MLP/AA: What My Cutie Mark Is Telling Me

For those who want to read the long version, scroll on down. 

For those who just want a quickie explanation, this is basically the ponfied versions of (from left to right) Pearl Fey, Apollo Justice, Trucy Wright, Athena Cykes, Maya Fey and Phoenix Wright, matching the infamous final shot of the song mentioned above. I also designed cutie marks for them all. Granted, with the exception of Athena's, none of them match my first attempts at doing Ace Attorney ponies - but looking back on those first designs, I always hated the cutie marks. I really didn't give any of them much time. These I did put a tiny bit more effort into. Again, for more background, scroll down.

I have done this screenshot for other franchises I follow before but this is the only one I have ever seen through to the end. It is based off the dilemma at the heart of MLP:FiM's Magical Mystery Cure where Twilight accidentally uses a magic spell that switches her friends' cutie marks around, making them believe that their jobs/talents/abilities are completely different from who they really are.

Here it is re-applied to the pony versions of the main characters of the Ace Attorney games. So Pearl thinks she has Maya's destiny, Maya thinks she had Trucy's, Apollo thinks his is Pearl's and so on. The cutiemarks for each of the characters have changed a little from my original designs (Plus for Pearl and Trucy this is the first time I have ponified them) so here's a quick expo:

Pearl's cutiemark is pretty straight forward, being a pearl with a heart. When it came to Pearl I didn't want her talent to just be spirit channeling and I couldn't think of a decent representation of it anyway. There was always the Magatama but I've done that before and, in hindsight, it is the most uninspired thing to stick on a flank. So I focused on her love of romance and the rarity of pearls instead.

Apollo's cutiemark is an eye to represent his ability to catch "tells". I preferred this to my original attempt because I felt it was the best way to show his name and skill in one. He's named after a "seer" god and can see things others wouldn't notice. I chose the Egyptian eye simply because it felt more stylistic than any other eye I could think of.

Trucy, like her brother, is a pretty straight forward design choice. She is a magician and her talent is, thus, magic tricks. While there were many ways of representing that on a flank, a magic want a la Trixie style seemed the ideal way to do it.

Athena is the only cutiemark that hasn't changed from my original concept for her. It's Widget's mood matrix sprite. Given her talent is psychology and sensing people's (or in this case ponies's) feelings, it seemed most apt.

Maya has changed from my original design. I have made it more generic to represent magic (or rather a deep, hidden gift for magic) but also her role as a "light" in dark and sad situations. So a star or bright glimmer seemed better suited to her. Like with Pearl, giving her a Magatama again seemed like a lazy cop-out and I wanted to focus on representing the talent. For her, it has always been the hidden brightness, optimisim and skills as a medium (as opposed to Pearl's which are on her sleeve).

Phoenix... yes, I know. On the face of it giving him some scales or the attorney badge as his mark but looking at his character (and his name), it felt as lazy as sticking Magatamas on Maya and Pearl's flanks. Given that the design for phoenixes in MLP:FiM is awesome and they represent resurrection and coming back stronger, it ironically felt the best way to represent his talent for turnabouts. *shrugs* So shoot me.

As for the ponies themselves: Phoenix, Maya, Athena and Apollo are loosely based off my original designs for them. My only regret about the Pearl and Trucy designs is really the fact I couldn't get Trucy's hat in. But, considering that she thinks here that she has Athena's talent, it doesn't make sense she'd wear her regular hat. I also see her as the Pinkie Pie-ish character of the mix (i.e. the one who is most drastically disheartened by the switch). Finally, you couldn't really have told Trucy's species if she had her hat on.

I should probably quickly explain that too.

Apollo, Trucy and Pearl are all Unicorns. For Pearl I can't think of her being any other species whatsoever given her family's abilities, which could only be explained as a type of magic. For Apollo and Trucy, it is easily possible that they could have been Earth Ponies. After all you don't always need magic to perform magic tricks (and half the skill comes from NOT using real magic). I ultimately went for them to be unicorns because of the perceive ability, which they both have and is not really a "natural" ability. It is a type of magic and magic = unicorn.

Moreover, I had already decided long ago that Athena would be an Earth Pony due to her having a more "in tuned" ability with others' feelings. She has no magical ability, just an intuition that is more to do with her own senses than anything mystical. Given that Phoenix is a pegasus, it made a nice trio-trope if you had all three of the races represented in the three lawyers. 

As for why Phoenix is a pegasus... I think I speak for all of us when I say that, with that name, you could hardly NOT give him wings. As for Maya, being a pony of spiritual power and leadership, she is a unicorn-turned-alicorn. Having reached the peak by becoming the leader of not just a school and village but a people, I feel that post-T&T after all she went through she earned her wings. Given this is also a representation of a grown-up mare, she is probably a lot more restrained than she used to be. But again, almost certainly a unicorn born for the same reason Pearl is.

Finally, yes, there are modified lyrics to go to this which I will post at a later date.

For those of you who are curious to learn more: