#deathofthetext

I give you Project Itoh's novelization of MGS4 so we can yell about what Itoh did and didn't get right about Naomi Hunter together lol

for the character ask meme

Ooh fun. It's been a while since I've played the Ace Attorney games but they have a special place in my heart always

First impression

lol. Abrasive but entertainingly so. I was accustomed to the over the top zaniness so sure! This teenager is an Experienced Prosecutor who whips people. Why Not. Actually I think Franziska is the first character we're introduced to as the Absurdly Young Professional and I think I did think this was funny.

Impression now

I love Sibling Tragedy and Sibling Drama and Sibling Relationships and she DELIVERS. Tied with Edgeworth for Favorite Prosecutor.

Favorite moment

When she gets fuvking shot outside the courthouse and Edgeworth has to drag her, protesting all the way, to the hospital. And then she left the hospital Still Bleeding From A Bullet Wound to deliver the crucial bit of evidence to the courthouse anyway.

Idea for a story

I had a WIP a long time ago about Franziska teaching Adrian Andrews how to use a whip to feel powerful and confident. And they were slowly bonding and falling in love over that. I'm a Fradrian truther

Unpopular opinion

I don't see her liking or getting along with Maya at all, sorry.

Favorite relationship

Her weird sibling deal with Edgeworth! Ace attorney has so many excellent fraught sibling relationships but these two are my favorite. They were pitted against each other as kids. Franziska is the true von Karma but she felt like her dad gave more attention to Edgeworth. She needs to beat him in court. She was heartbroken and livid when she thought he died and came to America to take it out on the person she blamed for his death. She's the person he calls when he needs a prosecutor he can trust, and she charters a private jet across the Atlantic immediately and then insults him to his face when she arrives. They are both dealing with the fallout of the way Manfred raised them.

Favorite headcanon

When Edgeworth took the bar exam at age 20, Franziska was 13 and was SO INCENSED that he would get to be a full-fledged prosecutor BEFORE her and that would be UNACCEPTABLE so she demanded to sit the bar too. The same one as him. Yes she's 13. She can do it. SHE'S BEEN TRAINING HER WHOLE LIFE FOR THIS!

Hah, yeah, this is two fundamental tropes for me

[F] Fake Dating Becomes Real Dating. They are faking a relationship/dating/marriage/etc. for Reasons and then fall in love for real. I find this INCREDIBLY boring, and so contrived as to just be irritating. Overall I find premises that contrive a reason for characters to get together romantically that is not "they have been spending time together, or going through an Ordeal together, and realize they want to" to just be boring tbh. It feels like a shortcut and rarely feels like it's based on the characters' personalities or relationship at all.

OPENING THE FLOODGATES

The thing is, "double murder sibling-in-law reacharound" doesn't really have its own square. Neither does "I fucked your husband as revenge for you fucking my brother" or "you are kind of the only person left alive who actually understands me" or "we're both terminally ill and I'm spending my last remaining weeks making that your problem while also saving the world behind your back".

I think in another universe where it WAS Philanthropy who broke Naomi out of prison she could have been a strong ally and she and Snake could have eventually had many deeply uncomfortable emotional conversations where they came to understand and respect each other. They didn't, though. It was Ocelot, and Naomi and Ocelot were playing double-cross-chicken with each other because they both had the same ultimate goal but didn't trust each other to actually carry it out. It was actually the same goal Snake had and I'm screaming tearing my hair out at Naomi making Snake's last days alive a collection of spiteful jabs while also solving the Big Problem He Dedicated His Life To Solving for him. She blames Snake for her brother's death, but her brother died saving Snake, so she can't kill Snake without denying her brother's memory. Snake meanwhile is an incredibly compassionate person and pities her, and I think she resents that, but also he DOES understand her and lied to her about Fox's last message to her to make her feel better.

However I am 100000% convinced she was planning to kill Otacon out of spite, but then she saw Sunny, and Sunny is just like her at that age (a war orphan, parents killed in conflict with the people who then adopted her, raised by lifelong soldiers apart from Normal Socialization) and I think Naomi saw that what she was doing was just continuing the cycle she had fed into and was now trying to break. She was trying to destroy the Patriots and their war economy, but was double-orphaning another little war orphan girl the way to do it? Was it really? Otacon only survived MGS4 because Naomi didn't want to make his daughter sad, and her revenge on Snake by not-killing-him-but-making-him-miserable was ultimately less important to her than the goals of burning down the world order that made her and letting something new grow in its place. Because at the end of the day she agrees with him professionally even if she doesn't want to forgive him personally. And he's dying and she's dying and god what is any of this for if we're just gonna keep killing out of spite.

Fox forgave Snake. Snake forgave Fox. Snake forgives Naomi. Naomi cannot understand any of this and can't forgive--can't forgive Snake and can't forgive herself--and I think that's part of why she marked herself as part of the Old Order that needs to be wiped out for the world to grow back healthy.

(*the reference to plastic dinosaurs is that when I was a kid I would have epic multigenerational battles between dinosaur factions and every time a dinosaur died the toy would be repurposed as a child born into the new generation who would continue the blood feud war. This is how I feel about these two)

Snox... them...

Solid Snake was in love with Gray Fox - wait this is both 1) not exactly headcanon because it is a valid reading of the text and 2) not useless because nothing in the text makes sense UNLESS it is true--

Anyway.