Case Files Timeline

So, I’m a little late, but it’s been 10 years since everything started that led to this site and the community based around it. (With help from Jessica I’ve narrowed down the date the Lawbreakers RP started to 15th February 2011, not sure in which timezone though but I’m late regardless I realise) I know things have been quieter lately and the last year has been a very difficult one generally for everyone, however I still felt due to everything that’s happened in my life thanks to this site and community I wanted to do something. This timeline I’ve written was at first meant to be more of an objective thing, but I soon realised that there’s a lot of things that perhaps I remember others don’t, and others remember which I don’t as very few people on the site have been involved in every single RP etc. As such, I’ve tried to mention everything I remember clearly and what my experiences were with them as well as what I remembered going on at the time that I wasn’t involved in but seemed to be fairly popular. I did look through a lot of the site (including trying to navigate the old one which is… not easy.) to remind myself of some lesser known RPs as well as dates of things so hopefully some of you will have some fond memories here. Also, I have probably forgotten some of the events I go over here, and with the situation regarding the backup forums I can’t check for sure, so feel free to eviscerate me for things I’ve gotten wrong.

2011
The busiest year for the site, which began on another site.

The Start. Court Records Backup Forum.
The year when I first joined the Court Records backup forum. I was never one for forums that often then (nor since) but I remembered reading through posts for a while as I was lurking and having so much to discuss about Ace Attorney, with no one I knew IRL who played the series. The site didn’t seem to have most of what I got sick of in other forums and that was why I decided to chip in with the odd post. Following this, I saw Neni’s post or topic about her School Attorney idea, and I figured it could be something fun to do so decided to try writing a sample of dialogue between the characters. I’d never done anything like this before and Neni I remember gave me some very positive feedback inviting me to take part in the project. This was the first time anyone had praised anything I’d created like that really and it encouraged me a lot to try out more stuff.

The Lawbreakers.
So, I’d been enjoying my time on the site. I didn’t really know people that well there, but I’d seen some names as I’d been lurking, and had a rough idea of who a few people were. I’d been watching a load of Yu-gi-oh! Abridged at the time, with one being Marik’s Evil Council. For a laugh following the somewhat shitpost-like threads there would be sometimes on the site (being the backup forums, it was very different to how the official forum was and is now) I decided it would be fun to make some sort of forum game using the villains in Ace Attorney to do some absurd plans to take down Phoenix Wright in revenge. Forum Members could take a Phoenix Wright villain and write posts as them, using animated gifs of the sprites from the Court Records site discussing and arguing over how to do so. There were no real restrictions on what was allowed and it was more shitposting than what I would consider RPing at the time. Stealing ideas from Marik’s Evil Council we ended up having them plan to win Phoenix a trip on a boat so they could humiliate him or, something. I played the leader of the group to start it off, Manfred Von Karma. There was little explanation of how any of this had happened, other than that it was vaguely after Apollo Justice as villains from that appeared and they all wanted revenge. When it came to characterisation, from taking dead characters who were villainous and pretty much inventing a personality for them, to trying to stick very closely to the canon character, anything went.

Needless to say, it was silly, but that changed when Neni brought in the idea of Trucy being kidnapped, with Dahlia I believe claiming responsibility for it. Trucy went on to basically troll the whole group and eventually I brought Phoenix in as part of that, for what I thought at the time would be a short bit. Again, at this time, Apollo Justice was the final entry in the series, and so Phoenix at that point was his hobo self. As such, I went with trying to make him act like his Hobo-self rather than just going for playing Phoenix in his classic form, something I think if not for the specific circumstances I would have done. Trucy escaped, and we decided to make it so the Lawbreakers escaped to Von Karma’s Castle he now had. Because this group were dedicated to taking down Phoenix, he teamed up with friends and past clients and they all stormed the Castle. This was a frantic period, with a lot of new posters joining and taking up the role of new characters, the event was a whirlwind and probably the fastest in the RP’s history for posting, with it getting to the stage that some people were getting confused.

A little earlier than this elsewhere on the site, I remembered being really happy when people started posting about how much fun they were having with the Lawbreakers thread in a general chat thread, either taking part or just reading it as it went on. With the speed of posting in the Castle Karma plot, posts in the general Court Records chat off-topic thread became more and more about the RP, and eventually either we were asked to or just decided to make an OOC thread to discuss the RP. This was for me where I really started to get to know people on the forum more. Talking through what was going on in the RP, talking about problems that cropped up, plans for where we’re going to go with it and planning things out in PMs with members. Eventually, the Castle Karma plot came to an end with me deciding to go for a Layton style situation of the Castle taking off and flying away to escape Phoenix’s group. It wasn’t all humour and ridiculous scenarios however. With Neni playing Dahlia Hawthorne, who had a pretty personal history with Phoenix, there came a situation where Dahlia was going to fall to her death. I believe Neni planned for that to be the end of it for her, but in the moment, I felt Phoenix wasn’t the sort who could watch someone, even her just fall to their death. He grabbed her hand stopping her from falling and pulled her to safety. It was a pretty intense scene for what had been ridiculous over the top somewhat parody of the series up till that point. From my memory, and of course I am biased as I was involved, but this was where we started doing more with the RP than just joking around. Going by TV Tropes categories, the RP got hit with Cerebus Syndrome, delving into a lot more of the traumas the characters were facing alongside the absurdity.

The Anything Society.
Now, I can’t remember specifically when this happened, but I believe it was around the time of the conclusion to Castle Karma, where we decided to set up a second thread which was based on Phoenix and the other ‘good guys’. It was with this, the RP truly became its most iconic form, with the Wright Anything Agency as it was known in Apollo Justice becoming essentially the home base for Phoenix and co. Many more people had joined with characters, in some cases because they didn’t really care for any of the villains but really wanted to play other characters. Whereas Lawbreakers was based on a lot of the villains trying to one-up each other and doing absurd crimes that weren’t like anything that would be in the actual games, the Anything Agency tended to be a little more slice of life so to speak, with a lot of the characters meeting in the Agency to discuss what they’re going to try and do about the Lawbreakers, or just setting off their own plotlines. Because there were two threads, I didn’t want to run them both, and had asked Neni from the start to help me out with the RP, so I asked if she could start up this thread. It was with the Anything Society that a lot more plotlines took place. Lawbreaker characters could appear and do things, but the majority of time it was just having fun with characters interacting.

Now, whilst I went over a fair bit of what happened in the Lawbreaker Thread, at least early on, the main reason for that was to explain how things lead to us setting up a second thread. With the Anything Agency, a lot happened, which also at the same time would run alongside events in the Lawbreakers thread. Eventually, sometime later we tried to separate events into arcs, although as most of this was purely freeform it didn’t work out really neatly, but still there were key events that allowed us to categorise it in such a way, something we’d use in later chapter lists we’d make. What was interesting due to the way the RP worked was that due to certain people being not able to post sometimes, and then being more active other times, there were a variety of characters who became prominent in certain plots then would take a backseat in later ones whilst other characters rose to prominence. When rereading the RP I remembered finding this really fun to look back on, Maya Fey would have a prominent role for a bit, then another time Pearl Fey, Ema Skye, it’d change around a lot.

Neutral Society.
The third and final thread for the original RP we created on the CR Backup Forums. Triplemathics who had been involved almost from the start and was consistently helpful had become the third admin of the RP as time went on. He would always be prepared to discuss ideas we’d have and how we could go about them as well as helping come to decisions. We decided that with more and more people joining and characters already being taken, to introduce a third group of characters, this time, ones who weren’t specifically Phoenix’s friends or clients, but characters who weren’t lawbreakers (in the majority of cases) either. I decided once again to abuse my power in the RP and take the character who was to me the definition of the category, Winston Payne, a character who’s gone against Phoenix but is purely just a guy doing his job. Other neutral characters were often victims from the game’s cases who more often than not didn’t really wish to take part in the ongoing battle between the Anythings and Lawbreakers and just live their own lives.

Whilst the Neutral Society didn’t provide necessarily the most desired characters from Ace Attorney, what it did provide was a middleground for characters from the other two groups to meet. It was due to this, that probably some of the most intense confrontations between both groups took place, with their travels to other countries often taking place in this thread, and eventually, the grand finale of the RP on the Court Records Backup Forum, an actual trial and the Moneybags plot. To go into this more would require a lot of explanations, so I’ll just say this was probably the most intense plotline for the RP, possibly overall. A lot of events took place during this, with Karma creating a grand plan to put Apollo Justice, Phoenix’s protegee on trial, and corrupt the system Phoenix worked to put into place in the Apollo Justice game, the Jurist System into convicting him. With this, Von Karma felt it was the ultimate revenge, corrupting what Phoenix at the time considered his greatest impact on the legal system into convicting someone close to him. This all fell apart however, firstly due to the intervention by Moneybags, a character who had gradually built up in the plot into the overall arc villain, and due to the Lawbreakers who had been made into Jury members actually voting not guilty just to spite Karma following various fallings out.

This whole trial arc was an epic undertaking, but it also taught a lot of us valuable lessons I feel in RPing, about how much things could stall if too much dependence was put upon one person being able to post repeatedly, planning too much ahead which restricted players and caused quite a few headaches. With that said, I did remember when rereading it, a lot of this plotline was very interesting to revisit, as was the ending with the battle against Moneybags, which involved a big element that had gradually built up in the RP and actually provided a very handy tool for moving the RP on to the next stage when I think back on it. What started as a joke in the RP, moving at the speed of plot gradually became an element, somewhat jokingly but then as a way to make ridiculous storylines have some sort of rule to them, being ‘plot’ which was some sort of energy with reality warping powers. I will go more into that when I get to the next incarnation of the Anythings vs Lawbreakers. With that however, on the Court Records Backup Forums, the RP came to an end, as did the forum itself.

The Anythings vs Lawbreakers Society RP Related Happenings- OOC chat and Skype.
So, I’ve gone over the various threads that made up the RP, but there is a bit more to mention that I feel is important regarding how it shaped things. As said before, there was an OOC thread we had to discuss the RP, but over time, we decided to move things further. It was with this, the suggestion came to create a Skype Chat. I didn’t join it at first, I was pretty shy and I felt moving from talking on a forum to talking live was a pretty huge deal. I remember when I finally did just how odd it was. The only comparable experience to me, is meeting someone from online IRL. To suddenly be able to talk instantly with people that until now, I’d made posts and just waited to hear a response from was a really odd feeling. This was where I really learnt what a lot of the people I’d been posting messages and waiting for responses from were like in conversation, and we really got along well. The RP was a uniting force, but we talked about all sorts of things, and it was really exciting seeing other people as I had joining the Skype chat, welcoming them when they’d just been posters on the forum till that point. It was with this in a way, for a time we were Court Records in a sense, since none of the mods or admins I believe from the site really were involved in the Skype Chat. There had been some issues on the forum with some regular posters getting tired of seeing things related to the RP, so I think that put some people off, but the Skype Chat hopefully helped us make that into an outlet for those conversations. I don’t know if I remember right, but I think perhaps due to that, there was less chatting generally on the Backup Forums following us going to Skype, but I could be wrong. In a way, this helped us prepare a bit for what was to come, we had a connection outside of CR now. Before I move on, AAvsLB was not the only RP that was of great importance to the site however…

Paradox.
Of the other RPs that appeared on the CR Backup Forums, this was probably the most successful alongside the Anythings vs Lawbreakers called Paradox. I was mostly busy at the time with running my own RP and felt there was too much going on in Paradox to just jump in, however I would often keep track of it. The RP was pretty much a massive crossover of almost anything out there, where Batman could meet Dexter from Dexter’s Lab or fight Darth Vader. I was really not involved in the RP in its original form, nor what it eventually became whilst on the CR Backup Forums, so I can’t really mention much. I did join somewhat jokingly as CD-I Link, mostly as I wanted to mess around a bit with a character outside of Ace Attorney I believe, however I didn’t want to get too heavily invested, and I remember having him Duckwalk to show off and fall off Bowser’s Airship I think (or it might have been one of Eggman’s) to never be seen again. One thing I do know, is that the RP had a dedicated group taking part in it, and that it always seemed like there were a fair few interesting plots that I wish I could read through now going on in there. Sadly, that point brings us on to the next aspect of this year.

The End. Court Records Backup Forum.
So, I’ve referenced this enough, and anyone here right now obviously can see this isn’t Court Records you’re reading this on. Before I go onto why, first I want to mention other RPs I remember I believe being on the Backup Forum that were somewhat popular. There were some other shorter lived RPs I was involved in, one was an Ace Attorney School RP where the characters were mostly kid versions and there were a couple of characters who were adults and faculty members. I remember playing Godot to try him out for a change being one of the adult staff members, it was pretty fun. There were other RPs which were more OC focused, the only one which I was involved in was I think called the CR Brawl, where characters just had a fight. I remember partnering up with Any (then called Randomg) with us being characters who would transform into either a shield or a sword respectively and the other character would wield them to fight. It was a lot of fun and one which has always stuck with me.

So, now for the main event. The Forum was a backup for Court Records, probably the best Ace Attorney fansite out there. At the time, some redevelopment was being done on the site I believe, but it had gone on for some time, with the forum gradually losing a lot of people who had been on the original CR. I personally felt due to this that those who were on the Backup Forums, as there were a lot fewer of us really grew a lot more of a community together. When the news came that CR was going to fully return, with the new forums and everything else there was a fair bit of excitement. However, whilst our RP had been allowed to go on in the backup forums, we were told it would not be allowed in the new forums. This along with a lot of us enjoying RPing and often being less on the site to discuss Ace Attorney and more just generally as a community, lead to our decision to try setting up our own site. Of course, this was quite a jump from just running an RP on someone else’s forums, but with us kind of running what we referred to as the Court Records Skype chat at the time and knowing everyone who planned to move to the site, it wasn’t as daunting as just creating something entirely from scratch. Sadly, after a couple of years, the worst thing with the Backup Forums happened, they were gone. With the new Court Records up, there was no need to keep the Backup Forums, and sadly the only remnants of our days on the site are memories and a few web archives (As well as the previously mentioned chapter lists that have broken links but do give short sentences describing events). That is why this is some of the hardest stuff to write, being the oldest memories I have of the RPs, but also not being able to double check it as I can with everything else. Looking back, I’m amazed just how much happened seemingly in a few months, I didn’t remember that the next part happened within the same year.

Case Files. A New Beginning.
We set up the new site to have everything we liked from Court Records Backup Forums, as well as things to make running RPs easier than there. With a lot more freedom, we were able to provide all sorts of different sections for whatever people wanted, places to post writings they’d done, post artwork they’ve done, post OOC and chat, play Forum games, and of course RPing. We knew the two big draws for the site were of course, the RP that had inspired us all into this in the first place, the Anythings vs Lawbreakers, and the other big name, the Paradox RP. Therefore, to my recollection, we gave these two RPs their own sections. We also had another section for other RPs that people wanted to do, allowing anyone who wanted to run an RP to do so. When we started the site, a lot of it was a lot more Ace Attorney focused, with Paradox being the only major thing which wasn’t specific to AA. Therefore, a lot of the names were themed towards Ace Attorney, and a lot of the sections were created with specifics of the AAvsLB in mind. One big section I always enjoyed, was the Character Bios section, where people could write Bios of the characters they’re RPing, coming up with things unique to the characters in the RP that differ from canon. A subsection of this, was the Journals and Diaries, a section where members could write in-character entries either related to the RP, or just generally to canon. This was more like fanfiction than RPing really, but also being something that could be linked to the RPs as background.

To run the site, we decided to have the three of us who were running the Anythings vs Lawbreakers as the site admins and asked people to apply as mods before choosing people we trusted to help run the site. All sorts of teething problems have taken place, but I feel overall that everyone involved has done a very good job over the years and I am thankful to everyone who’s helped the sites go as long as they have.

The Anythings vs Lawbreakers Continued.
So, I mentioned how the ‘plot’ plot (<<>>) actually provided a good point to start a new chapter for RP. Until now, we’d not had any sort of rule with the RP, no explanation for the Lawbreakers suddenly being free, dead characters being alive with little explanation, all the rest of it. Well, with the death of Moneybags, a character heavily involved with plot in ways far too complicated for me to summarise here, we had ‘plot’ essentially get wiped out of the RP. In it’s last act however, it decided to do one last plot twist, using its reality warping powers to revive every single dead character in the Ace Attorney series. With this, every character imaginable was available to play as, but now, the characters could react with all the trauma and it would cause all the consequences it should. Plotlines revolving around Gregory Edgeworth returning took place, villains finding out their victims were alive again had new motivations, and meanwhile, the schemers kept trying to set up bigger schemes.

With a whole site to ourselves now, we decided to change the way the RP worked. Instead of having just three threads for specific groups, we created multiple threads for various locations. I’d rather not list all of them, but ones such as Kurain Village and the Courthouse allowed for specific plots to take place within them. Whilst we still had a main base thread for the Anythings and Lawbreakers, over time the locations would change, such as the Lawbreakers thread starting off as Alba’s Castle, then its final incarnation being Lawbreakerville, the town set up by the Lawbreakers that took place a few years later. For the rest of the year, the RP ran fairly well, but sadly this decision had a few drawbacks which were becoming apparent. With so many threads, the focus for those taking part could be a bit all over the place, with some threads barely being used, and when they were it would confuse others involved. The RP had always had lulls in activity, but it seemed since the move, it was more often the spurts in activity that lasted shorter than the quiet periods. However, there was still a lot of posting that took place in this RP in 2011, and it will always be the peak of this RP.

The Von Karma Household.
There were a lot of AA RPs started on the site in this year, and quite a few got at least 30 pages worth of posts, however I would like to focus on the one which I took part in and which was a big deal to me, the Von Karma Household RP. This was an RP set during Edgeworth’s younger years, before he prosecuted his first trial but only by a year or so I think. I played Karma once again, and it was a lot of fun for me getting to play him in his actual position from the series rather than as a reanimated villain out for revenge like in the AAvsLB. This was probably the first example of an RP which was canon to the AAvsLB as most of the same RPers took on the same roles as in that one, and one character, Von Karma’s butler I believe either first appeared in this thread or was brought over from the main RP. It didn’t run for very long and didn’t have many specific moments, but overall it was to me a notable RP that’s always stuck out in my mind as a fun spin-off.

Paradox the Continuation.
I wasn’t involved myself, but Paradox continued on from where it left off in the original CR thread I believe. Quite a few plots took place and it was the main RP besides the Anythings vs Lawbreakers at the time. As time would go on, the RP would be probably the most consistent on the site.

In Related News.
This thread was set up for people to write fanfic stories, and it had quite a bit of popularity. One of the biggest stories was Aliucon’s “My Lunatic Eyes” which was about Case Files as a city with all the members making appearances. This inspired others to try out similar writings with ones like Razor2012’s Grand C-F Murder, General Tommy’s story, Shuda’s “Trapped” and many other short stories or one-shots.

Last Poster Wins.
A legendary forum game from the CR Backup Forums returned. This thread has a simple goal, be the last person to make a post in there. Of course, with this the case, the thread outlasted probably every other on the site. Over time, all sorts of bizarre conversations took place, with one group of members almost making it into their hideout from what I remember for a period. At this point, there is a current winner of the thread who I will get to later on. Whether they will remain the winner we will see…

Pixel Café.
This was somewhat of a more subdued character interaction focused RP, I think if I remember right influenced by the House of Mouse cartoon, this RP had the same variety of characters as Paradox, but instead being in oddly enough a café. Because of this, most of the time it was characters just talking and ordering drinks, although there were the odd confrontations. It was overall from what I remember, a fun RP with a different vibe to most of the others at the time.

Many many other RPs.
Whilst looking into this, I was surprised just how many RPs I remembered actually took place in 2011, ones like the Teen Titans RP and Tender Binder. I wasn’t involved in these so can’t add much on them, but it really is interesting just how much was packed into this year of the site.

((Continued as too long))
2012
The second year of the site, things slowed down somewhat, but there was still consistent activity.

Anythings vs Lawbreakers.
It started just at the very end of 2011, but the bulk of this year in the RP revolved around a new plot of Lawbreakerville. Having lost their latest hideout, the Lawbreakers moved to a small unnamed country and managed to infiltrate themselves into a small town with fake identities. Their plan was to use this as a base and also avoid having to watch over their shoulders as much. Another plotline was that Miles Edgeworth had his memory altered to believe he was the town’s prosecutor, and return to his old ways before he faced off against Phoenix. I personally had a fairly big plan in mind to conclude the Lawbreakerville arc, but despite a fair bit of activity, things slowed a fair bit in the RP during this year. With that said, a lot of interesting plots still took place, from Dahlia’s different form, to Trucy’s trauma, to many other ‘plot’ related situations and we got a few new people join the site and take part. As it was however, 2012 overall for the Anythings vs Lawbreakers was the final year where it was in its original form.

Paradox Arc 1 Concludes.
I joined Paradox this year, but before I get to that, there’s a very important milestone I feel needs to mentioned regarding it, which is that in this year Paradox concluded its main arc, with an epic final battle where all the characters fought together to overcome the big bad. Following this there was a filler arc which it seems is when I joined, still I would like to say given how often a lot of the RPs tend to not reach a conclusion, it is very cool to know that Paradox managed to have a full arc work out with what seemed like an awesome conclusion.

So, after a long time of always seeing other people posting in it and it going on alongside AAvsLB, I decided to take the plunge and join Paradox in a more real way than before. I had wanted to try RPing as Spider-man for a long time and so it was I brought him in. It was a lot of fun with all sorts of character interactions, action and other events taking place. Probably one of my best memories is when I had Spider-man appear in Gensokyo meeting Sanae who recognised him and played the first Spider-man movie for him. The two then sat there watching the movie with Spidey criticizing parts of it as inaccurate, but also getting somewhat emotional at other parts such as Uncle Ben’s death. It was due to this Spider-man, beyond just being one of my favourite characters is one I really enjoy RPing even today. Two more big characters for me would come later in the RP, one this year and the other the next year. This year’s one was Palutena, Goddess of Light, who I played in conjunction with Any’s Pit. It was a lot of fun working together to have Palutena guide Pit around whilst he did all the fighting, to the point I would bring her back in a later RP in conjunction with Any’s Pit once more.

Furbix’s Shop.
This wasn’t one of the longest RPs, but I remember finding the idea pretty interesting. In it Furbix ran a shop and characters could come in and buy things from him. What was interesting, was this RP linked in to Paradox, so these purchases would carry over to that thread. As such, with it’s links to Paradox and the interesting idea I think this is an RP worth noting for this year.

My Lunatic Eyes Bulk and Ending.
The Majority of Aliucon’s fanfic was written in this year, and it was a whirlwind of a ride that I’ve read through a few times. I have to give major props to Aliucon for actually finishing the story, something I’ve failed with many projects I’ve started.

Pixel Café.
Pixel Café kept a somewhat steady pace, I believe I got involved during this year, bringing in a couple of characters that I’d always wanted to RP but hadn’t really had a chance to. Sadly the RP didn’t last beyond this year, but it was still one which I think a fair few people have good memories of.

Case Files Battle Royale.
This was a fairly short lived RP, but it was notable for being a follow up to the fairly well remembered CR Brawl on the backup forums I believe. The fighters were all prepared but I believe never got to the actual action in the ring, which was a shame, but I’ll admit, I’ve always liked tournament arc type things, so it’s an RP where the concept I was definitely on board with.

New Girl.
With the reveal of Ace Attorney finally getting a follow up to Apollo Justice, and the reveal of Athena Cykes, then unnamed, a fairly notable RP was created by Neni regarding it. I was not involved in this RP, but it lasted a fairly long time considering its basic premise where the characters sat and discussed in-character what they had in store in their futures. Overall, a fairly interesting way to discuss the upcoming game with a twist.


2013
The third year of the site, a reboot and some site changes.

Site Changes.
So, this year saw the first big change to the site, however of all the site updates there would be, it was probably the most minor. Originally, the Anythings vs Lawbreakers RP had quite a big section on the site being the main focus besides Paradox. Other decisions however resulted in a lot of the RP being moved into a smaller subsection which served as more of an archive whilst something else took its place. The reason for this, is the next big event of this year…

The Anythings vs Lawbreakers: Alternate Attorney.
So, at this point, the Anythings vs Lawbreakers had been quiet for quite a period of time. Due to a fair few members having become inactive with little chance for them to return, but them being so much a part of who their characters were in the RP by that point and another factor of the new Ace Attorney set after Apollo Justice being announced which would make everything in our RP impossible to reconcile with canon, a decision had to be made on the RP. This decision, was to start again, use what we had learnt over the last two years with the original RP to tailor things better to where we wanted to go with it, as well as using ideas we couldn’t before. With this, a lot of us took up the same roles as before, but others decided to try out new roles. I returned to my original characters and planned out with the other admins how we were going to proceed. We decided this universe would be like an alternate dimension to the original RP, with one key reference to the original, a plot meteorite. This meteorite, one of the last surviving fragments of plot from the original RP I believe, went across the sky and as it did so, revived all the dead Ace Attorney characters. This time, instead of just starting off with the villains bickering, they all woke up at the place of their death. The meteor made one final plot impact, smashing into the city prison, causing all the living villains in the series to be able to make an escape.

One decision made with this RP was to return to the original form of the RP, where instead of locations having specific threads, there were only three threads, the Anything Agency, the Lawbreakers Society and the Neutral Society. This did work out somewhat better as it allowed more focused posting to go on without characters languishing in an obscure thread because no one else is posting there. This version of the RP lasted for some time, but never reached the level of the original sadly, however, some very interesting plots and conversations took place during this period in the RP, so I find it’s quite fun to look through again. Personally, I find something somewhat cozy about this first period of Alternate Attorney, with everyone talking about, and some investigating the events put into motion by the meteor as well as a lot of antics in the Wright Anything Agency during the night that lasted weeks. This RP would go quiet before the year ended however, and would not return for some time…

Paradox Continues.
So, I carried on with most of my characters from before, but I brought in one I’d always wanted to try but never really felt I would be able to do properly, the Doctor from Doctor Who. In this case, it was the Eleventh Doctor, who was the current one at that time. I had a lot of fun using Eleven in the RP, especially when it came to trying to work out how he’d get around a lot of the extremely powerful characters that were present in the plot. This is just me going into my own personal enjoyment, but my favourite ‘battle’ was when a possessed extremely powerful Trucy Wright (it’s complicated) was flying after the TARDIS and in order to knock her out I had the Doctor use his sonic screwdriver on a megaphone to such a frequency it knocked her unconscious so they could bring her aboard. This was probably the last year I took part in Paradox personally, but I have a lot of fond memories of it and it allowed me to use characters that I’d always wanted to, as well as provide me with confidence to bring them back much further down the line in other RPs.

Persona 4 ½ Rise of the Crawling Chaos.
I was not involved in this RP, and I know very little of Persona, but one thing I will say is, it’s shocking to me this RP only lasted a year because so much took place in it. With 151 pages it’s probably one of the most successful RPs on the site besides the AAvsLB and Paradox, which shows just how dedicated those involved were.

Abilene RP.
This was quite an interesting RP, with a mystery involving a hotel and various characters all seemingly connected but unaware of it ending up there. Sadly it didn’t reach a conclusion, but it was quite involved and had a fair few intriguing mysteries come up, definitely an RP that sticks in my memory.

Fire Emblem Vanished Tactician.
This RP didn’t get too far, but I remember it being talked about a fair bit at the time, and General Tommy who was running it clearly put a lot of time into working out various calculations for the characters etc. I feel it’s also important as this was the year where Fire Emblem Awakening came out, and the forum had a lot of people getting very into the series. This RP is probably the best example of that which is why I feel it’s notable, although I didn’t take part in it myself.

A Tale of Legends of Ages and Stuff.
This was a game I remembered starting based on something I did on an old friend’s forum years ago, where each poster would add to a story and we’d see what ridiculous story we would end up with at the end. It managed to go on till 2016 albeit intermittently, still it seemed to have some staying power as a lot of forum games do.

Ambidex Game: Case Files Edition.
Based on the Zero Escape series, most specifically Virtue’s Last Reward, this RP was quite successful, although sadly similarly to Abilene it didn’t reach a conclusion. Still, for the time it ran it was quite a lot of fun to me, with us mostly using OCs from what I remember, somewhat uncommon for a lot of RPs on the forum. Noone died as we played despite the nature of the game, something which was quite common for our RPs most of the time but admittedly didn’t fit the series as well looking back I think.


2014
The Fourth year of the site, another reboot but quieter overall.

Paradox Ends.
So, after roughly three years, the original Paradox came to an end and similarly to the Anythings vs Lawbreakers RP was rebooted into a new form. The original was backed up and moved to its own subsection and a new version of the RP took its place. I wasn’t really involved in Paradox at this point, however looking back, Paradox really was a big aspect of the site and I would like to say well done to everyone involved in making it last as long as it did. At roughly 3 years it probably was overall the longest running of the RPs.

Paradox Remastered.
This new form of Paradox was one I didn’t take part in. From what I have seen of it, it was a lot more structured than before, with a lot of work being put into it by General Tommy in working towards a narrative and avoiding our usual story of characters just appearing from portals with little explanation. This version of the RP wouldn’t reach the same level of pages as before, but it continued on for a respectable amount of time.

Superhuman RP Remade.
This is probably an example of an RP that didn’t have much success originally hitting at the right time. The original RP didn’t get past it’s first post, as sadly a lot of RPs would in the past, however, with this remade version, the RP got a lot more interest. It was essentially a Superhero RP where already existing superheroes and original characters were allowed. I got involved with Spider-man as I had been hoping to use him again since Paradox and it felt like the most obvious choice for me. It didn’t run very long sadly as people got busy as often happens, but there were some fun moments and it’s another RP that I feel stood out at the time.

Super Smash Bros Universe Reborn.
So, this was an example of the opposite to Superhuman. I originally did this RP earlier in the year where it had moderate success, but for this reboot at the very end of the year, whilst there was interest, it didn’t last as long. It’s a shame as of everything, Nintendo games are probably my biggest passion and it’s a concept I always consider revisiting from time to time. I think perhaps it’s wide scope however left it too open to work properly, with characters in all sorts of universes being on their own as no one else was there. This is really an example of the downsides of making an RP too open, something I will have to consider if ever trying it again.


2015
The Fifth year of the site, a rekindled interest.

Forum Changes.
With the forum becoming somewhat quieter, a lot of sections that seemed like they would and did get a lot of use at first became fairly redundant. Due to this, it was decided to merge various sections, such as the art section absorbing some smaller fanwork categories and the archive of the original Anythings vs Lawbreakers being moved into a subsection of the general Ace Attorney Roleplays section. With this change, I think perhaps it was the clearest sign of the waning significance of the Anythings vs Lawbreakers to the site overall. With that said, there would be one new section added related to that RP, which I will get to soon…

Anythings vs Lawbreakers Alternate Attorney, Dual Destinies DLC Unlocked.
So, after a year of nothing, with Dual Destinies having been out for some time at this point, the decision was made to open up those characters in the RP. In order to do a ‘fresh start’ without rebooting the RP again, it was decided to do a timeskip from where the RP had left off originally, with the events of Dual Destinies having taken place in the time in between. With this, quite a bit of new life was breathed into the RP, with a few new players joining and a lot of new scenarios that couldn’t be explored in the original RP taking place. With this said, and even with the interest a new game brought to the series, sadly this year would effectively see the end of the RP overall. With roughly 3,078 pages (working on the estimate of 1000 pages for Anythings thread and 700 each for the Lawbreakers and Neutral threads on the backup forums) the RP still had an incredible amount of content and its importance to the site overall cannot be overstated. Also, those pages aren’t counting spin-offs and RPs linked to it, which brings us on to…

DLC Cases.
So, regarding the new section added to the site, around this time, Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright had come out. Professor Layton’s series had always been compared with AA although they definitely have a lot of differences. Still, Layton characters always tended to be popular to RP as on the site, therefore it was decided to make a section where RPs set within the same continuity as the Anythings vs Lawbreakers RPs but either in very far-off locations or during earlier periods in the timeline could take place. This resulted in two fairly small RPs using the same style as the Anythings vs Lawbreakers, Layton’s London and The City of Labyrinthia. Sadly these two RPs didn’t last very long, with Layton at least managing to reach 6 pages, still I was glad we managed to try out the idea.

Paradox continues.
I wish I could say something more specific, but the only thing I can say is Paradox kept up it’s trademark and reliable consistency this year from what I remember.

The General Roleplay. The Beginning.
So, sadly the Anythings vs Lawbreakers Alternate Attorney, despite having some success trailed off towards the end. Paradox had kept its dedicated group and trademark consistency, but something interesting happened late in the year. Sable-Xeno, a relatively new member started a fairly straightforward sounding RP, the General Roleplay, where people could play whoever they wanted without any restrictions and do whatever as long as it wasn’t God-modding or Power Play. A group of characters met up in some unspecified location and started talking with each other. With this very open-ended style of RPing, I decided I wanted to revisit a character but in a way I didn’t feel would have been fair in a more structured RP like Paradox. Having been very into Lego Dimensions at the time because of its addition of Doctor Who, and being a huge Doctor Who fan, I wanted to bring in the Doctor, but with a twist that he would somehow have been regenerated from an unspecified incarnation into his very First *Cough* regeneration, having lost his memories of his other incarnations and how he’d ended up there, but still having specific memories of enemies, places and people he’d met over his long life. I wanted similar to Lego Dimensions to have the Doctor able to regenerate whenever he died during the RP, in order to constantly change things up and get to play all the Doctors (although, I knew I wouldn’t probably get that far with it.) When I had the Doctor appear, I decided he would do what he always does, make a nuisance of himself and ask why they’re there. With this, suddenly Sable who had just started the RP without much of a plot in mind I believe had to come up with some explanations, and bring in some powerful characters who had put things in motion. The Doctor took his TARDIS along with a few other characters in the area, and they confronted one of the powerful characters, asking to be returned home. There they learned some more about the situation and followed this character’s instructions to try and do a favour for him before they could find out more. Gradually, a plot was starting to unravel and would become a lot bigger as time went on.

Salty Spitoon.
A fairly simple RP which often is the best recipe for success when it doesn’t require too much investment. Based on the Spongebob scene, characters had to try and convince Reg the bouncer that they were tough enough to get into the Salty Spittoon. Reg would then decide whether the character could come in, or would be directed to Weenie Hut Junior’s instead. You can probably guess from the premise what sort of events took place in this RP, it was overall funny and memorable.


2016
The Sixth Year of the site, new beginnings and old favourites.

Site Renovations.
The final and probably biggest changes to the site took place this year. Some sections such as OOC were merged together and a new section was added for just general OOC chat. The Roleplays were moved around a lot, with there being sections such as the Station, where crossovers involving Ace Attorney and other franchises would go, iFly Airlines based on specific franchises that weren’t Ace Attorney, Wright & Co where all Ace Attorney RPs would go, whether AUs or based on canon and finally Drew Studios which were RPs based on original concepts. The Anything vs Lawbreakers threads, for the first time in the site’s history were moved to be a subsection of the general Ace Attorney Roleplay section. This marked the point where Case Files stopped being focused around that RP. The only RP that kept its own section was Paradox, but that saw a change into a new form in this year. Other changes on the site were fairly minor, although the locked threads section had a subsection added to store locked threads that reached over a certain amount of pages, to make them easier to find and reread.

Discord.
So, this one… I’ll admit I was wrong on this. I tend to like to stick with what’s familiar most often, even if it’s got clear problems, I don’t tend to like changing, but with Skype deciding to go the route a lot of these services do and just become almost unusable to me, I eventually heeded the call of everyone else and moved to Discord. I must admit, Discord is superior to Skype in almost every way really, and Skype forcing ads on everything was probably the last straw when it came to that. Needless to say, I still use Discord to this day, whereas I’ve found the rare time I’ve tried to look on Skype again I’ve had trouble even getting the damn thing open. The Discord Chat I tend to be fairly quiet in often, and it seems fairly quiet overall nowadays, still it is handy to have it there when I feel there’s something I want to do with the site and see if anyone’s available.

Paradox Remastered Conclusion.
This was the last year for the second incarnation of Paradox. I don’t know many of the specifics behind the decision as I still was not involved, but it was decided to restart the RP this year in it’s third and current form.

Threeradox.
Threeradox unlike the Anythings vs Lawbreakers managed to reinvent itself again, this time I believe with a lot more lore involved in it but an aim to try and make it a bit more open ended than Remastered had been. Due to being now the longest running RP on the site, outliving AAvsLB it was given its own section, and similarly to that RP in the past, had more threads for different locations and purposes. Unlike AAvsLB however, the far greater scope of Paradox made it somewhat more successful at not spreading itself out too thin and it managed to keep to its usual dependable level of activity, despite a lot of the rest of the site slowing down somewhat.

Pixel Café Returns.
Part of Threeradox overall, the Pixel Café returned as the title says, but connected to the larger RP directly. I cannot say for myself how similar it was to the original, but I do approve of using famous older parts of the site’s history in new ways.

The General Roleplay. The Battle of the Taxless and more.
This year was when history in a sense repeated itself somewhat. GRP to this point had been fun, with a lot of characters doing all sorts of things, but when Kazuma decided to set off an absurd plot involved Trumpanort and his army of Taxless, an absurd war broke out. From characters fighting for their lives to others filling out their taxes, to others still being taken to an otherworldly law court, this was to me probably the most hectic experience I’ve had in RPing since Castle Karma all those years ago. With the Doctor being killed and regenerating, the Goddess Viridi deciding to just wipe everyone out with a Reset Bomb and many many other characters embroiled in their own plots, this RP managed to capture in my opinion the mix of absolute ridiculous absurdity and drama that had made the original Anything Agency vs Lawbreakers so successful.

The RP would go on to have multiple plotlines take place, with the next involving Viridi being controlled into trying to wipe out all life at once, followed by a battle in the then unnamed City to stop one of her Reset Bombs from landing and wiping them all out. This RP was the most fun I had had in a long time personally, and when Sable asked me if I would like to take over running it as it was getting a bit too frantic for them, I was totally willing to. Aliucon did a fantastic job of chronicling everything (to the point he’s made the OOC post on this forum recapping as much as he could about what took place) and so I asked him to help me run it, which he agreed to.

The Courthouse RP.
Despite being an Ace Attorney themed RP site, we have had surprisingly few Court Case RPs on the site. Admittedly part of that is that they’re very difficult to do, with not only a lot of planning but also a lot of time and energy required from those taking part to avoid it stalling. This RP managed to do fairly well with a small dedicated group. Sadly, it didn’t reach a conclusion, but I feel overall it was pretty successful and I remember having fun with it.

The Kitchenware, Ace Divorce Attorney RP.
So, with the lull in activity early in the year on the site, we were beginning to see something appear more and more often, bots. Bots would appear every so often, creating threads trying to sell all sorts of services, from Kitchenware to Divorce Attorney services. I remember finding it slightly fun to wipe them out when I saw them, but with that said, I would like to give major props to the mods who would often take them out quickly. It was due to this on April Fools Day I decided to create this short lived ‘RP’ where I said the site was now refocusing to its new audience (the bots) and this was going to become the ‘Main’ RP of the site, involving characters selling kitchenware or divorce services.


2017
The Seventh year of the site, a steady continuation.

Threeradox keeps steady.
Essentially one of the only two RPs really running this year. With its different focus to GRP Paradox managed to keep its relevance and keep going alongside it.

The General Roleplay goes to the City. The originals return.
The General Roleplay slowed down compared to the previous year, but it remained somewhat successful. One interesting thing was the cast would change up quite a bit, with some characters staying but others moving on, ending up separated and joining up with other groups, and a lot more characters appearing. Sometimes it could get somewhat confusing which was probably the biggest downfall of the approach. With that said, plotlines were continuing, with things such as dark futures, murder mysteries and criminal organisations coming to the forefront. One idea I personally feel pleased to have put in motion, was due to the nature of the RP, I organised with some others to bring into the RP Phoenix Wright, Mia Fey, Trucy and Apollo. What we decided however, was that these versions of the characters wouldn’t be based on canon, but are the versions from the original Anythings vs Lawbreakers RP. This RP also, of the ones I had been involved in probably had the highest actual body count, with quite a few characters actually dying as the RP went on. Normally I tend to avoid such things in RPs I run, just because other people might want to play the characters, so I’d rather have characters just be moved elsewhere if someone wants to drop them for another player to take, but with this RP being the way it is, there was a lot more freedom. It helps also that in a lot of cases dead characters would end up in afterlife locations and still be active.


2018
The eighth year of the site, with a move to a new forum and a lot of new ideas.

The Tapatalk takeover and The New Case Files.
So, some time had passed and I decided I wanted to revitalise GRP again and get things moving with the plots I had in mind. Sadly, when accessing the site, I came to a realisation. Invisionfree had seemingly given the site to another host (I’m really naïve about how these things work so forgive me if I’m saying ridiculous things) called Tapatalk. This host has… well made the site a lot more irritating to use, with a lot of features either gone or not working and ridiculous new features being added with social media-like likes and points added. As such, the decision was made to create a new forum and leave the original as an archive. The new site did have a big advantage though, it revitalised interest this year in RPing it seemed, with quite a few small projects starting up whereas the old site had become fairly barren when it came to new activity for the last couple of years. Because of them being contacted, a few members also returned for some time to take part in the site, which was another reason for the slight resurgence seen this year.

When deciding on a banner for the site, whilst I wanted to keep the artwork we used for the original site, kindly done for us by Alexis years ago, it was important to acknowledge just how many other big RPs had taken place over our history. Therefore, we decided to make sure there were three characters who played major roles in each of the big RPs in the site’s history also in the banner. With this, the site became much more of a general overall Roleplaying forum rather than Ace Attorney focused, with the categories forgoing the AA references used in the past for more specific names. I personally quite like the layout of the site, so although I would have preferred not to have moved, it did manage to feel a lot more streamlined.

The General Roleplay Continues.
So, initially I wanted to take advantage of the way GRP worked to do a timeskip and start afresh essentially, however I was talked out of it and persuaded when a fair few people who played major characters when GRP was left off were willing to return. As such, we managed to get things to continue on from where we left them off before. GRP managed to have the most pages of a thread on the new forums so far and quite a bit happened. However, despite the enthusiasm, sadly things stalled after some time and that is where the RP has left off for now. If things become more active once again on the site, I would be willing to consider thinking of a way to either carry on or just do a soft reboot of the RP, but for now this was the year where GRP went into stasis after a fairly successful run.

Threeradox Continues.
Threeradox kept going steadily, showing even after all this time just how dedicated those involved in it were. Once again there were multiple locations available to post in and from what I’ve seen of it there were some quality posts being made. Sadly, like most of the site it seems that this was the year where Paradox had a long pause, similarly to most other RPs on the site. With that said, I would like to say looking back, although I was only briefly involved, Paradox was without a doubt as successful as the Anything Agency vs Lawbreakers overall, and whilst that RP arguably set in motion the events that would lead to Case Files as a whole, Paradox should be viewed as much of a foundational pillar of the site as AAvsLB is.

Descend – An Escape Adventure.
An interesting mystery RP, it was probably one of the most popular new RPs on the site. The RP involved characters trapped inside a mysterious Hotel called Dysnomia. There was an interesting array of characters, with some quite dark masterminds trapped alongside more straightforward ‘heroic’ type characters, all having to work together to try and find out what was going on. I didn’t join the RP initially, however in order to combat inactivity it was decided that if possible, different RPers could work together to share characters. With this, I was asked to help fill in with Spider-man and I remember it being fairly fun, however this was more of a case where it wasn’t posting that interested me as much as seeing what a lot of the other characters involved got up to. With the likes of Junko, Monika and Akechi in there, and characters like Miles Edgeworth working alongside them, it felt like there were always 50 different plans going on at once in the background. This isn’t to say it was confusing, more just these characters were the sort that always seemed to have hidden motives behind most of what they said that really made it interesting. Playing Spidey alongside them, he’s smarter than people give him credit for in some cases, but he’s not like Batman when it comes to mystery plots, so he had to focus more on being the muscle in most cases, although still investigating himself as well.

Life’s Great Mysteries.
This one had a lot of potential, but sadly stalled somewhat, still what was there was good. I think this was actually the only time I took on the role of Professor Layton, although I never posted more than him wordlessly appearing, I’m sad to say.

The Salty Spitoon Returns.
The return of the king, Reg’s Revenge. This thread only ran a couple of pages but still kept the same humour as the original.

The Room II The Return of Jaffar.
An intimidating prospect of course, but this RP was an attempt to create a sequel to the world famous masterpiece The Room. With Johnny dead everyone’s moved on to new places in their lives, but Denny has plans in mind to avenge his idol’s death. Sadly, it didn’t progress too far, but this was one of my fondest memories of the new site.

Ace Attorney Files and Turnabout Memoirs.
An attempt at a new Ace Attorney RP that sadly didn’t take off, set this time during the original trilogy rather than later in the timeline as the AAvsLB was, with Tunabout Memoirs being during Mia’s Lawyer years. Perhaps someday in the future this idea can be revisited.

Forum Games.
Probably one of the most successful parts of the new forum, there were quite a few forum games that saw some activity, from the simple ones such as Count to 100 to Mr. Bones’ Wild Ride, forum games always work out well it seems. Speaking of which, the current winner of Last Poster Wins on old CF, who’s post was in this year is the original creator of the thread, Any.


2019
The Ninth Year of the site, the quietest yet.

The General Roleplay has a small chat.
Looking back, this was probably the quietest year in Case Files history. Very few posts were made on the site at all with the only posts really being between two members in GRP with their characters interacting for a time.


2020
The Tenth Year of the site, a small resurgence.

The Adventure Book.
The most recent RP, this idea was a fairly straightforward one started by Aliucon, where someone could use the thread to create a short RP scenario that they would oversee to its conclusion, with a time limit. I decided as GRP had stalled and would need a fair bit of work to get it running again to try out playing some later incarnations of the Doctor in the thread, which I found a lot of fun. The first RP sadly ran out of time and had to conclude before answers could be found in the mystery, so I decided to try running the second one, which was a more horror focused affair. This story has almost reached its conclusion and I’m hoping we might be able to get it finished soon provided those involved are able to post. This however was the only active RP really of the year.


2021
The Eleventh Year of the site, Almost silent.
The new quietest year in Case Files history, the only activity was three posts in Last Poster wins and a couple of threads (including this one) regarding the site's 10 year anniversary. This record would not last long however.

2022
The Twelfth Year of the site, Silence.
The quietest year for Case Files, no posts were made whatsoever.

2023
The Thirteenth Year of the site, A resurgence?

The General Roleplay.
This looked set to follow the dormant state from the previous two years, however thanks to Reverie, Sable-Xeno and others the General Roleplay came back with seemingly the same steam the original had when it was on this site in 2018. With currently 8 pages it is fast becoming one of the most successful RPs on the new forum. I myself had not wanted to do a reboot of the RP but hearing the idea it got me motivated to take part, it's been a lot of fun and I'm currently working on writing something as an epilogue to the original GRP to conclude that story using various ideas I had planned for the future. Whether this will lead to other RPs to start up and see success will remain to be seen.

Case Files site.
I myself currently have plans to make the closest to a backup of the old forum as possible having made copies of many pages from the bigger RPs and threads. The old Tapatalk forums despite some irritating features are still currently available to view.


So that’s a brief overview of each year to date of the site. Things of course started off a lot more plentiful, but writing this out I’ve realised even in the quietest years there’s always been something going on, granted 2019 was the quietest of all (until 2021 and 2022) and only involved two people posting anything. At 90.7k posts and 448 topics on old Case Files and 2286 posts as of writing on the new site, I feel really proud to have been involved in something that seemed to have engaged so many people. None of it would have happened if not for everyone involved who put time and effort into the site, so to you all, old and new, members who are no longer here and ones who haven’t been with us that long and those who've been around since the start, I would like to say thank you for taking part!

Finally, to end this off, I thought it’d be fun to have an end of decade look at the stats.
Of old Case Files, our top five posters were…

1. Toonblade with 13148 posts.
2. General Tommy with 7814 posts.
3. Mar with 6798 posts.
4. Nenilein with 6470 posts.
5. SomariFeyWright with 4685 posts.

With admittedly some possible bots who just never made themselves obvious as bots or posted anything, old Case Files has 206 users.
And on new Case Files, the top five posters were…

1. Giggles with 306 posts.
2. Reverie with 290 posts.
3. Nenilein with 261 posts.
4. Regiwi with 191 posts.
5. General Tommy with 166 posts.

As of now, new Case Files has 39 members.

As for where we go from here, I haven’t had many plans. I personally would like to try and finish off the small RP I started last year in Aliucon’s thread, but admittedly I’ve been doing other things and dunno how much I’d be able to motivate myself to RP much, however I’ve felt like this in the past too and when things started happening it motivated me to try, so really who knows. Regardless, I want this site to always be around for if anyone wants to do something with it, and I think through the years after looking into it all for this timeline, it has been. Thank you everyone once again for being involved!