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rpanons is an anonymous community for role-play related topics. This place serves as a forum for game discussions, canon discussions, RP solicitations (ATP, game ads, open memes), and advice. The occasional off topic comment is inevitable, but please keep heated social and political topics to their respective communities. Posting them here will only get them frozen. Subsequent threads made to bypass a freeze will then be deleted.Rules:
Do not post pornographic or shocking images.
Do not share private entries, plurks, chat logs, etc.
Do not use this community as your social/political/hatespeech soapbox.
Do not be redundant. One page does not need three or more threads on one topic/theme.
Do not treat this comm like your personal Plurk or Twitter. Off-topic happens, but it should be open for discussion and not just a play-by-play of your life. No one cares.
CONCERNS | RESOURCES
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Phoenix wright | Ace Attorney
Okay! Here's a few thoughts:
I think generally when it comes to DWRP, the most important thing to get down about a character is how he reacts to people who aren't characters he already knows. Knowing Phoenix's dynamic with Maya, Edgeworth, Gumshoe, etc, is all helpful, but the majority of the people you'll be interacting with (hopefully) are going to be people outside your cast, so we have to pay special attention to the way Phoenix treats people he's first meeting and then how typical relationships with him evolve from there. Luckily, Phoenix meets new people every case, so there's plenty of fodder for us to sort through there to see how he gets to know people.
Despite being a good lawyer, Phoenix isn't really that great with words and can come off kind of awkward, even when meeting new clients. Most people aren't happy to be sitting in jail, and plenty of Phoenix's clients are upset when they first meet him, but despite going through that time and again, he doesn't ever really learn how to deal with people when they're upset. Most characters you interact with the first time probably won't be upset (maybe a few first coming in to a game) so I think it's worth looking over the way Phoenix interacts with new characters who aren't his clients to get a better look at how he might react to characters in your game of choice.
Another anon last post brought up a good point about avoiding making Phoenix overly emotional; however, I'd like to kind of add that while Phoenix certainly doesn't burst into tears and scream about Dollie anymore like he did as a college student, he's still pretty emotional sometimes, almost to the point of being comedically over-dramatic - he just turns it inside. There's plenty of this especially in Justice for All, where Phoenix spends half the game in dramatics because of Edgeworth's "disappearance". Maya just mentioning Edgeworth's name leads to this exchange:
Which is pretty goddamn overdramatic. There's several times in the games that Phoenix mentions feeling faint or thinks he's going to pass out (or black out), and they're all slightly silly reactions to stress or anxiety, which he's pretty prone to. Here's one from the memory-loss fueled tutorial trial of Justice for All:
Phoenix tends to stutter, stumble, pause, and say things like "uh", "umm", "urk", "argh" quite a bit, but Phoenix's anxiety and dramatics definitely aren't the only point of his character! While Phoenix can definitely fall victim to self-pity, he always manages to turn things around (haha) fairly quickly, and although sometimes this is only because he has Maya or Ema (or even Mia) to tell him to snap out of it, I think Phoenix could easily force himself to quit the pity party and get down to business on his own, even if it would take remembering that Mia would have smacked him upside the head by now to do so. Just don't linger on "woe is me" for very long!
It's important to remember that Phoenix is a famous defense attorney for a reason, and even though you won't be doing any trial scenes on DWRP (probably), I wouldn't say he would act differently in a court room than he would trying to accomplish something anywhere else. Phoenix is famous because he gets not-guilty verdicts, even against difficult opponents, but also because of the way he gets not-guilty verdicts. Nearly everything Phoenix does is against the usual method. I think it's important when playing Phoenix to give him temporary goals, even if they're nothing big (finding out where he is if you're in a standard jamjar, maybe setting up a business could be a long-term kind of goal?) and let him work towards that goal with determination but find unusual avenues to pursue those goals, if that makes any sense. Even when he hits a road block, Phoenix is going to keep doggedly pursuing whatever it is he's working towards, so don't let him get discouraged (except occasionally temporarily).
Also, a big part of Phoenix's character is his snark, but he typically keeps it to himself. Still, it certainly wouldn't be out of left-field to have him make an occasional snarky/biting comment here and there, but he isn't the kind of guy who insults or makes fun of other people very often. He does seem to let the comments slip a little more to people he knows well, so as you build CR with people, you might let some of what would typically be inner monologue slip. Phoenix seems to do this with people he knows well regardless of what kind of relationship they have so it doesn't necessarily have to be negative CR.
When I played Phoenix, I was working to bridge the gap between his disbarment and the way we see him in AJ4. I worked on changing his usual uncertainty and anxiety into cool detachment - I think Phoenix still can feel anxious and stumbling but he hides it well, probably to keep from showing much weakness to Kristoph (whom he was actively investigating). He's a little more forthcoming with sarcastic or snarky inner monologue, and he projects a more level-headed appearance. It's kind of hard to explain, haha.
I think you'll do fine, anon! The key to playing Phoenix, I thought, was just making sure I balanced all of his different facets. And in the end, he comes from a game full of quirky and unusual characters, so you can't take him too seriously or you're already doing it wrong. There are plenty of serious topics and moments in Ace Attorney, and the game handles them well, but playing Phoenix too stony serious all the time would be disastrous, just as playing him too quirky/funny or too anxious or too successful would be a problem, too.
And the other anon mentioned this too, but be careful not to let him stray into Sherlock Holmes/infomodding territory too much. I won't at all say that Phoenix isn't intelligent, but he stumbles onto a lot of the answers to the mysteries he solves completely on accident or only after going through five other wrong theories first (that might be a little hyperbolic, but). Phoenix almost never hits the right (I typed "wright" oh my god) answer the first time around, and he honestly works best with someone else to bounce ideas off of first. It's also worth noting that he has absolutely no problem voicing ideas that are completely off-the-wall or so stupid most people wouldn't even want anyone else to know they'd thought of it. (Then if someone points out how idiotic that is, he'll have an "Oh... right..." moment.) So that's a good thing to keep in mind.
Good luck, anon! Once you get into the groove, I think Phoenix is a lot of fun to play. :) If you ever want to voice test, I play a few other Ace Attorney characters too and I'd love to help you out!
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i hope said anon sees it!