I just want to get something off my chest and I wasn't sure where to post it, so here I am.

I think I have a problem. I went almost a year (maybe more) without playing any of the Phoenix Wright games, and I thought it was all over... but then I heard that terribly awesome Beatles song, and for whatever reason Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth came to mind, and since then... my life hasn't been the same. ...Sort of. It all started almost three years ago, when my older sister first introduced me to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Pretty cool game, I thought. It wasn't long until that game became an "obsession" of mine.

Funny story about these "obsessions," I'm pretty sure they weren't very healthy, but a few years ago whenever I discovered something I liked, my life pretty much revolved around that thing. It all started with Constantine Maroulis in fifth grade. He was a contestant on that dreadful show American Idol, I can't stand to watch it now but back in '05 it was my favorite. Anyway, I decided pretty early on that I liked Constantine as a competitor on the show, but it didn't take long before I "fell in love" with him. (I say that because obviously I wasn't in love with him, that's just silly, but gimme a break, I was ten years old. I guess you could call it puppy love...?) I had a marble notebook that was reserved solely for him, and I filled it with a hundred pages of "I love Constantine. I love Constantine. I love Constantine." Over. And over. And over. And over. And over again. When I wasn't writing that, I was drawing pictures of the two of us at our wedding. Yeah. Not healthy. And this whole Constantine fiasco went on for two years. Finally, in mid-seventh grade it wore off. (Now it's weird when I see him on TV and stuff because I used to be so into him. He's like an ex-boyfriend to me now, it's really awkward.) But then I became "obsessed" with other things (not as severely, thank GOODNESS): Titanic, James Cameron's 1997 film; Broadway plays I'd seen that year; and then, later, Legally Blonde: The Musical. These and countless others fell victim to my obsessive fangirlishness.

And Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was one of them.

Eventually the novelty of all these things wore off... except that of PW. I'd fallen in love with Edgeworth's character (figuratively speaking, of course, because he's a fictional character and it's kinda hard to actually fall in love with those, but I fell in love with... I don't know how to put it... the concept? Eh, that'll work for now) and the entire plot. If I remember correctly, I bought the second game, Justice For All, the day it came out in the US. If I knew how to, I would've downloaded it onto my computer and played it beforehand, or however it is that people on this site get ahold of the games before they actually come out, but I'm WAY too stupid with computers to be able to do that.

And then, after waiting MONTHS for Trials and Tribulations to be released over here, I finally bought it... but got stuck on the third case. And after that, I abandoned it for a long, long, loooooong time. Now, over a year later, I've re-discovered them. Whether that's good or bad, I'll let you decide.

It was all thanks to that stupid Beatles song that's actually a great song and just so happens to be my favorite at the moment, but that song reminded me of Edgeworth for some strange reason. After a while, I just couldn't take it anymore. I was determined to beat the third game. But I have this weird OCD thing where if I'm playing a short series of games like that with a continuing storyline and a new one is coming out or something, I have to start over from the first game. It just kinda gets my mind into it and stuff. But my point is that before I could beat the third game, I had to replay the first two.

And that's when it happened.

I thought the novelty of my PW obsession had worn off along with all of the others. And maybe it did, because this... this is nothing like that was. Now that I think about it, maybe those obsessions were just a cry for attention, but even now I can't be entirely sure.

While I was replaying that first game, I felt this huge adrenaline rush to my brain, and as I was playing I kept getting these strange... urges to act in ways I hadn't acted since like, eighth grade (or my "happy time," because yes, I acted like a total spazoid idiot, but 2008 was, to date, the happiest year of my life. It's funny to say that now because it feels like so long ago, but back then I was all about now and living in the moment). And that was before I'd even gotten to the second case, where Edgeworth first appears.

And then I got to the fourth case, which is still my favorite case in the ENTIRE series. And as I continued playing the games, eventually beating the third (FINALLY), I continued to feel these urges. It came to a point where I just couldn't surpress them anymore, and I would succumb to them while playing the games alone in my room. After the age of my "happy time" came to an end, I never thought I'd be doing those kinds of things anymore.

And just what were these urges I keep mentioning? Well, some of them include unnecessary high-pitched squealing, insane giggling, and crippling laughter over something that, in reality, wasn't really that funny. All signs of the dreaded Fangirl Syndrome. (I'm currently studying this horrible disease, and soon I should be able to produce a list of signs and symptoms. Hopefully I'll have a detailed report on the sickness in the near future, and I'm also working on a cure. Keep fighting, everyone.) I swear, I felt like good ol' Edgey must have in that one part of T&T when he said that totally hysterical line: "Do I really attract this sort of attention from the female masses?"

I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't go over twenty-four hours without playing even a bit of those games. Even now, at six in the morning, I haven't been able to sleep because I'm pounding this whole thing out. Back in seventh grade I was thinking of writing a PW fanfic with an original character and everything, and I just couldn't stop thinking about it. The original character turned out to be a total Mary Sue (I took a Mary Sue Litmus Test online, the kind that adds up points with every question you answer that applies to a Mary Sue, and it said that if you score over fifty you should just start all over, it was that bad. Well, I took it for her, and this girl scored me... wait for it... wait for it... waaaaaaaaaait for iiiiiiit... over two hundred points. Over. Two. Hundred.) but I'd already fallen in love with her... concept, so I modified her a bit. Not too much, but just enough so that she wasn't a Mary Sue anymore. (Basically, I made her annoyingly stupid and overly emotional. That pretty much did it.)

I don't plan on writing a fanfic starring her now, but I've come up with another idea for one (totally void of any Mary Sues, I'm making sure of that) and now that's become my life. I'm practically eating, living, and breathing the story of Amanda Silvia Volk, and playing the games is my way of "researching." It's actually become quite frightening. But I love it all too much to stop now.

Have you ever seen those episodes of Dr. Phil and Oprah and stuff where they talk about addictions? Not just to drugs and alcohol and stuff, but shopping and food and television and video game addictions, too. The people on those shows say that they experience a sort of "high" when they do those things, and it makes them feel good. Now I know what they mean.

It's official. I'm addicted to Phoenix Wright.

(I was gonna put an appropriate smiley here to symbolize my love of the games but they all seem so perfect and I just couldn't decide.)

And now I have a question. Or, actually, a few questions. Little ones, though. Believe it or not, since I'm just getting into these games again I actually don't own Apollo Justice. I've been trying to get my hands on it since it came out, believe me, but every time I go somewhere to buy it they just don't have it. It's actually become quite frustrating, and since I'm annoyingly anti-spoiler I have no idea what happens. I just know that it takes place seven years after the third game ends, and good ol' Phoenix somehow loses his attorney's badge so he can't be an ACE ATTORNEY anymore (pooey!) and he becomes Hobo Wright . Oh, and Ema's the detective. And the prosecutor guy Klavier is in a band or something, and his older brother Kristoph is a defense attorney and Apollo Justice's mentor (I hate that name, Apollo Justice) and Phoenix has a daughter that he adopted or something and her name's Trucy (another name I can't stand, blech!) and I swear that's all I know. But anyway, my little fanfic takes place a year after the third game ends, so it would really help if anybody could tell me, without revealing any major spoilers, what happens to the characters. Specifically, when does Phoenix lose his badge? What happens to Maya (or if you can't tell me that, at least tell me if it would make sense for me to put her in there or not) and Gumshoe? And finally, which prosecutor should I use to prosecute the case? I don't want to have to make one up because then there would be too many original characters and I'd lose sight of what my initial goal was. I would've just played AJ and figured it out for myself, but I just couldn't wait any longer.

Go ahead. Call me a freak. But I'd much rather prefer "the writer who's dedicated to a fault."

~Rebecca

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Sounds like you need to get out more! But seriously, if you can't find AJ in stores why not just order it online? There's no way to explain what happened to Phoenix that isn't a pretty huge spoiler.

Or you can find the whole game on Youtube.

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Wow, that's...that's a long obsession to read. It's nice that you like something so much, but maybe you shouldn't let it get to your head, it doesn't sound healthy.

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...Huh. Buy it online. I didn't think of that. DUH! Wow, now I feel dumb. Well, I guess I could do that but I really don't like ordering things online, never have. I do need to get out more, though. I haven't gone to a video game store since... I don't know, Christmas? I'm sure SOMEONE will have it by now. And watching it on Youtube... it's just not the same as actually playing the game!!! But whatever, I know I'll get it eventually.



Heh. Heheheh. I really over-exaggerated in there, didn't I? I swear, it's really not that bad. I could go without anything PW related at all for months at a time if I wanted to (which, frankly, I don't). And as for the whole not being able to eat or sleep thing, that really has nothing to do with PW at all. I just don't eat so much in the summer because I'm too lazy to actually get up and find something. When I'm hungry I'll just grab a bag of pretzels or something and have fun with it. And true, I didn't sleep last night. You could call it insomnia if you want, but I wouldn't because insomnia is, more or less, feeling tired and wanting to sleep but not being able to no matter how hard you try. I'm not tired at all! Plus, I took a nap yesterday.

But anyway, I assure you, this little obsession of mine really isn't much more than just getting really excited when I play the games and stuff. This post here was nothing more than me letting out my excitement in a rather... melodramatic way. But honestly, when I like something a lot, I squeal. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, um, yeah. Sorry about the, er, misunderstanding...?

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Let's see... Phoenix loses his badge a few months after T&T, there is no evidence either way (or at least, none that can remotely be called 'decisive') as to whether Phoenix still has contact with Maya and/or Pearl, Gumshoe... is still a scruffy detective (but that new coat Maggey bought for him got dirty to the point of being 'Gumshoe green' because he probably can't afford to wash it), Meekins is a court bailiff, and I assume nothing special happens to the other characters.

And I like the names...

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Thanks for that! I actually just got Apollo Justice on Wednesday (FINALLY!!!!!! I had to buy a used copy, but it was the only one in the store and hey, it's better than nothing, right?) and I'm on the fourth case now. To be honest, the names have grown on me. I still hate that his last name is Justice though... it's just cheesey.

Oh, and the Phoenix Wright games are SOOOO much better than Apollo Justice, in my humble opinion.

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Someone agrees with me!

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TWO people agree with me!
And 1 other person is soooo totally obsessed with Phoenix Wright games! I thought I was the only one!

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Just so you know- just cause your Mary Sue scores high, doesn't mean it's bad. It's how you write them that counts. Usually, Mary Sues are written by people that self insert, and that's why they're bad. Most of the characters in my stories score high- that cause you need to make them unique. the litmus test is only a guide. If you want to know if your Sue is a bad one, just ask someone if the character is boring. Usually, they just need a few quirks to twig on to and they're fine.

As a side note, I hear the PW fanfic bug. I'm totally pumping out the OCs for my fic. Goodness knows if Zeth is a Gary Stu or not though... >.>

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I tend to do this kinda thing with any new video game franchise I start to like...

For a long time it was Pokemon, then it was Kirby, now it's Phoenix Wright...

Soon however, if the new Kingdom Hearts game is as good as people say it will be, then I will slowly become inactive from here and move on to the Kingdom Hearts franchise......

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Actually, isn't there a line in AJ that says Maya still sends him Steel Samurai DVDs or something? (Maya isn't mentioned by name, but I believe it was clarified in an interview that it was supposed to be a reference to her.)

And Eldoon mentions that they used to come eat his noodles together. (Though that's in the past, so I don't know if that would count.)

^^;

I am soo obsessed with the games too, hehe I can't wait for AAI. :D

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Oh, I totally know what you mean. But trust me, this girl was a total Mary Sue in every way, shape, and form. Lookie here:

She was insanely beautiful with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She was Miles Edgeworth's girlfriend, and they were madly in love, having been together since high school. She quickly befriended Maya and Phoenix, who also had a bit of a crush on her. In fact, everyone loved her, except Mia had a grudge against her (but I never could figure out why). Maya ended up as her best friend, too. She was always the first person to make connections and she was really really smart. She was also a professional singer, and pretty good at it too. She could play the guitar and piano on top of that. She had about eight names, and I'm not exaggerating. She had a tragic past and was connected to the DL-6 Incident. I also wanted to make her sick at first, like with cancer or something, but eventually scrapped that when people started telling me she was a Mary Sue. But she was sort of sick, figuratively speaking, during the Robert Hammond murder case and all of JFA because of Edgeworth. At the end of T&T, Edgeworth proposed to her and a few months later they got married and invited like the entire PW cast to her wedding, where she introduced Larry to her younger sister, who just so happened to be a model. Then they went on their honeymoon and after that they moved to Africa to save all the little kids with Aids or something. Oh, and the worst part? I was in denial. I refused to believe that she was a Mary Sue.

It didn't matter how I wrote it. She was undoubtedly a Mary Sue. I never got the idea down on paper (thank goodness), but in my head she always seemed to outshine everyone else. She was always the main focus. And she was a self-insert, at least at first, and through her I was living my own fantasies of being Edgey's girlfriend. (NOT sexual ones, mind you, I'm too young for that! I'm just... a really huge fangirl.)

When I tweaked her, I just made her annoyingly stupid and overly-emotional. That, in turn, makes her a lot less likeable, so not everyone wanted to be her best friend anymore. (After that, she scored as a borderline Sue. A huge improvement.) There were other changes too, but none of that matters anymore because I'm scrapping everything about her. Except the part about the sister being a model who eventually dates Larry. I might stick that in another OC fanfic, just because I think it's funny.

Since her, though, I've always been very careful about my characters being too Suey. Of course, I also watch out for the Anti-Sue... but she's easier to slide by, because all of my characters have at least one admirable trait. That's just how I work. So far, I think I'm doing pretty good with Amanda Volk, my current OC. But just to be safe... I think I'll take the Mary Sue litmus test for her. I don't want to go through the same thing again.

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Oh, and a little note to everybody else who has written on here:

Thank you guys so much. It's such a relief to know that other people can relate to me. My sis can't make fun of me anymore! HOORAY!!!!!!!

But seriously, it means a lot, cheesey as it sounds. So thanks, guys. Thanks.

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I'll be the first to say "You're Welcome"

And I just remembered, I'll definitely get sucked back into Ace Attorney no matter how awesome Kingdom Hearts turns out to be because AAI comes out a little while after that....

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Ahahahahahahahaha. There's just no escape, is there?

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Totally.

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I thought someone would bring that up, and here's why it can't remotely be called 'decisive'




Well, there has only been one game so far (with a lot of unanswered questions), so maybe when the series is complete you'll have a different opinion. Right now, you can only compare it to AA, and I think it's superior.

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True. But by "it," did you mean Phoenix Wright or Apollo Justice? Anyway, I have to say I'm just a bit disappointed with it so far. I mean, seriously. The first PW game was EPIC, man. FREAKING EPIC. AJ is just, like... meh.

Although earlier today when I got to the trial from seven years ago, I was trying so hard (and failing by a long shot) not to start squealing and jumping up and down and screaming. (Then again, I couldn't exactly jump up and down much. I was in a car, see.) And Hobo Wright pwns. Actually I keep annoying my sister every time he comes on the screen by squealing, "HE'S SO COOL!!!" Ah, the life of a fangirl... it's quite nice. Hehehehehehehehehe.

(But I just started that part so don't tell me anything that happens!!!)

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Oooooh- I twitched a few times with that Sue there... I think you could've knocked her back ALOT and still made her friends with everyone though. Phoenix and Maya are easy to get along with and being of good blood isn't too hard. If she had a hobby or personality quirk that make her more interesting, and you dropped all of the hobbies bar one then she'd be fine. She just seems like she had a bazillion virtues dumped on her all at once. Like... I could see Miles stumbling upon her playing piano to herself and being romanced by that. The problem with a Sue with SO MANY talents is that you dont' get to make use of them.

An important thing I've been taught with writing is if it doesn't improve the story, then don't use it. Does playing an orchestra of instruments mean that they can develope plot of the story or what? Yes? No? If no, cut it. The simpler the character's motives, abilities and stuff you can make them, the easier they are to write. Start off basic and add as you need it, like my character Julia Jones. she started off pretty vanilla- a red head, freckled cheeked book worm who adopts a bazillion crushes. She gets added upon where she has a wild imagination, she's a day dreamer, and I eventually give her the ability to dream walk so that she can heal a character in my story gradually who has been scorned by a futuristic world. Sound Mary Sue? It's a plot line that works cause it's not the main plot line.

I'm no pro writer thoguh. That's just how I see it :)

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The problem with her, though, was exactly that. There was so much going on with her that it all just kind of, like... didn't mesh. She didn't have anything REALLY interesting about her, because she could already do everything. And nothing about her improved the story whatsoever. Actually, now that I think about it, there wasn't much of a story there at all. Basically, it was just a really stupid thing that I did and now it's scarred me and I'll never recover from it. (I've been writing since third grade so it was really bad once I realized what I'd done.)

But I get what you're saying about starting off simple. That's what happened with my character Mia in a novel I started writing last year (but later abandoned it, stupidly). And that's what happened with Amanda and Valentine, too. I just started off with a few little things and all of a sudden I found I'd created a whole person.

And to be honest, your story actually sounds really interesting. Something I would read, anyhow.

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