madimpossibledreamer | idle thought #490

Further prompt (if I don’t end up writing it): After the end of Turnabout Goodbyes, Edgeworth is tired and a bit overwhelmed from celebrating with everyone (they all insisted on celebrating again when he was out of jail, an idea that surprised and bewildered him, though he was very touched). He insists he’s fine going home by himself, he only plans on sleeping, you can leave me alone for the moment, Wright, I’ll call you when I’m conscious once more—
And plans only to put on the Steel Samurai to listen to and lure him into sleep, as it’s a technique that’s worked more than once.
Only the episode he thought he ‘randomly’ chose turns out to have some significance, making him sit up straight and all thought of sleep disappear from his mind. It’s the first one when the samurai following the Evil Magistrate (some suitably intimidating name, like ‘Crimson Death’ or ‘Shinigami’, translated to ‘Reaper’; we could go with ‘Akuma’ for ‘Demon’ but I think that would be a little too on the nose) expresses some discontent about his chosen path.
Miles suddenly realizes why he’d felt so connected to the show, and like a man possessed goes on a binge and simultaneously writes his first fanfiction. He also rewatches one of his favorite amvs, one featuring the Evil Magistrate and “Jericho” by Celldweller (as the album released 2015, this is actually timeline-possible for once!).
(He manages to save and close it out before he falls asleep, but as both tasks took considerably longer than Phoenix had suspected, he’s awoken by Gumshoe and Phoenix bursting into his apartment to make sure he’s okay. He explains, alternating between thankful and highly indignant, that it’d taken him considerably longer than he’d thought to fall asleep, but really, he’s fine, could they just come back later? They don’t actually leave but fall asleep on the couch, after seeing him to his room and making sure he falls back asleep, to which he pouts.)
The character hadn’t been given a backstory and indeed had been just intended to be ‘evil recurring minion’. His armor is said to have been dyed red with the blood of those who opposed the Evil Magistrate. The moment of questioning was just meant to be Even Evil Has Standards, emphasizing the evil in the title the Evil Magistrate. Edgeworth, on the other hand, deeply humanizes the character. The fact that raiders had destroyed the village where he and his family had lived, the entire town going up in flames. How the Evil Magistrate was harsh but keeping the city and surrounding countryside safe from bandits. How he’d needed help to ensure order. How it turns out that the Evil Magistrate had paid the bandits (and many others) in order to create the false state of emergency he could use as an excuse to impose that harsh, perfect order, but the samurai doesn’t know that. Not yet.
Miles’ writing is somewhat stilted, but the piece fits perfectly into canon (of course, he’s a Steel Samurai nerd) and the passion and intelligence make up for the writing style. (He’s only ever written legal briefings; of course it’s going to be a bit stiff.) It’s almost immediately adopted as fanon by a large community and Edgeworth finds himself somewhat overwhelmed by the vast amount of praise (he posts it, in haste, after waking up, creating an account, drinking tea and eating a piece of toast as he works, and then driving off to the Prosecutor’s Office), but slowly goes through thanking every person who comments.
He continues, slowly, and his writing style improves. He finds himself relying on the slight theatricality of his dialogue in court (which the fandom eats up, and incidentally fits the subject far better). Eventually, he writes a ‘remastered’ version.
Some of these ideas leak over to canon (in the Pink Princess show), particularly making the samurai a more sympathetic, three-dimensional character, a tragic backstory, the beginning of a redemption arc, and having him discover a conspiracy proving that the disgraced Steel Samurai has more of righteousness to him than the Evil Magistrate, who has committed deeds of which even the titular hero was unaware. He briefly considers suing, but is ultimately flattered (it is probably more relevant, however, that he would have to disclose his identity as a fanfic writer in order to do so and would be mortified).
Maya finds the fic and gushes about it and the writer to Phoenix, who probably checks it out. Eventually. It takes a while. He probably also figures out the author, eventually, but it takes a while, as he can be really oblivious.
She also recommends it to Edgeworth. She also insists he go with her to a convention (it’s kind of small, and largely fandom-run). He grumbles about it, but eventually gets into it, particularly in the vendor hall (some limited doujinshi could be found there, and he doesn’t spend the money on much…). It helps that he doesn’t go in his usual wine-red suit and therefore thinks he’s completely invisible. He finds it both a little embarrassing and endearing that she’s waxing poetic about his own fic to him but says nothing about its authorship, only that he’d also found it particularly enlightening. He does, however, identify her username due to the similarity with some of the comments she’d made on the fic itself. Mostly, he’s not sure that he wouldn’t just freeze up and get overwhelmed, again, from the amount of excitement she’d have if she figured out the author.
He probably starts getting into some samurai slashfic, but never gets to R-rated with it, preferring to write more character study (as that’s what he’s good at and what he’s known for) though he does read other examples by other writers and leave encouraging comments (even though he gets embarrassed if they’re higher rated).
I might still end up writing it, maybe. IDK. We will find out.