/mlpol/ - My Little Politics

We now begin with the new series by the new channel, briefly covering the first chapter. This series is split into chapters that follow Phoenix Wright resummoned to Equestria with friends this time. It is clear that some sort of larger narrative is being worked on that will tie story lines together, though not in the way I imagined. This series is not pointing to a grand conspiracy that touches each case as the second chapter’s conclusion rules out. I will get to that. If you want to watch this before I go into it, the ending is shit, but consistently they have intrigue up until the ending very well established even in the disaster of the latest chapter.

[YouTube] [1-1] Ace Attorney: Elements of Justice ~ The Troubled Production [Embed]

The first chapter’s set up is a murder of a fashion icon that Coco Pommel knows. He died by hanging from the stage during a performance. The opening is this time drawn with impressive art and strategically shrouded to show the characters we know reacting to the events and not any details that we know nothing about. I hope this is the standard going forward and no major incident happens that reveals information that straight up never happened. That would be very embarrassing.

So, a couple of details are immediately wrong to set up the new series. They are not critical failures as of yet but are interesting regardless. This series states that time works differently in the cross between the real world and Equestria. The original project did not do this at all. One day was one day both ways. This is proven in the end when Phoenix is sent back home and his friends were looking for him for the three days the trial in Equestria took place over. This means that there is no time difference between realms. This series claims that a significant time has passed in different amounts for the two worlds to make this story possible. Let’s begin with Equestria as that is the least fucked in terms of timeline.

Equestria has progressed from season 1 having been completed to season 4 having been completed. Twilight states she has just been Princess a few months and the crystal castle tree replacement is in existence. This means the season 4 finale with Tirek also occurred already, but we don’t see any Starlight Glimmer at all, so season 5 has either not happened or is in the process of happening and they already encountered her once in her town and she is still spying on them. Regardless, how many years passing from when they last spoke is hard to say from a canonical perspective, but the series is claiming only a year and a half passed since Twilight was a regular unicorn and saw Phoenix to the beginning of this series. Meanwhile, the Phoenix Wright world has progressed eight years. Now, I’m not great at math, but I will guess this roughly calculates to every day that passes in Equestria is 5.3 days in Phoenix’s world. Given three days pass in the original project, he should have been gone for roughly 16 days, over two weeks. Given that at least three cases will occur in this series, and assuming each one is three days to fit theme, these characters will have disappeared for about 48 days, experiencing only 9, meaning they will have time traveled 39 days, over a month, when returning. I’m certain that this will not be mentioned during the conclusion of the series as it was just a means to an end to get all the characters as they wanted them to appear in the same time and place, regardless of if it made sense.

Anyway, the case plays out that, once again, no murder took place. This time, it was suicide. Why was there a suicide? No one fucking knows and no one gives enough of a shit to find out. All that matters is that it wasn’t a murder by the accused so off we go. I get that would be realistic, but remember the first project in how it broke down everything and it ended up that there was no murder, we got all the answers, and we even reformed the villain MLP style? I have to assume the writers remember, but they are insistent that being different is the best course of action. They are returning to this crime for the third chapter, like I thought they would, but it is evident that what I desired will not take place due to the second chapter. There is no bridge linking these cases into a larger super narrative. Perhaps they will still squeeze in something, but the second chapter could be cut from the narrative and nothing actually is different with the first chapter, which would have been preferable to what we get.

I realize that I skipped a ton of content from the first chapter. Honestly, I don’t remember too many details from it because it has been so damn long and it has been irrelevant to the second case. I just remember that the suicide was determined to be completely unrelated to everything happening in that investigation and no one really wondered if he was even forced into it by some external threat. And returning to it, they can probably rework the whole story of what happened and I won’t remember enough to say they retconned it all. I lost interest in remembering it because of that ending. Still, I will go over a couple of details that do stick out to me though before continuing.

The prosecution is led by Blue Blood. Fucking Blue Blood. The character no one gives a shit about, that is basically only defined in a fraction of one episode by being self-absorbed and entitled. Though it is possible to make that work, it has absolutely none of the presence Trixie brought to the table. He has no personal stakes in this outcome other than trying to show up Phoenix who is renowned for the spectacular previous case. He has nothing to latch onto, has no moment of teaming up to get revenge on a witness or towards finding the truth. He is like the disposable tutorial prosecution team that gets you acquainted with how the system works in Ace Attorney to get into the real cases with the real characters that have motive, drive, and personality. The animation really stepped up though. He was very fluid in his special animations given his limited range, such a limited pool of info an canon animation to work with, and limited purpose for even existing in this story. Also, he is very upset that Coco is innocent of the crime. I get that is a staple for the series that there is a dramatic reaction for both sides when something swings against you. I just don’t care. He isn’t personally invested to give a shit other than wanted to upstage someone.

I’m not sure what spite they are using for Phoenix in this series, but it looks shit. It is missing the iconic look. I have no idea what is off. Maybe it is an update of his design from the games as the years went by to show he aged. Still looks shit.

They also said suicide is even more rare than the nonexistent murder in Equestria. Not sure if that implies utopia or mind control, because utopia in this series this world is not. We have confirmation of plotting murder. How this could be the first suicide ever recorded and shortly followed by the results of the next trial, I have no damn idea what they think this world is capable of, but it certainly isn’t peace.

And they conclude that the attack that hit him and knocked him unconscious was due to his fall from the height, hitting part of the set as he hung himself, not an attack. That twist actually works fairly well… wait… WAIT A DAMN MINUTE. If you watch the opening to the case again, he was hit and sent sideways in the drawing intro with lines indicating direction and it was incoming, not hitting something vaguely. He was hit directly by something coming towards him and set him sideways. Fucking hell. I have to take back the praise I gave the intro. This isn’t going to be a pattern with the series going forward, is it? You aren’t going to fuck with the audience so there is zero chance to gain an understanding from these scenes, are you? Like I said, I have no experience with the games. If the games go one to outright lie to you about the case through the opening to prime you against the truth, then that is fucking shitty too. Stop copying them. It is very fucking unsatisfying when you review all the of the evidence throughout the series and remember that you could never have known that it was as they said it was in the end because you were outright told it was an attack.

And it gets even worse as I review this episode to compile this complaint. Phoenix states that the victim hit the back of his head. The intro shows the front of the head is what was hit. How was that not known by the coroner? They are probably going to try and get to that in the third trial as it revolves around reopening this case. But if that was the plan all along, then you purposely left out evidence that should have been presented in this case and explained to solve it right the first time and make a satisfying story. Now we have to wait another two years to see how that ends and flops on execution.

With the first chapter out of the way, it is finally time to explain my rage at the second and most recently complete chapter. I have a hard time believing what I saw and can hardly put my frustration into words, but I will do my best. If you want to watch this mess, it is still fun up until the conclusion. You might get quite a bit of enjoyment regardless of my autistic ranting. Who knows?

[YouTube] [2-1] Ace Attorney: Elements of Justice ~ The Crusade Begins [Embed]

Let’s begin with the intro, like always. We see a completely shaded out pony running through a forest. This suggests this is the victim or the murderer that they are trying to obscure, because it can’t be anypony related to anything that is just observing, because that would gain color and detail as per the standard set up by the previous intro. At least, I would assume so, but this doesn’t make sense in full context of both the clip and the details that are revealed. Let’s dive in. The pony is not shown to have any wings or horn. It turns out that the lying sons of bitches that order these things set up for maximum deception are doing so just to make it impossible to tell, because the victim is shown dead and has no fucking horn. So, that pony in the beginning could be literally anypony and the team thought they were devilishly clever for that. You thought that this had anything to do with the scene we are presenting, but it doesn’t. Fuck off with that nonsense.

We see the pony attacked by a timberwolf and then we cut to a dead pony with a hole in his head. Immediate questions are brought to mind. Why was there no mauling if this is the same character. The answer, of course, it that it isn’t the same character, but you could not have ever gathered that from the opening because there are zero details to take away other than the involvement of a timber wolf at some point. Only no, there is no involvement of a timber wolf at all in this case. I have to assume that the running character is Sweetie Belle, who will show up so much later it isn’t funny. She made a noise that witnesses hear that scared off timber wolves, so I have to wager this is depicting her, though it is impossible to tell because there are no fucking wings or horn on characters that ought to have them in the damn intro.

Remember the first intro? It was clearly the outline of Rainbow Dash and another pegasus. This was crucial to understanding the nature of the crime, the set up coming, and then looking back how this all fits together. Nothing fits together in this scene. You get an unrelated running scene that turns out to be completely disconnected from the murder. Congratulations Elements of Justice team, you sure made me think that timber wolves were somehow a part of this thing. I guess that was to serve your bogus clone theory. I will get to the damn clone theory. It is such a mess.

So, Scootaloo comes under arrest in the public square by spear point for murder. Why? Just go to her house. This was made May 1st, 2021. The show was fully out and she is not canonically living in a cardboard box. Go to her home and arrest her there. Don’t make a public scene. Why are you using a spear to hold her back? She is like a fifth of your size and there are two of you with horns. You have magic to hold the spear. She can’t fly. Levitate her and put cuffs on.
In this ass-backwards land, an order from Twilight to stop does nothing as the government is actually secretly democratic with officials that run things apart from the apparently constitutional monarchy. Fantastic. I get this was set up earlier on to explain why Twilight can’t just say no trial, freedom now, but it doesn’t stop how shit it still is that she has zero power. She has even less use than what she thought during season 4.

We then get set up again by talking to some characters including the head investigator who guides the team over the crime scene. There is an investigation over a ton of blood that was proven to exist near the Nightmare Moon statue but has since been cleaned. They openly state that it was not the victim’s blood. And immediately things fall apart because from what we now know at the end, it was indeed the fucking victim’s blood. What the fuck writers? I get there was also Sweetie Belle’s blood there and that might have confused things, but she is alive and clearly the blood can’t be all of hers since they also state that there is so much that you can’t possibly be alive after that. How could they say it isn’t the victims and then go back and say “Ah ha! Yes, it was, stupid!”. And it is only going to get worse from here.

We then meet OC colt, Turning Page. A very ironic name for what is to come of him. He hits Phoenix with a toy sword and demands to know if he is covering up evidence or framing Scootaloo. Knowing what we know now, what the absolute fuck writers? Again? Why? What are you thinking? Or was all of this thought up after you got halfway through this thing? This makes no sense. Serious spoiler here, but this kid is the killer. We learn he is deeply regretful because it was just a toy sword hit because he was mad he had to do homework, the little shit, and that happened to make his dad stumble and hit his head on a statue of Nightmare Moon, killing him. So, this kid, fresh off of killing his father, with his mother just now pulling strings to cover up the son’s involvement, is going to the crime scene and claiming others are doing what he is complicit in… while the ending tries to make us feel bad for him and the mother? Fuck you to the highest degree writers. I will get deeper into the nature of that ending soon enough and just how fucked up it is.

Regardless, he assumes that the team is trying to pin the murder on Scootaloo, which he would be angry about because all of this happened because he is white knighting Scootaloo to the degree he was grounded and had to do homework, which triggered him so much that he killed his father. But this kid has no damn emotion about loss, just a self-righteous fury, which is reflected in the ending. He also states that he didn’t know that attacking guards and lawyers trying to conduct investigations is a legal offense. With what we know later, this is impossible. The dad had raised him to be like him and like royal guard shit. There is no chance in hell he doesn’t understand that you can’t attack the guards that he wishes to join sometime in the future. That just doesn’t make sense unless the kid is a complete sociopath, which I can’t rule out from how you wrote the fucking twerp.

Anyway, we follow this story not through Phoenix Wright, but another character from the franchise, much to my personal dismay, Athena Cykes. She well voice acted and her 3D model, though standing out among all the other 2D characters in this series, is decently animated and shaded to not be a sore thumb. I am not sure if they just cropped animations from the game she is part of and pasted her into the environment or if they recreated the animations. I will guess the former, but either way, it doesn’t feel out of place. The reason I dislike her taking the lead is that she is a self-proclaimed newbie to the job. She is not confident at being an attorney and she constantly makes this known. For the second chapter, this is a terrible placement for such a character, even if it fits more cleanly into the narrative of children being involved. You wrote that kids were in this thing. You didn’t have to do that. You should have made her the warmup to the series in the first chapter.

You might ask how bad can it be? Well, they not only constantly write her making mistakes but also needing backup from the prosecutor. They wrote it that Luna of all ponies is the opposition… except they didn’t. She actively helps Athena when she is stuck because her goal is to acquit the accused. What? Why did you do this? We are basically treated to baby’s first court session in comparison to the original mind-bending thrilling drama of Turnabout Storm. Not to say this one isn’t mind-bending for completely other reasons. So, her hand is held throughout the trial, as Luna scolds her mistakes and helps pressure the judge from not holding her accountable for those mistakes, which only damages her mental state and makes her worse, needing more hand holding. She is not a bad character, and she has a great voice actor that makes me believe that she is desperate and trying to win. Please stop ruining the potential you have to work with here.

On the surface, I would not have minded a Luna prosecutor that is secretly aiming for the victory of the defense. But it becomes such a crutch that it feels like this is supposed to be the warm-up trial, not the bombastic high stakes adventure with twists and turns that they want so badly. I can’t blame them for wanting that. I can blame them for being shit at writing that, especially the ending for it.

So, the case continues until a point where it seems that there are two murders, and the situation becomes desperate because you can’t just start up another case about another murder. We are talking about this one. So, naturally, a theory springs to life, that the mirror pool was accessed and there was a clone that also died. Sounds stupid? A bit, but it could work as long as the Elements of Justice team doesn’t come back to this and confirm it was a shot in the dark that was never the case and supported it through dubious means to keep the story going longer than needed to try and make a new twist. That would just be rather fucking stupid and paint Athena as dumber than a sack of bricks that got things wrong yet again and needed hand holding to solve the case.

Jumping ahead to the last episode thus far. We start to get the evidence all pointing back to Turning Page when his mom jumps out on the stand and confesses to the murder. Obviously, she is not the right one because of the meta knowledge that anyone that is confident in the stand and has a random dangerous object is just the final boss of sorts that you have to break down and what they claim is the opposite of the truth. After a drawn out section where she discredits everything done throughout the trial and how Athena is literally the worst attorney because she not only has done 180 pivots throughout the whole thing and has blamed seemingly everyone for everything, but because she is attacking someone she wanted to defend previously. Furthermore, she has an entourage of ponies helping back up her claims, including the detective of the case. This will be the crux of the episode. She is finally defeated using a game gimmick of reading emotions and she is revealed to be covering for her son… although that was clear since the beginning of the episode. Whatever. She breaks down crying and we get flashbacks to the truth of how things played out.

>>363483
>revealing evidence that seemingly proves Rainbow Dash as a murderer
What?
>Trixie who is playing the part of prosecution against Rainbow
Unacceptable.

>>363489
A bit quick on the reading bud. She was acquitted of murder. You got to watch Turnabout Storm for the info.
>unacceptable
You definitely should watch. I am going over the sequels though, They are a bit of a different beast.

The kid having been in the forest after a teleportation… because he can do that. We established that only very powerful unicorns can do this over long distances in the original project guys. I am not going to guess a kid that doesn’t know not to attack guards working for the princesses, let alone not knowing not to attack your own father, does not know how to control a teleportation spell. Regardless, he teleported to the exact spot his parents go to look for him, because he hasn’t come home yet. This is due to helping Scootaloo bribe off Diamond Tiara who stole her shit. Sweetie Belle noticed this and follows because Scootaloo is going to bribe using Rarity’s plot device fabric from the first chapter. Sweetie must run into timberwolves and be the running shape that was for whatever reason the focus on the intro, despite not being an important player at all in this whole story. She is arrested for being another suspect, but literally the only thing that relates to anything is that she had blood on the scene and she made a sound to scare monsters. She only exists to be a red herring and keep the show going another four episodes.

The kid hears his parents fighting. The mother gaslights the father about being the sole horrible influence, the dad denies any wrongdoing in creating a sociopath. All around, the perfect time for a fight is when looking for your son that you think is dead. They give up the search at the place they think he is most likely to be. Why? Your search would be everyone else next. You would save the fighting for after he is found. Plot demands it though to seal the father’s fate. The son hears that the mother wants him to stop beating up kids randomly and go to school. The father thinks it is insane to demand he quit his job and be a full-time nanny. What are these characters? Realistic, I guess. Fucking stupid, absolutely. This is idealized Equestria where suicide has just happened for the first time and there is no murder essentially. The mother mentions she had to pay damages to Spoiled Rich, Diamond Tiara’s mother, for a child hitting her daughter and nicking the dress she had. She claims that they no longer can afford a meal together for Hearts and Hooves day. The fuck? A guard is not paid well in Equestria? Monster infested Equestria? Idealized no suicide utopia Equestria? Why are they so many guards if it doesn’t pay you, especially since he is set up for getting am important promotion soon, which is another red herring.

The kid then happens to catch the father when the mother runs off, interrogating about the nature of not playing pretend and having to read books and answer math problems. In a rage of hearing this and that he is not old enough to join a miliary/police force, he strikes his father. I already mentioned this before, but it is worth saying again. What. The. FUCK. Why would you make this the story? There are so many things that have to happen to set this up. First, the dad has to buy the gaslighting that he alone fucked up his son when he is off in Canterlot so often for work. Next, the father has to be so shit at being a parent that he doesn’t demand the son to return home immediately upon finding him and discussing this in the safety of his house. Next, the kid has to be the most psychopathic little shit possible to strike his father over having to learn grammar. What the fuck were you guys on? By his own admission, he wanted to team up with his dad one day. The dad trained him to be like a guard. Among those lessons would be never hit your commanding officer, of which the greatest of this is your father than never treated you like shit. So, naturally, the first thing he does is hit the father hard enough to dent his armor… with a wooden toy sword swung by a child. Brilliant. You did it everyone. You wrote a story.

What follows next I can only describe as guilt porn. Everyone is crying. Everyone is explaining for over an hour how they played a part in this. Everyone bent over backwards to save this kid who took everything from them. But none of them are regretful in the slightest. That is the most bizarre part of all of this. Not one character is sorry for what has happened. The kid blames Diamond Tiara for the incident, stating if she never attacked Scootaloo causing his actions throughout the story, nothing would have transpired. Bitch, you just hit your father. Literally everything could have played out the same except you would have a father still if you just acted like a guard would, as is your character. Fucking hell.

The mother has ten seconds of remorse about her husband before planning how to save the kid from being thrown into the sun. Her regret is being locked up and will not be able to see her child for a significant part of his entire life. Her friend which she pinned the blame on with consent, the crazy bitch can only state how much she wishes to have not been caught aiding her so she could help her out more now. The fucking detective behind this whole thing has been tampering with evidence to help whatever narrative you come up with, which means that everything Athena has been doing in this trial has been wrong by the way and she is a retard. He reveals that he has no remorse about what he did and would do it again to save a child. Hey, dumbass. He murdered his father. You were directly told this and decided that it was worth not only your career and reputation, but also your standing with the princesses of Equestria that personally assigned you, of which Luna is witnessing unfold his level of corruption as a simple request is all it takes to break the law and bend the whole of the government and the justice system to make one child innocent.

It also is insane that they repeatedly state that they copied the human justice system in this fanfic universe and yet they altered it to make children under the same classification as adult crime. But then, even with that in the rules, Luna gets to just declare that the child will not face banishment but will be “punished” by having to go to miliary boarding school to become a guard.

WHAT?

That is exactly what he wants minus the homework. You are speeding up his acceptance into the royal guard by basically waving his crimes to grant him access to a school that will get him where he wants to be regardless of this record. Unless the school happens, and this is still on the record leading to his rejection after years of school. That would be some trolling on the level of her sister. Regardless, the kid who did the killing is the only one that is given a pass. Everyone else is fucked. Everyone else was retarded throughout the whole thing, including the defense and especially the prosecution.

Allow me to explain. Luna has the ability to walk into dreams. Are you telling me that she never once saw the traumatized dreams of a child that witness a slow, bloody death of his father at his own hands? Unless he actually is as much of a sociopath as I am getting from his presentation of not giving a fuck about the death of his father after witnessing it. The mother also likely would be pretty fucking distressed, even if not over the father, about being caught and losing absolutely everything, which is what happens. Luna… how the fuck did you miss this? How the fuck did you blindly trust that the kids were innocent and set up the court through your influence to guarantee the kid would be set free? Did you not use your powers to check if the story was true? Or is Luna actually in on everything too, and promised that in the event she is going to be found out she would act dumb and play off that she was surprised?

Finally, let’s get to the emotional manipulation. This hurt to watch. It reinforced why there exists a soul, spirit, and mind separately within humanity because I felt each get torn apart by this manipulation. First, the mental. Nothing could have suggested this outcome was possible. If you watch the original, you can actually piece it together rather early. It is just so well done that it seems every attempt to explain it happening as you might piece together does not add up. Slowly, the evidence aligns, and it becomes possible. There is no evidence that the kid was the murderer, especially not with the theme up until now that every story had more to it than a simple murder, where murder was not even the cause. I guess thinking through the story to find possibilities is no longer desirable. Just turn your brain off and let the conclusion flow out. Furthermore, they purposely made episodes dedicated to wrong directions that would not only waste time, but it would damage the credibility of the cast for suggesting it when there was zero evidence for it. They claim all evidence for the clone theory was created after the fact to support it. They had no intention of setting the crime up to look like a clone was involved. Athena is just that bad at her job that she did something as dumb as saying a clone was involved with no backing.

It attacked my soul to view ponies in distress that needed aid. I can see why the mother did what she did, even if it makes her a villainous schemer that intends to subvert the entire government of Equestria to save a single life. It is her kid, and I can see that happening when everything has been taken from her. Motherly instincts would probably do this. But this is fucking Equestria. Why is this the outcome? Why am I waiting for every upload month after month to see this torture on my screen, a family destroyed completely by a stupid kid’s actions that will not even be punished for it. Emotional manipulation is strongest here as it is a base instinct of humanity to see a woman in distress and provide aid and care for a child, who they have bawling center screen about their loss. It is actually damaging to witness this.

But my spirit was not without say in what was happening, seeing every moral misdeed unfolding and wanting vengeance, wanting to see some morsel of repentance from those that would lie and deceive everyone in the entire district. They are not repentant, which ruins the tone of the tragedy unfolding and I am left with the need to be present and beat the lesson into each individual. No real justice has been done and the spirit recognizes this, which is why while I wanted to feel compassion and was being signaled sorrow, I was overcome with anger that slowly canceled out the intended effect of crying to this situation. So, I do have to give some credit. Not many projects can isolate the finer aspects of humanity and have a person realize they are not always in alignment with each other. Then again, you ruined my day with this shit, so the personal value I get in recognizing and gaining an appreciation of these aspects doesn’t do a whole lot for me when I am witnessing the end result of a forced plotline trying to force unearned emotions onto me. I got more tears to my eyes when Turnabout Storm had Phoenix risk everything to save what was assumed to be the villain from a murder charge. That was justice and was pleasing to witness.

>>363490
>She was acquitted of murder
As it must.

You might immediately say that is the point of the whole thing. It is supposed to be an emotional scene with a hint of defeat to pair with the moral of the episode of… there isn’t always a happy ending? We can obtain that well enough from our own world. What do I take away from this? It is demoralizing for one and the other is that it makes for a shitty ending that I waited two years to see. The point is antithetical to the expectation of having a satisfying watch, hoping the cute ponies prevail and return to being happy. What does the team even learn from this experience? There is no growth as everypony immediately increases secretive activities and distrusts one another. There is no practical moral in universe and out of universe. Maybe it is artsy to say that this project has a dark streak and you never know what might happen next, building tension for the next chapter. What an excuse. I will purpose build the story to be anti-climatic and will make the characters that people are rooting for end up evil and that will make the story even better next time. That is the opposite of a good idea. There is either no pay off or the pay off makes me regret watching. There is no good outcome from this other than the relative positive future outcome when compared with this, making it instantly better by having any pay off that isn’t this.

So, the chapter comes to a close as everyone waxes philosophical about how the truth hurts and the nature of collateral damage when another path might have existed that made people happier. Like you writing this episode, huh? You might have taken the path of making a satisfying conclusion to your two year long chapter, but instead we got this absolute trash fire ending. But maybe I can build up my excitement for the next… you immediately arrested Rarity because you want to go back to the first trial.

Motherfuckers.

Why? Not even a moment existed to take in what just happened. All the children in this series are traumatized now, all of them are broken messes, and you leave with them fighting with each other. This causes the mane six to start fighting as well. Another forced lesson in how to present the truth. How about not making such a shit episode that needs that lesson? Then you have secrets being kept by the mane five from Twight, who is confronted by an armor clad lawyer… I guess… named Equity. So, I guess she is terrible at her job with that kind of name. There is no equal outcomes in Equestria, especially this version that has created an elite that can become lawyers or politicians above even the monarchy. She bitches about secrets before she arrests Rarity, as I mentioned. But she is absolutely right in one regard. The truth is worth it and damn the consequences. All of the pain would have been avoided if the truth was sought by the family immediately, including in the relationship before the fateful encounter. And even after the murder… and assuming you fix the fucking law about sending everypony into the sun regardless of circumstances… then all of the collateral would have been avoided. Plus, just generally damn that family because they were all fucking shit in the end. Everything they did and were has been recontextualized to be the epitome of villainous, except maybe the father, who was just fatally incompetent.

What you presented is perhaps realistic. Thousands and thousands of families become broken daily across this fucking miserable existence. Why do I need to witness this occurring here? What is the payoff? Yet another terrible case where the twist is everything is actually shit, the lawyers don’t know what they are doing, and relations only slightly mend, if you don’t decide to make them even worse off. You are setting up the next case to have the armored clad busy body up against the worst character so far, Apollo, who has been regurgitating quotes about painful outcomes and refuses to believe that truth is worth anything if the consequences are too high. He also has been disgusted by ponies for the majority of his screentime thus far. I can’t wait to see more of him and how we will be back to square one in trying to navigate Equestrian traditions, abilities, and legal quirks. My favorite.

And wait a moment, what the hell? You did nothing with your favorite creation, Sonata, the mare from Turnabout Storm that was assumed to be the villain, reformed, imprisoned, and released years later to aid investigations and the team. She had nothing to add to this whole finale. No twist insight from her? No closing words? No secret discovery? Why did you make a big deal of her entering this investigation halfway through? She offered less than nothing to the ultimate outcome. And the ending credits don’t have the song the rest of the episodes do. I guess we won’t be “together, in fields of gold we will see the light” because all I foresee in this series is an ever increasing darkness.

Perhaps it seems like the entire thing is shit from how I presented it. There is a lot to like about the series. The quality of animation seems to be ever increasing. The audio quality has gone up. The writing is engaging, even if they can’t stick the landing ever. I was attached to the story up until now, waiting ever so patiently for that next release. But this was devastating for the overall story. This whole adventure is simply disposable. It took the longest of the two chapters and yet I could discard it save the plotline of having infighting now. The story of the broken family will never resurface save to be a stumbling block for the lawyers as they struggle to know if they should act and face tragedy. I just want the fun side back to the story. I want to see how it all gets turned around and the day is effectively saved. I suspect they want to save that for the series finale, but what even is the point when the day won’t be saved. Not effectively. We lost this whole case effectively, as this victory was nothing shy of a moral defeat, destroying the fabric of friendship. I doubt the team will reevaluate going forward because the story seems fairly set in stone now, especially since my disappointment likely pales in comparison to the thousands that were just fine with these events. Perhaps I am just being autistic and it isn’t that bad. It sure feels like it though.

I was counting on this storyline to make sense of the first trial, at least in part, and be a crucial part of the overall narrative. Instead, this is a disposable story with a terrible ending that only now sets up a relook, not a continuation, of the first trial. The first trial is simply wrong or right now. Nothing more really going on that touches this chapter at all. It is just a pity, because the potential was there to make the murder in this one another suicide or a plot by a mystery figure that is yet unaccounted for, setting up suspicion on Equity, who will most certainly not be an antagonist in any meaningful way now that she is out in the open and going to be the prosecutor either in this chapter or in a finale. There is no grander mystery that has been woven throughout this series. There is no meaning to this murder. It was simple. It was direct. Everyone was stupid because we arrested the right one from the beginning. I guess I have to wait and see if they can salvage this disaster in the next chapter, where I get my hopes up yet again, only to be dashed against the nearest convenient statue by your toy blade of cheap twists. I guess the only solution is not the walk through the leg crippling poison joke of high expectations and realize that the story is not as grand as I imagined. Or maybe the team can just not swing that blade to begin with and tell a story worthy of being put side by side with Turnabout Storm. I know they can do it if they focus less on twists no one sees coming and more on the relationships that should be built with the protagonists. I rather be happy with fan projects than upset with them. It is just ashame to see the story let me down from every angle.

>>363493
It is definitely a wild ride to get to that point though. It is like seven hours total from all of the episodes if I recall.

>>363483
Bump. I'mma post my own thoughts on this later, because I have several.

>>366769
Keep me posted. That sounds interesting.

I remember watching the original Turnabout Storm series in movie night awhile ago, I really enjoyed it. I wasn't aware of this sequel, I might have to watch a bit of it and then give this a read. Was the sequel made by the same people who did Turnabout Storm or is this a different group?

>>366772
The sequel is by different people as far as I can tell. It is higher quality animation and... aside from some technical difficulties... better audio than the original. This thread is to argue that they have a worse writing quality despite this.