goddamn superheroes

[fuyu]

... razzum frazzum, I just tried to make a start on the other superhero AU, and I was doing okay before I realized I was writing to Phoenix's canon motivations, which I had changed fairly significantly for the AU.

DAMMIT

I guess I could roll with it, but it's thematically jarring if Phoenix becomes a lawyer for Edgeworth, then becomes a superhero for Edgeworth and the lawyer thing just kind of falls to the back of the prose.

I wonder if I even need to keep this bit, actually. It does serve to establish Phoenix's motivations, and his power, but his motivation for being a lawyer isn't as important in this AU as it is in canon, and it would be easy enough to establish his empathy some other way. I was thinking of it as the first moment that made him actually think he could become a hero, and it does establish how much things change right off the bat by giving Phoenix that power. But there's not any real reason I can't just flash back to it, either.

And the really important thing about Phoenix becoming a hero isn't that the courthouse thing was the first time he thought it was possible, it's that seeing Edgeworth as a villain makes him realize he has to do it. So I should probably lead off with AU1-2, anyway, instead of "lol so this one time when Phoenix was in college..."

Blah. Stupid AUs. XD

Comments

[unicorn]

*feels special*

Couldn't he become a lawyer for Edgeworth, become a hero for Mia, and then be completely blindsided that Edgeworth is also around the whole hero scene? It's not quite the same thing, after all - Edgeworth would never say I WANT TO BE A SUPERHERO WHEN I GROW UP as a little kid, and with his villian costume, his identity is kind of hard to ascertain. I have visions of his helmet getting blown off in epic combat.

Then, once the Edgey-is-a-villian-omg is established you could have a nice canon-ish turnabout; Edgeworth becoming a hero for Phoenix. The deciding to stand up for TRUTH rather than victory in the courtroom can be mixed up with the internal journey about the heroing at the same time. I think it cheapens the characterization you get from the source material if you make the superhero part more important than the lawyer part, anyway, adorable as it is. The hero thing was a coincidence, almost. Lawyership is what Phoenix and Edgeworth CHOSE to do with their lives before they ever found out about their powers.