This is a deliberate choice on my part. He's been put into an unfamiliar situation, where he's afraid, isolated, and removed from his work and what he knows. Examine what happens when he's in a similar emotional state in-game - i.e., case four of the first game. He turns frantic, closed-off, and combative, shutting out others and being frankly quite nasty to them. And he holds on hard to his mistakes in that case, trying to force others away even in the face of impending conviction, fighting to maintain his guilt even in the face of evidence. His smirking, self-assured attitude is at its very core a put-on, a facade, and in that very case it's stripped away because of the direness of the situation and because he's forced out of the prosecutor's bench, his home, where he's most comfortable. He's grim and angry.
So in a situation like this, where he's facing death daily, where his very existence as a prosecutor has been denied? He's not going to act dissimilarly. He simply cannot use that facade of smug superiority, because three days after he arrived in-game he mocked Nnoitra Jiruga and the motherfucker's response was to destroy an apartment building and kill some hundred people. He tried being smug and self-assured, and he realized that people would be hurt if he did. So now he's resorting to a deeper personal defense, as he did in that case: he's prickly, stubborn, and combative, because he needs to protect his sense of self somehow, and that is the way he knows how. It's either be angry and self-righteous or have no fortress at all. He chooses self-righteousness.
Further, he's always been far more smug and condescending in the courtroom. When one interacts with him outside of court, he's sarcastic and rather droll, yes, but not particularly smirky. Get your character in court once Edgeworth gets to be a prosecutor in SP again. Then you'll see smug.
I'll keep the second part brief, which is rather apropos, since I have to go to work soon. I'll work on that, but the thing is that I tag from work, which means that tags often are quite rushed, and I'm not able to go back and reference what's previously been done in the threads threads. I'll keep an eye on it in the future, and I'll encourage you to stop tagging with me if you find it boring; just because I leave you a tag doesn't mean your obligated to continue the thread if you don't enjoy it. Part of it, too, is tagging with Snake, just because...Well, I often don't know what to do with him or where he's coming from. Again, perhaps that's a personal failing on my part, and perhaps I should put more work into understanding the character, and I should go back and review the threads more, since that isn't fair for you.
Yeah, I rock at "keeping things brief."
Anyway, looking over that, I realize how effing defensive it sounds, and I apologize for that, but I'm gonna slap it up there anyway just so see how you respond because HURF DE DURF LET'S CONTINUE THIS CONVERSATION WHILE I'M AT WORK SO I CAN CONTINUE TO JUST TALK TO YOU IN WORDS SNATCHED IN BETWEEN MINIMIZED WINDOWS AND THEREFORE ROB ALL MEANING OR, YOU KNOW, RHETORICAL SKILL FROM THAT WHICH I'M WRITING
As I've said, these are only my points which, for all I know, aren't even passing thoughts to the majority of others who play with him. I apologize if I came off as passive aggressive in some way, shape or form, and as I've said, I generally really like your Edgeworth. Your justification for his behavior is very reasonable given the game's general scenario and how he would feel placed out of his comfort zone, so it goes without saying that your judgment takes priority over mine.
As for the issue of you tagging, I really didn't know you were so busy when you get to replying, but I'd also like to say that, if you feel that it's forced or that you're rushing it, you don't need to tag at work. Granted, that may come off as a little shallow on my part; maybe that's the only time you can tag or maybe you feel more motivation when you do it at work, but it's neither my business or right to criticize when RL is brought into the mix. I don't think it's very polite to speak for everyone else in the game, but I don't think I'm the only person who would mind waiting if you feel that the extra time would benefit your tagging ability.
Anyway, sorry if I've upset you. I really didn't expect it to come off as negative or insulting.
No, you haven't upset me. Again, sorry if I came off defensive at all; the past few weeks have not been awesome for me, so I'm generally a bit tense and overreacty right now, and I don't want you to think you've offended me in the least. If I snap, it's because I'm wound a little tight, so take what I say with a few grains of forgiveness.
Anyway, yeah. I know the way I play him is probably somewhat unlike the way others play Edgeworth - I'll confess I don't look at other Edgey-poos too often, but I do get the impression that my playing is a bit idiosyncratic. That said, I do strongly believe that my playing isn't OOC, just because I hold to the thought that, you know, gay waters run deep; I write him as someone very untrue to himself, defensive, etc., etc., etc., I could go on at length. I always get nervous about playing him, I'll grant, since in this game in particular his outward facade is significantly different from how it is in canon, and as such I'm always afraid that he'll look OOC on first glance. But in terms of what's going on under the surface...Well. I am confident there.
(I'll confess, though, that I sort of dislike the smirky, self-confident Edgeworths, just because they actually always strike me as OOC when they're not in the courtroom. I mean, he's a smug asshole in court, but out of court and out of his job, he's clearly shown to be uncomfortable and uncertain. Ffff I love that juxtaposition so much and PEOPLE NEED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO THAT ASPECT OF THE CHARACTER, it's delightful. But that's just me imposing my worldview.)
Tagging...IDK. Honestly, Pretendy Funtimes is my refuge from a shitty job. Like, I believe in my log tags. Trust me, if you get into a log with me, I sweat blood over it. But as for threading - it's a distraction, and...Well. In any case, I'll not thread with you in those cases.
FFt I couldn't resist. SEE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE GOD SUCKED IN TO YAPPING ABOUT MILESkisameisafishMarch 10 2010, 17:42:37 UTC
"out of court and out of his job, he's clearly shown to be uncomfortable and uncertain. Ffff I love that juxtaposition so much and PEOPLE NEED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO THAT ASPECT OF THE CHARACTER, it's delightful"
True, but also worth bearing in mind that Miles canonically travels the world, and has spent a lot of time living away from LA. He also moves in relatively professional circles. He HAS to have social skills in order to function and be successful - of him and Phoenix, who has never as far as we know left LA, it is MILES who has had both the reason and the opportunity to grow in that regard.
My general view on it is that it is in interpersonal non-prefessional relationships that he falls down. if the conversation is smalltalk at arms length etc he's perfectly fine, even if he's probably mentally thinking about something entirely different or that you're an idiot. But the second that it diverges into personal, that uncertainty and that discomfort kick in.
(I'm also not a fan of the permanently smirky and over confident Edgeworths. I think he is a man with a lot of demons and out of court his behaviour, while consistent as a rule, can be irrational by normal standards. I usually invest him with a good dollop of that myself. Plus, you know, he knows he's giving into his Manfred-trained side with that kind of smirky, bitchy stuff, and while that's easy.... he dislikes it too. My Edgeys are only ever a few steps away from Manfred, and they damn well know it.)
God now look what you started XD
[Er - edited to note this is extantlaw mun unwittingly logged in with entirely wrong muse]
Well, if he ever engages in small-talk. Hahaha, god, I'm so guilty of basing a lot of characterization off a single line, but that one moment where he says to Phoenix that he doesn't do small-talk - that says so much to me. I honestly don't think he's even comfortable in professional relationships, most likely, aside from when he's discussing a case with someone. When he is indeed talking a murder, then he's confident, cool, on top of it - but as soon as someone asks him what he did last night, he closes up altogether. I mean, he's seen by others, even his coworkers, as cold and snobbish - I read that, particularly in light of the general warmth and caring he shows in his deeds rather than his words, as an utter inability to express himself. He knows, obviously, how to present a polished front to others. He knows how to go about his life smoothly and professionally and coldly, because that's how he was trained to act, but when it comes to actually interacting with a person, rather than Waitress Number Three At That French Restaurant Who Often Lets The Tea Get Cold? He's entirely clueless.
(God, so with you on him being close to von Karma and despising that fact, though. I play my own with a hell of a lot of internal conflict in that regard. He's aware just who instilled that cruelty in him, and he always fights it hard - which honestly just serves to make him more snappish, since he's always on edge and trying to fight against his instinct.)
I'm just not sure he's that FAIL in all areas of conversation - he seems to be reasonably comfortable dealing with people generally in the new game, for example, provided they stay away from any personal subjects or implication of closeness.
I tend, I admit, to play him as pretty closed up about his personal affairs, I think maybe I just portray it slightly differently. Mine's response to a question about what he did last night would be to just deflect/kill the question fairly politely but with no mistaking the fact that you're not gonna get told. So I guess... less in the area of cold, and more in that of distant/avoidant, if that makes sense?
(And yeah mine of canon age can be prone to exactly that - post canon older ones are more removed from it - since as we see clearly in the games, Miles can/does grow as a person, and I assume he continues to do so. BUT, they retain a disturbing ability to turn Manfred-ness on and off at will if they want to, which I have had fun writing).
Baww, I love the new game, because it shows just how much he's grown as a person. ♥ It really speaks to his arc - he's competent, confident, and, for all that he's tromping around after murders, happy. He doesn't get emoface once! Even when they bring up Manfred! I would love to play Oldsworth sometime, just because he really is so much more collected than Youngsworth, and so much healthier a human being, which I think is so wonderful. GOD I love his arc so much.
But at the same time, playing awkward, tentative Youngsworth is too much fun to ever abandon. ;~;
But anyway - where do you generally take him from in canon?
Relevant icon is Relevant, Good Lord me.extantlawMarch 10 2010, 19:07:39 UTC
I love the new game too (still playing it as I live in England and out in the sticks to boot, so had to mail order it). It's been a somewhat joyous experience for me as a fair bit of my headcanon just suddenly became canon and that is always amusing. WHERE DO I SEND THE BILL, CAPCOM? /joke
I have actually rarely played true Youngsworth, mainly because I ficced him a bit and when I randomly picked up RP for laughs a couple years ago I wanted to try a different version. So my first one was Prof and he was oooh... 8 years post GS3? This one (extantlaw) is just after GS3 and by extension AAI it seems (lucky there is nothing thus far in AAI that contradicts things, phew!). THAT SAID, this one is in a memory loss game in which he receives random memories and dreams of his past, and I have been somwwhat mean to him so that he believes he is a murderer, still. Heh heh. As a result he's sort of got one foot in end-canon and one foot in GS1, so can flip-flop a little in his reactions to things. He DOES have that coldness you describe sometimes, and that horrific fail at dealing with people... but then at other times he's more the end GS3/AAI Miles and can get along with people pretty well up to a certain point (that certain point being "it's fine unless they pry into my personal affairs or attempt to engage in untelegraphed/unwelcome physical contact"). He's managed to forge a few friendships regardless - notably with Itachi Uchiha and Sam Vimes. Then there's his rag-tag waifs and strays - Allen Walker, Tommy Shepherd and Yachiru from Bleach (he is a sucker for orphans and little girls it seems, whatever version I play. He can't bear to see kids left to fend for themselves, even memoryless - it give shim a Bad Feeling).
I have played Youngsworth once or twice - once against a friend trying out a Gant muse in our musebox, and other times in "flashback" logs with Prof on a friend's comm. He is kinda fascinating compared to the older versions but I deliberately chose as I did for Edensphere so that I could really mess with his head and have his responses be from all over the timeline according to his memories XD
This is a deliberate choice on my part. He's been put into an unfamiliar situation, where he's afraid, isolated, and removed from his work and what he knows. Examine what happens when he's in a similar emotional state in-game - i.e., case four of the first game. He turns frantic, closed-off, and combative, shutting out others and being frankly quite nasty to them. And he holds on hard to his mistakes in that case, trying to force others away even in the face of impending conviction, fighting to maintain his guilt even in the face of evidence. His smirking, self-assured attitude is at its very core a put-on, a facade, and in that very case it's stripped away because of the direness of the situation and because he's forced out of the prosecutor's bench, his home, where he's most comfortable. He's grim and angry.
So in a situation like this, where he's facing death daily, where his very existence as a prosecutor has been denied? He's not going to act dissimilarly. He simply cannot use that facade of smug superiority, because three days after he arrived in-game he mocked Nnoitra Jiruga and the motherfucker's response was to destroy an apartment building and kill some hundred people. He tried being smug and self-assured, and he realized that people would be hurt if he did. So now he's resorting to a deeper personal defense, as he did in that case: he's prickly, stubborn, and combative, because he needs to protect his sense of self somehow, and that is the way he knows how. It's either be angry and self-righteous or have no fortress at all. He chooses self-righteousness.
Further, he's always been far more smug and condescending in the courtroom. When one interacts with him outside of court, he's sarcastic and rather droll, yes, but not particularly smirky. Get your character in court once Edgeworth gets to be a prosecutor in SP again. Then you'll see smug.
I'll keep the second part brief, which is rather apropos, since I have to go to work soon. I'll work on that, but the thing is that I tag from work, which means that tags often are quite rushed, and I'm not able to go back and reference what's previously been done in the threads threads. I'll keep an eye on it in the future, and I'll encourage you to stop tagging with me if you find it boring; just because I leave you a tag doesn't mean your obligated to continue the thread if you don't enjoy it. Part of it, too, is tagging with Snake, just because...Well, I often don't know what to do with him or where he's coming from. Again, perhaps that's a personal failing on my part, and perhaps I should put more work into understanding the character, and I should go back and review the threads more, since that isn't fair for you.
Yeah, I rock at "keeping things brief."
Anyway, looking over that, I realize how effing defensive it sounds, and I apologize for that, but I'm gonna slap it up there anyway just so see how you respond because HURF DE DURF LET'S CONTINUE THIS CONVERSATION WHILE I'M AT WORK SO I CAN CONTINUE TO JUST TALK TO YOU IN WORDS SNATCHED IN BETWEEN MINIMIZED WINDOWS AND THEREFORE ROB ALL MEANING OR, YOU KNOW, RHETORICAL SKILL FROM THAT WHICH I'M WRITING
Reply
As for the issue of you tagging, I really didn't know you were so busy when you get to replying, but I'd also like to say that, if you feel that it's forced or that you're rushing it, you don't need to tag at work. Granted, that may come off as a little shallow on my part; maybe that's the only time you can tag or maybe you feel more motivation when you do it at work, but it's neither my business or right to criticize when RL is brought into the mix. I don't think it's very polite to speak for everyone else in the game, but I don't think I'm the only person who would mind waiting if you feel that the extra time would benefit your tagging ability.
Anyway, sorry if I've upset you. I really didn't expect it to come off as negative or insulting.
Reply
Anyway, yeah. I know the way I play him is probably somewhat unlike the way others play Edgeworth - I'll confess I don't look at other Edgey-poos too often, but I do get the impression that my playing is a bit idiosyncratic. That said, I do strongly believe that my playing isn't OOC, just because I hold to the thought that, you know, gay waters run deep; I write him as someone very untrue to himself, defensive, etc., etc., etc., I could go on at length. I always get nervous about playing him, I'll grant, since in this game in particular his outward facade is significantly different from how it is in canon, and as such I'm always afraid that he'll look OOC on first glance. But in terms of what's going on under the surface...Well. I am confident there.
(I'll confess, though, that I sort of dislike the smirky, self-confident Edgeworths, just because they actually always strike me as OOC when they're not in the courtroom. I mean, he's a smug asshole in court, but out of court and out of his job, he's clearly shown to be uncomfortable and uncertain. Ffff I love that juxtaposition so much and PEOPLE NEED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO THAT ASPECT OF THE CHARACTER, it's delightful. But that's just me imposing my worldview.)
Tagging...IDK. Honestly, Pretendy Funtimes is my refuge from a shitty job. Like, I believe in my log tags. Trust me, if you get into a log with me, I sweat blood over it. But as for threading - it's a distraction, and...Well. In any case, I'll not thread with you in those cases.
Reply
True, but also worth bearing in mind that Miles canonically travels the world, and has spent a lot of time living away from LA. He also moves in relatively professional circles. He HAS to have social skills in order to function and be successful - of him and Phoenix, who has never as far as we know left LA, it is MILES who has had both the reason and the opportunity to grow in that regard.
My general view on it is that it is in interpersonal non-prefessional relationships that he falls down. if the conversation is smalltalk at arms length etc he's perfectly fine, even if he's probably mentally thinking about something entirely different or that you're an idiot. But the second that it diverges into personal, that uncertainty and that discomfort kick in.
(I'm also not a fan of the permanently smirky and over confident Edgeworths. I think he is a man with a lot of demons and out of court his behaviour, while consistent as a rule, can be irrational by normal standards. I usually invest him with a good dollop of that myself. Plus, you know, he knows he's giving into his Manfred-trained side with that kind of smirky, bitchy stuff, and while that's easy.... he dislikes it too. My Edgeys are only ever a few steps away from Manfred, and they damn well know it.)
God now look what you started XD
[Er - edited to note this is extantlaw mun unwittingly logged in with entirely wrong muse]
Reply
(God, so with you on him being close to von Karma and despising that fact, though. I play my own with a hell of a lot of internal conflict in that regard. He's aware just who instilled that cruelty in him, and he always fights it hard - which honestly just serves to make him more snappish, since he's always on edge and trying to fight against his instinct.)
Reply
I tend, I admit, to play him as pretty closed up about his personal affairs, I think maybe I just portray it slightly differently. Mine's response to a question about what he did last night would be to just deflect/kill the question fairly politely but with no mistaking the fact that you're not gonna get told. So I guess... less in the area of cold, and more in that of distant/avoidant, if that makes sense?
(And yeah mine of canon age can be prone to exactly that - post canon older ones are more removed from it - since as we see clearly in the games, Miles can/does grow as a person, and I assume he continues to do so. BUT, they retain a disturbing ability to turn Manfred-ness on and off at will if they want to, which I have had fun writing).
Reply
But at the same time, playing awkward, tentative Youngsworth is too much fun to ever abandon. ;~;
But anyway - where do you generally take him from in canon?
Reply
I have actually rarely played true Youngsworth, mainly because I ficced him a bit and when I randomly picked up RP for laughs a couple years ago I wanted to try a different version. So my first one was Prof and he was oooh... 8 years post GS3? This one (extantlaw) is just after GS3 and by extension AAI it seems (lucky there is nothing thus far in AAI that contradicts things, phew!). THAT SAID, this one is in a memory loss game in which he receives random memories and dreams of his past, and I have been somwwhat mean to him so that he believes he is a murderer, still. Heh heh. As a result he's sort of got one foot in end-canon and one foot in GS1, so can flip-flop a little in his reactions to things. He DOES have that coldness you describe sometimes, and that horrific fail at dealing with people... but then at other times he's more the end GS3/AAI Miles and can get along with people pretty well up to a certain point (that certain point being "it's fine unless they pry into my personal affairs or attempt to engage in untelegraphed/unwelcome physical contact"). He's managed to forge a few friendships regardless - notably with Itachi Uchiha and Sam Vimes. Then there's his rag-tag waifs and strays - Allen Walker, Tommy Shepherd and Yachiru from Bleach (he is a sucker for orphans and little girls it seems, whatever version I play. He can't bear to see kids left to fend for themselves, even memoryless - it give shim a Bad Feeling).
I have played Youngsworth once or twice - once against a friend trying out a Gant muse in our musebox, and other times in "flashback" logs with Prof on a friend's comm. He is kinda fascinating compared to the older versions but I deliberately chose as I did for Edensphere so that I could really mess with his head and have his responses be from all over the timeline according to his memories XD
Reply
Leave a comment