visually similar, possibly gay, brunette boy to every brunette and/or tomboyish girl

anyway. if you actually read all of this id love it if you lmk somehow (doesnt need to be a like) like this is clearly very long and strange but i hope it makes sense. i think i stop myself a lot from ever commenting on gender or theory or whatever but i am a living breathing trans person who has experienced things and i have opinions and i dont think im claiming anything destructive with this lol i think its not unusual to reflect on the way you interacted with the world as a gay/trans kid

also im obviously not saying that shipping straight things is somehow inherently queer, im not trying to retroactively claim something about straight ships, like, those two characters are still functionally straight, and i definitely also shipped probably all of them for normal shipping reasons (although, kid ones, so less “oh theres a lot of ACTUAL romantic subtext between these two” but rather “oh theyre friends and would be cute together!” (or like they kissed and i was like O: )) but im just trying to theorize about something its possible my tiny trans brain was trying to express- and who knows maybe im not the only one!

anyway i guess the TL;DR is: when i was a kid i had a lot of “unconventional” straight ships- i already observed that i eschewed the main canon pairings in kids media in what was probably my tiny baby brains rejection of hetero culture, but i also actively shipped side characters who looked like me, and also looked like each other (ie, both tall and brunette, a boy and girl counterpart of Each Other) OR characters who seemed to be a gayish boy and a tomboyish girl, and im theorizing that maybe the reason that was was my tiny trans brain wanting to gem fusion those two together because of my Gender Feelings and fuse the boy with the girl and this desire manifested in shipping therefore thinking about a lot these pairings of boy and girl counterparts

#please dont be weird about this post i hope its like understandable what im trying to think about here?#like i dont think its that weird to consider nor am i claiming anything bad or destructive about ppls lives n genders n whatever #purely an observation about myself and the way i consumed media ages like 8-12 #in reflection as a gay/trans adult and thinking about what those things might have potentially been expressing or something #i dont know any official queer theory stuff n i dont think that should stop me from thinking my own thoughts so here u go #also i am TRULY sorry if this readmore doesnt work

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pinksweatergettingbetter · 7 years

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ah i almsot forgot: warning, the following has mainly snarky opinions on Spirit of Justice. Reader discretion is advised.

and we’re back to our scheduled programming

time to be rendered unconscious against your will you lil shit

“i hardly think anyone could pass out from eating something like this”

clearly you dont know what world youre living in, Sadmad.

...also he... might be allergic, guys. ever thought of that?

yes, EAT! EAT OR WE WILL HARASS YOU, POSSIBLY INNOCENT BYSTANDER!!! YOU THINK YOU HAVE RIGHTS???? CRAM THAT SHIT DOWN YOUR THROAT BEFORE I DO!!!!

...uh;

FIVE IS NOT AN OCCUPATION!!! EAT ANOTHER BUN AS PUNISHMENT!!!! REGRESS FURTHER!!!! HFKJGU;SUUSRSO

coping jokes aside holy shit

don’t hurt this tiny boy!!!

i hope you all feel guilty for being such pricks.

look at him. he's curled up under his jacket like a traumatized baby

at least this personality... sort of aligns with how DID is supposed to work? But now i just feel even worse. Someone get that kid a teddy and a juice-box, stat!

“Its clear that none of his personalities could be the killer!”

A) one of the three could still be lying

B) there’s four so far, what’s to discount a fifth? triggered by... i dunno, a reefer brownie.

C) I'm actually glad he's not the killer anyway just wanted to point out the possibilities youre discounting there

i love that theyre playing the goofy X people music for a traumatized five year old who witnessed a horrific murder of a loved one.

“I believe the person who laid the cards out is the very person who killed the victim” WELL.... DOY.

“How quickly you move onto a new theory when your old theory proves false!”

WELL.......... DOY

I love that theyre all just yelling and screaming about murder while the tiny child cowers behind the bench

hello??? anybody with compassion anywhere? maybe in the gallery? a bailiff? anybody???

“his emotions are spiralling out of control! something must have really frightening him”

maybe

THE FUCKING MURDER????

athena youre a psychologist; dont you know anything about calming people down or at least putting them at ease? youre gonna put scars on this kid’s scars!

i mean at least Cody Hackins was fairly fearless and defiant about what happened to him and only really broke down once it dawned on him what he’d actually seen. Owen is clearly very, very upset.

i passed out *image promptly closes eyes*

“poor kid, he's absolutely terrified of something”

KDJFKLDGDGL

“whatever it is, it might be the root of his out of control emotions!”

DSHFA;SLGHOHSO GIRSHG’

“see, all we got out of this boy is a tale he dreamt up”

fuck off sadmad

(sigh) Owen’s on his side, Shisho’s laying down, just get to it already

“rotating your thinking about?”

“oh! you mean turning your thinking around!”

“yeah, whatever...”

(SNERK)

“like the forehead, perhaps”

is that... just a random location or is it actually going to come true

also, back at the office, Apollo winces and he can’t figure out why

oh yeah its definitely gonna come back.

WHOA; OK, MANHANDLING

MANHANDLING, NOT GOOD

STEP AWAY FROM THE ATTORNEY, BLACKQUILL

yeah just fucking manhandle the stressed out anxious girl. you piece of shit. i knew me being your friend wouldn’t fuckin last.

“MOTIVE, OPPORTUNITY, EVIDENCE??? IS THAT ALL IT TAKES TO MAKE YOU STOP BELIEVING IT YOUR CLIENT?!”

to be fuckin fair, cuckoo, thats usually what loses most cases.

would phoenix manhandle athena?? would he berate her and shake her into doing her best?? i highly doubt it.

“prosecutor blackquill was just giving me a pep talk, thats all!”

athena thats unhealthy

legitimately simon’s been nothing but unpleasant this entire time. its fun to watch him wreck sadmad’s shit but he needs to keep the hell away from athena. whatever protective, elder-brotherly instincts he had for her in DD seem to have stayed in DD.

man I'm looking back at my previous commentary and i was. i was just so optimistic. how foolish. franziska, bring down your lash upon this foolishly foolish fool.

atcuall dont i bruise like a peach

jeez now I'm imagining Super Dad™ Phoenix Wright cross examining Owen with Athena instead and it’s melting my cold, hard heart

“unfortunately, i spy nothing of the sort”

again Sadmad acts like if he doesn't see the answer, then it’s nonexistent

not very monk-y of you, Sadmad.

gotta admit, i love this unique murder weapon

ive actually nearly suffocated under soft, cold, gloopy stuff and lemme tell you, its not fun.

...i love that simon took that logic-attack for us

maybe the animators just wanted to play his OH SHIT animation again

i know it looks like i pick on everything but in fact i edit these down. sometimes i take out whole statements because i rationalize them and realize that theyre actually plausible and i let them slide. so just, y’know. if you think I'm just blindly going at it, i am actually giving this game the benefit of the doubt. you just dont see it.

...if you read these

...uh

they used the pre-prepped noodles in the fridge. c’mon guys, as athena would say: Andale!

“perhaps the victim was simply playing with the cards, and they hold no other meaning”

oh NOW THEY COULD BE UNRELATED TO THE CASE

OF COURSE, NOW THAT IT’S CONVENIENT TO YOU

you sack’a shit

nice cliffhanger, kid.

Oh well; I’m partially glad that the poor lil guy can get a rest, and partially upset that his last two surfaces put him through intense anguish. maybe get Uendo drunk and go to the theatre or something, guys. poor baby could use a pick-me-up.

n no–– rise from the ashes flashbacks–– RISE FROM THE ASHES FLASHBACKS

THE LUNCHBOXES

SO MANY LUNCHBOXES

AAAAAHHHHhhhhi gotta give bucky a hand; being drunk and riding a skateboard while supporting a tower of bentos isn’t an easy feat

ew slurping

and simon extends his douchiness to the guys he's even shafting Athena for.

just, fuckin, lighten the fuck UP simon, CHRIST

TIDDIES

seriously tho; we haven’t had a proper boob joke in ages. actually Geiru kinda reminds me of April May...

Meanwhile we’ve had several testicle references, a drunk guy, and the bloodiest overarching plot the series has ever had. I think we’ve left Ace behind and graduated to Edge Attorney

to be fair the judge could totally be talking about her actual rubber balloons, considering his childlike personality at times. so maybe ITS YOU, SADMAD, WHO’S THE VULGAR ONE!

GET YOUR MIND OUTTA THE GUTTER!!

bloooon. i think Drifloon says that, too. Is that a japenese onomatopoeia or something?

ooh he sadMad

heh

i guess its up to simon’s brilliant mind tricks to save us again..?

...yehhhh i knew it

...huh. didnt expect that. impressive use of air...sword... skill.

IM NOT A KOORAHEENIST, SHE’S NOT GONNA HEAR ME ANYWAY.

i know what theyre building up and yes, i am super excited to see all those balloons pop

...i gotta ask tho, why does Athena think those balloon animals are bad?? theyre extremely intricate and they look a lot more like the thing she promised than most of the ones ive seen.

aw no the cake disappeared. i want a huge explosion at the end!!

“I’ma cut ya, witch!”

...

.....

........

i uh, i have to um,,,,,,, go now

SHES GONNA CUT OFF A TIT

GIRD YERSELF ATHENA

me, into my DS mic: HOLD IT. Hold IT. Hold it. hold it... hold it... bold it

athena; HOLD IT

simon: athena youre stupid do something. I'm not helping you.

simon: this time I'm going to do something, but god forbid you dont run with it

i dont think we’ve ever had a co counsel add something to the testimony for us before. we’ve had them hint at answers and interrupt trials to get us out of tight spots, but never directly ordering something like that. Guess that proves just how highly BK thinks of Athena’s abilities......

ooh the cakes back and there was a pop

im super ready for this

shit thats a strong balloon. i wouldn’t advice biting very thing plastic...

............

the... fuck???

sadmad: here is what will prove that Geiru IS NOT the murderer!

(geiru reveals buckwheat allergy and ACUAL RED HAND)

how the fuck does that help your case, Sadmad?? We know that the killer used the dough to kill the master by suffocating him with it. Pointing out that she came into contact with the dough, WITH HER HANDS, IS PROVING SHE DID IT.

YOU JUST GOT HER CAUGHT LITERALLY RED-HANDED.

HOW DOES THIS HELP YOUR CASE??????

ok well apparently she could die just by being in the room but if we look at how badly her hand has reacted, and is still reacting, Geiru should probably have at least some difficulty talking if “breathing in the flour” was dangerous. If her hand reacted that badly from minor contact, her throat should be shut like a steel trap. what I'm saying is, she’s probably lying about the severity.

“As if I would do anything so underhanded”

oh sad-‘trigger my enemies into yielding’-mad, youre hilarious

y’know i just realized, it is a little insensitive of Taifu to make/buy/keep soba around the place. if Geiru is this deadly allergic, he’s risking killing her simply because he can’t give up his precious noodles. thats like living with someone with a deadly peanut allergy and being all “can’t get enough of my PBnJ!!”

its time for

Off!

Brand!

Logic!!!!

oh. its not. ...ok

hang on didnt she say the dough was udon already, or am i misremembering? if she did and everyone just forgot, thats a little sad.

anyway, i guess thats... an alright twist. i still say that saying your witness is allergic to something and showing a reaction on the body part associated with the murder is stupid thing to do.

“dont lose your nerve now. keep charging forward or you'll feel my blade at your back”

I'm just gonna let that speak for itself.

ah THERES the off brand logic. and we’re finally gonna talk about those fucking noodles in the fridge. its been a long time coming.

i like that ‘ramen’ is a third choice every time

that was a pretty involved murder. “alright, kill the old man, hmm hmm... make a dish that i’m deathly allergic to to throw of the scent; just gotta get the cooking! make sure Uendo doesn’t wake up and catch me in the act~~ get rid of the dough in a way that is probably time consuming, lalala~ and there! Blooooon, the perfect crime!”

how much time did she have??

also how much blood did she lose form that knick on her forehead? if its enough to permeate an entire clump of dough, she should probably need a transfusion.

simon: dog pun. have you figured out the twist yet???? DOG PUN, BY THE WAY. JUST SO YOU KNOW.

all the balloons are there. its time.

seriously, thats gotta be a lot of blood. I'm getting Gingerdead Man flashbacks.

“i wanna thank you, simon. without your constant abuse, i wouldn’t have been scared enough to succeed for fear of what would happen if i failed!”

...its a bit premature for breakdown animations; the police haven't gotten back to us about the dough...

...i didnt like this balloon explosion as much as i thought i was going to. this is kinda just... uncomfortable.

you know, she shouldn’t have resorted to murder or blaming the crime on an innocent, but I feel like Taifu should’ve.... I dunno, either Trained her properly or let her down easy instead of forcing her to be a sexy balloon clown.

It’s clear she really, really wanted to succeed her father’s name, (which I'm a little confused about; was he one of Taifu’s students? What is Uendo’s real name then? what is any of their real names...) so I’m sure that if she just practiced enough, she’d probably be able to do what she needed to get to that level of entertainment. And if she couldn’t, letting her down easy and encouraging her to find something she actually liked instead of making her do... um... balloons would probably be a whole lot less nasty.

also wtf uendo; what did whet ever do to you

man all of these people were kind of dicks. except bucky. the guy who came to his trial drunk.

Sadmad: Hmm.... upon further deliberation... seeing as you won... I believe I shall afford you a basic sense of human respect..................

Athena: thats all I ask, prosecutor sadmahdi!

heyy he’s sobered up! or should I say... SOBA’D UP AAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH but seriously i don’t think they’ve said drunk or hungover once in this entire case what the fu

“no way... i almost got convicted out of convenience?” you, larry butz, maggey byrde and a shit tonne of other characters in the series. its actually a fairly common occurrence.

“he didn’t give her the name because he wanted geiru to find her own calling in life...”

...you know. after foisting a sexy balloon routine on her. to encourage her to quite entertainment.

obviously Taifu was using the Simon Blackquill approach to encouragement.

“making udon was his way of showing his support of her in her new endeavour”

...what does that... mean

“oh, i’ll make safe dough instead of the stuff THAT KILLS HER to prove that i support her!”

genius

“So this entire situation happened because of a misunderstanding? How sad...”

i think you mean,,, hhhh

i hate misunderstanding plots so so much

this entire case is just “he was being an asshole to ENCOURAGE you, see!! now you HAVE to forgive him!!”

newsflash: no i dont. you know what works better than fear tactics, threats and coercion?

BEING ACTUALLY SUPPORTIVE

“he probably used some tough love on you so that the shop wouldn’t just go belly up”

I SAID SUPPORTIVE. ARE YOU DEAF???

see? athena is being a little misguided but at least she's using a positive -food- to try to accomplish something.

“i’ll make sure its got all the TLC Master Toneido would’ve packed in it, too!”

you got it! one ice-cold, bitter, al-dente bowl with a side of vinegar, comin’ right up!

no athena!! brand loyalty!! mr eldoon will never forgive you!!!

“do us all proud, bucky”

or else

(flashes air sword)

Athena: I wonder if this gave me any experience as a lawyer...

Simon: HAHA WRONG, IF I HADN’T BEEN THERE YOU’D HAVE HAD THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF YOU. YOU SUCK, ATHENA, AND YOU DO EVERYTHING WRONG. FUCK YOU~!

see what annoys me about this is that when I first played Athena, I had some issues with her being too inexperienced to be a proper lawyer, especially with her court-related PTSD which could seriously endanger her clients.

However... Why are they bringing up her lack of experience in the one case (it’s not even a full case) in a game that isn’t even about her? And ignoring all the progress she made in Dual Destinies?

The way they’re talking about it is as if theyre setting up some kind of sequel; ‘you need to improve athena, you need to practice’. Which would have been all well and good for one of the cases in the first run of her own game... but Athena has been and continues to be a side character to Apollo and Phoenix. Rather than this moment coming at a crucial moment in her own game, it comes out of nowhere during a case she got last minute, couldn’t have prepared for, and is abused throughout.

what I'm saying is, the ghosts of DD past has come to haunt us. They introduced Athena too early and are bungling up her character development. Lawyers need a full set of games to let them grow. Just make an actual Apollo Justice 2 or Athena Cykes 1, but don’t insult us by pretending that this five minute shit actually did either of them justice.

Simon: I hope you stay shitty so that I can always win

brilliant.

you know, usually when a character is jerk with a heart of gold, that ‘heart of gold’ thing is supposed to show up at the end.

i was going to ignore the horrible joke but then Widget said “ROTFL”

what a... great way to end this....... great case

and so we close this one off, and for a case about tasty food, it sure left a bitter taste in my mouth.

#sulking over SOJ #soj spoilers #soj spoilers obvs]#i had so many hopes simon

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